Despite saying last week it has no power to impose regulations on the CRTC, the federal government is asking the regulator to "review" its decision about making the big U.S. streamers, like Netflix and Disney+, pay 15% into a fund to help produce CanCon. 

The new rules, announced last month, immediately had various parts of the production community in an uproar, with some American services contemplating leaving Canada altogether if they had fork over millions of dollars to produce programming that they wouldn't even be able to show. In addition, it was known to be an irritant in trade talks with the U.S.

So where will the money come from now, presumably when and not if, the CRTC changes its mind? The feds announced a $600 million fund on Wednesday, designed to replace the lost money the industry won't be getting once the policy is reversed.

Subscribers are expected to be breathing a sigh of relief, since it was almost a certainty that the big U.S. companies would have passed on the cost to them, sending already high rates even higher. 

I personally think this is the right decision, even though taxpayers will now have to foot the bill for producing shows they may not ever want to watch. 

Ottawa tells CRTC to change course on increasing streamers’ financial contributions