MONT TREMBLANT – With the number of people using anything but a television set to watch TV growing rapidly, the CRTC is betting a lot on the upcoming review of all things television, set to begin this fall. In short, it wants to dramatically change the way it conducts its business.
Vice-chair telecom Peter Menzies gave delegates to the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance Connect Conference an early look into the Commission’s Communications Monitoring Report which is being released this week – and tied it into the TV Review, which will begin soon with a direct discussion with Canadians, or “as the late premier of my home province (Ralph Klein) used to call them, Martha and Henry,” said Menzies.
Martha and Henry, it turns out, are using the various electronics they have in their homes, or carry around with them, to consume tons of video. The CRTC Communications Monitoring Report (which is 2012 data) shows, among other things:
* 62% of Canadian HH subscribe to internet with speeds of more than 5Mbps.
* English Canadians spend 20.1 hours/week online, an increase of 10% compared to 2011. Francophone Canadians are spending 13h/week online, which was flat compared to the prior year.
* 33% of Canadians watched TV online; 4% say they watch TV ONLY on line
* Typical users say they’re watching 3 hours of Internet television per week, up from 2.8 in 2011
* 17% of Canadians subscribed to Netflix in 2012. Up from 10% in 2011.
* 38% of Canadians had a smart phone in 2011. In 2012? 51%
* Just 10% of Canadians owned a tablet in 2011, a figure that almost tripled, to 26%, in 2012
* 6% of Canadians watch TV on smartphone or tablet.
* 20% stream radio stations over the internet; 14% stream audio to a tablet; 13% stream personalized internet music service; 8% streamed audio to a smartphone
* Canadians downloaded an average of 28.4 GB of data in 2012 and uploaded an average of 5.4 GB.
What does all this mean to the Commission (which surely also has access to 2013 data sources that more fully reveals current trends)? It means the TV Review will set out a brand new way for the Regulator to oversee the TV industry in Canada, one far less about licensing and process it is known for.
“We’re looking at a communications environment which is radically different from a decade ago – and even just two or three or five years ago,” Menzies (right) told delegates. The entire business from technology and products, to structures and business plans have been transformed, “to say nothing of the needs, the tastes, the expectations and the behaviour of consumers,” he added.
All of this has led to this upcoming “fresh look” at the broadcasting policy framework in Canada, which will begin in October. “That framework was constructed to carry out a mission assigned to us by the Broadcasting Act,” noted Menzies. “For decades we have followed a well established pattern. We issue licenses to broadcasting networks and to cable and satellite service providers with certain conditions attached to ensure the aims of the broadcasting act are advanced.
“Over the years, it has evolved, usually in response to changes in technology, industry economics and the interests and choices of Canadian consumers. The result has been a complex system of rules built on an old foundation that was never designed to support them,” he explained.
“Those who wanted to broadcast to Canadians had to do so under our rules and Canadians, Martha and Henry, had little access to broadcasting that hadn’t been channeled through those rules, but now the internet and all the devices that can reach directly have created a borderless world. We can no longer define ourselves as gatekeepers in a world in which there may be no gates. We can’t tell Canadians what to watch, nor should we.”
So the big question to be answered in the TV review will be, according to Menzies: “how can we act as an enabler of Canadian expression, rather than as a protector. How can we shift our focus from rules and processes and procedures to actual outcomes.”
