Court ruling threatens local news, broadcasters say

Private television broadcasters are warning that local stations can’t continue to exist on advertising revenues alone, after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the stations shouldn’t be paid for their signals when they are rebroadcast by cable and satellite companies.
Local television stations in Canada – including those operated by corporately owned CTV and CanWest Global as well as a handful of smaller independent players– send their signals out into the world in a way that they can be intercepted and rebroadcast. Cable and satellite providers capture those signals, and then offer them to their subscribers.
The local stations were poised to get paid for those signals after years of lobbying the federal regulator, but the Supreme Court on Thursday said the CRTC does not have the authority to force the companies to pay for the signals.
The decision leaves stations around the country scrambling to find a new way to pay for local news and programming.
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