By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – At 3:44 p.m. on Friday, January 15, the CRTC lawyer joked: “The moment you have long been waiting for,” before going with reading a long list of undertakings, which is of course the information CBC executives had agreed to provide to the Commission, on or before February 3.
It marked the end of a long week where CRTC commissioners and senior staff at the CBC verbally wrestled to provide this process a fulsome record without giving away too much. And now, the leadership of the Corporation, to counter-quote CEO Catherine Tait, can go back to their real job: Running the CBC.
Friday started with commissioner Claire Anderson finishing up her review of accessibility of programming for Canadians with visual and auditive limitations and advisories.
Then, Quebec commissioner Alicia Barin (above), stepped up to the plate and covered service to Canadians in OLMCs (official language minority communities) including rate increases for CBC News Network and ICI RDI (both of which are must-carries for BDUs in regions where English or French is the minority language – meaning News Network has to be carried in Quebec and RDI in English Canada), and then moved onto advertising.
After lunch Friday, the bottom of the ninth to quote the chair, Barin embraced the issue of Tandem, the CBC’s new branded-content division, which was the only moment when the issue of advertising and revenues was really raised.
“I have some questions for you with a focus on understanding the Tandem initiative. But at the same time building a record so that other intervenors in this proceeding can express their views and concerns,” she said. “And to set the tone, the Commission has no more information than the general public and intervenors. So, consider this is a starting point for having a meaningful public discussion,” she went on.
In the fall, the CRTC received two procedural requests to add the Tandem topic to the proceeding. The Regulator agreed to add the letters to the record but not to reopen the proceeding for further comments – but it is allowed to discuss and to write about this issue.
First, Barin asked whether the initiative was on hold or active. Tait said that after putting the initiative on hold, it reviewed the process, put in place additional guard rails, and restarted.
Branded content is a form of advertising that the CBC is only using on its online platforms where the content may be alphanumeric, audio or visual and produced by the corporation but, they assured, only within the Media Solutions group (the ad department) and not from editorial resources.
“As long as this company, the public broadcaster, has a diversified revenue model, which it has had for a very long time, there will be this natural tension between the commercial and the editorial and it is in every newsroom across the planet because of the concern that the journalists have that there could be undue influence from commercial interest.” – Catherine Tait, CBC
The issue at hand is the impression that there might be some confusion between editorial content and advertising, but more to the point the profound issue is on how the public broadcaster is ensuring the independence of the newsroom while making paid content friendly to certain brands. And despite strong commitments from the leadership, there was a profound discomfort on their part in dealing with this issue.
Errors were made as Tandem’s launch, poorly communicated, stormed out of proportion before the corporation reacted and put in place proper safeguards. Interestingly, the CBC cannot seem to be able to quantify past revenues from this, even in confidence but committed to be able to do so in the future.
“We leverage audiences, that’s the nature of the sales business. This is just another form of advertising. As long as this company, the public broadcaster, has a diversified revenue model, which it has had for a very long time, there will be this natural tension between the commercial and the editorial and it is in every newsroom across the planet because of the concern that the journalists have that there could be undue influence from commercial interest. That why we put those guard rails in place, and they go well beyond anything in the industry to protect and to ensure that there is no confusion,” said Tait.
Commissioner Barin pushed again: “In the document [the journalistic standards and practices (JSP)] it specifies as a principle that the CBC/Radio-Canada does not commercially exploit the brand of its information programming and it does not present any advertising content such as advertising spots when inserted between program segments should be clearly defined in appearance and placement so that the public does not confuse them.
“How does the Tandem initiative comply with this principle about commercially exploiting the brand of the corporation’s information program,” asked commissioner Barin.
“You must be very clear that it is advertising so that you are not commercially exploiting the content you are selling the advertising and you must be very clear about the two and that is why in the advertising product of branded content, or sponsored content or whatever that might get invented in the future, our first responsibility is must be clear,” responded Barbara Williams, executive vice-president CBC.
“But I want to assure you, our journalists are not hampered or influenced in any way by what advertising content there is such clear church and state between Donald’s team (Donald Lizotte, chief revenue officer) sell to advertisers and the editorial decisions that our journalism team is making every day.”
The next phase of the hearing, starting Monday, is to hear the opinions and propositions of the various intervenors, beginning with the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
After 71 intervenors, the CBC will reply on January 28th and who knows, panel members might have further questions.
The Commission will accept final submissions from parties who have intervened in this proceeding, by no later than February 24 and CBC/Radio-Canada can reply by March 10.
