Post Tagged with: "Broadcasting"

Netflix - Generic Photo - Creative Commons by Matthew Keys (CC BY-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/vsTUgA

Why a Battle over the Internet and Canadian Cultural Policy is Brewing

Canada’s cultural industries greeted the election of a new Liberal government with considerable excitement, hoping to the turn the page on a decade of Conservative policies that were widely viewed as prioritizing consumers over creators. The Liberal platform was silent on major regulatory changes, but it did promise to reverse cuts to the CBC and to increase allocations to the Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm, and the National Film Board.

The cultural sector will undoubtedly welcome the infusion of millions more in taxpayer support, but the bigger fight will be over legal reforms to treat telecom and Internet companies as cultural businesses and require them to make Canadian content contributions similar to those paid by conventional broadcasters.

My weekly technology law column (homepage version) notes that the prospect of telecom and Internet provider payments has been part of a long-standing campaign from cultural groups who fear that a shrinking broadcast sector will ultimately mean smaller handouts for Canadian content creation. The campaign has thus far failed to bear much fruit: the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2012 that Internet providers were not subject to the Broadcasting Act and last year the Conservatives led the charge against a “Netflix tax” that would have required the popular online video service to make Canadian content contributions.

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November 3, 2015 4 comments Columns
CBC Vancouver - Wanderin'-The-Corridors by kris krüg (CC-BY-SA 2.0), https://flic.kr/p/2jXse

What if the CBC Really Put Everything Up for Review?

The future of broadcasting has emerged as a hot issue with Canada’s broadcast regulator effectively putting everything up for grabs as part of its comprehensive TalkTV review of broadcasting regulation. Acknowledging the dramatic shift in the way Canadians access and interact with broadcasting, reforms to seemingly untouchable policies such as simultaneous substitution, genre protection, and over-the-air broadcasting are all on the table.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has effectively acknowledged that the world has changed and policies based on a different landscape merit a review. In the current market, scarcity has given way to abundance and broadcasters have ceded considerable control to consumers’ demands to watch what they want, when they want.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that Canada’s public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is undergoing a similar review. If recent comments from its president Hubert Lacroix are any indication, however, there is no willingness to radically rethink its future. In a speech earlier this month to the Canadian Club of Montreal, Lacroix devoted much of his time to lamenting the budgetary challenges faced by CBC with unfavourable comparisons to support for public broadcasting in other countries.  

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May 27, 2014 15 comments Columns

CBC’s All In the Day: Should Netflix be Regulated?

I appeared on All in a Day to discuss whether Netflix with its growing relevance to the broadcasting sector should be regulated by the CRTC.

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February 18, 2014 Comments are Disabled News Interviews, Tv / Radio

Bill Good Interview on the Regulation of Internet Broadcasting

I appeared on the Bill Good Show to discuss the possibility of the CRTC regulating Netflix. To listen to or download the podcast here.

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February 12, 2014 Comments are Disabled News Interviews, Tv / Radio

Interview Discussing Netflix’s Role in the Future of Broadcasting

I appeared on CKNW Newstalk 980 to discuss Netflix’s Role in the future of broadcasting. Listen to this podcast or download it here.

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September 19, 2013 Comments are Disabled ExtPodcasts