There are not many thoughtful and non-self-serving ideas floating around Ottawa these days about how to re-regulate and restructure our Canadian broadcasting system for success.

Barry Kiefl has come up with one that deserves some keen debate and renewed consideration (Playback, Jan. 7, 2008, p. 6).

Granted I have a particular perspective – yet one that hopes we can debate the concept nonetheless.

As CEO of VisionTV I took a partisan position before the standing committee on Canadian culture in 2002, which contributed to certain recommendations being published in their tome Our Cultural Sovereignty (The Lincoln Report) of 2003.

One recommendation emanating from Mr. Lincoln’s broad consultations and research was that mission-driven and public-service entities like APTN, Vision, CPAC and the provincial-educational broadcasters made a unique contribution, and the system should assure that they ‘continue to thrive.’ Another of the committee’s conclusions favored the creation of a ‘foundation tier’ or ‘greenspace.’

I argued in 2002 that Canadian broadcasting deserved an ‘oasis within the market-driven environment’ by requiring BDUs to cluster specific Canadian services on the lowest possible channel numbers available. The rationale being – in part – that such mission-driven and public-service programmers require carriage at a low price and high penetration to remain economically viable.

Vision also claimed that such a ‘greenspace’ would allow us to put more of our scarce resources into screen content – since we would no longer be obliged to purchase spectrum via various BDU ‘incentives’ and ‘marketing initiatives.’ Nor have to rebrand and re-market our services, a costly affair, when BDUs bounce around channel placement. Plus, that consumers would benefit from a less costly price of entry to a smaller all-Canadian basic service.

A win-win corollary to this concept was that BDUs would be able to repackage and charge a market-driven premium for U.S. over-the-air services; and that perhaps Canadian commercial broadcasters might benefit from more flexibility in Canadian content requirements – including the possibility of more non-Canadian investment.

Some of these facts have been forced upon the CRTC piecemeal since 2002.

As for the rest – well, we haven’t satisfactorily dealt with them yet.

So more CRTC process lies directly ahead in 2008.

All of which is to say that finally somebody has rekindled the structure debate and given it a fresh new twist. 

I for one appreciate the out-of-the box policy thinking from analysts like Mr. Kiefl.

Indeed, I’m keen to read the rejoinders – who will probably tell us he’s out of his mind, too.

Bill Roberts,
President and CEO,
VisionTV and S-VOX.