GATINEAU – Claiming there is no evidence that mobile broadcasting will ever be viable, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association told the CRTC that wireless operators should not be required to contribute to a fund for Canadian new media content.
Too little money is being made in mobile broadcasting, and there is already a significant amount of Canadian content out there for the few who have opted for the service, CWTA president and CEO Bernard Lord said Wednesday during the CRTC’s ongoing broadcasting in new media hearing.
“Imposing a contribution tax on WSPs would amount to penalizing success,” he noted.
The creative community is urging the regulator to make ISPs and WSPs pay a fraction of their revenues into a new media fund. One figure put forward was for the WSPs to pay 0.6% of gross revenues.
But Lord said, “The revenue streams attributable to mobile broadcasting are extremely modest, and even at that are illusory, given the huge investments that mobile providers have made in handsets and networks to make such content even possible.”
The contention that mobile broadcasting might never be viable had CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein scratching his head. “This is a surprising statement,” he said, pointing out that wireless carriers are spending millions on additional spectrum, more advanced headsets, etc., presumably to bring mobile broadcasting to consumers.
“Everyone hopes it will work,” responded Lord, while adding that mobile broadcasting is just one small part of the wireless offerings available. At the moment, he noted mobile broadcasting has not reached a “broad acceptance” level and is “nascent and still developing.”
Little has changed since the CRTC implemented the Mobile Broadcast Exemption Order two years ago, and mobile broadcasting should continue to be exempt from regulation because it has remained a niche service, he added. Moreover, making WSPs contribute to a new media fund would put Canadian mobile carriers at a disadvantage to their international competitors, which do not have such a requirement.
Von Finckenstein pointed out that if revenues are modest then any contribution to the new media fund would be modest as well since the suggested formula is a percentage of revenues earned.
Lord objected to the principle of the levy, which he said would not be proper public policy.
“Regulation would almost certainly do more harm than good by restraining innovation and inhibiting investment,” he stated. “This proposed levy is doubly unreasonable considering the current economic climate.”
