Canwest Global head Leonard Asper echoed a warning heard earlier this week from CTVglobemedia’s Ivan Fecan — telling the CRTC that conventional broadcasters will die without fee-for-carriage.

But CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein used Asper’s own argument to back the Manitoba-born CEO into a corner.

If conventional broadcasting is broken, queried von Finckenstein, why not treat it like specialty? ‘We are struggling with a model for viable conventional TV. Could you have it without the over-the-air component?’ he asked, as licence renewal hearings continued in Gatineau.

Asper, joined by nearly a dozen Canwest executives, was obviously flummoxed. ‘You can’t compare us to a specialty channel,’ said the CEO.

Earlier, von Finckenstein pushed Asper to explain why conventional television is worth saving at all. ‘It provides local information… it is the underpinning of the democracy,’ Asper answered, adding that specialties don’t have the resources to broadcast and produce major TV events such as the Geminis and the Genies.

Asper drove home his belief that conventional broadcasting is dying because Canadian regulations favor specialties, not because of his company’s heavy debt load or the recession:

‘The financial markets take a dim view of this sector in part because our only source of revenue, advertising, is in decline, and we operate in an unfavourable regulatory environment,’ Asper told the hearings. ‘Fragmentation makes it impossible for us to maintain the profit margins we once had from our primetime schedule to offset the cost of our Canadian local and primetime obligations.’

Fecan made similar comments on the first day of the hearings on Monday, repeating calls for the right to collect fees from cable companies. The same arguments were also heard last week during the Heritage committee’s hearings on conventional TV. Cablers such as Shaw and Rogers fire back that Global and CTV spend too much money on U.S. programming.

Asper said he is now losing money on local programming in all but two markets, Vancouver and Edmonton: ‘The reliance on U.S programming to subsidize Canadian shows is even greater now,’ he said.

Canwest production executive Barbara Williams also asked the CRTC for leeway on Cancon regulations and dealing with indie producers: ‘We want flexibility to make the shows people want,’ said Williams. ‘We want to be able to change the mix of types of programs we make. We don’t believe a mandated amount is appropriate public policy.’

While Williams maintains that indie producers are essential, she said Canwest has hit an impasse in the ongoing terms of trade negotiations. ‘We are not willing to turn this into a price-setting exercise,’ she said.