Casting an eye out 1993’s rear window, the land of television and production is littered with terminology debris: structural hearings, packaging, tiering and linkage, deathstars, interactivity, multimedia, convergence.

But yesterday’s obsession with the path over the product will pale compared to tomorrow’s. Coming techno-change threatens to spin the tv world as we know it badly out of focus. Time to set another F-stop for the latter half of the ’90s.

Begin by considering the implications of convergence – the possibility of new businesses (telcos) owning the delivery systems now owned by cable companies. Maybe one day these Canadian telcos will, as in the u.s. case of Bell Atlantic and Telecommunications Inc., become big buyers of entertainment supply lines. Now, before that imagined day comes, is time to consider how new owners might influence the content.

As 1994 dawns, the crtc convergence hearings run overtime talking about the burgeoning technologies which could, if regulatory restrictions are eased, let telephone companies deliver video on demand to Canadian homes. Or, failing that, buy cable companies and have the existing cables work for them. As the digital asphalt is laid for the information highway, the implications are potentially huge. New ownership structures, perhaps with increased foreign influences. Uncertainty on the regulatory front with compliance and enforcement major question marks.

Mind you, at the convergence hearings, the telcos represented by the Stentor alliance fielded crtc and interest group questions on cultural content issues with staunch promises to respect the Broadcasting Act. The content-related qualifier – and it is likely to be a big one – is that one Stentor panel admitted there is ambiguity over whether new video-based services require licences. Given the profits accruing in such places as Britain to companies distributing top-10 videos, this issue needs to be made unambiguous, and soon. Still, one cultural group which questioned Stentor at the convergence hearings reports that at first blush, the telcos seem already more responsive to cultural matters than the cable business has ever been. This impression is reinforced – if in a lofty manner – in Stentor’s booklet, The Information Highway.

With the DirecTv satellite due to go up Dec. 17, with phones virtually omnipresent, the information marketplace, its reach and scope, is changing at a mind-boggling pace. As the economic importance of resource-based industries wanes, so the influence of information technologies waxes. As the plethora of specialty channel applicants attests, Canadian producers are keen to go down the info road. So they should, but the signposts of change will pass at ever accelerating speeds, so if you’re joining the convoy, hang on for the ride.