In the final day of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications’ (CRTC) Cancon hearings, Michael MacMillan (pictured centre), founder and CEO of Toronto-headquartered Blue Ant Media, urged the CRTC to involve the federal department of Canadian Heritage, the Canada Media Fund and the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office (CAVCO) in reexamining the definition of Canadian content and on how to “incentivize the creation of that Canadian content.”

Otherwise, “it is like pulling on one thread of a tapestry and risking the entire thing unravelling,” he said, noting CAVCO was well-positioned to take the lead.

He said that the office “has the expertise in production and in the nuances in ownership and control of intellectual rights, to guide the process and come up with a definition of Canadian content that works for CRTC and CAVCO purposes.”

MacMillan also addressed the commission’s focus on the role Canadian creative talent plays in the production of Canadian programming – and argued that equally important are Canadian owned and controlled production companies, such as Blue Ant, along with broadcasters.

He said that Canadian producers need to own “and meaningfully control” the intellectual property in the content they produce, which includes the ability to monetize content rights internationally.

Canadian producers need to retain content rights so that “they can license to others and keep the money to invest in and produce more content,” said MacMillan.

Vince Commisso, co-founding partner, president and CEO of 9 Story Media Group, told commissioners that the regulatory system has failed companies like his that produce children’s content.
He said that decisions resulting from the Let’s Talk TV public consultation that the CRTC launched in 2013, “removed any safeguards – including exhibition and genre-specific spending requirements – that ensured children’s programming had a place on Canadian airwaves.”

“Kids’ content doesn’t generate the same ad revenue as other formats due to necessary marketing restrictions,” Commisso explained. “Without incentives, broadcasters had no reason to commission it. So, they stopped, and, as would be expected, opted to support more profitable genres such as reality, lifestyle and procedural drama.”

“This is not a market failure,” he said. “It’s a policy failure. Let’s Talk TV tore down the structure that supported children’s content, and nothing was built in its place.”

Commisso said that demand for kids’ content has reduced “dramatically,” and referred to the Canadian Media Producers Association’s Profile 2024 report, which said that “children’s and youth programming experienced the most alarming drop in 2023/24, [which] fell by 41.2% in 2023/24 – from a 10-year high of $658 million to $387 million,” attributing the the drop to “sharp falls in both television and theatrical feature film production.”

“This is not a slow erosion – it is a cliff, and one many saw coming,” he added. “If we want a future for Canadian children’s content, we need a regulatory solution –one that acknowledges the unique challenges of this genre and invests in its long-term preservation and health,” Commisso said. “Without it, our once world-class leadership in kids’ media may be something soon footnoted in the annals of Canadian history as something we used to do well.

“Most importantly, though, we must not forget who this is really about. More than one in five Canadians [are] under the age of 20,” he said. “They deserve to see themselves reflected in the stories they watch – and those stories should be made right here in Canada, by Canadians.”

Image courtesy of CPAC