Janet Yale is president and CEO of the Canadian Cable Television Association. She will be at Banff to participate in a State of Television panel session entitled Fragmentation, Concentration and Diversity. Here she provides a preview of some of her thoughts .

There is no doubt that fragmentation presents enormous challenges, particularly in a market like Canada’s where scale has been elusive at the best of times. Fragmentation or competition is at the heart of any debate about the challenges facing broadcasting.

But it struck me that the other part of the equation – concentration and diversity – has become a stale and counterproductive focus of attention for policy-makers. This core issue, the impact of concentration on diversity of voices and freedom of media, is a debate that belongs in a television age buried long ago by digital technology, satellite and the Internet.

The idea that concentration poses a threat to the free flow of information may have had resonance in a pre-Internet world where national borders defined markets and television was a 12-channel proposition. But in a world where there has never been more diversity and choice, it seems a strange obsession.

That’s not to say there aren’t challenges in terms of fragmentation and diversity. There are. However, focusing on yesterday’s policy debates won’t get us very far.

Fragmentation is reality. It’s here to stay and will only increase. So the most relevant policy debates will be those that start with fragmentation (competition, more services, more choices) and build from there.

The integration of digital technology into all media has ushered in an era of competition, an erosion of borders, an expansion of capacity and – yes – a convergence of media. Screen time is no longer just television time. It’s DVDs, gaming and the Internet. All these media fragment audiences in new ways and compete for the consumer’s time and budget for entertainment. And the sources of content keep expanding. On-demand services, PVRs and video streaming will increase alternatives to traditional TV channels, even as digital expands capacity for niche services. So the real issue is producing a product that stands out in this kind of market.

Concentration is a critical element in responding to fragmentation, but that does not mean that concentration limits diversity. Diversity has limited value if the quality of the content is weak. Concentration adds value by increasing quality – the scale argument – and thereby improves diversity because it becomes more attractive to audiences.

In any event, as competition and technology continue to increase choices of supply on a national and global scale, concentration becomes less of an issue. Just consider the Iraq war. It is no longer just a choice between American vs. Canadian coverage on TV. We can now turn to BBC World for yet another perspective and as capacity expands we can add a host of other diverse voices from other countries.

Add the Internet to the equation and the concentration argument evaporates.

Look at newspapers. In Toronto you have The Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star and Toronto Sun to choose from – as well as a selection of national and international papers at the newsstand. That’s pretty good relative to the past, but now add the net.

With your PC, you can get local/national news from TV networks such as the CBC, just for starters. The real killer application is that you can get news from virtually anywhere – not just The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN or BBC, but pretty well from any country and in any language. Yet we hardly stop to consider how remarkable and rich diversity of information has become since the advent of the World Wide Web a short 10 years ago.

Concentration is not a problem. Just look at English-language television. It is no longer a CBC/Global/CTV world. It’s also CHUM, Craig, Corus, Rogers, Cogeco and Alliance Atlantis. In addition to Canadian services, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, BBC and a host of ethnic voices add a vast range of content.

Consider the reach of media today – traditional media, not just the Internet. Satellite technology has allowed for the distribution of any service available in Toronto and Montreal to the remotest location in Canada. Think about it. Ten years ago, policy-makers were looking for ways to increase French-language service outside of Quebec. Today, every French-language service available in Quebec is simultaneously available in the rest of Canada via satellite. Geography is no longer a barrier to diversity.

It is ironic that we can recognize market fragmentation quite readily but not accept that fragmentation is, by definition, diversity. Similarly, concentration to achieve scale becomes less of an issue in a dynamic, interconnected world because the supply of channels of communication keeps growing.

Concentration and diversity are not the problem unless we waste energy focusing on them. In the competitive market in which we now all operate, the challenge is viewer loyalty. We are now in an environment where consumers turn on a screen but may no longer connect to a television channel. So we need compelling product that competes with DVDs, the Internet and games for consumer attention. And it’s not just new technology that’s a challenge. Many Canadian consumers are still tuning into television – the problem is the channels are coming off U.S. satellites. So again the real diversity question is going to be what new content can we provide that will retain, and even repatriate, customers to the Canadian system?

If fragmentation is the challenge, then audience and consumer loyalty is the solution.

-www.ccta.ca