Amen

The Dunbar and Leblanc report is a good first step - and an interesting one for those of us who are fairly convinced that the CRTC is a text book case of "regulatory capture".

The advent of effectively unlimited bandwidth and the rise of non-broadcast sources of cultural product - aided and abetted by von Finckenstein, J. as he was then's decision which effectively legalized P2P music sharing in Canada - has dramatically shifted the goalposts in Canadian broadcasting. Little wonder the CAB is crying; someone is suggesting that their candy be taken away and technology is making it possible.

In fact, the value of licenses in major Canadian markets is being artificially maintained by the CRTC with next to no significant return to Canadians as a whole. (The Aspers do rather well, but the rest of us don't.)

Notionally the trade off for CAB members is that they can show cheap US programming in exchange for funding the relatively less attractive Canadian programming. This is supposed to promote Canadian culture. With many Canadian television shows slotted out of prime time and many more not made at all because it is too expensive relative to US material, the system has broken down.

At the moment the CRTC operates on the basis that the holders of a broadcast licence have tenure - all of one broadcast licence has been revoked in the CRTC's history and that was a political rather than cultural decision.

Personally, I think it is folly to regulate content in broadcasting in a big pipe universe. Instead, in my view, it makes sense to put licences - including the CBC's - out to auction every six or seven years and get out of the content regulation business all together.

If we really want Canadian culture we should subsidize it directly by way of grants and stop pretending that either the CBC or the private broadcasters are any good at delivering it.

It will never happen

This country is so so corrupt that there will be no change. Did anyone see that pathetic interview with Mulrooney on CTV? it was embarrassing and would never happen on American TV.

I rather watch BBC anytime. That's right folks BBC not CBC.

Who Controls the Media

These are criically important issues facing Canadians. Who owns the media? Who controls the media? We certainly don't want media owners controlling its content. We would be treated to a convergence similar to the US model in no time flat. Then we could all watch Survivor twenty four hours a day. Media monopolies (olilgarchies) result in the same sad consequences: reduced choice, little competition, decrease in quality, increase in profit. If the CRTC can do anything to reduce this trend, I'm all for it. I suspect it will be very, very difficult under Harper's regime. BTW, having turned off our TV five years ago, our family has become far more informed and far better read ever since! Great article Mr. Geist and Tyee.

Transitional period

Canada is currently in a very complex transitional period where a train running on a local schedule, which is the CRTC, is slowing down to pick up more passengers from a local station, and another vehicle, which is more like a jumbo jet, the internet, is gaining speed and pulling away from a global platform.

Jay and Jeffrey, and the author of this article, Michael, all make good points, and I agree.

Is it even important any longer to be more than mildly concerned about the machinations or survival of the CRTC?

In another recent Tyee article about big media, respected media writer Antonia Zerbisias, who works for TorStar, wrote that we should all "Get on the bus or get off the soapbox." http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2007/09/20/Torstar/

She recommends that we support www.democraticmedia.ca, and I agree, it's good advice to let your voice be heard through this organization, but keep in mind that it is just a very small step.

You can talk about this for another twenty years while companies like TorStar and CanWest continue to reap huge rewards, but unless you actually do something about it and impact big media's money stream nothing will change.

No one in their right mind would attack companies like Microsoft or NBC head on. It would be foolish and suicidal. Instead, small smart companies extend these brands by doing what they can't or won't do. In effect, and it's not their direct intent, but they make Microsoft better by writing applications that add to the experience. Linux is just one good example.

Why would I want to continue to talk about the CRTC train wreck when I can actually create solutions that kill two birds with one stone - which are, make a profit, and weaken the media behemoths.

Canadians are finally starting to figure out that we are competitive on a global front, and that there is a market for our work if we extend our reach beyond our national borders.

Wasting breath over Canadian broadcasting is ridiculous. As you all implied above, who cares except for the big companies?

