Michael McCabe remembers exactly the moment when the Canadian Association of Broadcasters began to assert its new identity. It was 1988 and McCabe had recently taken over the reins of CAB as the president and CEO.

‘It was my first hearing with the CRTC. Andre Bureau was the chair and he was a tough guy – tough but fair. CAB’s position had always been to oppose these new interlopers, the specialty television services. Our position had been ‘Well, who needs them? Nobody wants them and they just fragment our audience.’ We turned that around and said, ‘Yes, they are an essential part of the system going forward.’ When he realized that we were now supporting the renewal of the specialty services that had already been licensed, Andre stopped us and said, ‘Is this the CAB in front of me? Surely there’s a mistake here!’ ‘

What Bureau was seeing represented no mistake. A revitalized CAB began to take shape that day under the directorship of McCabe. Though it’s only 13 years ago, the broadcasting landscape was far different then. The digital age, convergence, the Internet and the 500-channel universe were topics for futurists, not lobbyists and government regulators.

CAB’s concerns in the pre-McCabe days centred on the CRTC, which had very detailed regulations for broadcasters.

‘I remember my first board meeting,’ comments McCabe. ‘The discussion centred on the CRTC. I listened to all the discussion and finally said, ‘It strikes me that there are basically two questions before this board: What will the CRTC let us do? And what do they want us to do?’ McCabe pauses for emphasis, ‘But really the questions we should be asking are, ‘What business do we want to be in? How do we want to do our businesses? And how can we get the CRTC to accept our approach to the business, rather than sitting here waiting for them to hand out edicts?’ ‘

McCabe’s questions went to the heart of an organization that had already been in existence for more than 60 years when he was appointed president. CAB had certainly accomplished many goals, not the least of which was to survive and grow in an environment which had historically supported the CBC over the needs of private broadcasters.

Although the federal government’s attitude towards radio and television entrepreneurs surely softened over the years, CAB had developed a reactive approach to the issues of the day. Rather than attempting to set the agenda for media in Canada, the organization was defensive and insular in its approaches to the CRTC. Under the leadership of McCabe, CAB became what it is today, a forward-thinking body that is proactive in its dealings with the government over public policy.

Gerry Acton can remember when CAB was a far different organization. His first job, as a sound recordist, harkens back to an earlier age when Canadians coped with a vast landscape and relatively primitive technologies. As a public service which also curried favor with the powers that be, CAB used to invite members of Parliament to record weekly messages to their constituents back home.

‘My job was to make 16-inch aluminum disks of the member’s talks,’ recalls Acton. ‘We would send them by railway express to the ridings; we didn’t trust the mails!’

Over the course of 40 years, from the ’50s to the ’90s, Acton worked at CAB, rising from sound recordist to vice-president of member services. He saw many changes in the organization and in the industry over the time, the most important of which was the establishment of the Board of Broadcasting in 1958. Up to that time, regulations and, more critically, licensing was handled by the CBC. As the national broadcaster, the CBC handled applications for new stations or even for stronger transmission signals with extreme wariness. CAB’s members spent more than 20 years wrestling authority from what was essentially a rival service.

The members of CAB were entrepreneurs and often quite colorful characters. ‘Tiny’ Elphicke, a large and diplomatic presence, and Cam Ritchie had entered the broadcasting industry as singers. Acton recalls annual meetings where ‘Orville Cope, who ran stations in Medicine Hat and could still play the trumpet, and Vern Trail of Edmonton, a great prankster,’ would join with others to provide entertainment.

Many private stations were passed on from one generation to another by wealthy families. ‘There were the Bassetts and the Aspers and the Griffiths and the Beaubien family and the Slates,’ recalls McCabe. ‘Just at the point I came in, you started to see the changing of the guard as broadcasters moved to become public companies or the original owners allowed managers to take over. At some level it professionalized the business, because the market began to exercise some discipline. It also took some of the passion out of it.’

Although the issues confronting broadcasters have become increasingly complex in recent years, many of them have been wrestled with, in some form or another, since CAB began in 1926. Take copyright, for one. CAB was formed 75 years ago to counter a threatened lawsuit against radio stations by the Canadian Performing Rights Society. The society demanded, and got an agreement from, the newly formed CAB to pay performers for the use of their material on the air. That principle having been established, broadcasters have had to deal with increasingly complicated situations as new technologies develop.

