Cable / Telecom News

COMMENTARY: The Internet can’t be harnessed by the likes of the CRTC


THE PROBLEMS START WITH the title.Harnessing Change (the report on the future of programming and its distribution in Canada) reflects a long history of Canadian governments and the CRTC sticking fingers in holes in the dike of broadcasting policy and regulation, to keep out invading hordes, while communications technologies undermine the dike's foundations — from without and from within — because Canadians have consistently been early, eager and rapid, adopters.Little wonder that it was Canadian Marshall McLuhan who coined the phrase "the medium is the message": Communications media influence societies more than the content that they carry. Ya think?Check out...