CRTC wants to clamp down on 3 U.S. South Asian border stations targeting Vancouver

[Freeway Geek]

A public hearing will be held on October 15th to determine if anything can be done about 3 U.S. border stations broadcasting South Asian programming to the Vancouver area and how it might translate into a violation of the Canadian Broadcasting Act:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2014/2014-426.htm

After reading the bulletin it seems that the only teeth the CRTC might have in this situation is paragraph 12 where Canadian companies cannot claim tax deductions for ads broadcast on U.S. stations. This could hurt the 3 stations involved financially as it seems most of their advertising comes from Punjabi versions of Ma & Pa businesses.

Alternatively the CRTC could ask the FCC to get involved and clamp down from the U.S. side saying that the 3 stations involved are not serving the communities they are licensed to serve at all, but at this point that seems unlikely to happen with the new age deregulated FCC.

It should be interesting to see what comes out of this and if it might have implications on the other side of the country where the Martz English language stations from the U.S. target the Montreal market.

More on the Montreal side of the story from Steve Faguy's "Fagstein Blog":
http://blog.fagstein.com/2014/08/13/crtc-cross-border-stations/

 

[Dan Sys]

Not quite sure how this thread appeared twice and I don't know how to delete one of them. Access the other thread as it appears to be more active.