CRTC: Navigating Convergence

I've been meaning to read the CRTC's February 2010 report on "Navigating Convergence" for a few weeks now. This weekend I found the time to get through it all. At the end of it, I was left with a profound feeling that the CRTC simply, fundamentally, doesn't get it.


Let me begin with the CRTC's mandate:

"The CRTC’s mandate is to ensure that both the broadcasting and telecommunications systems serve the Canadian public. The CRTC uses the objectives in the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act to guide its policy decisions."

There is simply too much to discuss for a single post, so I will focus on one specific area: the intrinsically inward focus of this report on the domestic Canadian market.


Traditionally, the broadcasting of content has been both geographically and spectrally limited. TV and radio towers can only broadcast their content a limited distance, and satellites and cable only have so much usable spectrum. To ensure that the Canadian market is not saturated with American content, restrictions exist on both foreign ownership of broadcasters, and the amount of non-Canadian content that could be broadcast. In effect, the government is trying to ensure there will always be space on the broadcasting "bookshelf" for Canadian content.


The Internet changes everything. The "bookshelf" is practically infinite. Not only is it unnecessary to reserve space on the bookshelf for Canadian content, it's impossible without Chinese-style control.


This report cites competitive threats from unregulated sources of content as a significant threat to established funding models for Canadian content. The implication is that, absent protections from these 'threats', there would be no incentives for producing Canadian content.

"Content from unregulated non-professional sources and professional content from outside of Canada are increasingly available to Canadian consumers via the Internet in addition to traditional media. [...] the content made available by unregulated sources and from outside of Canada may have the effect of depriving the regulated broadcasters of some of the advertising and subscription revenues that are the basis of many of the contributions listed above, including Canadian exhibition and expenditure rules. [...] A migration of revenues out of regulated distributors and toward alternative systems could have the effect of reducing funding available from contribution regimes for content production and community television channels. Any reduction in that funding could have the consequence of making Canadian programming more expensive to acquire."

However, despite the focus on threats to existing sources of funding for the production of CanCon, there is no examination whatsoever on the potential opportunities that the Internet provides with respect to the distribution of CanCon around the world. Instead of worrying so much about Canadians choosing to look elsewhere around the world for their content, why aren't we even thinking about the opportunities to spread CanCon around the world?


I think this quote aptly sums up the general feeling throughout the report:

A Canadian capacity to reflect Canadian cultural values must be protected in the digital age.

Why such focus on protection, but none on genuine encouragement?