Fifty thousand Canadian "gray marketeers" who can't do without small-dish satellite television have touched off a war here between telecommunications titans over who will provide the service. Jumping into the fray are members of the Government opposition charging the Prime Minister with nepotism, a communications regulatory agency complaining that its authority is being undermined and consumer groups protecting their interests.
On one side of the battle is Expressvu, a consortium of three of Canada's biggest electronics and communications companies, which had been scheduled to offer, beginning Sept. 1, direct broadcast from satellite, or D.B.S., television. This service, also known as the Digital Satellite System, not only provides images and sound that are close to laser disk quality but also upward of 100 channels, including pay TV.
On the other side of the battle lines is Power DirecTV, which, under an unprecedented and controversial Cabinet order, is now applying for a D.B.S. license. What has been raising more than eyebrows here is the fact that Andre Desmarais, the president and chief operating officer of one of its corporate owners, the Power Corporation, is married to France Desmarais, nee Chretien, daughter of Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
Power DirecTV is owned by Power of Montreal in partnership with DirecTV Inc. of Los Angeles, a subsidiary of General Motors' GM Hughes Electronics. A diversified company engaged in communications and financial services, as well as pulp and paper manufacturing, Power has annual revenues of $5 billion (Canadian), or $3.6 billion (United States).
The Power-Hughes group had lobbied hard to overturn a regulatory decision last summer that created an unlicensed monopoly for Expressvu. The company was able to have the field to itself because its owners satisfied the requirement of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission that a D.B.S. operator use only Canadian satellites. Power DirecTV failed to qualify because it would deploy Canadian and American satellites.
Expressvu's owners are BCE Inc., Canada's largest telecommunications company; Tee-Comm Electronics Inc., Canada's largest manufacturer and distributor of satellite receiving systems, and Western International Communications Ltd., whose subsidiary, Canadian Satellite Communications Inc., is Canada's leading provider of satellite network services.
Ted Boyle, Expressvu's president, has been lobbying hard to keep the Sept. 1 schedule. If formally blocked from starting its service on the scheduled date, the company has served notice it will sue on grounds the Government acted illegally.
