OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Rogers Communications will be calling for more market-oriented distribution rules, while fighting the push from over-the-air broadcasters for fee-for-carriage when it opens the CRTC’s BDU hearings on April 8.

Rogers is calling on the regulator to remove ‘the many layers of detailed, prescriptive regulation’ and allow distributors to compete and innovate. That would include a more ‘open-market’ approach to the entry of foreign — mostly U.S. — specialty TV channels.

Popular U.S. channels such as HBO and Nickelodeon have been denied access to Canadian airwaves under existing regulations that reject non-Canadian cable TV channels that are ‘partially’ or ‘totally competitive’ with Canadian TV channels. HBO programming airs on Canadian pay-TV channels The Movie Network and Movie Central.

In written comments, Shaw Communications says that consumers must have the ability to watch the channels they want or they will turn to the black market. The cableco denounces the CRTC’s September 2007 decision to deny entry to USA Network because its programming was deemed to be competitive with the Canadian digi Mystery TV.

Meanwhile, broadcasters will bring a different prescription to the three-week-long hearing on a new regulatory framework for broadcast distributors and specialty TV channels.

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters argues in its written comments that the CRTC should only allow new non-Canadian channels entry if they have new programming that is not already available in Canada, and would thus be contributing to the diversity of programming. The country’s private broadcasters note that the 97% of the top 200 U.S. programs are already available in Canada because their Canadian rights have been acquired by Canadian broadcasters.

The entry of such channels as Nickelodeon, HBO and ESPN would have a devastating impact on Canadian services ‘from both a competitive and program supply perspective,’ states the CAB.

CTVglobemedia argues that ‘significant regulatory flexibility already granted to distributors — such as basic rate deregulation, more flexible channel packaging for digital and licensing deregulation — has resulted in a ‘cozy oligopoly’ in distribution.’ As a result of the deregulation that has already occurred, CTVgm argues, distributors have significantly increased the rates they charge their subscribers, while freezing or only nominally upping the rates they pay programmers.

This great divide is likely to provide for a rambunctious three weeks, with CTVgm noting in its written comment last month that friction between content providers and distributors will likely only increase.

Expect clashes not only between big broadcaster and big distributor, but also between the creative community and distributors and broadcasters, as well as between the small and large industry players.

CTV and the other broadcasters are hoping to tap additional revenues from distribution by securing CRTC approval to charge distributors a fee-for-carriage for their conventional TV stations, like that collected by specialties — a proposal vehemently opposed by the distributors.

Rogers calls the fee-for-carriage proposal for over-the-air channels ‘unacceptable to consumers.’

Broadcasters also need ongoing genre protection for specialty channels in the emerging world of endless viewing options and greater consumer choice, argues CTVgm, which is scheduled to appear at the hearing on the same day as Canwest MediaWorks — they will speak both separately and together — on April 17.

Rogers, on the other hand, wants the CRTC to eliminate genre protection for specialty TV channels, reduce the size of the basic service, and grant more flexibility for pay and specialty TV to meet their Canadian content requirements.

Rogers’ stance is similar to that of other distributors such as Shaw, which appears on April 23.