OTTAWA – Earlier this week, Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, passed second reading stage in the senate and was referred to the senate transport and communications committee (TRCM) for full study.
Yesterday, the committee heard from two panels of witnesses.
Robert Fenton, board chair of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind suggested several improvements that take into account people who are blind or partially sighted.
For example, he pointed out the broadcasting system needs to be more accessible. “Yes, there are set top boxes out there that talk, but they only talk after a sighted person enables them for those of us who can’t see,” he said.
Fenton further indicated applications, menus and boxes need to speak so they can choose appropriate programs or access appropriate sites.
He also spoke about described videos, telling the committee there is potential for more programming to be described by reducing duplication of work that has already been done internationally.
Jay Thomson, CEO of the Canadian Communication Systems Alliance (CCSA) told the committee the bill needs to level the playing field between small and big broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs).
“To date, in the debates over this bill and its predecessor, there’s been much talk about the impact of streamers on creators and broadcasters but there’s been scant attention paid to the impact of streamers on BDUs and their customers,” Thomson said.
“You’ve heard a lot about the need to level the playing field between Canadian broadcasters and streamers and it seems that this bill supports that goal,” he said. “Well, BDUs, specifically smaller BDUs, which typically serve Canadians outside the big cities, need the field to be leveled too, namely between those smaller BDUs and the larger big ones regarding fair access to streaming services.”
Netflix does make its app available to large players serving big markets for integration, but “refuses to make its app available to smaller cable companies,” according to Thomson, later explaining what they want is fair treatment.
Sam Norouzi, senior vice-president and general manager of ICI Television, an independent multi-ethnic television station in Montreal, also appeared before the committee.
He was asked if ICI Television’s revenue was up because they are streaming. He explained revenue is not up because they are essentially a free service. “… our service is meant to be accessible as much as possible,” he said, adding that in their “major broadcasting area in the greater Montreal area people don’t even need to be subscribed to cable, they can simply have a digital antenna, and they can get our signal for free.”
Norouzi stressed the importance of mandatory carriage for a service like ICI Television and pointed out C-11 does not allow the CRTC to set terms and conditions for online streaming but argued it should be able to do so.
“Global web giants like Amazon, Google and Apple know they won’t make money off of our content – they have no real incentive to negotiate and we can’t compete with their legal departments,” he said. “They could draw out these negotiations until we have to shut down our operations.”
