Tag Archives: CRTC

| Opinion, Technology, TV

Internet CanCon is already here

When news broke this month about the idea of the CRTC considering regulation of the Internet to enforce CanCon-style rules, I was going to blog about it but quickly realized plenty of people would be doing that. Sure, enough, there was a blogger revolt at the idea and even a Facebook group for people to join.

The arguments against the idea are fairly straightforward:

  1. The entire issue was brought up by mainstream content producers and artists, but not new media artists who profit mainly off the Internet
  2. It’s impractical to try to control what people access on the Internet. The only countries that actually try to do that are backward, undemocratic regimes
  3. CanCon sucks

I agree, and this issue won’t go very far in the regulatory department because of it.

Unfortunately, those people who believe the Internet doesn’t have borders are going to find themselves disappointed by the fact that the Internet already commercially regulates what Canadians can see online, thanks to geographic IP mapping, which can tell a server what country you’re in based on your IP address.

This geographically-based content comes in three major forms:

  • Helpful localization. Google has been doing this for quite a while, redirecting Google.com to Google.ca. There is localized content but all the features are intact. You can even switch to the U.S. version if you want.
  • Unavoidable licensing restrictions. The reason I can’t listen to Pandora is because they don’t have a license to broadcast the music outside the U.S. They’re forced to prevent people from outside the country from connecting (leading hard-core international users to use proxies).
  • Commercial exclusivity agreements. U.S.-based Comedy Central recently signed an agreement with Canada-based Comedy Network that, among other things, forces visitors to only use the Canadian site. Canadians who go to ComedyCentral.com get a message explaining they’ve been screwed over and are told everything is available at the Comedy Network site. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help if someone has linked directly to a Comedy Central video. You have to go to the Comedy Network website and search for that video from scratch. (The Comedy Network, by the way, was born out of CanCon and is basically a Comedy Central clone mixed in with reruns of CBC shows like This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Just for Laughs). The fact that you can’t watch videos of U.S. network series on their websites is also because of this. You can’t watch Heroes on NBC.com, you have to go to Global’s website and watch it there.

This situation is only going to get worse from here. Now that servers can determine the origin of their visitors, it’s a short step to regulating what content goes where. And while media companies feel their way through the darkness trying to figure everything out, we’re going to find an increasing disconnect between what Canadians and Americans have access to online.

CanCon is bad for Canadian content

This debate over Internet CanCon has caused a debate over the old media version of the rules to resurface. Casey McKinnon, who was really peeved over this and hates CanCon, gave an interview with Intruders.tv (via) talking about how horrible it is that we lower our standards just for more flag-waving.

I have another argument to make in the anti-CanCon debate: It’s counterproductive, and actually hurts Canadian broadcasting (at least in TV).

The reason, for me, is two words: simultaneous substitution.

That’s the rule that requires Canadian cable providers to substitute U.S. networks’ signals with Canadian ones when both are showing the same show at the same time. That way, Canadian viewers are exposed to Canadian advertising and all the money stays up here.

It sounds great, but it has a side-effect: It makes it more profitable for Canadian networks to simulcast American programming. They don’t even have to rebroadcast at the same quality (Global, for example, is notoriously bad for rebroadcasting HD content in standard definition on its HD channel).

Without simultaneous substitution, Canadians would turn to American networks for American programming, and Canadian networks would either have to compete directly or begin to look elsewhere for content. That could mean licensing TV shows from Britain or Australia, or investing in their own, original programming.

Of course, I’m being far too optimistic here. Canadian TV networks have to be dragged kicking and screaming toward their production budgets to greenlight Canadian-made shows. And that lack of original quality programming is why people are turning to the Internet in droves.

But at least we can make it less profitable for Canadian networks to re-run American programming. Use the power of economic competition for good.

UPDATE (Nov. 25): The Star coincidentally mentions some of these issues in an article about what technology and web services Canadians can’t get.

| Business, Media

CanWest continues to spread

Despite cuts at their newspapers, CanWest has plenty of money to buy up media properties. Today it added six new community publications in the Windsor area, bringing its total up to 30.

CanWest, the largest newspaper publisher in Canada, called the acquisition “yet another example of CanWest’s commitment to developing strong community voices across this country.”

Also today, CRTC hearings into CanWest’s bid to take over Alliance Atlantis are being held.

| TV

Don’t put a tax on free TV

The CRTC is, for some strange reason, reopening a debate it already dismissed a year ago about whether or not broadcast stations should be able to get fees from cable and satellite carriers like specialty channels do currently.

The argument is over whether over-the-air broadcasters really need the extra money. The CRTC says it wasn’t convinced (but may be now?), while the broadcasters say they’re struggling.

