OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Not to be confused with diversity in terms of getting more visible minorities on the air, next week’s diversity of voices will be about getting more voices, period, on the air.
The hearing beginning next Monday should be an interesting one, because it will likely hinge on the number of media outlets now available (hundreds or innumerable, if you count the web) versus the number of Canadian media owners (not so innumerable).
“There are more services available to more Canadians than there were 10 years ago,” Canadian Association of Broadcasters president and CEO Glenn O’Farrell told Cartt.ca this week.
Add that to the number of U.S. channels now in Canada (not to mention the unregulated Internet with its hundreds of thousands more media outlets) and Canadians can count on a hugely diverse base upon which to entertain themselves, say backers of the current system.
But opponents of the CAB’s definition of diversity are numerous and vocal. They take issue with how few owners there are in Canadian traditional media, what with CanWest Global and CTVglobemedia owning the lion’s share of Canuck TV channels, with Rogers and Corus and Astral as smaller electronic media consolidators.
They say that despite the sheer number of media channels, Canadian voices are too often overshadowed by corporate needs and American programming.
O’Farrell doesn’t buy it. “When you look at the CFTPA or ACTRA or the Directors, they’re not really talking about increasing diversity, they’re talking about getting the system to yield more for their constituents,” he said.
Plus, those large media players, say the critics, are also owners of unregulated media outlets, and many will desperately want to talk about that at the hearing. But with the Commission holding no sway over the web or newspapers, there is little Regulators can say on that front.
O’Farrell is adamant that the hearing isn’t really about diversity of ownership, which opponents are making the case for. “If you use our definition, there is abundant diversity available to Canadians… We should celebrate the success of our regulatory model in making that kind of programming diversity available
“This is about diversity of voices, not diversity of ownership.”
Going back to 1997, 163 new TV licences have been issued, said O’Farrell, and there are 21 new companies on the specialty service side, which provides so many more outlets within the system than a decade ago.
“There has been consolidation, but there has also been a substantial amount of new market entrants,” added O’Farrell.
Click back to Cartt.ca next week for more on the hearing since we will, as usual, have a reporter in the room.
– Greg O’Brien
