By SEAN GRIFFIN

The Canadian Radio-Television
and Telecommunications Com-
mission has reserved decision,
probably until March, on the
contentious MacLean-Hunter
takeover of Western Cablevision
but the issues raised in the com-
“mission’s recent Vancouver
hearings will be around long after
the decision is final.

The same will be true when the
federal commission rules on yet
another corporate deal to be placed
before it — the arrangement made
last week between Premier
Cablevision and Western Broad-
casting.

In both cases, the issue is one of
increasing concentration of
ownership in the broadcasting and
cablevision industry. For the
winners, the rewards are sizeable,
including the profits from pay TV
and the yet untapped fields of cable
subscribers.

Western Cablevision, a small
Surrey-based company with some
57,000 subscribers in the Fraser
Valley proposedto the CRTC that it
sell out to MacLean-Hunter Ltd.
for $6.75 million. Western’s current
debt of $1.8 million was also to be
assumed under the terms of sale.

In launching the takeover bid,
MacLean Hunter hoped to extend
its cable operations from the
present base in Ontario to Western
Canada.

Nine intervenors, including the
influential Canadian Broadcasting
League, protested the proposed
sale before the CRTC hearings,
arguing their case on the basis of a
number of points the most im-
portant of which were CRTC
licencing procedures and the long
term issue of monopoly con-
centration.

On the licencing issue, Andrew
Roman, legal counsel for the
League, reminded CRTC officials
that a licence to operate a cable
station was “‘public property” and
any sale of that licence would be
“like somebody selling his driver’s
licence to the highest bidder.”

Roman also told the commission
that whatever the professed in-
tentions of the new owners, the
customers would have no choice
but to take what was given them
since “in a monopoly situation, it

makes no sense to talk about
goodwill .. .”

The CBL, together with other
intervenors, also raised the
question of the size of MacLean-
Hunter corporation — with good
reason. .

One of the media giants,
MacLean-Hunter has extensive
interests in the publishing industry
including trade publications in
Britain, France and Italy, and
owns television and radio stations
as well as cable TV operations in a
number of communities in Ontario.

In the hearings, however, Fred
Metcalfe, president of MacLean-
Hunter, dismissed the issue of
corporation size and as much as
told the CRTC that influence and
control were of no consequence.

“We acknowledge that this
company isa good size,”’ he stated,
“but what the intervenors fail to

point out is that size and influence .

of corporations are just relative
things and not necessarily bad in
any case. If the commission feels
that large media corporations are
bad for the Canadian broadcasting
system, then that system is indeed
in peril.”

Whether intended or not, Met-
calfe’s remarks were a challenge
to the CRTC: Either begin to deal
with the disturbing trend towards
bigger and bigger monopolies in
the broadcasting and cablevision
industry or cease to have any value
as a regulatory agency.

More than ‘six years ago, the
Special Senate Committee on Mass
Media (Davey Commission) did
warn of the dangers of con-
centration of ownership in the
media but neither the federal
government nor its appointed
agency, the CRTC, has done
anything to heed the warning. In
fact, Jeanne Sauve, federal
minister of communications and
responsible for the commission,
announced earlier this year that
the government will consider
relaxing some of its regulations,
notably those which had restricted
common ownership by one com-
pany of both broadcasting and
cable TV companies.

The test of the relaxed ruling will
come some time over the next few
months when the other corporate
deal currently occupying centre
stage — the Western Broadcasting

ablevision: the giants vie

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a

— Premier Cablevision deal —
comes before the CRTC for a
ruling.

Only last week, the two com-
panies announced a mutually
advantageous stock sale which, if
approved will give Western
Broadcasting a 32 percent interest
in Premier Cablevision. Premier,
in turn, will get some Western
shares.

Premier, which operates many
of the cable companies on the
Lower Mainland and in Toronto, is
the largest cable company in
Canada and also has operations in
the Republic of Ireland. Western
Broadcasting, which owns _ the
BCTV station in Vancouver, is also
a corporation of considerable
substance with radio stations in
several cities including Van-
couver, Winnipeg and Calgary. It
also has a controlling interest in
Northwest Sports Enterprises, the

company that owns the Vancouver
Canucks. =

The Western-Premier deal has
captured headlines primarily
because the deal was clinched in
the midst of an attempt by yet
another company Rogers
Telecommunications Ltd., a big
Toronto-based company — to buy
control of Premier.

Key shareholders in the Premier
firm objected to the attempt by
Rogers to buy control and made
the deal with Western to frustrate
thetakeover bid. The arrangement
had the added advantage of

_ preventing further stock sales of

Western shares by the Toronto Star
which currently has a 16 percent
interest in the broadcasting in-
dustry.

Whatever the reasons for the
intricate stock arrangement,
however, the Western-Premier
deal highlights the problem of

for contro

‘would have heard a number of

‘reverse that process, the public

concentration and the jockeying
going on among the media groups |
for position of greater control.

Like newspaper ownership
which has become even more
concentrated in the years sincé
Senator Keith Davey made his
report, ownership in the broad
casting field has become more and
more monopolized and has movee
into partnership with the cable
companies.

