Standing Committee On Canadian Heritage:  Study on the Impacts of private television ownership changes and the move towards more viewing platforms

Delivered by:  Ferne Downey, Actor,  ACTRA National President, Joanne Deer, Director of Public Policy and Communications

Ferne Downey:

Thank you. Mr. Chair and Committee Members, my name is Ferne Downey.  I’m a professional actor and the National President of ACTRA.  With me today is Joanne Deer, ACTRA’s Director of Public Policy and Communications.  I’d like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak on behalf of 21,000 professional performers in film, television, sound recordings, radio and digital media who live and work in every corner of the country.

Digital technology has brought Canadian artists a new world of incredible opportunities. Our wonderfully diverse culture, talented performers and unique Canadian voices can now be accessed by audiences around the world with the click of a mouse.

However, with new opportunities come new challenges, and without adequate support mechanisms Canadian artists risk getting lost in a sea of content from creators around the world.

The fundamentals behind Canada’s broadcasters have changed practically overnight. Where once we had an array of broadcasters, now we have been reduced to a mere handful. ‘Vertical integration’ isn’t just a buzz word, it is our new reality.

Four massive private telecommunications companies Bell, Shaw, Rogers and Quebecor now control the majority of Canada’s cable, satellite, Internet and wireless services.

As a result, Canadian content is now being controlled by fewer and fewer hands.

Now you’ve already had these companies come before you and talk about how hard it is for them to be in this business. Predictably, they bemoan regulation, but there must be rules to ensure that Canadians have access to diverse voices, independent voices and most importantly Canadian voices.

We suggest four key fundamentals to make sure Canadian content is not lost:

1.     Effective and enforceable regulation of broadcasting on both conventional and digital platforms

2.     Maintain Canadian control of our telecommunications corporations;

3.     Increase public and private investment in the production of new Canadian content; and

4.     Support independent and local voices.

We hope the CRTC’s new Television Policy will bring Canadian programming back to our screens when it is implemented this coming spring, particularly the underserved scripted drama and comedy genres.  It is a crucial step forward, but by no means is it the end of the journey.

Increasingly Canadians are turning to their computers, laptops, and mobile devices to watch content.  It was an error in judgment for the CRTC to keep its hand-off approach to broadcasting in new media, especially considering how quickly these digital media platforms are starting to mirror their conventional counterparts.

CTV’s conventional network has to make space for Canadian programming. So why shouldn’t their online presence? We understand the issues are different – but to us it makes sense to say that websites like CTV.ca and GlobalTV.ca must present consumers with Canadian options. The same should hold true for ‘over-the-top’ services like Netflix, Apple TV and whatever new services that might emerge from the digital jungle. And apparently Shaw now agrees.

It’s also time that Internet and Wireless Service Providers give back to the system. These companies make a lot of money from hosting broadcast content over their networks. Like their conventional counterparts, ISPs must be made to do their part to contribute to the creation of that content by paying a percentage of their revenues to a production fund.

We’ve heard the Canada Media Fund say that the revenues from BDUs are declining and will likely continue to do so as more Canadians seek their content online. It is critical that the federal government continue to support the CMF. However ISPs must also step up and help fill this gap.

Our fear is that vertical integration, combined with weakened or inconsistent foreign ownership rules, will set the table for foreign corporations to come in and snap up our entire communications industry in one fell swoop. If that happens, the primary means of producing, promoting, and disseminating Canadian culture will be in the hands of foreign corporate interests.

Some believe that you can sell-off telecom without affecting broadcasting. That might be conceivable in some countries, but not in Canada. Here, telephone companies own cable, broadcast and satellite assets; and cable companies own telecommunications, satellites and broadcasters.

Opening up foreign ownership in telecommunications would be disastrous. It would damage Canada’s sovereignty over cultural policy and jeopardize Canadian content regulations. Our culture certainly cannot survive – let alone flourish – if decisions about our prime time TV schedules and online content are being made by executives at NBC Universal in L.A.

I’ll now turn the microphone over to Joanne Deer.

Joanne Deer:

Thank you Ferne.

Vertical integration tips the scale against independent broadcasters who can’t compete for content with the distribution reach promised by broadcasters affiliated with one of the big four vertically integrated corporations. It leaves fewer doors for producers to knock on and increases the chances that broadcasters in the same corporate group will ‘share’ the same programming.  Why do we need hundreds of channels if half of them have the same programs? We need measures to ensure fair competition and maintain editorial diversity in our broadcasting system.

Before the most recent round of vertical integration the Commission took steps with its Diversity of Voices Policy to lay down some rules.  Now that the Commission is trying to oversee huge, powerful corporations it’s acutely obvious that the tools it has to enforce the rules are disappointingly ineffective. We strongly support Chairman von Finckenstein’s calls for the power to impose fines; money talks.

The CRTC must take a more aggressive approach to protect diversity in this vertically integrated world. When you have a choir made up of only four voices, it doesn’t take much to get them to sing from the same hymnal. We urge you to direct the CRTC to ban exclusive content deals – these conglomerates should not be able to lock down content especially when the taxpayers have paid for it. We would also like to see a mandate that vertically integrated companies maintain separate management structures for their cable, satellite, broadcasting and telecommunications operations.

As our elected representatives Canadians are looking to you to provide the leadership and vision we need to put the rules in place to ensure that we seize the opportunities in front us.

Thank you.