This is the wrong argument to have.

Instead, these broadcasters should be explaining to the CRTC why I should be paying, through mandatory fees to my cable company, for television channels I get freely over the air. It’s like your landlord tacking on a “sunlight surcharge” because the light passes through your apartment’s window.

As for their argument that they’re not making enough money: Tough. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the television business. It’s not the government’s fault your product is junk and nobody wants to watch it.

| Sports, TV

Rogers Sportsnet 2: Judgment play

The CRTC has approved a specialty TV service for Rogers called Rogers Sportsnet 2 (really? Couldn’t come up with anything better than that?), which is focused exclusively (90%) on soccer, cricket and rugby (also known as “the lesser team sports that only old British people watch). In fact, the license specifically prohibits the channel from carrying anything related to men’s ice hockey, basketball, U.S. and Canadian football and baseball (in other words, NHL, NBA, NFL, CFL, MLB, their minor leagues, junior leagues, amateur leagues, pee-wee leagues, street leagues or any other versions of these sports where the players have penises). This is to prevent competition with existing networks like TSN and RDS.

The application got two interventions, one from CTVglobemedia (which owns TSN), asking for a tougher restriction (Rogers initially offered a prohibition only on the major leagues, but agreed to the change), and the other from the Asian Television Network, which has its own cricket channel called Cricket Plus.

The latter got a funny-sounding response from Rogers, who said that because their channel focuses also on soccer and rugby, “the proposed service would not serve the interests of the cricket enthusiast as effectively as Cricket Plus.” Which is kind of like saying that because RDS carries baseball and football, it won’t serve the interests of hockey enthusiasts as well as the NHL Network. The idea of national exclusivity contracts (which is why NHL Network doesn’t carry any Canadian games) wasn’t brought up.

But that’s neither here nor there, since Cricket Plus doesn’t enjoy any guarantee from competition. What is interesting however, is that Cricket Plus is carried by Rogers cable, and so if the channels do end up competing with each other, it might be in Rogers’s interest to either remove Cricket Plus from its cable lineup or otherwise make it fail.

But perhaps I’m just being paranoid.

| Business, TV

CTV is drunk with cable power

Just when you thought concentration of media ownership wasn’t such a bad thing, CTVglobemediaempire is asking the CRTC for the power to threaten to pull its cable channels off the air as a negotiating tactic with cable and satellite providers. This includes channels like Bravo!, the Comedy Network, CTV NewsNet, Discovery, MuchMusic (and the entire Much family), Space and TSN/RDS.

Aside from the outrageousness of punishing viewers as a negotiating tactic (as well as the legal ramifications of not giving us something we’ve paid for), most of these channels are licensed in a way that prohibits direct competition from other specialty channels.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If CTV wants to treat these channels like they’re private property to do with as it pleases, then the CRTC should allow free competition from other services.

| Media

Quebecor’s newsrooms 99.9% separate

Quebecor Media is getting a slap on the wrist from a committee setup to oversee the separation of its newsrooms. They found three instances where the Journal de Québec took photos from TVA, which violates the promise Quebecor made to the CRTC to keep their newsrooms completely separate.

I think the cat’s out of the bag when it comes to merging newsrooms. Quebecor has already combined its online properties into the monster Canoe. They’ll just keep finding ways to consolidate their assets without pissing off the CRTC too much.

Another thing that’s interesting about this situation is that two of the three instances happened while the Journal de Québec was in a labour disruption (which is still going on, by the way). The union might have something to say about that.

| Montreal, TV

Global TV outsourcing local news production

Global

LCN was the first with the news: Global TV is laying off 200 employees across Canada, and shutting down its Quebec City and Sherbrooke bureaus.

Quebec City, which had a skeleton staff in a small building, was mostly a news-gathering operation. There were no studios there and the only original program was a half-hour-a-week repackaging of news reports called “QC Magazine” (it’s unclear if that show will continue to be produced). The only people left will be a reporter at the National Assembly and a few others covering the local beat.

Sherbrooke, meanwhile, was already vacant. The bureau there consisted of a reporter and cameraman and hasn’t been producing anything in months (the reporter was reassigned and the cameraman quit after a leave of absence).

It’s not just here. The Maritimes, where 41 jobs were cut (11 in Saint John, 30 in Halifax), cancelled yesterday’s 11pm newscast.

In all, about half of the job cuts come east of Montreal.

CanWest, which issued this BS-laden press release about how it’ll consolidate news gathering in a multimillion-dollar broadcast centre, laughingly called it a “progressive approach to local news production” and mentions HDTV as a positive result of this decision. (Someone want to explain to me how local news staff impedes the introduction of HDTV?) Then they get into how this is going to work:

News staff in each market will continue to generate local content. All
content will be delivered to a Broadcast Centre and packaged into a program
format for air. Local anchors will continue to deliver the news from their
local stations.

