The Appendix Won: CRTC 2026-216 Cancels the Renewal Calendar

Two weeks ago we asked you to read an appendix. On August 24 the CRTC decided what happens to everything in it. This is the sequel: what Broadcasting Decision 2026-216 did, what it declined to do, the one sentence worth keeping, and where accountability for the least accountable service in Canadian broadcasting lives now.

The Meetings Are Cancelled

Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2026-216, issued 24 August, renews the licences of every service listed in its appendix for indefinite terms. No expiry dates, no scheduled renewal reviews, ever again — each conversion taking effect when the current licence runs out. If you saw coverage, it was framed as radio housekeeping, and for over a thousand AM and FM stations that is exactly what it is.

But the row we flagged in July is still there. The only licensed pay audio service in Canada — the music channels that arrive inside cable and satellite TV packages, that no one can tune away from, cancel, or decline — is in the appendix, converted with the rest. Its licence term ends 31 August 2027, and the indefinite term begins the next day. The 2027 renewal review, the one public meeting where this service would have had to explain itself, is off the calendar. Permanently.

What We Asked, and What We Got

This site's author filed in the proceeding, personally, on exactly this row — taking no position on the radio stations. The asks, in descending order: decide the still-pending audio policy framework first, then decide this term; failing that, keep a fixed term for this one service; failing that, say expressly that conversion does not prejudice a later review of the service's obligations.

Score it honestly. The deferral: denied. The fixed term: denied. But the intervention got its own section of the decision — “Regulatory flexibility under indefinite licence terms,” where the argument is summarized accurately and at length — and the third ask was granted in substance. The Commission's words:

“[T]he renewals only apply in respect of the licences and their terms. They have no impact on the licensees' conditions of service… Therefore, indefinite licence terms do not interfere with the Commission's ability to consider applications for amendments to conditions of service or to make determinations affecting the obligations of radio licensees in future proceedings.”

Translation: the licence never expires, but every rule attached to it survives and can be challenged, changed, or enforced at any time, by application. The Commission also confirmed the conversion does not interfere with its pending audio policy review. That sentence exists in the decision because someone asked for it. It is now the first citation in every future filing about this service.

Worth noting who else understood the stakes: the satellite radio company — the appendix's other subscription service — intervened from the opposite direction, asking for confirmation that indefinite terms would not freeze outdated obligations in place. Both the industry and the public read this decision the same way. After conversion, everything runs through conditions-of-service proceedings: licensees will use them to loosen obligations, and subscribers can use them to make obligations mean something.

The Calendar Is Now Empty

Here is the state of scheduled oversight for this service after 2026-216:

Licence renewal: never again. That was this decision.
The audio policy framework (BNoC 2025-52) — the proceeding that expressly asked how pay audio fits the modern system — closed its record in December 2025 and remains undecided, with no published target date.
The tailored conditions-of-service consultation the CRTC's regulatory plan promises for fall 2026 — the natural replacement for the cancelled review — has not been launched.
The compliance process the Commission promised when it proposed these conversions has not been launched either: no form, no date. The decision repeats the commitment, and adds that compliance concerns raised in interventions “will instead be considered as part of upcoming compliance processes” where “[i]nterested persons will have an opportunity to comment.”

Put plainly: no regulator has any scheduled examination of this service on any calendar. Everything from here is on demand. Someone has to file. The decision, to its credit, confirms — twice — that someone can.

What Showing Up Bought

A fair question after a loss on the headline issue: was filing worth it? Read the record and judge. One subscriber's intervention became one of the decision's named issues, produced a dedicated section, and extracted a written, citable assurance that the service's obligations remain open to challenge at any time — the exact tool now needed, confirmed in the Commission's own words, days before it would have been needed anyway. The 2020 renewal proved one intervener can set a licence's load-bearing premise. This proceeding proved it again.

The homework from last time still stands, and it matters more now, not less. Get your TV bill. Find the music channels. Did you choose them? Can you see what they cost? Can you remove them? When the fall consultation opens — or when the compliance process finally publishes a form — the record will be built from exactly those answers.

Rooms Open Right Now

Device, SIM and setup fees (TNoC 2026-155) — comments close 31 August 2026. We filed this week, on one narrow point: if a banned fee only has to be discontinued, collecting it until caught was free — refunds, not just discontinuation. Our explainer.
The complaints-commission awareness proceeding (BTNoC 2025-274) — written process, anyone may file, until 7 October 2026. What to say.

And the one to watch is the fall audio conditions-of-service consultation — the proceeding that stands in for the review 2026-216 cancelled. Join the email list and we will tell you the day it opens. The consultation tracker has the rest.

The Appendix Won

The Meetings Are Cancelled

What We Asked, and What We Got

The Calendar Is Now Empty

What Showing Up Bought

Rooms Open Right Now

Further Reading