Prime Time 2009: CRTC chair says "structural solution" for Canadian broadcasting is needed

By Susan Tolusso

OTTAWA – While stopping short of calling for a wholesale policy overhaul, CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein opened the annual conference of Canada’s film and TV producers with a wide-ranging speech repeatedly acknowledging that the conventional broadcasting industry is “in crisis.” Von Finckenstein has often recognized the financial stress on the over-the-air (OTA) broadcasting sector in the past, however, in his address at the CFTPA’s Prime Time conference, the chair emphasized that a “systemic solution to the problem” is in order. The CRTC, he says, is rethinking the system “in light of technological, economic and industrial reality. This requires the...