THIS YEAR’S CANADIAN Association of Broadcasters convention may be themed "The World View", but it will be a policy release that is decidedly Canadian in flavour that will likely dominate discussion at this year’s gathering in Ottawa from November 2 to 4.
The two keynote speakers who will certainly expound on the show’s theme and are bound to be rather interesting this year are author Dr. Daniel Franklin, executive editor of The Economist and Jeremy Gutsche, founder of Trendhunter.com.
Monday’s after-lunch plenary will also take a global look around – this time at the regulatory field – as the CAB has booked a panel of speakers from regulatory bodies beyond our own borders, including Philip Graf, deputy chairman, Ofcom, the U.K.’s commission.
However, as interesting as those may be it’s that third keynoter, CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein, who will likely earn the most attention during his Tuesday address to delegates.
The CAB gathering begins in the nation’s capital just three days after the scheduled October 30th release of the Commission’s new policies to govern the specialty & pay and broadcast distribution undertaking sectors (which will also offer up a conventional broadcasting decision on the potential of having BDU – cable, satellite and telco TV – customers pay a fee-for-carriage of local broadcast signals). In Ottawa, they’re calling it the S&PBDUOTA decision. Whew!
“This is an opportunity, quite deliberately, for chairman von Finckenstein to present his overview of that decision and its implications,” CAB president and CEO Glenn O’Farrell told Cartt.ca in an interview last week.
(Ed note: The decision by now is all but complete with the Commission staff in the midst of translation and final wording and deciding on a communications strategy for what is an extremely important decision.)
Outside of the keynoters and the annual awards program, the 2008 convention is organized around four tracks, entitled: Trendspotting – Broadcasting 3.0?; The Business of Broadcasting, From "A" to "C"; Private Broadcasters, Public Expectations; and Broadcasting Regulation – The Year Ahead
Each track features three different sessions, ensuring maximum learning over the two-and-a-half day conference, which begins for members only on Sunday at noon.
“There are 12 concurrent sessions… that run through four distinct tracks that focus on the so-called ‘hot buttons’ that are defining the issues,” added O’Farrell. “Technology and market forecasters are going to look at their predictions for the future, there’s going to an exploration of the business of broadcasting and how today’s audiences are gravitating more and more to interactive content and on-demand programming. We have to look at demographic changes as well that are under way.”
Click here for more detail on the sessions.
Diversity, new media, copyright, high definition, production funding and the CTF, the digital transition, developing technology, shifts in media consumption, licensing hearings and myriad other topics will be given a good airing on the stages and in the hallways at Ottawa’s Westin Hotel.
The CAB will put a finer point, for example, on the fact that there is strengthening sentiment against the need to hold a full hearing into new media, which the CRTC plans for 2009. When the vice-chair, broadcasting, Michel Arpin, plainly says the Commission has no plans to regulate new media, why have a hearing at all, asks O’Farrell?
“If the stated intention is clearly no regulation of new media, what does the process bring with an outcome that a fact-finding or information gathering process would not bring?” asks O’Farrell. “We remain convinced that it’s a good thing for the Commission to have a good grasp on new media… to have a better grasp, a better knowledge base, and that it has no intention of regulating new media, as was reported in your publication.”
As for radio, copyright remains the top issue, added O’Farrell. The Copyright Board is holding its consolidated radio tariff hearing on December 2, so expect that to be top of mind for the audio set as they sit down in Ottawa. O’Farrell talked of the CAB’s “laser-focus” on that particular, expensive, issue for its members.
A prickly point for the CAB in 2008, since it’s an organization that prides itself on being national in scope, is the recent resignation of Quebecor Media’s TVA from the group. TVA, as most will know, is the largest French language private broadcaster in the country.
“There’s no doubt TVA withdrawing from membership takes away a voice that was a full participant in the private broadcast discussion,” said O’Farrell.
“Fundamentally, they chose a position which was not a consensual position of the industry (on the Canadian Television Fund) which is what motivated their decision to resign… I don’t share that view, but I respect their position, and I respect their right to say, ‘we want to have the discussion on our terms not on the terms that have been dictated by others.’ And in this case, the terms that were dictated by others were the terms of consensus of the industry as a whole and they were the only ones who were holding out on this vision for the CTF,” he added.
“And that ended up being a critical deciding and motivating factor.”
As you can see, a huge grocery list of issues face the broadcast industry and two days of learning, awards, networking and patting each other on the back a little will help push the industry forward.
“The bottom line is that we think the conference plays an extraordinarily useful role,” said O’Farrell. “It’s a unique platform for broadcasters and decision makers and a whole bunch of others to come together on a national level and have these kinds of discussions.”
