Post Tagged with: "cab"

Straight Talk at the CAB, Part One

If the Industry Canada study were not enough, CRIA has another explosive issue to address.  Late Sunday, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters passed a unanimous resolution opposing CRIA's proposal for a new reproduction right tariff that it says will cost the industry an additional $50 million per year.  The resolution […]

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November 5, 2007 Comments are Disabled News

Broadcasting Policy for a World of Abundance

My regular technology law column (Toronto Star version, Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) focuses on the recent firestorm sparked by the broadcasting reform report commissioned by the CRTC and written by Laurence Dunbar and Christian Leblanc.  The Canadian Association of Broadcasters characterized the report's recommendations as an assault on the foundation of Canadian broadcasting. In this instance, the broadcasters are correct. The report is indeed an assault on the regulatory foundation of Canadian broadcasting – one that is long overdue.

Canadian broadcast regulation was designed for a world of scarcity where broadcast spectrum and consumer choice was limited.  This led to a highly regulated environment that used various policy levers to shelter Canadian broadcasters from external competition, limited new entrants, and imposed a long list of content requirements and advertising restrictions.  As a result, a dizzying array of regulations kept the entry of new broadcast competitors to a minimum, enshrined genre protection so that Canadians were treated to domestic versions of popular channels such as HBO and ESPN, and firmly supported simultaneous substitution, a policy that allows Canadian broadcasters to simulcast U.S. programming but substitute their own advertising.

Yet today's broadcasting environment is no longer one of scarcity, but rather one of near limitless abundance as satellite, digital channels, and the Internet now provide instant access to an unprecedented array of original content.  

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September 25, 2007 1 comment Columns

Internet Video, Internet Regulation, and Canadian Content

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) focuses on the growing push from the Canadian broadcasting community to revisit the CRTC's 1999 New Media decision, in which Canada's broadcasting regulator took a hands-off approach to the Internet.  The support for greater regulation is often couched in Canadian content terms, but I argue that the current changes have the potential to dramatically alter Canadian content production from one mandated by government regulation to one mandated by market survival.

The issue began to percolate last June, when Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda asked the CRTC to conduct a six-month consultation on the effects of changing technology on the radio and television industries.  The CRTC report, which was quietly released in mid-December, went almost unnoticed, yet submissions from broadcasters, copyright collectives, and labour unions all point to an increased regulatory role for the CRTC.

The underlying theme of many stakeholder submissions is that unregulated new media represents a threat to the current regulated Canadian content model. 

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April 2, 2007 7 comments Columns

Broadcasting Community Surprisingly Calls For Internet Regulation

Appeared in the Toronto Star on April 2, 2007 as More Web Regulation Doesn't Make Any Sense The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has faced seemingly continuous criticism for years, however in May 1999 it released a decision that generated near-universal praise.  The New Media decision, which adopted a hands-off […]

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April 2, 2007 1 comment Columns Archive

Oda Back on the Hotseat over Fundraising

Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda's fundraising activities were back in the spotlight yesterday in the House of Commons as NDP Heritage critic Charlie Angus expressed concern that Oda's fundraising activities may have played a role in the government's decision to delay the renewal of an important television development fund.  Angus asked whether, in light of funding from the broadcast industry, is the delay "a case of he who pays the piper is calling her tune?"  Oda responded:

Mr. Speaker, the government supports the production industry and our broadcasting industry. We understand the importance of the television fund and the role it plays. The fund is being processed in consideration. We want to ensure that the money will be used and that it provides value for the dollars.

Given that non-answer, Angus then asked Treasury Board President John Baird whether "first, the cheques for last week's cancelled fundraiser collected in cash? Second, would he give us a list of who gave those cheques so we can at least know who is helping to write the broadcast and copyright policy in our country?"

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November 24, 2006 2 comments News