While Fox’s Rupert Murdoch and the big three alphanets bit the bullet and dove surprisingly quickly into devising a tv ratings system, the Canadian broadcasting industry waits on the edge of its proverbial seat for the details of the crtc’s violence policy, expected to be announced within the next two weeks.

The landmark decision, a cumulative set of policies governing violence in television, has been years in the making and promises to affect everyone from producers and broadcasters to children’s violence watchdogs and the American entertainment industry dancing the same tango.

The decision is expected to enshrine into regulation exactly how purveyors of television programming will be required to deal with shows that betray Canada’s violence codes. Perhaps most trepidatious are Canadian cable companies which will soon find out if new regulation will force them to flip the switch on contraband programming, necessitate a multi-million dollar investment in scrambling technology, or simply legislate the voluntary codes currently governing how the industry deals with violence on tv.

The commission’s decision marks the end of seemingly endless debate and comprehensive cross-Canada public hearings, but it’s by no means problem solved. Finding a workable classification system, deciding who encrypts it, how it’s enforced, and how it plays out with the advertising community are amongst the quagmire of related issues moving top of the agenda once the policy is made public.

The specifics of the violence decision are being tightly guarded, with crtc chairman Keith Spicer pleading no comment to questions on the policy despite the decision reportedly wrapped and in the final release processes. But speculation is high that the commission is looking to amend section 133-121, subsection 19, of the 1986 Cable Television Regulations which dictates when a cable licensee is authorized to alter or curtail a programming service signal.

Unworkable

The fear is that the cablecos will be required to block out programming deemed unsuitable, an act they have the technical power to accomplish but a concept completely unworkable in practice, says Ken Stein, senior vp, corporate and regulatory affairs for Shaw Communications.

‘Blocking out is absolutely Draconian. We would fight that. We can throw the switch and cut the channel off now for a particular program but I’m not sure it’s possible to do that with 80 channels on all of our systems on an organized basis. It would be like treating every channel like pay-per-view.’

Of equally great concern is that the decision would force the cablecos to adopt scrambling technology which would take millions from the company’s coffers and derail a three-year financial investment in the V-chip. Shaw, along with Rogers Communications and CF Cable, has been key in developing and testing the chip with phase two in process in Ontario and Quebec.

‘What we’re hoping is that nothing precludes the development of the chip. If they come out with something that says you need to bring in the capacity to block out programs, like scrambling for example, we’d need to focus 100% on building that system. We’d obviously have to take our eyes off the V-chip.’

Faced with the organizational and trade-loaded nightmare of blocking signals, or a scrambling directive which Stein says would cost the cablecos about $80,000 per head end to install (Shaw has about 100), the V-chip is being touted as the gentlest option, albeit with a medusa of problems attached.

The V-chip is contingent upon a viable classification system, the development of which is currently under the jurisdiction of the Action Group on Violence on Television (agvot), a group set up by the crtc in 1993 and chaired by president and gm of the Discovery Channel, Trina McQueen.

Committee on hold

The committee won’t move forward until the violence decision is released, says McQueen, adding that this month’s pledge from the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Canadian Cable Television Association to support agvot’s efforts are an important step towards finding a system everyone can live with. The Canadian Film and Television Producer’s Association was in between presidents when the committee last met and was not represented. cftpa president Elizabeth McDonald says she will wait to see the nature of the policy decision before deciding whether to step into the talks.

Once a classification system is established – a system industry execs says must be in sync with the u.s. system to be workable – the question then becomes who will be responsible for encrypting the programming.

The cable companies are expecting that broadcasters will take the responsibility using the closed captioning equipment already available to them. Kevin Shea, president of Global Television and CanWest Global Communication’s eastern operations, says it’s not that simple.

More than the technical costs, which could be many since most broadcasters job out their captioning work, the manpower required to screen absolutely everything with a view to coding ‘is certainly a cost.’

‘Will that cost be borne by producers who will be producing to a code and sending the programming to the broadcaster V-chip ready? Do we say to the producers of Seinfeld, when you’re finished taping your show sit down and encode it using the criteria for your various distributors? What do we do in the case of live feeds when 20/20 is still being put together 10 minutes before the show? There’s more questions than answers right now.’

Canada and the u.s. will have to agree upon a system for this to work but even then, it won’t be fool-proof, Shea adds.

‘Since most conventional broadcasters rely upon simulcast, the standards between the two countries have to be identical to work, but even then judgement calls from New York could be vastly different from those in Edmonton.’

U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman may be bucking for the reinstatement of the 8-9pm ‘family hour’ but both Shea and McDonald question the viability of the watershed hour for children’s viewing, saying it plays havoc on plans to code for traditional children’s viewing time.

Satellite distribution has quashed the 9 pm cutoff, says Shea, and coding for a 10 pm release in Ontario could be useless when a satellite feed brings it to Vancouver at 7 pm. McDonald adds that there’s the question of who’s going to track the ratings encoded when, for example, Global resells the show to wic who airs it in an unforeseen time slot.

‘There needs to be a co-operative relationship between the producer that makes the program and the broadcaster who has scheduling power,’ says McDonald. ‘There’s too many unknowns in this for either to do it alone.’

Ad fallout

If the mechanics of making the violence policy adaptable has industry execs worried, the fallout from advertisers at risk of having their expensive ads blacked out or scrambled is equally perplexing.

Susan Ellsworth, research manager at Toronto’s Media Buying Services says if the V-chip and the rating system go ahead as planned, ratings meters may have to be placed in representative households to gauge the impact of the chip.

‘I think broadcasters and advertisers and agencies are or should be concerned about the potential drop in audience. That affects everyone,’ she says.

Other media professionals are playing down the effect of the chip saying clients steer clear of violent or explicit programming in their media buys anyway. Hugh Dow, president of Initiative Media, views the chip favorably overall and says many advertisers have strict requirements regarding the types of programs in which they will be involved. ‘I don’t think any reputable advertiser would be affected,’ says Dow.

Too early

Mark Rubenstein, vp gm of Citytv, MuchMusic and Bravo says it’s too early to begin speculating on the impact on advertisers.

‘We won’t know until it goes into the field and consumers have a choice whether to rent it or not, and then we’ll have to come to a classification system which is easily understood and works for everybody, and then how consumers will work within that classification system and what percentage of programs end up being blocked out because of people’s preferences.’

Ellsworth also makes the point that the practical application of the V-chip may affect its impact. Many consumers haven’t mastered the vcr, and might not embrace a programming chip possibly more easily re-programmable by children who are more tech savvy than their parents. ‘In a perfect world it’s a good idea, but there are a lot of things that have to happen just right for it to work.’

Michael McCabe, president and ceo of the cab, says that even if the V-chip becomes widely serviceable, it would be primarily minority distribution and can’t be considered the single solution.

‘If people have to afford it, we have to consider how to serve the poorer and less educated families that have equal need. It’s just a piece and we’re going to have to think about how we deal with the rest of it.’

Shea agrees the bigger picture needs addressing. ‘The whole thing is about protecting children but it can’t be just getting rid of the bad stuff. Part of it has to be about making some good stuff available.’

with files from Teressa Iezzi.