In an age when ‘thinking global’ appears to be the mantra of enlightened entrepreneurs everywhere, the term ‘parochial’ can take on the stature of ‘adjective-most-feared’.

Is Canadian television perpetuating the colonial mentality, even as the Brave New Millennium symbolically eradicates Canada’s bow-tie to its colonial past?

That’s what Michael McCabe thinks.

The president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters says it all comes down to lack of political will. He says Canada’s failure to change federal funding rules to allow broadcasters to create, own and distribute Canadian-funded programming – well, he’s damned it with the ‘p’ word.

The implication is, of course, that Canadian media companies cannot rise to become ‘strong, integrated’ companies if they cannot distribute tv programming which receives Telefilm’s financial blessing. The thinking is that broadcasters are being denied their fair share of exploitation revenue to be derived from TFC-funded productions, often the highest calibre dramatic programming.

In what is becoming a conglomerate-mad world – in which big producers are specialtycasters and international distributors, too – McCabe sees little threat to independent producers if more market power rests in the hands of broadcasters. In fact, he says, opinion leaders in the indie sector, government and the regulator have already shown their support for a broader role for broadcasters.

‘Nothing says that these integrated companies have to be dominated by broadcasters…The broadcast industry can bring substantial new money’ – the figure McCabe is using is $30 million – ‘to the business of making television programming in this country. We need more television in this country, but broadcasters need to get a return if they make an investment….’

But what about the potential for stifling the voice and vision, the very viability, of small and medium-sized independent producers which are not part of the producer-broadcaster-distributor chain? What happens to a mid-sized producer who wants to get a fair licence fee from a broadcaster without having to pass over her distribution rights as part of a package deal? In the u.s., media conglomerates continue to amass vertically-integrated power, and have been since changes in government regulation five years ago allowed broadcast networks to create, own and distribute programming. The changes have pushed more ‘hired help’ programming onto broadcast schedules – that is, programming produced by companies owned, controlled or partnering with abc, cbs, Fox, nbc. That has, in some cases, caused the disintegration of independent producers such as kidco DIC Entertainment, to name just one. Certainly, new ‘indies’ are arising, but how long will they last?

McCabe says a watchdog committee can protect against undue preference. This solution has been widely supported in the past, he says, by representatives of English producers, broadcasters, the crtc, Telefilm and Heritage Canada.

But he allows that producers in French Canada have always been the sticklers, with only one private broadcaster monopolizing the franco air waves, and, according to McCabe, politicians may ultimately block broadcaster access to distribution in order to appease French producers. Maybe it’s that undying need to secure cultural expression in this little country which continues to have to yell to be heard when it protests that ‘I am Canadian’.