Psst! Pass it on. Stornoway Productions president Paul Kemp wants to make a deal with broadcasters.

Buy the iChannel doc TV Wars: Media, Money and the Battle for Canada’s Airwaves, which he wrote and produced with Khiya McElwain, and he’ll make it worth your while.

‘The offer stands to CTV, Global and any Canadian broadcaster — over-the-air or on cable — take this film and we will give it to you really cheap,’ Kemp promises.

He’s that keen that Canadians beyond viewers of Stornaway Communications’ digital specialty iChannel, where it recently aired, see his behind-the-scenes look at the fierce battle for supremacy between BDUs and broadcasters currently playing out at the CRTC hearings.

You see, that’s just the point.

Kemp says it’s as difficult to get his doc on rival Canadian channels as it is to get iChannel or any other indie specialty channel onto domestic cable and satellite TV menus.

‘It’s important to get the message over to Canadians,’ he argues. That message, he says, is namely that domestic cable and satellite TV providers favor channels they own over indies.

And if they get their way at the CRTC hearings, the likes of Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications will replace Canadian TV services with more lucrative U.S. channels.

‘That’s the trade-off for Canadians. If you completely allow [Canadian TV] to go to the free market, you will probably only have American series,’ Kemp warns.

And he’s not alone. In TV Wars, former CRTC vice-chairman of broadcasting Andree Wylie, S-VOX president and CEO Bill Roberts, former CHUM regulatory affairs head Peter Miller and veteran TV producer Erik Nielsen all make impassioned pleas for continued regulation of Canadian TV.

On the other side of the fence, Ken Englehart, VP regulatory affairs at Rogers Communications, and Michael Hennessy, VP wireless, broadband and content policy at Telus, argue with equal passion for the CRTC to ease current rules and regulations in favor of increased consumer choice.

Conspicuous by their absence in TV Wars are the conventional broadcasters. Kemp says he approached CTV and Global, but they declined participation. He ventures that broadcasters were stung by criticism from producers over reduced outlets for their TV shows in the wake of broadcast industry consolidation.

In the meantime, Kemp hopes those and other broadcasters consider airing the doc. Until he hears back, he is consoled in knowing an out-on-a-limb indie channel had the courage to air a doc about how Canadian television gets made and distributed.

‘Would that film have been made by anyone else if it wasn’t for an indie broadcaster? I don’t think so,’ he argues.