Jim Shaw is mad as Hell, and he’s not gonna take it anymore. (ish.)

The world needs more Jim Shaws.

The outspoken CEO of Shaw Communications was quoted in Marketing Magazine today as being “sick of the debate” regarding fee for carriage.

“It is time to stop this debate and move forward,” he said.

Shaw not only opposes the concept of Fee for Carriage, but also calls the CRTC out on its seeming inability to stick to its guns.

“I thought you guys made the decision and you should stick to it,” said Shaw of the CRTC’s earlier decisions to oppose fee for carriage. “I think this is the fourth hearing on the issue. It is time for us to move forward in a progressive way and develop the system the way you guys want. I can tell you I am getting tired of coming to these hearings about dealing with this issue.”

Hear, here.

The article, transcribed below, was originally published on Nov 20, 2009 in Marketing Magazine, which happens to be a wholly owned Rogers property. Recently, Rogers filed its submission with the CRTC against fee-for-carriage, calling it “an unnecessary bailout for over-the-air (OTA) broadcasters and an unfair tax on cable and satellite television subscribers.”

You can read the entire Marketing article after the jump.

Canadian broadcasters are doing just fine, they don’t need fee for carriage and Jim Shaw is tired of talking about it.

That was the opening message from Shaw Communications at this morning’s CRTC hearings in Gatineau on the nation’s television industry and the future of the broadcast structure.

Broadcasters like CTV and Global say Canadian cable and satellite companies–or broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs)–should pay broadcasters a fee to distribute their signals (fee for carriage) and may not survive without it. The BDUs, like Rogers, Bell TV and now Shaw, suggest the broadcasters have mismanaged their business and any new fee would amount to a bailout, effectively a tax since the costs would be passed onto consumers.

“It is time to stop this debate and move forward,” said the famously forthright Shaw, CEO of Calgary-based Shaw Communications, who has had run-ins with CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein during earlier fee-for-carriage debates.

“I thought you guys made the decision and you should stick to it,” said Shaw of the CRTC’s earlier decisions to oppose fee for carriage. “I think this is the fourth hearing on the issue. It is time for us to move forward in a progressive way and develop the system the way you guys want. I can tell you I am getting tired of coming to these hearings about dealing with this issue.”

“I, like you, am also sick of the debate. But I am also sick of not being able to find a solution,” said von Finckenstein, who has said several times this week that he wants broadcasters and cable companies to sit down and negotiate a new system.

Asked to respond to CTV’s position that broadcasters are in straits so dire they have had to close local stations, Shaw said he’s been willing to negotiate with CTVglobemedia CEO Ivan Fecan but that Fecan has made no effort to visit Calgary to meet with Shaw. “You can’t even get your arse on a plane to come out and see me,” he said of Fecan. “So now you want to negotiate through the regulator… and yet you’ve made no effort to come and see me.”

Shaw said the broadcasters aren’t genuinely interested in negotiating; they just want to wait for the CRTC to introduce fee for carriage.

Von Finckenstein has also made it clear this week that the CRTC will not impose fees upon the BDUs but wants them to sit down with broadcasters and negotiate a new system. The system may include some compensation to carry the signal–so-called “value for signal”–but the CRTC will not say what that value is.

Clearly frustrated, von Finckenstein delivered that message again this morning.

“Fee for carriage is off the table,” he said. “What I am talking about is value for signal. I don’t know what the value is, I have no idea. But that is up to you to sit down and talk about.”

“We have rejected fee for carriage because fee for carriage would be us telling you how to run your business.”

Also scheduled to appear before the commission today are Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec (APFTQ), the Canadian Media Guild, Bragg Communications Inc. and FreeHD Canada Inc.