With the CBC completing the paperwork cementing its takeover of The Documentary Channel, a debate rages. CBC says the move is a win-win-win for the pubcaster, doc audiences, and independent producers, but a doc producers' group says its members are frustrated by the CRTC's attitude toward them, fearful for the future of POV docs, and alarmed that licence fees will fall.

For his part, CBC EVP of English TV Richard Stursberg is frustrated by these concerns being expressed by the Documentary Organization of Canada.

"I'm at a loss as to what the documentary producers' problem is...If what they're worried about is a reduction in the quantity" of documentaries that will be purchased from the independent sector, "that will not be the case," he says emphatically.

On June 22, the CRTC approved CBC's purchase of Corus Entertainment's stake in the Category 1 digichannel, boosting the Ceeb's share from 29% to 82%. (The minority owners include Barna-Alper Productions, CineNova Productions, the National Film Board, Omni Film Productions and a numbered company.)

According to a CRTC transcript, last March Stursberg told the panel considering the takeover application that CBC will run TDC just as it has been run since it was licensed in November 2000.

"The channel will operate according to its existing conditions of licence," he said. "CBC remains committed to the documentary genre across all of its services and will maintain its level of support for independent documentary programming. CBC will respect and support the distinct nature of this service...[and] will license programming for The Documentary Channel from independent producers with separate licence fees."

DOC is aware that CBC must respect TDC's existing licence conditions, but as executive director Samantha Hodder explains, the change in control "spells challenging things ahead for us. We're feeling quite disturbed about what's going on [with documentaries] at CBC generally."

Hodder says CBC has been moving auteur or point-of-view docs off its main channel and onto Newsworld for some time. On NW, meanwhile, she says The Passionate Eye strand has endured budget cuts and acquires much more programming than it commissions. She is not convinced CBC's Doc Zone - a series of one-hour films currently airing on Thursday evenings - fills the POV void left by the departure of the Witness strand.

She says that while TDC was commissioning and heavily promoting feature-length docs intended for first run in cinemas, its licence does not require it to air feature-length material, only "long-form," which means more than 30 minutes.

Stursberg finds this worry baffling. "We at CBC are actually the inventors of the long-form documentary fund," he states, referring to the Theatrical Documentary Pilot Program run by Telefilm Canada. CBC invested in its 2005/06 trial year and is back as a financial partner for 2007/08.

In the pilot program news release, he's quoted as saying theatrical exhibition helps broaden audiences, provides stability to filmmakers and contributes to excellent product on CBC, which he calls Canada's "number one platform for documentaries."