In other words, newscast will involve local anchors in front of green screens. Footage of them in front of their “virtual sets” will be beamed to Toronto along with reporters’ news packages. People in Toronto will actually produce the newscasts, and then beam them back to local broadcasting transmitters.

This idea is hardly new. CBC TV and radio use similar techniques (sending their signal to Toronto and then having them send it back to their transmitters), though their production facilities are still local. And recently, CBC decided to reverse a decision years ago to cut local evening newscasts from an hour to a half-hour. That decision killed Montreal’s CBC Newswatch newscast as a major force in Montreal, handing the market over to CFCF. The decision to re-invest in local news helped the newscast slightly, but it’s still way behind.

The new Global broadcast centres, where 50 employees will be reassigned (in addition ot the 200 laid off), will be located in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto. (Doesn’t that sound a bit skewed westward to you?). Funny how most of the cuts are in the East while all of the new jobs are in the West.

In a memo sent to CanWest employees (which newspapers like The National Post got hold of somehow), management explains the real reason behind the cuts:

“Stations in the two regions are underperforming financially, according to the memo.”

In case it wasn’t obvious from their prime-time schedule and E! network, Global believes in profit, not local TV production. The layoffs will save the company up to $10 million a year. But don’t expect the savings to go to regional news-gathering. Instead, they’ll use it to acquire more cable channels that do little but rebroadcast American TV shows.

Naturally, some people are pissed about the news, and feel it will erode local news coverage. (CanWest makes it seem as if it’s just production and not journalism that will be affected, but editorial cuts in Quebec City and Sherbrooke tell a different story.)

That’s what’s so funny. The reason Global is doing so badly monetarily is because they don’t have viewers for their newscasts. They don’t have viewers because they put on crappy newscasts. These cuts will make the quality deteriorate even further and drive even more people to competing regional news from CBC and CTV. Global is shooting itself in the foot in its rush to the bottom. But they don’t care. Their profits lie in rebroadcasting American content. If they could get away with having no original production whatsoever, they would do it in a heartbeat.

CRTC must step in

But what about CKMI‘s CRTC broadcasting license? Doesn’t this go against the rules by which we offer them free access to our airwaves?

Here’s what the license says about their investment obligations:

With respect to specific tangible benefits, the Commission notes the applicant’s commitment to expend over a projected seven-year period, $9.64 million on additional programming to be acquired from third-party producers and program developers. This total will include $3.16 million to be spent on new Canadian entertainment programming for national distribution and $180,000 to be expended in new programming development investment. The licensee also proposes to expend $2.1 million to license and broadcast during the evening broadcast period on CKMI-TV, and on the entire CanWest Global system in circumstances that ensure national exposure, six one-hour special events programs produced by Quebec independent producers, during each year of the licence term. It also notes TVA-CW’s commitment to acquire and broadcast during the evening broadcast period on CKMI-TV, a minimum of eight music and variety specials produced by Quebec independent producers, during each year of the licence term, at a projected cost of $2.8 million over seven years.

When was the last time you remember seeing Quebec-based special-events programming on Global? They barely even cover provincial elections.

The applicant further committed to co-license with CanWest, in each year of the licence term, a “Movie of the Week“, produced by a Quebec independent producer, to be broadcast in French on the TVA network, and in English on the entire CanWest Global system, including CKMI-TV. The Commission notes the applicant’s commitment to expend $1.4 million in this regard over a seven-year period.

The main issue is original regional programming (because Global Quebec is a regional network, it does not have to produce local programming and can offer no local advertising). They are required to provide 18 hours of original local programming a week, including news. This is largely filled with This Morning Live, the morning talk show of fluff produced out of Montreal, that runs three hours a day or 15 hours a week. The half-hour weekday evening newscast gives another 2.5 hours a week, and QC Magazine fills out the remaining half-hour.

In other words, Global Quebec already provides the absolute bare-minimum of local programming.

CanWest isn’t stupid (OK, they’re stupid, but they’re not THAT stupid). They’ll abide by the letter of their broadcasting license and keep the minimums they’re required to have. But in terms of the spirit of local news production, they’re clearly running a scam.

