BANFF – It is difficult to resist the evident charm and good intentions of the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage.
However, here at the 2016 Banff World Media Festival, some of the old saws we've been hearing in her patterned speeches these last many months are getting old. Here was our Minister, at the prestigious kick-off Opening Keynote of our annual Banff mind-meld, simply churning out bromides.
Yes, she is threatening to change everything about the system – but the narrative has become more cautious, perhaps even bewildered, ever since.
Yes, again, her 10,000 replies to the initial consultation (a judicious 50/50 split between stakeholders and citizen respondents) enlightened us all by asserting that Canadians want domestic content in the digital era, we also want local content, plus free access while broadcasters struggle to monetize a failing model.
Is there really a hard news clip here, or a trite accordion bumper-sticker? Was The Minister serious when she claimed discovery that "culture plays a key role in how Canadians consider their identity"?
Yikes.
Of course we must create "new resilient models… invent new ways to compete with the world… while being creative and an economic driver,” but even those of us natives from the black and white movie era have heard those cuddly notions before.
What a wasted opportunity.
In a Cascade Ballroom filled to standing room only, with 300 plus smart people hoping for intentionality and a sense of political direction, it felt like Snapchat had taken on fluffy new meaning. What was encouraging and valuable, remains the Minister's genuine desire to maximize participation in her ongoing consultative process; even if she has no clue about Phil Donahue.
Plus she clearly wants to reinstate support programs hacked by the Harper mob.
Oh, yup, she did suggest that copyright was on the table too. However, it's hard to not speculate that the Minister and her attendees had no clue what they were getting into when they sliced into the teary, layered onion of Canadian content.
They sure do now… Or do they?
In her remarks, the Minister cited Scandinavia and South Korea as possible inspirations for how we address domestic content in the Armageddon of bits and bytes.
Last I looked, neither of those neat geographies were cuddled beside the biggest cultural exporter on the planet – the U.S. – with which we also share a predominant common language. Sure, the Finns are doing "interesting things", but are they really our uber-pioneers for strengthening Canadian content and export in the digital world?
Moreover, how much of our media system is truly broken?
The unionized Canadian workers at IATSE claim they've never seen such a robust and economically rewarding year – and for them the only issue is how do you keep it going! Also, as one wise commercial broadcaster at Banff mused: "What has Netflix really done? They've shown us that it's possible to grow our business by $500 million."
In fairness, Minister Joly did astutely raise the matter of a "social contract" between Canadians and their media and that might be one of the thicker layers to slice: how exactly can digital companies like Netflix continue to elude that social contract?
Our subscription TV companies contribute 5% of their revenues to the Canadian Media Fund and as Netflix, and other non-Canadian OTTs, continue to eat domestic pay-TV's lunch, surely this is evidently (and imminently) unsustainable – especially after what we saw at the recent May L.A. screenings.
So, as the Honourable Melanie Joly continues her world tour in search of what she needs to learn and do, let's be a bit more patient – but let's also hope that all she knows, hears and sees of our business doesn't just happen on her iPhone.
File photo by Howard Solomon
