MONTREAL — The CRTC is allowing Montreal-based Remstar Diffusion to buy Quebec’s flailing TQS network and replace local newscasts with shows that may look like CNN’s opinionated Lou Dobbs Tonight, says the federal regulator’s chair Konrad von Finckenstein.

On Thursday, von Finckenstein gave the film production and distribution company permission to buy TQS stations in Montreal, Quebec, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke and Saguenay and — temporarily — to scale back their local news gathering operations.

‘Rather than a traditional newscast there will be a show, perhaps like Dobbs on CNN, where he interviews people and has analysts. It’s a mixture of hardcore news and commentary,’ von Finckenstein tells Playback Daily. ‘Will this work in Quebec? I have no idea. The market will speak.’

Lou Dobbs Tonight is a daily current affairs show on CNN that includes commentary, field reports and daily public opinion polls. One of his regular features is ‘Broken Borders,’ which highlights what Dobbs considers to be the problems and costs associated with illegal immigrants.

Under the CRTC’s terms, stations in Montreal will have to produce at least two hours of local news out of 15 hours of local programming; in Quebec City it’s two hours of news for every 10 hours of local shows. Stations in Saguenay, Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivières are each required to produce one hour of news out of 90 minutes of local shows. TQS affiliated stations will also have to broadcast 30 minutes of current affairs on Saturday and Sunday.

‘It’s an amazing loss. TQS broadcasts 10 hours of news per week in Quebec City and about 15 hours in Montreal, now they will only have two hours. There won’t be daily local newscasts,’ says Eric Levesque, head of the Quebec City TQS union, which is a division of CUPE.

The CRTC says these requirements, which are indeed much lower when compared to other conventional television stations, will be reassessed in three years. ‘It’s below the minimum,’ says von Finckenstein. ‘But we felt that because of their precarious financial situation we can’t ask them to continue as it was. They have to find a new operating model,’ says the chair, adding that TQS’s case was ‘exceptional’ and didn’t set a precedent. ‘They are on the brink of bankruptcy. We had to make the choice between no TQS or minimal news.’

TQS was placed under creditor protection last December. Thursday’s decision follows public hearings in early June where Remstar officials requested to amend the TQS licence and shut down newsrooms in five cities, laying off nearly 270 people. The company was heavily criticized by journalists, union leaders and politicians.

The federal regulator will revisit Remstar’s news programming commitments during a public hearing that will be held in spring 2011.