OTTAWA — A coalition of arts, labour and other groups is asking the federal cabinet to overturn a regulatory decision that would allow satellite broadcast operators to bring pay-radio service to Canada.

The ruling by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, if allowed to stand, would erode years of efforts to promote and protect Canadian programming on the country's airwaves, says Ian Morrison of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, one of the groups challenging the decision.

"It's a slippery slope,'' Morrison said in an interview.

"It's taken decades to build up the Canadian content regime in this country .... By the stroke of a pen the CRTC is now saying that pay radio can be delivered at a content level of only eight per cent Canadian.''

The CRTC, in its ruling released earlier this month, cleared the way for two groups to provide pay-radio service -- long in existence in the United States -- to the Canadian market via satellite.

Canadian Satellite Radio is a partnership between Toronto businessman John Bitove and Washington-based XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. Sirius Canada is a joint venture among the CBC, Standard Radio and U.S.-based Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.

Under the rules laid out by the CRTC on June 16, both groups would be required to provide eight Canadian channels, two of them in French. But they could carry nine foreign channels for every Canadian one they deliver.

Bitove says he expected resistance to the CRTC ruling, but that won't stop Canadian Satellite Radio from pushing ahead with plans to launch its services by Christmas.

"I think some of (the coalition's members) have vested interests with existing broadcasters and some of the status quo, in terms of the Canadian broadcasting industry,'' he said in an interview.

"The fact of the matter is that tens of thousands of independent artists are behind satellite radio because of the new-found exposure it will mean for them ... as well as the hundreds of millions of dollars in funding it will mean to Canadian artists and musicians.''

The CRTC has also given an all-Canadian entry, made up of CHUM Ltd. (TSX:CHM) and Astral Media Inc. (TSX:ACM.SV.B), permission to deliver pay radio. But that programming would be distributed via a ground-based digital network rather than by satellite.

The CHUM-Astral team is planning 50 Canadian channels that will be required to follow standard Canadian-content rules of 35 per cent for popular music and, for French stations, 65 per cent of musical selections in French.

Morrison said one of his fears is that, if the Canadian-American satellite ventures are permitted to go ahead, they may gobble up most of the market and leave little or nothing for CHUM-Astral.

Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and eight other groups are challenging the two CRTC decisions involving Canadian Satellite Radio and Sirius Canada. They have no objection to the CHUM-Astral project.

In a letter to Alex Himelfarb, clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to cabinet, the coalition asks that the Liberal government either set aside the June 16 decisions or return the matter to the CRTC for reconsideration.

No specific reasons for the request are laid out in the letter, but the groups promise that details will follow later. Morrison said there could be a common submission, or the coalition members could decide to make separate submissions.

In addition to Morrison's group, the coalition includes the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), Canadian Independent Record Production Association, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, Directors Guild of Canada, Songwriters Association of Canada, Writers Guild of Canada, and the National Campus and Community Radio Association.