BANFF — CRTC helmer Konrad von Finckenstein spoke publicly for the first time about the regulator’s recommendations to Canadian Heritage regarding the Canadian Television Fund, as the Banff World Television Festival got underway Monday.

At a kick-off breakfast, von Finckenstein recapped the recommendations and detailed some of the thinking behind its CTF report, delivered to Heritage on June 5.

The most controversial of the 11 recommendations is that the CTF should be divided into two streams, public and private, and in his speech, von Finckenstein reiterated the division of the fund’s governance into two boards of directors headed up by two chairs. The new boards would share the administrative services of the CTF ‘to keep costs to a minimum,’ he said.

‘A board is driven either by commercial criteria or by public-policy goals,’ he said. ‘To ask a single board to respond to both will result in an unhappy mishmash that does service to neither.’

While many in the industry are supportive of recommendations such as the maintenance of 10/10 CAVCO-point criteria for funding, the rejection of BDU requests to opt out, and making monthly payment of the cablers’ contributions mandatory, considerable criticism of the two-stream system remains.

‘Is it like the losers’ fund and the winners’ fund?’ said Paperny Films partner Cal Shumiatcher. ‘It doesn’t make any sense to us. Hopefully, it’s just politics that will just go away.’

One industry observer suggested that the CRTC is positioning itself to be the policy source for private money and the government would take charge of the public fund.

Timing promises to be an issue. The public portion of the fund expires on March 31, and if the recommendations are accepted, implementing them will take some time.

Asked if there is an expected timeline for when they may hear back from Heritage, von Finckenstein referred it to the heritage minister. Heritage Minister Josée Verner has made no indication of how or how quickly her government may respond.

Von Finckenstein also reflected on his first year on the job and the road ahead next year. He predicted that with an accessibility hearing in the fall, a new media review in February and broadcast licence renewals after that, ‘our agenda for the next year is going to be just as busy as last year’s. We live in interesting times, wonderful times from the point of view of regulators.’

The festival runs until Wednesday.