Digital - Thursday, March 12, 2009 9:27 - 1 Comment

Cable providers rally against net levy to support Cancon

At the CRTC hearings into the future of new media, the cable providers rallied against the idea of an additional fee to monthly internet bills to support the creation of Canadian programming online.

According to Rogers, such a levy “would be unlawful,” and Shaw’s chief executive officer Jim Shaw argued that “there is no problem that needs to be fixed; no one has provided any evidence that there is a lack of Canadian content on the internet.”

The ISP are at odds with groups representing Canadian producers, writers and directors who support the idea of a fund to support Canadian content online.

The CRTC has a full transcript of the hearings of March 9, while Michael Geist offers a digest of day nine of the hearings.

UPDATE: A transcript of the hearings of March 11 is available on the CRTC site.