OTTAWA – Changes to the Canadian broadcast industry stemming from the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV decisions could lead to sweeping job losses and funding cuts to Canadian programming, according to a new study commissioned by advocacy groups and unions representing Canadian producers and creators.
Co-authored by Nordicity and communications lawyer Peter Miller, Canadian Television 2020: Technological and Regulatory Impacts was commissioned by the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), the Canadian Media Guild, Directors Guild of Canada, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and Unifor.
Using three scenarios, the study examines the potential impact of policy decisions such as TV channel unbundling, the predominance of Canadian programs, and what the new hybrid OTT exemption order may have on the industry in the next four years. It predicts that the changes will likely lead to the loss of more than 15,000 Canadian jobs, a $400 million annual drop in spending on Canadian programs, and take some $1.4 billion from the Canadian economy annually by 2020.
Acknowledging that changing viewing habits and cord-cutting are already impacting advertising, subscription revenues and Canadian programming expenditures, the study also offers recommendations that claim to reduce the “negative economic impact of the CRTC’s decisions” by as much as 75%. One such suggestion is to require programming services to allow unbundling, rather than to require it, while maintaining access rules and the requirement for predominance on Canadian services received, both of which benefit programmers.
“This would not, in our view, require ‘turning back the clock’ on all LTTV Decisions”, reads the report. “It would merely require relatively minor ‘tweaking’ that recognizes Canadians as broadcasting policy has always recognized them — not merely as consumers, but as creators and citizens too.”
“This study shows that recent broadcast policy decisions are likely to create job losses and generate economic damage. The loss of high quality Canadian scripted programming will also result,” said ACTRA national executive director Stephen Waddell, in the report’s news release. “Implementing the CRTC's policy proposals could mean thousands of hours of Canadian stories will never be produced. The tremors will be felt throughout the Canadian system from television to film to digital platforms”.
Clearly anticipating responses in this vein when he first announced the Let’s Talk TV decisions last March, CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais reiterated at that time that the CRTC’s job “is to serve the broader public interest, rather than their specific private interests”.
“If you hear criticisms of our decisions ask yourself this question: Are the arguments advanced by these critics those of the public interest or are they rather those that find their true roots in private entitlement, dressed up to look like they are founded on the broader public interest?”, he said during his March 12th address to the Canadian Club of Ottawa.
“This town is full of lobbyists whose job it is to spin their client's private interests into something else, to wrap themselves up, as it were, in the flag, and to puff about Parliament Hill with an air of shock and dismay", he continued. "I respect their right to do so, but I respect more the rights, expectations and wishes of Canadians we serve.”
