OTTAWA – The death of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters appears to have been greatly exaggerated.
Months after the 84-year-old private broadcasters’ lobbying group announced plans to close up shop, it decided instead upon a major restructuring which resulted in a smaller board with a fresh mandate to focus solely on matters of collective importance for the entire broadcasting industry.
“The CAB never closed its doors," newly appointed chair Sylvie Courtemanche, who is also the VP of government relations at Corus, told Cartt.ca. “There was a thought that we were going to proceed towards a wind up, but when we started looking at the activities of the CAB and the interests of broadcasters, it was determined that on certain issues, we still had very much a collective consensus.”
Courtemanche said that those issues are currently copyright advocacy, including support of Bill C-32; the continuation of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC); accessibility issues like closed-captioning and described video; and administrative functions related to various funds such as FACTOR/MusicAction, Radio Starmaker Fund/Fonds Radiostar as well the DTH-funded Small Market Local Programming Fund.
The CAB no longer employs full time staff, relying instead on independent lawyers and consultants such as Sylvie Bissonnette, who has been associated with the CAB for over 19 years, to administer its activities. It has also pared down its board of directors and officers to seven.
“We have a very active and very dynamic board, much more hands-on obviously now that we don’t have full time staff”, Courtemanche continued. “It’s actually quite exciting, we’re a refocused and recharged CAB.”
The board and its officers are:
− Sylvie Courtemanche, Corus Entertainment (Chair);
− Sophie Émond, Astral (Vice-Chair);
− Kevin Goldstein, CTVglobemedia (Treasurer);
− Mike Keller, NewCap (Secretary);
− Elmer Hildebrand, Golden West Broadcasting;
− Jonathan Medline, Shaw Media; and
− Susan Wheeler, Rogers.
The bulk of the association’s membership remains intact, with the exception of “a few small members that were hit hard during the recession and left more from a monetary perspective”, Courtemanche said. More than 80 private broadcasters from the radio, TV, and specialty sectors are listed as members on the association’s revamped website.
Courtemanche said that this incarnation of the CAB will avoid the pitfalls of the past by sticking to the issues shared by all of its members. As Cartt.ca reported, many stakeholders had expressed concern over the role and future of the CAB as its members became increasing divided along company and/or industry lines.
“The issues where we had the most difficulties reconciling the various interests of the membership were more on the regulatory policy side”, Courtemanche added. “The CAB is not engaged on the regulatory policy side now, and each member will be representing their own interests. We’ve never had that problem on copyright, or on the CBSB, for example, and that is why we identified those areas where we could move ahead. We don’t foresee any problems going ahead. The CAB continues, and will continue for the foreseeable future.”
