Being Buff: Marketing the social economy

So I’m at the CRTC public hearing reviewing regulation of the broadcasting system and the room is full of men and women in suits – and they’re going to be here a long time if they stay for the whole hearing. It runs until April 28th and will see 68 groups, including broadcasters, cable companies, Canadian programming advocates, and specialty channels, present before the Commission. The importance of this hearing is obscured by its obscure title: Review of the regulatory frameworks for broadcasting distribution undertakings and discretionary programming services. But this is an important one the result of which could have profound effects on Canadian content. That’s because one of the larger questions being examined is whether the CRTC should deregulate Canadian broadcasting. One of the specific key issues is the demand by broadcasters like CBC to get part of subscriber fees collected by carriers like Rogers. The broadcasters say they need this to make up for advertising revenues lost to the Internet because that’s the only way they make money unlike the carriers who get ad and subscriber cash. The CBC also suggested that, if they get more than they need to just cover lost ad revenue, they could increase their Canadian content. In fact, CBC says that with just a $1.53 fee broadcasters could double spending on French and English Canadian drama across the entire broadcast system.

Commissioner Ronald Williams asked the CBC reps a key question in response to their claim that lost ad revenue is hurting them. If that is so, he asked, why don’t they focus on generating revenue from new media (i.e. the Web) since that’s where their advertising dollars are going. The CBC rep retorted that web ad dollars are going to search, email, and classifieds, not programming. (I think the CBC responder’s name was Strasbourg, but the I couldn’t find the names of the presenting reps anywhere on the CRTC site.) The CBC said 55% of its revenues come from advertising but it didn’t break down how much of that is online, if any.

Rogers disagrees. They, led by Ted Rogers himself at the hearing, say that broadcasters are buying each other with such abandon that they’re obviously doing well. So how can they then turnaround and ask for a hand out? Rogers also says that the broadcasters want to raise prices without giving anything extra and that will make subscribers flee. However, CBC gave evidence showing that Rogers had raised fees a number of times without adding value and subscribers are still shelling out cash.

Bell Canada said that they want regulation loosened because they are facing a competitive world where, “people who miss an issue of House can just download it.” Well, not in Canada they can’t – at least not easily. The great CBC radio show Spark blew this myth out the water on a recent episode by explaining that many American shows that are available in the U.S. are not available in Canada because American distributors don’t have the Canadian distribution rights.

Anyway, never mind getting more American stuff, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, who presented after CBC, say that deregulation will mean fewer choices in Canadian programming as cable and satellite distributors would have no incentive to provide it.

The Canadian Conference of the Arts presented before the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and said they were surprised by the “reverse onus” of the hearings that they required those in favour of regulation to justify why they felt it was still needed whereas those in favour of letting market forces decide everything were not required to say how those forces would meet objectives of the Broadcast Act. The CCA also said that deregulating Canadian TV failed to deliver the promise of broadcasters putting more into Canadian content. Instead, they now spend %15 more on foreign content than on Canadian content. The CCA’s release said it supports distributors paying a reasonable fee to carry over-the-air television stations, but only if the proceeds are used to create more and better quality Canadian shows, and are underpinned by enforceable licence conditions. CBC agreed with the fee being dependent on Canadian content requirements being met.

Now, all the CRTC critics are saying that the Commission has a “deregulation agenda” (in fact this is the title of the CBC story at that the link “deregulation agenda”). But to me that’s not clear at all. In fact, the Commission’s own documents state that “the public hearing should focus on what, if any additional regulatory provisions are necessary to maintain an increase the health of the Canadian broadcasting system….”

However, if the CRTC critics are to be believed these hearings are crucial to anyone who cares about Canadian programming. Who do you believe? It’s not clear — but one thing is: the results of these hearings could fundamentally change the programming available to Canadians and therefore, many Canadians should be part of the debate. So I have to wonder how much public participation the CRTC is getting via the web and other sources. Only one to find out: ask….

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