Hearings for a new Alberta broadcasting service begin July 15 with all the established Canadian nets stampeding to Calgary to add a host of sky-is-falling arguments to the week-long process.

ctv is out of the gate with an intervention contending a CanWest Global green light will impair its affiliates’ ability to meet licence requirements, provide few benefits in terms of increased program diversity, and is projecting a negative impact on network ad revenues to the tune of 30%, which ‘could threaten the existence of ctv itself.’

cbc surfaces with a study from Communications Management entitled ‘Current and Projected Trends in Revenues, Spending on Canadian Programs, and the Audience for Canadian Programs in the Canadian English Language Conventional Television Industry,’ which examines the impact of a CanWest national system on cbc ad revenue and pegs it at $42 million a year by 2004, a cumulative $185 million over the initial seven-year licence term.

Licensing AltaWest ‘would have a serious impact on the cbc’s ability to deliver its mandate,’ the intervention runs, and will mean ‘staggering losses, with a substantial impact on the Canadian independent production sector.’

WIC Western International Communications is primed to argue the CanWest application this time out commits to lower spending on the underrepresented categories (as a percentage of revenue), will have a ‘far greater impact’ on the established services than a licence would have in the 1993 round of Alberta hearings, and if licensed this time would result in ‘an unbalancing of the Canadian broadcasting system.’

CanWest execs – those not cloistered into the Toronto Sun’s data room studying operating margins and the like – will arrive en masse with counter arguments and perhaps some surprises in what looks to be an uphill battle for a third national network. Stay tuned, as it were. AV