‘It’s a nightmare to administer. Everyone’s coming at broadcasters with their own issues,’ comments Paul Robertson, chair of CAB and president of television at Corus Entertainment.

‘We’ve got to get a clear law that prevents people from, in effect, stealing our signals and using them to make a business on the Internet,’ adds McCabe. ‘But there’s a broader problem and the government of Canada is now beginning to come to grips with it, and that is: how do we deal with copyright in the digital age when works are so easily transferable that you might not be able to trace their origins? All the countries are trying to come to grips with what sort of copyright will protect the works of creators but still gives users access to them.’

Broadcasting Canadian content has been a major agenda item for CAB since 1931 when the executive resolved to eliminate all advertising on Sunday for ‘produced-in-Canada programmes.’ In the 1970s, it was the private radio broadcasters, adhering to regulations, who turned the Canadian music industry into a hit-making machine. Now, it’s CAB members, the networks and the specialty channels, that are building name recognition for Canadian actors and directors.

‘I think we’ve been pretty successful in radio and television,’ WTN’s president Elaine Ali says. ‘From the specialty network world, we shine due to our very significant Canadian content levels. Look at WTN with our 70% Canadian content – if we don’t produce very special Canadian programs that people will watch, including profiling and creating and developing stars in the Canadian system, we’re just not going to make it.’

Ali points to Through Her Eyes, The Sunday Night Sex Show and Debbie Travis’ Painted House as three examples of WTN’s commitment to Canadian programming. ‘I think we’ve done a terrific job as an industry, guided by the CAB and its direction,’ she adds.

Another believer in the creation of a Canadian star system is Daniel Lamarre, who now presides over Cirque du Soliel, and is a past member of CAB’s board and a former CEO of TVA. ‘You’ll see more and more Canadian content succeeding now in English Canada,’ he says, ‘because of players as strong as Bell Globemedia and CanWest who have a synergy between newspapers and television which gives them the tools for a star system.’

This is a benign form of convergence, but Gerry Noble, president and CEO of Global Communications, points out that CAB may face problems due to the growth of media conglomerates.

‘Will CAB’s membership, which is made of conventional broadcasters and, through their ownership structure, the DTH operators and the cable operators, see eye to eye on the issues going forward?

‘Pay-TV, which sits at the CAB board table, is owned by Bell Canada, which also owns Bell ExpressVu, who may view that the economic pendulum is more in their favor to distribute DTH and receive subscriber revenue than to generate local audiences and receive advertising revenues. In that case, they would instruct their rep on the CAB to push for distant signal carriage. But CAB was formed to protect the interests of Canadian conventional broadcasters, not the interests of Bell ExpressVu.’

It’s one of many problems that McCabe’s successor will have to face. ‘They should be grateful for the legacy Michael leaves,’ comments Elizabeth McDonald, president and CEO of the CFTPA.

‘It’s a great organization, with great staff.’ Janet Yale, president and CEO of the Canadian Cable Television Association, adds. ‘Michael’s strength is his ability to build strong relationships. He’ll leave big shoes to fill.’

75 years of CAB presidents
Michael McCabe, 1988-2001
Jim Sward, 1986
Michel Arpin, 1984
Don Brinton, 1982
John Ansell, 1981
Don Smith, 1980
Ed Provost, 1977
Allan Waters, 1975
Dr. Pierre Camu, 1973
Don Hamilton, 1972
Bill McGregor, 1970
Raymond Crepault, 1969
Ray Peters, 1968
Campbell Samuel Ritchie, 1967
Jean A. Pouliot, 1965, ’66
Don Jamieson, 1961-64
Murray Brown, 1960:
D. Malcolm Neill, 1958, 1959, 51-52
Venon Dallin, 1957
Fred A. Lynds, 1956
J.M. Davidson, 1955
E.F. MacDonald, 1954
F.H. Ephicke, 1953
Willliam Guild, 1949
George Rice, 1948
Harry Sedgwick, 1935-40 and 1941:
Founder of the modern CAB.
Harry S. Moore, 1931
M.K. Pyke, 1929
Jacques N. Cartier, 1926: Became one of three commissioners of the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, later to become the CBC. -www.cab-acr.ca