GATINEAU – Imagine – a video presentation at the CRTC’s hearings on broadcasting! Who would ever think of doing that?
“3-2-1. Blastoff!”
The Shaw Rocket Fund cleverly grabbed the attention of CRTC commissioners yesterday with a short animated video to make their point that children, as the ones who are already immersed in multi-media culture, should have a voice in this three-week gabfest about a future Canadian broadcasting model.
But it also took a former Radio-Canada journalist and now CRTC commissioner, Michel Morin, to ask the most probing question of the day: how come no one else at these hearings is talking about children’s programming and how it all fits into the bigger issues at hand?
“That’s a fantastic question. You’ve put your finger on a very serious issue,” replied Annabel Slaight, Chair of the Shaw Rocket Fund, the private, non-profit fund that invests in children’s and youth programming.
“It is because no one in authority has established children as a priority,” she said. “There’s something about the children’s world…maybe it’s because children are shorter, they get overlooked.”
There isn’t a lot of immediate profit to be made on kids, said Peter Moss, Chair of the Alliance for Children and Television.
“But the Canadian system offers an opportunity for Canadian children to learn citizenship through television. It’s a rare opportunity and it is envied around the world. Canadian children, more and more, come from immigrant families, more and more grow up in immigrant cultures where the introduction to the larger Canadian society is left to what they see on television. If it isn’t Canadian programming they see, they will think the U.S. won the War of 1812 and that we have a West Wing in Ottawa. And that’s not right.
“We have the opportunity through this incredible system of regulated broadcast to be able to insist that we do that, and do that to a very high standard of excellence. Why other intervenors haven’t taken on that challenge, I can only think they haven’t thought of it,” Moss said.
“There are children’s shows that make us proud in Quebec and in English Canada,” said Caroline Fortier, the Alliance’s executive Director. “There are values that are transmitted through television. There are young people who attach themselves to characters and develop a vision of their environment through that, and this is not something that we can ignore.
“There is an endless supply of American animation that can come in,” added Moss, “but having that is not the same thing as having a Canadian cultural expression of your own nationhood and giving Canadian children an opportunity to see themselves reflected.
“Canadian children should be able to see themselves in the same way Canadian adults see themselves when they watch sports programming or the news. It would be appalling if they only carried American news on Canadian channels because it were cheaper and more available. We know absolutely that we have to have our own news. I don’t understand why we don’t automatically say we have to have our own children’s programming for the same reason.”
In her presentation, the Slaight said that kids are already miles ahead of adults when it comes to getting their multi-media experience. They are still watching TV, she said, but increasingly, they are going online.
The problem is that while Canadian producers of content for children are keeping up, the traditional industry is not, she said.
“The regulations based on traditional broadcasts are holding back the most innovative content creators in this country, the producers of kids’ programming. They are not getting enough support form the industry.”
Straight said the underlying problem lies with the CRTC’s policy framework for Canadian television, which removed children’s television as a priority.
CTV, she said, is only “expected” to provide 2.5 hours a week of children’s programming. There are no targets set for Canwest, while the CBC is supposed to provide 15 hours a week for children and five hours for youth, though none of it, she said, necessarily has to be Canadian.
“Regulators, broadcasters and funders are missing the boat by not making investments in this sector. This needs to be addressed. Specialty broadcasters cannot meet the needs alone,” she said.
Glenn Wanamaker is Cartt.ca’s Quebec Editor.
