Montreal: Quebecor Media is offering a $30-million benefits package as part of its application to take over Groupe tva, a significant element of its $5.4-billion purchase of tva parent company Groupe Videotron last October.

Quebecor says $27 million will be earmarked for the production of new variety, drama and youth programs, and an additional $3 million set aside for training, research and general industry support programs. Market analysts have said tva’s broadcasting operations alone are worth as much as $600 million.

The crtc has scheduled hearings on Quebecor’s application for control of Videotron and tva and their regulated subsidiaries for March 26 in Montreal.

Quebecor holds a controlling 85.99% interest in three Television Quatre Saisons stations and the tqs network, third-largest in terms of francophone viewership, but has told the crtc it intends to sell off tqs if the commission approves its acquisition of tva, Quebec’s top-rated network.

At the hearing, the crtc said it intends "to examine the issue of whether Quebecor’s approach in proposing its package will benefit the broadcasting system more than if it were to include instead significant investments in capital and loan funds to provide permanent financing for the production of Canadian programming."

At licence renewal hearings for tva – as well as for ctv and Global, the latter two scheduled for April – the crtc says it will ask for comparative information on viewing levels for Canadian and foreign programming by program category for each group for each of the years from 1997 to 1999, as well as detailed annualized information on revenues.

Six Quebec industry associations are supporting the commission’s plan and have also asked that tva be obliged to provide investment information on a wide range of activities, most notably the cost of foreign program acquisitions and dubbing, and affiliate station expenditures and investment in independent Canadian production by program category.

Signatories include producers in the apftq, directors in arrq, music producers and publishers in adisq, writers and researchers in sartec, artists in spacq and performers in uda. * Leo Rice-Barker