How challenging is it to be a broadcast regulator in the digital age?

‘Each era has its challenges,’ says CRTC vice-chairman, broadcasting Michel Arpin. ‘In 1945, Glen Bannerman said that ‘no time in the history of broadcasting has the future been quite so confused and beclouded’. I would have to say that in 2008, people are still confused.’

The CRTC was under pressure in 2008 to help broadcasters and content makers adapt to the digital age. So the ongoing saga of the future of Canadian TV made for gripping drama at the CRTC, as media moguls, union leaders and creative types faced off against Arpin and no-nonsense CRTC chairman, Konrad von Finckenstein.

The first episode started in February at the Canadian Television Fund hearings. Alberta media mogul Jim Shaw personally boycotted, but his reps told the CRTC that the CTF was a failure and should be cancelled.

Quebecor chief Pierre Karl Péladeau proposed scrapping the CTF and replacing it with a model of his own design dubbed the Quebecor Fund. Meanwhile, the unions and guilds say the CTF continues to work well.

Nonetheless, the CRTC’s CTF report, released in June, called for the creation of two CTF streams: one funded by Canadian Heritage and available to the CBC and educational and not-for-profit broadcasters; the other backed by the BDUs and cablers and open to the privates and programs aimed at wider audience appeal.

Heritage has yet to announce its own plans for the CTF, where its direct contribution was $120 million this fiscal.

The CTF’s total budget for fiscal 2007/08 was approximately $298.9 million, with 40% from the feds and 60% from private sources – 29% from the cable companies ($86.7 million), 26% from direct-to-home services ($78.6 million), 4% from recoupment ($10 million) and approximately 1% from interest ($3.6 million).

CTF folks note that for every $1 the CTF contributes to a project, $3.58 of production volume is generated, so total production volume (not including development) has generated about $869 million this fiscal, employing some 22,000 people.

Yet the question remains whether or not the feds consider their $120-million investment well spent, so the future of the fund hangs in the balance, especially with all the political turmoil currently rocking Ottawa.

Meanwhile, April ’08 showers brought the much-anticipated BDU hearings, where Canwest Global Communications CEO Leonard Asper told the CRTC that trying to survive under the Broadcasting Act in the 21st century was akin to being a frog that’s slowly dying in a pot of hot water. ‘We would like you to turn the boiler off,’ said Asper.

When the CRTC revealed its decision in October, conventional broadcasters were denied access to fee-for-carriage cash, but were allowed to enter negotiations with the cable and satellite companies over distant signals. The CRTC acknowledged the networks’ sliding profits because of loss of audience and ad revenues, but it said that they hadn’t adequately explained what role those companies’ recent mega-acquisitions had played in the overall slide.

The summer brought Maxime Rémillard and brother Julien of Remstar Broadcasting – the then owner-apparent of the bankrupt TQS network – to the CRTC.

TQS had announced that it would close its news services in Montreal and four other major cities in Quebec, and lay off more than 270 employees in the name of ‘financial recovery.’ So von Finckenstein ultimately allowed the acquisition of the network and the modification of new local newscasts to include both hard news and commentary because of the company’s ‘precarious financial situation.’

Those three words are becoming common at CRTC hearings.

What’s on the CRTC 2009 agenda?

February 2009

Public hearings on: mobile, the Internet and other technologies are intended to ‘further examine the role of broadcasting in the current new media environment, and what role this environment can be expected to play in the Canadian broadcasting system in the future,’ according to a CRTC spokesperson.

April 2009

Licence renewal hearings for private over-the-air broadcasters, where industry unions and guilds are expected to collectively call for the reinstatement of Canadian drama expenditure.

Canwest Global Communications CEO Leonard Asper has warned that being denied much-needed subscriber fees to ‘survive’ digital upheaval will force his company to seek regulatory relief during the licence renewal hearings.