OTTAWA – A review of broadcasting in new media is utterly unnecessary, says an unprecedented joint submission to the CRTC by Canada’s largest Internet service providers.
Friday was the deadline for submissions on PN 2008-44, which only asked for comments on what the scope of any future proceeding on Canadian broadcasting in new media might be. The Commission wants advice on what questions it might ask when it decides to undertake a review of what new media is doing to broadcasting and what Canadian regulations might have to say about it. At this point, it doesn’t want to hear any answers to such questions (but it did get an answer to one…).
The ISPs (Aliant, Bell, Rogers, Videotron, Shaw, Cogeco, Telus, EastLink, MTS and SaskTel) say no questions need be asked because no review is required.
Since the CRTC’s exemption order of 1999, where it decided the Internet would not face regulation, “the new media industry has flourished,” says the joint submission.
However, the Commission believes that due to the massive amount of content available online and its enormous growth curve – and the Broadcasting Act’s Canadian content requirements – it has to look at what it can do from a regulatory point of view, to foster the development of Canadian content, making sure it’s available to Canadians.
But to the ISPs, “there is no evidence that the achievement of the broadcasting policy for Canada is being undermined by the light-handed approach to new media regulation that has been adopted by the Commission,” reads their submission.
“(T)here is no need for the Commission to hold a new proceeding on new media at this time.”
While broadcasters and most others agree that the 1999 exemption order was the correct decision, the broadcasters have not said this review is unnecessary. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters said in its submission Friday, “(n)oticeably missing from the Commission’s list of proposed questions, however, is a query about the relationship between new media and linear broadcasting and, in particular, about the impact of recent new media developments on all aspects of the business of television and radio licensees.”
As for the CBC, it told the CRTC it welcomes any such review, but cautioned the Regulator against drawing too many assumptions. In particular, the agency appears to be assuming there is a direct correlation between a decline in usage of traditional broadcasting and an increase in new media consumption. The numbers show, however, that television viewing has not suffered, says the CBC submission.
Also, says the CBC, the Commission should not assume there’s a pipeline of new money to be tapped into on the Internet. “(D)espite numerous significant changes in the number of advertising vehicles, including specialty television and the growth of the Internet, the level of advertising in the economy continues to be constant.”
The primary worry among ISPs – and the one question they deigned answer, is the idea to skim a certain percentage of revenue from the monthly rates paid by Canadians for their Internet service and direct the money towards the creation of Canadian new media content. This is how it’s done in the BDU world, where 5% of cable and satellite revenues are re-directed towards local programming or the various TV production funds to help create Canadian TV shows.
There are a number of folks who would like to see this new “ISP tax”, as the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance so eloquently put it, enacted and deployed. The CCSA, however, said such a tax would devastate its members and its largely rural constituency.
“Even if the Commission were to reject our submission that this proceeding on new media is unnecessary… it should, at a minimum, exclude from the scope of any such proceeding the proposal to impose a new broadcasting levy on ISPs on the basis that it would not have legal authority to impose such a levy,” reads the large ISPs coalition submission.
Basically, say the ISPs, the CRTC can’t apply broadcasting policy (the levy) on entities (ISPs) that CRTC regs say are telecom operations.
Stay tuned for much more on this topic over the next many months as the CRTC says it wants to hold a public proceeding on this in 2009 (while much of the Canadian public will be thinking the Commission wants to “regulate the Internet”, which in fact, it does not want to do.).
