The bell hasn’t even rung on BCE’s regulatory bid to acquire CTV, but Canadian indie producers are already crying foul over the phone giant demanding it not contribute a tangible benefits package.

The CRTC is to hold hearings on BCE’s takeover of CTV starting February 8, 2011.

The phone giant put the total value of its takeover at $3.2 billion, including an equity value of $1.5 billion and $1.7 billion in assumed debt.

BCE also valued CTV broadcasting assets at around $2.9 billion.

“BCE is of the view that no tangible benefits are required in the circumstances,” the CRTC added in its notice of upcoming hearings, a line that astonished indie producers.

“BCE’s first choice is to contribute nothing. And its second choice falls way short of the mark of what is expected under the CRTC’s tangible benefits policy,” Norm Bolen (pictured), president and CEO of the Canadian Media Production Association, insisted.

Plan B for BCE was to propose on November 5 that the benefits package be valued at $70.3 million.

Then, on December 3, the phone company bumped up the value of its proposed benefits package to $220.8 million, still not enough for the producers.

That followed BCE first proposing to the CRTC that it be allowed not to contribute a benefits package because it already paid $230 million in 2000 into a tangible benefits package to own a stake in the broadcaster until abandoning its convergence strategy in 2005.

“Specifically, the situation is one in which a company is reacquiring control of an asset on which it has previously paid tangible benefits for acquiring control,” BCE senior vice president of regulatory and government affairs Mirko Bibic wrote to the regulator in a November 5 letter.

The CRTC has traditionally demanded that benefits packages be 10% of the value of a transaction, with much of the money going to independent production.

The CMPA, representing major indie producers, added that it was “astounded” that BCE proposed only $40 million in financing for Canadian programming, as part of its latest $221 million benefits package.

“These proposals are a very significant departure from what the CRTC’s tangible benefits policy requires. They are also blatantly self-serving,” the association said.

The producers insisted BCE was following Shaw Communications in attempting to low-ball its benefit package before hard negotiations with the CRTC starts with public hearings in Ottawa.

The CMPA, which will appear at the February hearings into the BCE/CTV deal, called on the CRTC to ensure at least 85% of the eventual benefits package goes to “on-screen initiatives,” and at least 75% of that money “should directly benefit the independent production sector.”