Canadians may be able to enjoy the digital delights of satellite radio as soon as this fall, thanks to a ruling yesterday by the federal broadcast regulator.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved licences for two satellite-based systems and one ground-based proposal, paving the way for the debut of subscription radio.

But the tough Canadian content guidelines set down by the federal agency in granting three licences sent the applicants scampering back to their spreadsheets to ascertain if the business model still flies.

The CRTC said the two satellite services must offer at least eight original Canadian channels broadcasting at least

85 per cent Canadian content. They can offer nine foreign channels for each Canadian channel.

As well: At least a quarter of the Canadian channels must be in French. At least 25 per cent of the music on the Canadian channels must be new music and 25 per cent must be from emerging Canadian artists.

“I expected all three would be approved, but the cost [of producing the Canadian content] is huge, so they’ve got to hope it does incredible things to their share price because I doubt they’re going to recover in this market what it’s going to cost them,” said Pat Bohn, a Vancouver-based broadcast consultant.

“I don’t think it’s possible to generate an audience for those channels given what they have to do for programming. My guess is people will be listening to all the foreign channels.”

The two main players each expressed optimism that they would be launching the service by the fall.

“We’re hopeful we’ll get something done,” Steve Tapp, president of Canadian Satellite Radio, which is partnered with U.S.-based XM Radio, said in an interview with The Province. “It’s more Canadian content that we had in our application and now we have to sit down with our partner and decide what this means to our business plan.”

Kevin Shea, CEO of Sirius Canada Inc., a consortium of the CBC, Standard Radio and U.S.-based Sirius Satellite Radio, said he expected the higher Canadian content standards, adding that “at first glance it doesn’t look to be unrealistic.”

The third licencee is a land-based system of broadcast towers offered by Toronto-based CHUM and Astral Media of Montreal. But CHUM executive Paul Ski said it would be difficult to compete when only 10 per cent of the channels offered by the U.S.-backed players are Canadian. The three applicants have until mid-November to inform the CRTC whether they will take up a licence.

© The Vancouver Province 2005