Post Tagged with: "Cancon"

Summer hasn't even started, fall schedule is up? by AJ Batac (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/ceKE95

Can Cancon Compete?: A Response to the WGC on The Future of Canadian TV Production

My post this week on the recent CRTC’s television licensing decision elicited a strongly worded response yesterday from the Writers Guild of Canada. My original post made two key points. First, responding to Kate Taylor’s assertion that CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais has offered no consistent strategy to the challenges facing the Canadian television production industry, I noted that over the course of the past five years, Blais has charted a very clear path toward making Canadian policy and regulation relevant in the digital age by promoting a competitive marketplace for Canadian creators, consumers, broadcasters, and broadcast distributors.

Second, I defended the recent CRTC decision on several grounds, including the need to address the gap between regulated and unregulated services (such as Netflix), the already-significant public support for Canadian content creation, the incentives for Canadian broadcasters to invest in original content, and the fact that Canadian broadcasters contribute a very small slice of the overall financing of domestic fictional programming which suggests that the harm to the sector from a further reduction is overstated.

Read more ›

May 25, 2017 — 10 comments — News
Another control room by Loozrboy (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/c97JZC

Canadian TV in the Netflix Age: In Defence of the CRTC Television Licensing Decision

Last week’s CRTC decision on group licensing for the major Canadian broadcasters has the creative community in a panic, claiming that it could “mean the devastation of Canadian domestic [television] production.” The decision, which set a uniform spending requirement of 5 percent on programs of national interest (PNI, which includes dramas, documentaries, some children’s programming, and some award shows), means a reduction in spending requirements for some broadcasters. The Writers Guild of Canada fears that the decision could lead to a reduction in spending on PNI of $200 million over five years.

Groups have heaped criticism on CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais, whose term ends next month. The WGC labels him a “Harper appointee”, while Kate Taylor says “he doesn’t leave much of a legacy for himself” and that “his piecemeal approach offers no consistent strategy to address the challenges facing Canadian television production in the Netflix age.”

Blais may have his faults, but claiming that he has not had a strategic vision for the digital age is not one of them. He recognized that the advent of the digital networks, an abundance of consumer choice, and the effective removal of longstanding analog protections for Canadian creators would gradually reduce the relevance of the regulator and leave it with two choices. The first – favoured by the creator groups – was to temporarily prolong the protections by extending Cancon regulations to Internet services and increasing regulatory costs on broadcasters. The second was to jump on the digital bandwagon, gradually removing the safeguards and creating a regulatory environment premised on competition at all levels – creators, broadcasters, and broadcast distributors. Anyone following the CRTC broadcast and telecom decisions in recent years knows that he chose the latter.

Read more ›

May 23, 2017 — 7 comments — News
I can has nootral internets? by Jason Walton (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/4RuVg8

CRTC’s Zero Rating Ruling Kills Proposals for Preferential Treatment for Cancon Online

There is much to like about last week’s CRTC’s differential pricing decision (also referred to as zero rating) with recent posts from Dwayne Winseck, Timothy Denton, and Peter Nowak providing some helpful analysis. My initial post focused on the CRTC’s key findings and the new framework that will govern differential pricing plans. In addition to those rules, however, there are several additional findings that will have significant implications.

One notable aspect of the decision is that the CRTC has effectively killed proposals to create Internet-style Cancon regulations. While there may still be efforts to impose requirements on companies such as Netflix, the ruling ends the possibility of granting preferential treatment to Canadian content in the provision of Internet services. Columnists such as Kate Taylor have speculated about new regulations and the Canadian Media Producers Association promoted the proposal in its submission to the CRTC:

Read more ›

April 24, 2017 — 2 comments — News
Paramount Marquee by Kurt Bauschardt (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/9fGCEV

The Reel Story: Why Changing How We Measure a “Canadian Film” is Long Overdue

National Canadian Film Day 150, described as the world’s largest film festival, was held yesterday with events that showcased Canadian feature films at hundreds of venues from coast to coast. The event had a large number of sponsors (the Prime Minister promoted it) that helped place the spotlight on Canadian film. Yet a day devoted to Canadian feature film might also have called attention to the struggles of the Canadian feature film category and considered whether significant policy reforms are needed. This year’s Canadian Media Producers Association Profile 2016, which chronicles the industry (I used it earlier this year to discuss how foreign financing – not regulated contributions – is the now the top source of English-language television production in Canada), tells a story of a feature film industry that relies on public dollars to finance the majority of its costs, has hit a decade low in the number of films produced, and is experiencing declining budgets.

In the last reported year, the average English-language feature film budget declined to $2.2 million and the percentage of films with budgets over $10 million dropped to just 2%.  There were a total of 94 feature films made, the lowest figure in the past decade. The average budget for a Canadian English-language fiction feature film was also its lowest in the past ten years.

Read more ›

April 20, 2017 — 1 comment — News
What is on Television Tonight by Trey Ratcliff (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/t1pU6

The Internet as Cable: The Risk of Treating Telecommunications as Cultural Policy

Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly travels to California this week with an agenda that includes meetings with Internet giants such as Google and Facebook. Given the recent announcement in the budget that the government plans to “review and modernize” the Broadcasting Act and Telecommunications Act, the discussions may help shape an issue that could have a profound impact on the Internet in Canada as there are concerns the government may attempt to shoehorn Canadian cultural policies into telecommunications law.

My Globe and Mail column notes that Ms. Joly’s consultation last year on Cancon in a digital world revealed there is a strong appetite within the traditional Canadian culture lobby for bringing policies such as cultural taxes and mandated Cancon requirements to the Internet. The groups claim the Internet is rapidly replacing the conventional broadcast system as a means of distributing cultural content and that the longstanding analog rules should be shifted into the digital environment.

Read more ›

April 19, 2017 — 5 comments — Columns
1 … 14 15 16 17 18 … 22