OTTAWA – CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein said Friday the regulator had “made a mistake” in eliminating Canadian content spending requirements for over-the-air broadcasters back in 1999.
Speaking in conversation with broadcast veteran Trina McQueen during the CFTPA Prime Time in Ottawa conference, von Finckenstein added, “It doesn’t make sense.”
However, the chair noted that the system “can’t turn back.” While failing to confirm expenditures would be revived in upcoming regulation, it looks like the CRTC is heading that way.
McQueen noted that the CRTC should not want “to make the same mistake over again” (by not changing the rules).
Can’t the amount of Canadian programming be mandated? she asked.
The chair retorted, “That’s why we are there.” But the big question is how to regulate it (given the changing media environment). In telecommunications, he stated, the marketplace can help regulate the industry, but in broadcasting there is a need for Canadian content and accessing Canadians through the broadcast system.
McQueen also tried to get the chair to give a sneak preview of the upcoming value for fee decision. He said she’d have to wait until next month.
She questioned whether the decision might change if distributor Shaw Communications were to purchase Canwest Global’s conventional stations. Shaw is opposed to fee for value and McQueen suggested the “atmosphere would be less tense.”
Von Finckenstein noted the value for carriage didn’t need to be monetary, but rather could be special deals, including carriage, of affiliated specialty TV channels.
McQueen quipped that “details like that” would probably be in the decision, causing the audience to laugh as she tried to get the chair to leak some of the decision.
The chair reiterated that the solution would have to include what consumers could bear. He noted again that he was disappointed with the outright hostile public relations campaigns around the issue between the broadcasters and distributors. “They didn’t have to put it on everyone’s (public’s) plate,” he stated. He would have preferred if they had come to an agreement on their own.
He also called again for a Royal Commission on a national digital strategy. Calling convergence an opportunity, he said “had to be dealt with.”
McQueen concluded by asking the chair if he was “loving” the job of head of the broadcast and telecommunications regulator.
“I think it’s exciting, but I think saying I’m loving it is overstating it,” he responded.
The Great Debate
Following the conversation with McQueen and von Finckenstein, four industry players debated the role of the CRTC and regulation in five or so years. In a sometimes light session (that was moderated by Astral Television Networks president John Riley, and in which each panelist was judged by three members of the audience), Michael Hennessy, Telus senior vice-president of government and regulatory affairs and Lawson Hunter, counsel at Stikeman Elliott LLP (and former head of regulatory at Bell Canada), argued that regulation would not work, while lawyer and consultant Peter Miller and GPO Corp. principal Glenn O’Farrell advocated for continued regulation.
Content and expenditure rules will no longer be viable in an IP wired world, stated Hunter, referring to a copy of his paper, as previously reported by Cartt.ca.
Hennessy once again pressed for the development of a national digital strategy while O’Farrell argued that policies were necessary to ensure Canadian content sovereignty. Miller suggested the right question wasn’t being asked. Rather than asking if regulation was obsolete, among 250 more relevant questions, was whether broadcasting was obsolete, he said.
