Rogers Communications Inc. launched its latest salvo in the contentious 'fee-for-carriage' debate this morning, bluntly telling the federal broadcast regulator that domestic broadcasters 'don't deserve a handout' at the expense of consumers.

Canada's largest cable company kicked off public hearings hosted by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which is conducting the first sweeping review of television distribution regulations in about 15 years.

Ted Rogers, the cable giant's president and chief executive officer, told a standing room-only crowd in a Gatineau, Que., conference centre that if broadcasters are not as profitable as they used to be, it is because of spending on American programming and billion-dollar acquisition deals.

'The commission should bear in mind that conventional broadcasters are not losing money,' Rogers said. 'They are profitable.'

He points out that two of the largest broadcasters spent more than $3 billion on takeovers in recent years: the $2.3 billion acquisition of Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. by CanWest Global Communications Corp. and U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs & Co., and CTVglobemedia Inc.'s $1.4 billion takeover of CHUM Ltd.

In a subsequent deal, Rogers Media Inc. bought five Citytv television stations from CTVglobemedia for nearly $400 million.

'I recently spent half a billion dollars on Citytv,' Ted Rogers told commissioners. 'I would not have done that if I didn't think we could generate a profit without fee-for-carriage.'

Broadcasters, including CTV and Global, want cable and satellite companies to pay them a fee to carry their signals, arguing their industry is in "crisis" because of higher costs, slower ad growth and audience fragmentation.

Rogers Media, which also owns two OMNI television stations, operates three of the 11 over-the-air signals in Toronto. It estimates that fee for carriage, if adopted, could inflate cable bills by $5 to $10 a month.

Ted Rogers also argued that recent financial results suggest that broadcasters 'don't need a handout.'

In March, the CRTC reported that private conventional stations improved their profits, before interest and taxes, to $112.9 million in 2007 from $90.9 million a year earlier.

That same report also found that conventional broadcasters decreased spending on Canadian programming by 1.2 per cent to $616 million in 2007, while spending on foreign programs rose 4.9 per cent to $721.9 million.

Hearings on the future of the cable and satellite television industry are expected to last three weeks.

Amid criticism that CRTC's agenda is too broad in scope, chair Konrad von Finckenstein sharpened the focus to five key issues. In addition to fee-for-carriage, they include the appropriate size of basic cable packages; whether there should be guaranteed access for certain domestic specialty and pay services; the potential elimination of 'genre protection' rules and whether or not cable and satellite companies should have access to advertising revenues from 'on-demand' services or local avails.

'This is the first broad review of BDUs (broadcast distribution undertakings) and discretionary programming services since 1993,' said von Finckenstein. 'A great number of issues are at stake.'

Representatives from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. were scheduled to present next.

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