While Canadians talk, Torstar and CanWest make money off their backs. Keep talking and they'll have something to talk about for another two decades.

Create a work-around and go for it one small fractured piece at a time. If a large enough group pursue it in this manner big media will have no choice but to change and government intervention will be moot.

You have to speak big media's language. They don't understand environment, community, or what is fair. They speak fluent money quite well though.

Find a sensitive area that attracts local, national and global interest, like the 2010 Olympics for example, and keep sticking a needle into it until it bleeds a drop of green. When you hit an artery you will have big media's attention, and a hell of a lot of green that was at one time destined for their blood bank.

Maurice Cardinal
Editor: www.OlyBLOG.com

Questioning a comparison

While I'm no fan of media concentration, it must be mentioned Maurice, that there's a difference between the internet and television that you're not addressing. Namely, that of bandwidth. The CRTC administrates a fixed number of viable frequencies (channels) that can be used. The Internet can have infinite channels. I would suggest the scarcity of radio frequency channels makes it difficult to "add to the experience" in the same way as Linux does with Microsoft.

I don't know how one can avoid regulating content (Mr. Currie's comment). I'd like to see a return to the days of the community access channel. I think it's an idea that's been waiting for technology to catch up. But the media companies are unlikely to want to return to giving up bandwidth for free to local interest groups.

Linux

Actually Linux is attacking Microsoft head on. The goal is "world domination" after all.

Linux is a complete replacement for Windows, it doesn't add anything to Windows.

And in my opinion Linix is just as good.

Frank

You're right Frank. The point I was trying to make was that Torvalds recognized a problem and offered an alternative solution to extend the experience, and not specifically the brand as I described.

He went after a small sector first.

Using some of the security software companies would have been a better example.

still a bad comparison

It doesn't matter which software or company you choose, comparing mediums like TV and the Internet and saying that the successful techniques for leveraging the latter can apply to the former is to miss a huge logistical difference between the two forms with regard to gaining access to their respective audiences.

Just say No to corporations

I finally made the move to linux a couple of weeks ago when I clicked into www.TheRealNews.com and it locked up my laptop running Windows XP pro so bad that it wouldn't reboot. Good folks down at www.FreeGeekVancouver.org did it for free, and they also had really really cheap prices on all sorts of second hand computer goodies.

Why news is still good news on the internet is an article from the latest Georgia Straight. Scary thought that the younger generations have been so successfully programmed that they consider NEWS to be irrelevant. Maybe it's like Geist's article that doesn't even mention news but instead gives the impression that broadcast is only for entertainment.

If it's nothing but pap and propaganda why don't we just make it illegal and do us and future generations a big favor.

Stump re Bandwidth

Age has a lot to do with the perception of CRTC relevance.

I often find myself siding with younger users who genuinely feel television no longer serves a central "communication" purpose. They regard TV simply as entertainment or an auxiliary news tool. And now that broadcasters have actually turned news into entertainment it pretty well seals the deal.

I've been in the promotion side of the communication business most of my life. In early 2006 I used Facebook to almost exclusively promote the inaugural run of Queens Players Theatre in Vancouver. We sold out every performance in about two weeks, and didn't use one traditional form of media. No TV, radio ... and very little print (postcards, no newspapers). No Ticketmaster or box office sales either. It was "direct sales" through the website only. The really extraordinary thing here is that we did it from cradle to grave in just over one month. The demographic is primarily 19-34, although we attracted people in their fifties too.

Every time I accomplish something like this it makes me think, "is the CRTC even relevant respective of where the market is currently looking and going?"

We USED TO manage campaigns using TV, radio and print, and still do occasionally, but in the last five years most of our clients want to develop campaigns based on an internet centric platform, and work outwards. Usually though, it never radiates past print.

Even my boomer generation uses the internet more and more to gather news information and for entertainment. My mother, at 78 also dabbles in it, and almost everyone in the 5-34 demographic uses it as their primary source.

