All of a sudden, it feels like we’re in good hands

Ten years past the original digital box thumbs-up (read: take this money and use it), in the midst of fcc thumbs-down on a Canadian satellite deal with the u.s., and the first Edmonton powder foreshadowing the next white six months, and no matter: seems there’s a bit o’ action happening.

Cautious optimism is likely the better route, but the urge is to submit, however briefly, to the pleasure of a new $100 million government-sponsored production fund, some security in having an (effective) minister onside with the Canadian production industry, and most recently, the hope tweaked by the appointment of convergence-hungry Francoise Bertrand to chair the crtc.

There is, post speeches from both Bertrand and Heritage Minister Sheila Copps at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Conference, a new slug infiltrating industry vocab. Add ‘partnerships’ to the ‘competition, convergence, consumer, choice,’ lineup as something to mull. Maybe even move towards. As per Bertrand:

‘A coordinated and concerted broadcasting industrial strategy based on partnerships of broadcasters, producers, creative and technical talent joined in strategic alliances is vital. Business, the regulator, government, we all have roles and responsibilities in this endeavor. But it is essential that we all move in the same direction using the identical map.’

Granted, to date, it’s only rhetoric. Short on specifics on how competitors, different sectors of the industry, and clashing portfolio agendas are going to play nicely, but long on the idea that there’s a way to build into 2000 if the masses can be convinced, at some level, to place an industrial strategy at least on par with individual short-term agendas and roi targets.

As CanWest Global president Jim Sward says, there’s a difference between the cutting edge and the bleeding edge. But maybe with Bertrand at the helm and her eye on the former the masses might be forced, naturally with their eyes trained on stronger long-term bottom lines, to make a small cut for the sake of the greater good and contribute to the collective shape of a converged reality.

Or maybe not. Rogers Communications remains mute with the digital specialty licensees as they bounce about upping the ante on extended free-to-cable periods. Who pays how much of a necessarily expensive launch campaign will be interesting, as will how many of the 14 new services will be forced, distributorless in 1999, to kick at crtc legal processes.

But no skeptical ending, at least not today. After all, Shaw Communications’ Jim Shaw Jr. came to the cab ‘The New Wave of TV’ panel pledging the will to listen and packing some interesting ideas. Channel sharing, for example, three services with four hours a day, and if you buy the box, you get each service in full. Big branding nightmare, the less than ideal solution but

Partnership. Hmmm.