The solution is simple: The CRTC should review Global TV’s licenses in Quebec and the Maritimes, and consider suspending them in places like Sherbrooke where they have given up on covering local issues.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere:

UPDATE (Oct. 8): The Globe has a follow-up story tying this to the overall decline of local TV news, and how national networks drowning in profits from simulcasting U.S. programming and taking advantage of CRTC rules are complaining that their bare-bones requirements for locally-produced programming are too much to bear.

| Media

Big media mergers remind us of past mistakes

The CRTC has approved two big media ownership changes:

Astral Media, owners of The Movie Network, Teletoon, Astral Photo, and lots of radio stations in Quebec and Atlantic Canada including the Énergie (CKMF 94.3) and Rock Détente (CITE 107.3) networks, will take over Standard Broadcasting, which owns stations in Western Canada, but also three English Montreal stations — CHOM 97.7, CJAD-800 and CJFM Mix 96. Montreal is the only market where there’s any overlap, and even then they work in two different languages.

Rogers (telecom, Maclean’s, Rogers Sportsnet, OMNI and 51 radio stations) will buy Citytv (5 stations in Toronto and Western Canada) after CTVglobemedia (Globe and Mail, CTV, TSN/RDS, Discovery Channel Canada, Comedy Network, MuchMusic, Bravo! Canada, A-Channel, your first-born child) was ordered to divest itself of the competing TV network in its acquisition of CHUM Ltd.

More details in this Wikipedia article.

Neither decision is particularly bad for competition in Canada. The radio deal involves two companies that weren’t really competing, and the TV deal gives Rogers a foot in the door to network television.

Of course, it’s the deals that preceded these that are cause for concern. The fact that CHOM and Mix 96, which should be highly-competitive stations, are owned by the same company is troublesome. And CTV’s takeover of CHUM was ushered through without any apparent concern that their mega cable channel powerhouse has only gotten bigger. It now includes, for example, two all-news stations: CTV NewsNet and City’s CP24, which for some insane reason they were not required to sell off as part of Citytv.

| Montreal, TV

A Montreal cable access channel?

The CRTC is currently accepting public comments in advance of hearings to be held on new broadcasting applications. Among them is an interesting proposal for a new television station out of Montreal.

Télévision communautaire Frontenac is an organization of about a half-dozen people who live within three or four blocks of the Frontenac metro station. They want to put together a low-budget cable access channel specifically for their neighbourhood (but also the city).

The application (ZIP file with PDFs) is for a French-language Category 1 specialty channel community specialty channel for Bell Canada’s ExpressVu satellite service, which is nationwide and doesn’t provide community channels. (UPDATED: See comment below for more details.) Videotron, the local cable provider, has a similar service in Canal Vox, which it runs.

The station’s plan is to broadcast 25 hours a week, with 60% locally-produced community programming, of which 1 hour every week is new. Naturally, because of the bare-bonedness of the operation, it would not provide luxuries like closed-captioning or descriptive audio.

Montreal currently has a few other low-budget non-profit over-the-air channels, though none seem to conflict directly with the proposal:

  • CFTU-TV 29 (Canal Savoir), an education channel run and produced by Quebec’s universities
  • CIVM-TV 17 (Télé-Québec), a provincially-owned network with a variety of shows but with emphasis on educational programming for children
  • CJNT-TV 62 (CJNT Montreal/E!), a CanWest-owned multicultural station that fills its remaining schedule with much-needed celebrity gossip shows and second-rate U.S. network programming simulcasts.

The hearing is scheduled for Oct. 30 in B.C. Though it’s mainly about which of a dozen applicants will get a lucrative FM radio channel in Kelowna, there are a few other interesting television applications:

  • Vanessa, a French-language adult pay TV service with emphasis on … oh forget the euphemisms. It’s porn.
  • Movie Trailer TV, a really stupid idea for a channel of movie trailers and making-of documentaries.
  • Short Form TV, from the same folks as Movie Trailer TV, and whose sole programming restriction is that its content is short in length.
  • The Christian Network, which is self-explanatory but would seem to overlap significantly with the multifaith Vision TV.
  • Arya Persian TV, which doesn’t yet meet CRTC requirements.
| Business, Media, Montreal, TV

CJNT: America is a culture, right?

It seems Global’s second network of stations they don’t know what else to do with is being rebranded. Starting in September, CH stations (including Montreal’s CJNT-62) will become E! Yes, that E! Only it’s E! in Canada.

This is significant for a number of reasons, the most distressing of which is that CJNT is supposed to be Montreal’s ethnic station, but because ethnic programming isn’t a money-maker, the station was bought out by a company which was in turn bought out by CanWest/Global. They petitioned the CRTC to agree to only 50% ethnic programming during prime time, and though they were denied that request, they still have quite a bit of U.S. network programming in their prime time schedule.

So what was once a struggling 100% ethnic programming station (albeit one that only broadcast for about 12 hours a day) will now include programming that Canadians clearly need on an over-the-air channel: Celebrity gossip and second-rate U.S. network TV shows.

They even have a video with Ryan Seacresty good ness (he even mentions our country’s name!)