As Davey and numerous others
before and after him pointed oul,
larger corporations have not
brought with them better
programming, better service or
cheaperrates. i

Were the CRTC more responsive
to the demands raised by i
tervenors at innumerable hearings.
as well as from organizations, i

common themes. ;
One of them is that local com”
munities be given access to, and
control of, community cable
programming in order to provide
programs that are lively, i
formative and responsive
community needs. .
But the CRTC has refused ©
consider such bids as that ad
vanced by the Capitol Cable
Cooperative in Victoria which has
sought repeatedly to take over the
licence of Victoria Cablevision i
order to establish a station that
would be cooperatively owned and
would use the profits from sub
scribers’ fees. =|
It has also spiked other such
licence applications, thereby
frustrating any endeavors to)
establish a network of public TY"
stations. 7
Another demand, voiced by thé
B.C. Federation of Labor among
others, is for public ownership ?
cable companies. The gover’
ment’s response has been to relax
regulations to allow further if
tegration of broadcasting and
cable companies. ~ 7
Ultimately, it is that question —
the concentration in fewer ant
fewer hands of all the elements ® *
the broadcasting industry — which
is decisive for this country. Unles*
public pressure can force goverl!
ment agencies to arrest all

interest that Senator Davey spoke
of six years ago will be worth evell
less. g

—

Students ‘politically illiterate’ —survey |

A group of Simon Fraser
University students were asked
recently to offer an opinion on what
they considered to be the single
most important question facing the
contemporary world. The answers,
though, were not those that would
be expected from students in a
modern university. Rather it was
the pathetic response from one
student who said only “I am my
biggest problem” that best typified
the average SFU student.

The question was only one in a
survey of 400 students over two
years that was released last week.
The survey was conducted by SFU
professor Heribert Adam to test
knowledge of basic political con-
cepts and personalities, but it
revealed instead a_ frightening
picture of political illiteracy.

Most students, it was found, are
incapable of making reasoned
political judgments. In fact 42 to 44
per cent of them failed even to
associate any meaning with the
terms “right” and ‘“‘left.” The
survey noted that this body of
students could safely be assumed
to be completely apolitical. But:
even more disturbing is the fact
that this apolitical group was
shown to be growing quickly.

DR. HERIBERT ADAM...
. survey results alarming.

Although Adams stopped short of
drawing conclusions from his
research the results point to the
negative influence of mass culture

and the media, and to the
inadequacy of university
education.

While the majority of students
could not identify political figures
such as Idi Amin or Salvador
Allende, there was no problem in
knowing who Elton John, Bobby

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 4, 1977—Page 10

Orr or Barbra Streisand were. All
of these popular idols scored
nearly 100 per cent as opposed to
the mere 38 per cent of students
who could identify the former
president of Chile.

The university itself is brought
into question by the failure of
students to retain knowledge of
historical figures such as Jean
Jacques Rousseau, the French
author of the Enlightenment, or of
Nazi figures such as Adolph Eich-
mann. It really isn’t so amusing
that Rousseau was identified as a
“deep sea diver’ and Eichmann as
“a Nixon aide,” although the latter
answer comes closer to the truth.

Particularly significant is the
evidence that Marxism as a
science and as the dominant trend
in intellectual thought
modern world is for the most part
hidden from students. Students
were so ignorant of Marxism that
63 per cent had never heard of
Frederich Engels.

The general results show a
brainwashed, average conformity
among students. Clearly most
knowledge is absorbed through
mass media outlets as was shown
by the familiarity with pop figures,
and even a relatively high

in the_
~ background of political illiteracy,

awareness of Alexander Solzhen-
itsyn, and the ignorance of other
cultural figures such as Mordecai
Richler, whom 61 per cent could
not identify.

The narrow window that
students have on the world is also
reflected in the conclusion that the
vast majority of thought is directed
toward private and personalized
views on life. The surveys final
question was that of the single
most important question for the
contemporary world. While a few
would suggest racism, ecology or
overpopulation, more than half
could not see past their own in-
dividual problems or at best of
subjective matters like “‘inter-

personal relationships’? or
“communication.”
Against ~— the disturbing

the actual political views of the
students can be seen to be
repetitive of media propaganda
and of the content of university
courses. Some of them are alar-
mingly reactionary, such as the
concern of almost half the students
that the universal franchise is
“problematic.” Others are more
common ignorant approaches to
economic matters in blaming trade

unions for all economic ills:
Significantly, the politically
illiterate students were extremely
anti-union. 7

“Universal political literacy is a
such vital importance for the soci?
fabric of any democratic society
that educational institutions can n?
longer afford to ignore the ul
political products of its presen!
arrangements,” Adams wrote i!
releasing his findings. ‘‘Sucl
products should remain thé
privilege of. totalitarian regime
which are perpetuated by ignorant
subjects.”’

French ‘Gonadal
lecture slated

The Case for French Canada —
the fifth in the series of Bethun®
lectures — is scheduled for Wed’
nesday, February 9, 8 p.m. in room
319, Britannia Secondary School.

Particular interest is expected
for the class as a result of the new
situation in Quebec following thé
election of the Levesque goverl”
ment. Dave Fairey, abot
economist and lecturer, will také
the class. : ;