Don’t let Shaw Communications off lightly when it comes to a benefits package required for approval to acquire Canwest Global Communications Corp’s TV assets.

That was the message to the CRTC Wednesday from Canadian indie producers, guilds and unions as they urged Shaw’s tangible benefits to be just over $200 million, or 10% of the agreed $2.047 billion transaction price.

“Independent producers need, and want, a strong Canwest. But a strong Canwest can’t be at any cost. And the cost could be too high under the current Shaw proposal,” Norm Bolen, president and CEO of the Canadian Media Production Association, told CRTC commissioners during hearings in Calgary.

The Writers Guild of Canada told the regulators that Shaw had not made a case for exemption from current benefits policy, which calls for 10% of a transaction price to be offered to indicate public benefits from an industry takeover.

“The intangible benefit of maintaining Canwest as a consolidated, multi-platform national network, with significant financial resources, is a worthy one,” WGC director of policy Kelly Lynne Ashton told the CRTC commissioners during a joint presentation with ACTRA and the Directors Guild of Canada.

“But at no time has the CRTC policy said that intangible benefits can be substantial enough to substitute for tangible benefits,” Ashton urged.

Raising concerns over the Shaw/Canwest deal, but not denying its inevitability, the WGC urged that 65% of the benefits package, or around $133 million, be poured into homegrown dramas and other scripted fare.

ACTRA, Canada’s actors union, in its CRTC submission on the Shaw/Canwest deal, argued no discount in the tangible benefits package should be allowed for the broadcaster because it was being raised out of bankruptcy protection.

The actors also urged the CRTC to order Shaw to direct 75% of its benefits package to 10-point scripted programming, with the balance to go to morning newscasts or social benefits.

And ACTRA urged the CRTC to disqualify benefits inherited from the 2007 purchase by Canwest Global of the former Alliance Atlantis channels, which amounts to around $95 million.

The Directors Guild of Canada, also presenting jointly with the WGC and ACTRA, also urged that no discounts on the Shaw-Canwest benefits package be allowed by the CRTC.

Indie producers told the regulator that Canwest Global may be in creditor protection, but its current operating performance, minus its huge debt load post-restructuring, indicates it is a profitable company.

“2010 is turning out to be a great year financially for Canwest, including the CTLP assets. The numbers speak for themselves,” Mario Mota, vice president of broadcasting policy and regulatory affairs at the CMPA, told the CRTC commissioners.

The regulatory hearings into the Shaw/Canwest takeover are expected to wrap on Thursday, and the CRTC will render a decision on the transaction within 35 days.