Five prospective licensees aired their plans to establish a digital multichannel, multipoint distribution system service for Southern Ontario at crtc hearings held in Toronto May 26-28. The five companies are vying for a licence to provide digital wireless broadcast service to the populous Golden Horsesh’e area and beyond.

mmds delivers digital microwave audio and video signals to the home via large transmission towers which digitize signals that are received with a small flat antenna and set-top box.

In response to crtc concern about the place of mmds in a competitive broadcast environment, applicants emphasized the wireless system’s superior signal quality, flexibility in packaging, and the value of establishing a Canadian service option for served and underserved areas. Establishing an mmds service also involves lower infrastructure costs than cable or direct-to-home services.

Multipoint Communications of Barrie, Ont., owned by that city’s Point to Point Communications, was first to appear at the hearing, offering a basic service of Canadian and u.s. channels ­ including specialties ­ for $29.95 per month, as well as discretionary services to the Barrie, Orillia, Gravenhurst and Bracebridge areas. At the hearings, the company emphasized the distance-learning applications of the service.

Winnipeg-based Craig Broadcast Systems, which already operates the world’s first mmds service in Manitoba, presented its case for SkyCable Ontario, set to serve Toronto and Southern Ontario, from Windsor to Smith Falls to Huntsville, with 80 channels at launch, subsequently gearing up to 150 channels.

The service, headed by president Blaine Hobson, will offer a basic package for $11.99 per month as well as premium packages and pay-per-view.

In its presentation, SkyCable talked up its SkyChannel Ontario community channel, to be headed by Gloria Bishop, currently vp of programming and executive producer of cbc’s Morningside.

Community programming capability is one of the advantages of mmds over competing systems like dth, said Hobson at the hearing. Lower equipment costs and multiple set capacity are other benefits of the proposed service, he says. SkyCable will base its contributions to community programming and the Canada Television and Cable Production Fund on a percentage of revenues.

SkyCable Ontario chairman and ceo Boyd Craig says the service expects to sign up 75,000 subscribers by its third year of operation and 145,000 by year seven of licence. Craig says SkyCable will target the area’s 185,000 uncabled homes and expects to achieve 40% penetration in that market segment. The service will also target multiple dwelling units in urban areas as well as niche markets, offering, for example, a French-language service priced around $10 per month.

Montreal-based Teleglobe will also back an mmds service, look tv, owned by Teleglobe division tme, C.I. Covington Fund, Baton Broadcasting and Toronto-based Novanet Communications.

Scott Colbran, formerly head of Rogers Cablesystems, will head look as well as own 1% of the company.

The service will launch with 75 channels, expanding to 155, and is offering a basic package for $11.90 per month as well as other discretionary services. The company will build and operate 23 distribution sites in Southern Ontario and its application hinted at the ultimate establishment of a national mmds service.

During quiz time at the hearings, look reported its break-even subscription rate at 110,000 to 115,000. Colbran said look’s plan was to capture 7.7% of cable subscribers by year seven of licence, with an overall average penetration of 8.5%, or 250,000 subscribers over that time period.

Colbran said the figures were aggressive but reasonable, even in the face of existing and upcoming competition from other broadcast services: ‘We will be the feisty underdog in this competitive market.’

Like all other applicants, look has committed to financing Canadian programming, committing 3% of gross annual revenue, or $9.6 million, over seven years to the ctcpf.

PowerTel tv, headed by Ted Boyle and owned by Toronto-based Simmonds Capital, plans to offer over 100 channels in year one. At launch, equipment costs to subscribers will be about $650, decreasing to $400 over seven years. Its objective is to sign up 40,000 subscribers in year one and 255,000 by year seven.

PowerTel plans to provide coverage of 75% of Southern Ontario households with its 11 broadcast sites, one of which is atop the CN Tower. The service will offer a Power Up package of four video channels (including setup and billing screens and barker channels) for $4.95 per month, which allows subscribers to ‘buy through’ the service’s basic packages and access linguistic or ppv services directly.

PowerTel’s basic Powerline, with 19 additional video channels, is offered for $9.95. The ‘flagship’ package, Power Pack, with 35 additional channels in the first year and 48 additional channels by year two, will be offered for a monthly rate of $29.95 initially then for $34.95 in year two of licence.

Answering repeated crtc questions on the viability of mmds and how it will compete with current and upcoming broadcast services, PowerTel cited the timing of service launch as a key factor. PowerTel would launch in summer of 1998, before new digital cable infrastructure is in place on a large scale and before dth will offer its full high-power satellite programming capability, which PowerTel pegs at early 1999.

During the hearings, PowerTel also announced two new appointments to its board of directors: Tony Griffiths, former chairman and ceo of Mitel Corporation, and Graham Savage, former chief financial officer of Rogers Communications and now a partner in Parkview Capital Partners.

PowerTel also identified Toronto-based investment and merchant banking company Canadian Investors Corporation as a 28.86% shareholder in the company. Michael Cochrane and Oliver Bush will join the board of directors as cic nominees.

Toronto’s SelectView Cable Services, headed by Doug Lloyd, rounds out the applicant list. The service is targeting the roughly 500,000 homes in Southern Ontario which do not subscribe to cable, and the company says it will have a service up and running within 40 days of licensing, should its application be successful.

Interventions came from every sector of the film and tv production community as well as from the applicants themselves.

In its intervention, the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund spoke up in favor of PowerTel. PowerTel had previously cited the cifvf as the beneficiary of its Canadian programming contribution, but changed that stipulation after the crtc proposed all new broadcast distribution undertakings contribute programming funds to the ctcpf.

The Canadian Film and Television Production Association intervention also dealt with mmds service contributions to Canadian programming funding, particularly in underserved categories.

In terms of the stated intention of mmds services to support community programming, the cftpa opines the new services ‘should not waste valuable resources developing community or local services that are competitive to local broadcasters.’

The intervention requested that the crtc ensure the applications are in line with the spirit of existing guidelines and that mmds funds to community programming do not become vehicles to develop unlicensed services competitive to local broadcasters or provide resources to local broadcasters to underwrite their costs of programming.

The Canadian Cable Television Association urged the commission to monitor mmds applicants for their adherence to the priority signal carriage rules and distribution and linkage rules to which existing services must adhere.