TORONTO – As the CRTC gears up to begin licence renewals hearings for Canada’s private conventional broadcasters, ACTRA is asking the Commission not to “give in to private broadcaster threats” and “punish Canadian programming”.
Urging the CRTC to resist any calls from broadcasters for deregulation or “watering down” of Canadian content regulations, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) proposed that broadcasters be required to maintain their level of spending on Canadian drama to at least the level they spent this year.
“Don’t punish Canadian programming. Canadian content regulations didn’t cause the current challenges in our broadcasting system,” said Richard Hardacre, ACTRA’s national president, in a statement. “There are some systemic issues, but conventional private broadcasters can’t hide behind the fact that their financial challenges are largely self-inflicted – they blew more than $775 million last year snatching up U.S. programming and racked up billions of dollars of debt in acquisitions.”
ACTRA is the national organization of professional performers working in the English-language recorded media in Canada, and represents the interests of 21,000 members across the country.
