The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced today that it is postponing until June 4, 2012 the licence renewal hearing for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada.
This decision was made for two reasons. First, it was made further to a request by the Quebec English-language Production Committee for the same data that had been available for the group-based licence renewals for private English-language television, held in April 2011. The Canadian Media Production Association and the Documentary Organization of Canada supported the request.
Second, today the CBC/SRC advised that the federal government has not yet established its future operating budget. The CRTC believes it would be inappropriate to impose licence conditions given this uncertainty.
Consequently, the CRTC has decided to postpone the renewal hearing until June 2012. A revised notice of consultation will be issued shortly with new procedural dates.