You may not be familiar with CITS-TV, otherwise known as Crossroads Television. They’re the religious broadcaster on cable and satellite that is OTA in the GTA from Hamilton on Channel 36. They’re among a group of religious formatted stations that went before the CRTC this week for a licence renewal.
 
But even though they were found in non-compliance on a host of issues, the CRTC basically gave them a free pass.

Why?

That’s an interesting question.
 
One of the things CITS didn’t do was meet the Commission’s mandate that all over-the-air stations produce at least 14 hours of local news. But Crossroads was at a crossroads on that rule, arguing “that, as a religious broadcaster, it has historically not produced local news, and has neither made expenditures on such programming nor exhibited such programming.”
 
So while they insist they plan to one day do this, the CRTC said it was OK to essentially ignore the rule and they won’t have to do local news during the next licence term. But why are they allowed to get away with that when no other OTA broadcaster gets that free pass? Odd.
 
All TV stations also have to put a certain amount of money in CPE, or Canadian Production Expenditures. But for some reason, even though Crossroads says they will eventually do it, they’re not subject to that requirement. Again, why do they get an exemption over anyone else?
 
And get this – all regular TV stations are required to air a certain percent of CanCon during primetime. At first CITS submitted wrong info on this to the CRTC, arguing it was an “administrative error” on their part. But even when they got the real program logs, the Commission found “that for the 2014-2015 through 2016-2017 broadcast years, the percentage of Canadian programs broadcast on CITS-DT over each broadcast year was still below the required 55%. Further, for the 2016-2017 broadcast year, the Commission finds that the percentage of Canadian programs broadcast … during the evening broadcast period was below the required 50%.”
 
Incredibly the CRTC decided to essentially say, “ah, close enough,” and let it go. Again, why the exception for this one broadcast group? Perhaps they’re afraid that God will come after them. I wonder what other stations owners think when CITS and its fellow stations out west are allowed to walk through these loopholes?
 
And a few more unusual anomalies. The CRTC says these stations can get “a 50% credit towards its CPE (Canadian Production Expenditures) requirements for expenditures on Canadian programming produced by Indigenous producers.” So essentially, certain groups are being used to get extra credit that wouldn’t be applied to others. Another strange exception to the rules.
 
And the licence extensions are being reduced from seven years to just five for all private TV services, so the Commission can better gauge how they’re doing in what it calls the “pace of change in the broadcasting environment.”
 
Not sure what to make of all this, but like George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” it appears all animals are equal – but some are more equal than others.
 
CRTC Decision