Vancouver: The opening of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ 80th anniversary convention set the stage for the coming CRTC review of over-the-air television, with the conflicting interests of private broadcasters and the production community immediately coming to the fore.

In his speech at the opening ceremonies on Nov. 6, CAB president and CEO Glenn O’Farrell warned of the loss of ad revenues to the Internet, which, unlike the Canadian broadcast industry, is unregulated. He pointed to PricewaterhouseCoopers data projecting 2% growth in Canadian TV advertising by the end of the decade, compared to 19% for the Internet.

‘Does anybody really believe reinventing drama expenditure requirements [is] the answer to YouTube and MySpace?’ O’Farrell told the crowd at The Westin Bayshore hotel.

Meanwhile, ACTRA, in conjunction with local branch the Union of British Columbia Performers, took the occasion to stage its own press conference at the neighboring Vancouver Performing Arts Lodge.

Actress Christine Willes called the 1999 TV Policy, which eliminated those spending requirements on broadcasters, ‘catastrophic’ – although that decision could be reversed in the CRTC’s OTA review, which begins Nov. 27. Willes said that the regulator has shown that broadcasters could ‘easily pay more of their revenue on Canadian programming.’ She also demanded that casters schedule two more hours of homegrown drama in primetime every week.

Meanwhile, Minister of Canadian Heritage Bev Oda, also speaking at the CAB opening, acknowledged the interests of both sides.

‘We want a modern, strong and flexible broadcast system,’ she said, referring to the casters’ call for less regulation. But she added that ‘Canadian content will always matter. We must strengthen our music and film and television.’

The CAB reported record attendance of about 580 registrants at the Nov. 5-7 conference.

www.cab-acr.ca