MONDAY, IT WAS ANNOUNCED CBS All Access, the over-the-top VOD service from the American television network, would launch in Canada next year. Leslie Moonves, chairman and CEO, CBS Corporation, was quoted as saying, “By going direct-to-consumer around the world, we will facilitate new connections between the global audience and our industry-leading premium content.”
So where does this leave Canada’s private broadcasters?
Canadian private, English-language broadcasters have had a long and profitable run being middlemen for American content producers. For decades, their core business strategy was to purchase popular foreign programming, primarily from U.S. networks, and resell it into the Canadian marketplace, using their privileged position as holders of scarce, CRTC-issued broadcasting licences to do so. Now, when Moonves talks about “going direct-to-consumer,” it is precisely those Canadian broadcasters that he’s talking about going around. CBS surely won’t be the only major American network to do this — Disney has also announced this week a “major strategic shift” towards direct Internet streaming. And in a world in which most if not all U.S. content producers go direct-to-Canadian-consumer, what is the role of Canadian broadcasters?
First, we must step back and remember that the Canadian broadcasting system is the result of an act of political will. At the dawn of radio, and then, television, Canadian audiences at first tuned primarily — if not solely — to broadcast signals coming from the United States. Radio waves know no borders, and broadcasters sprung up more quickly in the larger, more populous U.S. markets than they did in Canada. Many of these were well within receiving range of Canadians, and questions soon arose as to the fate of a nation that was all ears and no voice on the airwaves.
Copious ink was spilled in enquiries like the Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting — also known as the Aird Commission — of the 1920s, which ultimately resulted in the creation of the CBC. In the 1950s and ‘60s, television expanded across Canada, and with it private broadcasters, under the aegis of the Broadcasting Act, which in 1968 declared that, “the Canadian broadcasting system should be effectively owned and controlled by Canadians so as to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada.”
Ever since, having a Canadian broadcasting system meant having a purpose, and that purpose was and is Canadian programming. The problem is, private, English-language Canadian broadcasters have long preferred buying American programming to making their own, especially in high-cost, high-risk genres like drama. Private Canadian broadcasters have chosen to go on shopping trips to Los Angeles, buying popular U.S. product, and then selling Canadian viewers against it to advertisers. It’s been their fundamental business model for decades, and they’ve made millions on it, while only commissioning enough Canadian programming — outside of national news and mainstream sports — to meet regulatory requirements.
Enter the Internet, dedicated over-the-top services like Netflix or Amazon Prime, and now CBS All Access. These services meet the legal definition of “broadcasting” in Canada, but they have so far operated largely outside the bounds of the Broadcasting Act, due to the CRTC exemption order excluding the Internet from regulation. Will that change? If not, what will Canadian broadcasters do when their status of protected middlemen disappears? What is their plan? Their only options will be to make their own, distinctive, brand-defining Canadian content, or go out of business. Do they not see the cliff they are marching towards if they don’t take the former path?
“The bottom line is, in the digital era, Canadians don’t need a ‘Canadian broadcasting system to access foreign content.”
Seemingly not. Just last week, senior executives at Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, and Rogers Media published an open letter in The Hill Times opposing cabinet petitions by Canadian creative and production groups, including the WGC, to set aside and send back to the CRTC a decision to slash regulatory minimum spending requirements on “programs of national interest” (PNI), which include drama and documentary programs. These are programs that the CRTC has said, “are expensive and difficult to produce, yet are central vehicles for communicating Canadian stories and values.”
The WGC has already commented on the substance of this open letter. But what is increasingly evident in light of yesterday’s CBS announcement is that it these very Canadian broadcasters who are stuck in the past, as they fight against even the maintenance of their historical spending levels on PNI, which themselves are less than 10% of revenues for the three groups, as composed going forward.
The bottom line is, in the digital era, Canadians don’t need a “Canadian broadcasting system” to access foreign content. What they need is a system that serves their needs, tells their stories, and reflects their place in the world, in a way that foreign services can’t, and in a way that is mandated by our Broadcasting Act.
Canadian broadcasters must reinvent themselves as sources of what they are uniquely positioned to provide: Canadian programming for Canadian audiences. If they don’t do that, Canadians will go over the top, under the bottom, and around them to access it. We have long relied on wise public policy and enlightened regulation to make progress towards having a truly Canadian broadcasting system. Given the actions of the private, English-language Canadian broadcasters thus far, it seems clear that we must continue to do so, in the best interests of Canadians and, it appears, in the interests of the broadcasters themselves.
Maureen Parker is the executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada
