SOME THOUGHTS ON the TV Policy Review hearings that one day, could grow up to be full-sized columns.
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ONE OF THE MOST interesting questions at the hearing came late in the day on Monday, December 4th, when Media Awareness Network faced the five-person panel.
MNet, as it calls itself, is a non-profit organization with the laudable goal of boosting media literacy among children. The group promotes media and Internet education through its online programs and resources, working with a number of organizations in Canada and elsewhere. Its sponsors include Bell, Shaw, CTV, CHUM, Rogers, Telus and CanWest Global.
While the questions posed by telecom vice-chair Richard French to MNet representatives may only reflect his personal opinion, they could show a shift in the way the CRTC is thinking when it comes to foreign (read: American) vs. Canadian programming.
Calling MNet "experts" in the types of programming and media that Canadian children consume, French asked executive director Michelle Scarborough: "At what age does a young person become aware there is Canadian television and American television?"
MNet doesn’t ask this particular question in its research, so Scarborough didn’t have an answer. Undeterred, however, French pressed on:
"(T)he main problem that we are here discussing is the Canadian television viewer sees him or herself as part of a continental or global conversation and this causes underlying structural change in cash flow and audience distribution and so forth in the industry… and the controversy is about what we can do to re engage them in a national conversation in the face of this continental and global conversation," he said.
"And when you tell me that they are going online in the fourth grade, I sort of think to myself, well… we could patch this thing up a bit, but in the long run are consumers simply going to walk away from what we put in the window even if we think it is very Canadian and appropriate for them and important?"
To me, the telecom vice-chair’s point was that despite the dwindling number of drama hours on Canadian TV and major cutbacks in local news over the years, even if the CRTC institutes a new fee-for-carriage for broadcast TV outlets and mandates that the money only be spend on Canadian content, is it even possible to engage viewers who don’t see "Canadian" or "American" content, but just content?
"(W)hat can we or policy makers anywhere really do about that if people’s tastes and interests are running elsewhere?" French asked. It’s an acknowledgement, I think, that the Regulator no longer has the same power it once had to influence what Canadians consume as entertainment.
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ALL THE TALK ABOUT "telling our own stories" which is the tagline consistently espoused by the likes of ACTRA and the Canadian Media Guild and CFTPA is true to a point, but I think such groups would get more support from everyday Canadians if they stopped hyperventilating about the need we supposedly all have to hear and see ourselves reflected on TV and concentrated on the real issue: J-O-B-S.
I’d love to hear them say: "It’s about the jobs and the economy." No one bats an eye when taxpayers bail out this lumber company or that steel mill – because it generally has an honourable goal: keeping good people employed in good jobs. Same goes for actors and producers and directors and grips and sandwich truck guys… but the unions and guilds always want to push this hazy concept of "telling our own stories," without ever acknowledging that the average Canadian has no idea what they mean.
Personally, when it comes to "telling our own stories", I wish broadcasters would spend more on covering news from city hall than creating a drama about a fictitious one.
The unions’ message should be: It is good for the economy. It’s good for Canada to have its own TV industry but to maintain one, our little country which sits beneath the shadow of the 1,000-pound cultural gorilla like no other country in the world, needs some protection, just like our farmers and autoworkers do.
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AND SPEAKING OF ACTRA, I couldn’t help but gag on actor RH Thomson’s performance. His voice dripping with contempt, he derided reality programming, saying: "Audiences are tiring, thank God, of so called reality programming – and the last reality programming that I saw were babes in bikinis eating live slugs and to see who would be sick first. So maybe there are higher aspirations for what actually is the content of our television networks."
Actually, no. While we like our drama, we also like our police chases, ladder accidents, groin shots and ugly "alliances". We like drama, too, but our aspiration is to be entertained and for many, that means babes and bugs, Mr. Thomson.
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WHILE THE HEARING was going on in Gatineau, another proceeding – in Federal Court – was taking place back across the river which, if the broadcasters are successful, will bring in a ton of "found" money.
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters, after a three-year fight, was in court the last two weeks of November to continue to rail against the CRTC’s Part II fees, which the broadcasters say is an illegal tax that falls outside the CRTC’s jurisdiction. Since 1997, Canadian broadcasters have paid about $680 million in fees, ostensibly the value of holding broadcast licenses in Canada. The association’s members happily pay Part I fees, which help cover the CRTC’s costs.
If the broadcasters win, that’s a lot of cash flowing back into the coffers of Canadian broadcasters and $680 million could produce many more Canuck shows – or build HD studios. A decision is expected sometime in 2007.
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VICE-CHAIR, BROADCASTING, MICHEL Arpin wasn’t angry with Shaw Communications over the tenor of its ad campaign during the hearing, as we reported. He was angry about his overflowing in-box. Shaw had linked the creative on its web site asking people to complain about the potential for fee-for-carriage so that a click or two would send an automatic missive to Arpin, whose in-box rapidly filled up with the e-clutter, much of it from Shaw employees.
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SO WILL THERE OR won’t there be a fee for carriage of broadcast signals? As I said before, there is going to be some sort of new cost levied or fee system applied, but not the way CanWest, for one, is hoping – where each broadcaster would get 50-cents a month. Canadians won’t stand for that and the current government – which is on a de-regulation jag on the telecom side – surely would object.
But by the end of the hearing, the commissioners seemed almost accepting of the principle of some extraction of new money, someway, somehow, asking most how they would apply such a fee or build a mechanism to support a new Cancon charge and drama production requirements. But 50-cents a month extra for CH and Global and CFTO and so on? Not going to happen.
But I do think, however, fees for distant signals will probably be extracted from cable and satellite companies – and therefore subscribing Canadians. And I think I like my time-shifted channels enough to pay a bit more to keep them.
The French market and CBC is a different matter, however and it will be interesting to see how the Commission helps them. Those broadcasters were at least arguing from a position of strength. TQS, TVA and CBC argued they needed more money because they spend so much on Canadian content already, which makes up the large majority of their prime time hours. It’s expensive, but they’re doing it, they said.
Global and CTV, on the other hand, said they needed more money so that they can try to make a few more Canadian TV programs, while their prime times are populated with popular U.S. shows.
Like I said – not arguing from a position of strength, in comparison.
I sure don’t envy the commissioners their tremendously complex task.
Broadcasters are expecting a decision in May.
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