CRTC chair looks back, and ahead, and finds industry is lagging
OTTAWA – “We as a nation have to stop spinning our wheels on legacy issues and embrace where we’re heading,” CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais said Wednesday in a strongly worded speech to delegates at the International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter conference.
“We have to get ahead of the curve. I repeat, we have to get ahead of the curve,” he said in a 30-minute address that was, more or less, a self-assessment on his nearly four-and-a-half years at the helm of the Commission. Blais said at this same conference four years ago that he was going to change the CRTC so that it would be about, by and for Canadian consumers – and he has followed through, much to the chagrin of many inside the Canadian cable, radio, television and telecom game.
For example, Blais noted that conversations in and about the Canadian cultural and telecom industry – and complaints about his Commission – seem always to languish in the old days and the old ways of doing things inside Canada, all while the digital world sprints off in multiple directions, globally. “Ten years ago, the CRTC talked in terms of sustaining a broadcasting regime that protected Canadian content,” he explained, “No longer. Broadband has forced us to re-visit that discussion—to think in terms of outcomes, rather than rules.
“Those in the cultural sector who believe that we will be able to build a great protective wall around Canada, so we only tell narratives by Canadians to 36 million Canadians divided into two linguistic markets, are bound to be sorely disappointed. The future, as I have said before, lies in promotion, not protection.”
He told Canadian creatives, who spent much of the summer lamenting a change in the rules on what’s Canadian content and what is not, that they must alter their thinking and change how they do business. “They must shift their resources to productions that tell fabulous stories to the world about Canada, rather than to programs that just tell Canadian stories to Canadians.”
“I have to wonder if they are too used to receiving rents from subscribers every month in a protected ecosystem, rather than rolling up their sleeves in order to build a business without regulatory intervention and protection.” – Jean-Pierre Blais, CRTC
The chairman also said that he doesn’t care for some of the media coverage given to the changes made by the Regulator. “The news media aren’t always helping. They are replete with spilled ink and exhaled air on the subject of lead actors and certification-system points. Our critics argue that the CRTC’s shift from protection to promotion will send shockwaves through Canada’s production business; that a difference of two points on a scale will cause entire industries to crumble,” he said.
On the telecom side, Blais issued what some at the conference took as a warning – that he is thinking about structural separation. As we have reported extensively, the incumbent wireline operators are very unhappy with the Commission’s decision on disaggregated wholesale access for third party broadband providers, (while independent operators are rather pleased), and so he pointed out that networks can be run differently – and are – elsewhere.
“Some incumbents grumble about having to provide wholesale access to their competitors. I invite them to look abroad. In Australia and the U.K., for example, consumer pressure and government policy has resulted in, or is seriously contemplating, the structural separation of broadband providers between wholesale and retail,” he noted.
"If the winds of change blow too hard and they refuse to bend in the wind, the tree may break at the trunk rather than lose a few leaves," – Blais
“If the winds of change blow too hard and they refuse to bend in the wind, the tree may break at the trunk rather than lose a few leaves,” he added – something some in the audience took as a warning that the CRTC may take further steps if it is further stymied on this file by incumbents.
(Ed note: Not all believe Australia’s multi-billion-dollar National Broadband Network has been a success.)
Blais also addressed the recent differential pricing practices hearing, calling it the most important one of the fall, and noted while the CRTC wants innovation from all comers, if that innovation “steps on the toes of the principle of free and open access to content, we will intervene. Abuses of power in the system will not go unchecked,” he said.
On the subject of innovation, Blais said he was disappointed to see Rogers' and Shaw's over-the-top video portal shomi killed off so quickly. “Far be it for me to criticize the decisions taken by seasoned business people, but I can’t help but be surprised when major players throw in the towel on a platform that is surely the future of content—just two years after it launched. I have to wonder if they are too used to receiving rents from subscribers every month in a protected ecosystem, rather than rolling up their sleeves in order to build a business without regulatory intervention and protection.”
Blais added that he is convinced he has boosted the trust Canadians hold for the CRTC during his four years as chair and CEO, noting it hosted comment forums on Facebook and Reddit, held hearings with American Sign Language and Langue des signes québécoise, and tried other things like flash conferences and offering up “choicebooks” to bring more of us into the CRTC conversations.
“We did all of these with the goal of transforming our hearing room in the National Capital Region into a national forum for open debate,” he said.
“If this is being a disruptive showman then so be it. Amen. It was the right thing to do.”
