The 1994 CAB convention

Winnipeg: From the Internet to interactive television, fiber optics and bandwidth to specialized programming, delegates at this year’s Canadian Association of Broadcasters convention came away with many ideas but no clear answers to the shape, structure and roles they’ll play in the revolutionary communications environment on the horizon.

However, one thing was clear: the consumer will decide what succeeds and fails in this environment. Content servers need to stop focusing all their attention on technology and begin finding ways to make their programs accessible, affordable, and necessary to the end user.

Held in surprisingly balmy Winnipeg Nov. 6-9, this year’s event, titled ‘The Power of Broadcasting,’ was a joint convention organized by the cab and the Western Association of Broadcast Engineers.

‘Listening to your audience’ was a theme repeated in one way or another throughout the convention. crtc chairman Keith Spicer suggested rejigging the convention’s theme to ‘The Power of Viewers,’ as he spoke to a luncheon crowd of 400 on the importance of listening to the viewers as they build a communications network that only barely resembles broadcasting as it is today.

‘The era of feeding captive audiences is over. In the pick-and-pay world of tomorrow, viewers will watch what they want, when they want. They will be calling the shots, literally, from the command boxes in their living room,’ Spicer said.

Producers need to make a commitment to high-quality Canadian products that will stand out in the clutter, added Spicer.

But if Canadian programming will be the heart of the new system, why aren’t broadcasters spending as much time on the problems facing the producers as they are on technology and structural changes, asked Trina McQueen, president and general manager of The Discovery Channel.

As moderator on the ‘New TV Services: Growing the Business’ panel, McQueen took the community to task for being so obsessed with technology instead of the real magic of video: the content.

‘How much attention have we really paid to the people that perform and write the programs?’ she asked.

Broadcasters are not looking at effective models to increase the product, McQueen said, adding: They need to invest as much time and thought into sustaining and encouraging the creator as they have in facilitating the technology that will take it into people’s homes.

Predictions emerging from the panel, made up of McQueen; Arthur Weinthal, vice-president, entertainment programming for the CTV Television Network; Linda Rankin, president of Lifestyle Television; and Joanne McKenna, president, CanWest Global developments, include the evolution of fewer but larger production companies with strong ties to broadcasters, and program sharing.

Sharing programming won’t dilute the brand of the products, said Weinthal. ‘You’re sending the message that your name on the programming means positive things, regardless of how many services air it.’

Atlantis Communications chairman and ceo Michael MacMillan picked up on the theme of branding programs in his panel presentation on ‘Strategies for Programming the Future.’

Programming is critical, but marketing is needed to provide the glue to compete in the new environment, MacMillan said. Producers need to be involved in a full marketing and merchandising effort to build viewer loyalty. In a user-pay system, he said, marketing plays a fundamental supporting role.

MacMillan concluded by advocating a move away from subsidization. High-end drama will still require support, but producers and broadcasters need to produce and coproduce their own programs more often to have control over their product, he said.

Programming is taking on new dimensions on the Internet, said Peter Moss, creative head of children’s programming at cbc.

According to Moss, who spoke on the ‘Online and Other Interactivities’ panel organized by the Alliance for Children and Television, technology-savvy kids are bored with traditional tv.

Broadcasters need to look at where children’s interests are and redefine their role, he said. One solution may be to create a three-way communications environment in which the audience can interact with the program and each other via on-line technology.

Halifax-based Cochran Entertainment has produced an on-line version of its children’s series, Theodore Tugboat, which is coproduced with the cbc. On the Internet, the end-user can create his or her own story, access character profiles of the Tugboat cast and talk with other viewers about the series, among a host of other activities.

Officially launched on Nov. 10, the program is already drawing response from users as far away as France and Norway, said Cochran in an interview.

Another cbc I-Way initiative, The Health Show Online, launched Nov. 17, with The Health Show host Stephen Hunter logging on during the broadcast to demonstrate the new service.

Cochran Entertainment is currently developing a similar package for cbc’s children’s program, Street Cents.

If the new media blurs the line between marketing and entertainment in terms of programs, the changing nature of advertising and sales may turn product suppliers like Black and Decker into content providers, futurist Don Tapscott told a packed audience at the Winnipeg Convention Centre.

‘If Black and Decker attempts to move around their current retail distribution channels and sell directly to the customer through the home information appliance, it is becoming a producer of content, not just a consumer,’ said Tapscott.

There will be a shift in control from the broadcaster to the consumer and in the role of the broadcaster from scheduler to content provider. Factor in fundamental changes in structure, and what does it mean for broadcasters? Tapscott’s conclusion: ‘Nobody really knows for sure.’

That sentence seemed to sum up the sentiment at the conference as broadcasters live in what panel moderator Deirdre McMurdy, via Dickens, coined ‘the best of times and the worst of times.’

The future may hold untold possibilities, but broadcasters today are mired in a period of transition and fundamental change while being forced to consider long-term decisions and investments, McMurdy said in her introduction to the ‘Converge or Compete’ panel.

The only answer, Tapscott said, is to take action and experiment. To stand still is to risk being run over.

As broadcasters move forward technologically, they have to focus on acclimatizing consumers to the new environment that’s taking shape, said Judith Bergeron, co-ordinator, programming interactive television and research for Videoway Communications in Montreal.

We have to remember there’s an exposure curve and a learning curve for users, said Bergeron. Videoway gets set to test interactive television in Quebec next September.

cab president Michael McCabe encouraged private broadcasters to petition for policy initiatives. ‘Let’s not let others decide our future for us.’

He also challenged broadcasters to create a ‘Great Canadian Programming Initiative’ and move new money from carriers and subscribers into production.

While the atmosphere at the cab confab was one of co-operation and forging alliances, clearly there will be rough spots on the road ahead. Funding initiatives for the cbc and the enforcing of violence codes top the list.

Funding the cbc through levies to private broadcasters is a bone of contention among the private broadcasters. ‘What do you think about the Nordicity Report’s suggestion that private broadcasters be levied to support the cbc?’ was greeted with a snappy, ‘I don’t,’ from one high-level broadcaster and an incredulous, ‘What makes the cbc’s programs sacrosanct?’ from another.

The cable industry is staunchly refusing to enforce violence codes on children’s programs by blocking broadcasting signals, despite encouragement from the crtc to act in support of the industry’s social conscience.

‘Will we respect the rights of our children to a healthy tv childhood? Will we show the courage to uphold our less-violent standards in Canada itself?’ asked Spicer.

‘(If not,) I fear the rationale for self-regulation would evaporate. And Parliament would be put under perhaps irresistible pressure from the public to do what it has tried hard to avoid: legislate, and therefore regulate.’

‘That’s not a threat,’ Spicer added. ‘It’s a statement of political reality.’

If V-Chip technology proves viable, it may solve the problem, but then the industry is faced with the challenge of coming to a consensus on a classification system for tv violence, said Spicer. No small task.