Go ahead, you specialty wannabes. Step right up with your version of a dream team, the distribution package you’d like to be part of come next September’s launch. The question – what packaging arrangement do you prefer and which services would you like stacked in your tier – is being whizzed at almost every applicant at the specialty hearings. The CanWest Global response is as good as any. Tongue planted firmly in cheek, it would like to be in a package with Mystery Channel and Kids tv, its other two proposed services.

Hell, why not? For as much weight as any of the applicants’ responses carry, they might as well blow fast and furious. Fact is, neither they nor the crtc have any control over how the new specialties will be distributed. The power rests where it has since capacity became an issue: with the cable companies.

Events over the past few months – not the least of which, after the we-got-no-space letter, is the April revelation that 80% of the Canadian cable systems could have space for six to eight channels – has birthed the opinion that the cable companies are running circles around the crtc, and the hearings in process are giving no reason to think otherwise.

The children’s channel applicants were the first asked to defend themselves against the ccta’s market research, which didn’t place their genre high on the services-the-masses-would-love-and-pay-for totem pole. While the question begs, do the chosen ones need to be justified to the cablecos, it’s further evidence nevertheless that this entire process has been and continues to be held at the mercy of the cable interests’ (undisclosed) business plans. How much more straightforward could this hearing have been if the ccta’s letter of intent last December said we may have room for up to eight channels in 80% of the system, expect a third tier with penetration of 40%, budget for actuals and a big-time investment in marketing?

Other questions about preferred packaging arrangements are leading towhat? A how-to list for the cablecos? Come to think of it, maybe they could use some help. ‘A third tier may be possible’ is about as clear a packaging strategy as we have from them so far. Mud.

On the production side, those voicing pithy arguments that the crtc is lumbering towards extinction need to think again. Since the cablecos’ position has left the applicants playing darts in the dark with potential revenue projections, there’s ample and justifiable opportunity for them to lowball Cancon commitments. In a follow-up letter to all applicants, the crtc solicited confirmation that they’d be willing to invest a flat fee for the first year and then a percentage of revenue in subsequent years if penetration and thus revenue rises beyond (free-floating) expectations.

Now, if the cablecos could be managed with equal dexterity, a Canadian specialty service industry that can block out an American invasion might be possible. That is the idea, isn’t it?