Blue Ant Media has filed an application with the CRTC requesting to reduce Cottage Life’s daytime Canadian programming exhibition requirements for the remainder of its current licence term.

Currently, the category A specialty service is required to air Canadian programs for at least 80% of the broadcast day and for 50% of the evening broadcast period, a remnant of its previous life as a CBC-owned specialty, Bold.

According to the application filed by Blue Ant Media EVP business and legal affairs Asha Daniere, the media co is requesting its daytime Canadian programming requirements for Cottage Life be reduced to 50% for the remainder of its current licence, which is set to expire on Aug. 31, 2018. Cottage Life would continue to reinvest 40% of the previous year’s revenues in acquiring or investing in Canadian programming, and would still dedicate 50% of the evening programming block to Cancon.

In its application, Blue Ant argues that Cottage Life is an outlier when it comes to its daytime Cancon requirements, and the proposed changes would give the channel “regulatory parity vis-à-vis other Category A services over the remainder of its licence term until the standardized exhibition requirements recently adopted by the Commission are in place.” The Let’s Talk TV decisions issued in March indicated the CRTC would eliminate all Canadian programming requirements in the evening for discretionary services upon their next licence renewal, instead implementing an overall daily Canadian exhibition requirement of 35%.

The application stated the average daytime Canadian content exhibition requirement for the 39 other Category A specialty channels is 59% (excluding Cottage Life), with the average daytime Cancon exhibition requirement for the six other indie-owned category A channels coming in at 61%. Overall, the application argues that Cottage Life’s daytime Canadian exhibition requirement is between 19% to 34% higher than the average English-language category A service.

“While a significantly higher Canadian content exhibition requirement may have been appropriate when the service was owned by the CBC (which is required to air more Canadian content as the public broadcaster), it puts a small independent broadcaster like Blue Ant at a significant
competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis other private broadcasters,” the application reads. The channel was CBC Bold before it was bought by Blue Ant Media and relaunched as Cottage Life in fall 2013.

Because of its high daytime Canadian programming requirements, the channel is forced to rerun episodes of series like Brojects and Colin & Justin’s Cabin Pressure at a much higher frequency than it would otherwise, the application argues.

“This results in low viewership, which results in less revenue to be invested in original first-run Canadian productions in order to drive viewership. Low viewership translates to low revenues and less ability to invest in high quality content. And the cycle perpetuates,” the application reads, stressing that the current model is not viable or sustainable.

“Blue Ant is not asking for Cottage Life to be totally relieved of its broadcast day Canadian content exhibition requirement, nor are we asking that the 35% broadcast day requirement be implemented in advance of other Category A services. We are simply asking for the broadcast day exhibition requirement for Cottage Life to be brought more in line with those applicable to other Category A services over the next three years,” the application reads.

The application is open for comment and interventions until Sept. 30, 2015.