While your point about bandwidth has merit in a traditional sense, it isn’t as relevant respective of the younger market that is driving the change.

In my business we have to look where the market is going, and not where it's been.

I no longer see the social relevance in what is considered traditional communication platforms. The CRTC still wants to build walls around a local community that already communicates across a global landscape.

I'm not arguing that I like this rapid change. It's incredibly challenging to keep up.

Would I like things to stay the same or at least level out? In a way yes, but it's not my choice.

Either I follow the money or change professions.

Regarding your comment about a community access channel. I think we have them, but instead of on television it's inherent in every well-produced specialty website. It's possible the CRTC could make recommendations in this regard similar to how movies are rated, but not regulate it.

Jay nailed it precisely when he wrote above, "The advent of effectively unlimited bandwidth" and "the value of licenses in major Canadian markets is being artificially maintained by the CRTC."

News is entertainment

That's the problem ov, news companies tossed journalistic integrity out the window and turned news into entertainment for the sake of ratings while the CRTC sat like dead weight and didn't to anything about it.

Is it any wonder that youth abandoned mainstream news media? Youth today don't think news is any more irrelevant than they did twenty years ago, but they do think how it's delivered is irrelevant.

If you think back to when you first started developing an interest in news you'll recall that it probably wasn't until you were about thirty that you started to cultivate a real interest. At least it was for most people, and that's what the CRTC is concerned with - the masses.

Youth vote with their money and it confounds broadcasters to no end.

In some respects I see little difference between the RIAA and the CRTC. Both protect bygone eras and slow change in an effort to protect oligopolies.

stump re comparison

An audience is an audience.

The difference is how you reach them.

If I want to reach the over 60 demographic TV is still a big hitter, but it's very expensive, which means many companies are choosing the internet and settling for a smaller 60ish demographic.

The profit margin is better.

Not only is the "target group" becoming increasingly fractured, the demographic within it is being sliced and diced too.

I can watch well produced short films on the internet all night every night and walk away with the same satisfaction as if I watched broadcast TV, so you're right, there is no comparison.

The internet is a completely different animal that brings viewers "vertical" satisfaction that broadcast could never deliver.

The overall audience is still the same except now you can target a senior that prefers blue rinse over purple rinse.

Man, some of you are missing it... completely

Its about economic takeover, sector by sector. Insurance. Healthcare. Banking. Agriculture. Police. Military. And yes, media and broadcasting.

And this country has had a long... long... long history of protectionism because its been needed. Just below the 49th parellel, in case so many of us have forgotten, is a superpower. Maybe not so powerful as it once was, but a superpower just the same... imploding on its own corporate greed, with an entirely deregulated banking industry that has created a sub prime mess and is about to create the next U.S. recession, its that bad.
And they have no health care regulations, pretty much anything goes... and very little regulation with insurance, and as a result, about half of the population goes without adequate healthcare. Just stay healthy, some say? Assuming there was food manufacturing regulations, they just might, but pretty much anything goes. They call poison nutritious these days.

The bottom line is this. Without regulations, corporations emplode on their own greed. GWB senior and junior? Nothing more than corporate lobbiests. Harper? Mulroney? O'connor? Flarhety? David Emerson? Nothing more than corporate lobbiests. And when they cry to deregulate, including and especially so, the media or CRTC, who benefits? The consumer? Or corporations... Canadian corps? Or U.S. born multinationals... must I spell out the obvious?

Any Con can run the CBC into the ground. But it won't be some Con corporate lobbiest or yes man that will bring it back to respectability. Or have we forgotten what we watched when we were kids, and the news was real.

Imagine what kind of dumbed down media we'll have without regulations. Cause thats what's coming if Canadians and Americans wish to continue to elect corporate lobbiests and believe their lies. And I can't say I'm impressed with this story and many of the comments for not having catched on to these facts.

Lorne Mccuaig
Revelstoke, BC