LAVAL — After a day of pushing major French-language television broadcasters to justify their demands for fewer regulatory burdens, the CRTC pushed the other way on Wednesday, for interest groups to justify the need for regulatory intervention as Canadians increasingly get their audiovisual content from unlicensed sources.
“I see a representation of a corporate interest, but not necessarily from the person that the CRTC must serve, the TV viewer,” chairman Jean-Pierre Blais told the Association québécoise de la production médiatique, one of many production groups to present at the licence renewal hearing in Laval, north of Montreal.
The AQPM pushed for high levels of Canadian programming expenditures for TVA, Groupe V Média and Bell Media (50, 48 and 34 per cent of gross revenues, respectively) and programs of national interest (19, 15 and 17 per cent of gross revenues, respectively), as well as a requirement for 75 per cent of PNI funding to go to independent producers.
Blais asked AQPM president Hélène Messier if the financial risk of producing television series is being shared properly between broadcasters and producers.
“An independent producer doesn’t have the risk,” Blais said.
“That’s false,” Messier responded. “A producer that doesn’t deliver successes won’t be hired again.”
“But they could still cash their cheque,” Blais retorted.
Later, a group representing TVA labour unions called for the CRTC to impose the same requirements of local programming on TVA and V and opposed allowing independent production of local news, as is being done currently by V. It said that case should be treated as an exception (V got special treatment after the former TQS went bankrupt and was sold) and not the new rule. Richard Labelle (pictured above), president of the SCFP union local representing TVA employees in Saguenay, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke and Rimouski, argued that independent producers have no pride in their stations, and for them the network is just another client. The quality of production, he argued, could only diminish with the lack of passion.
“It would be easier for a broadcaster to evade responsibility for its obligations if they’re produced by a subcontractor,” said Labelle.
(Blais noted that the broadcaster is responsible for what is aired regardless of the producer.)
The unions argued that regional TVA stations are counting repeats toward local programming requirements, in violation of conditions of licence, and wanted high requirements for CPE funding, of 80% for the TVA network, 70% for V and 50% for the two groups’ discretionary channels.
The union group called for three-year licence renewals in light of the federal government’s wide-ranging review of Canadian content. Blais challenged that call, noting that the implementation of any changes from that review would take years to implement anyway, and the CRTC cannot simply wait until it’s finished to do its job.
“It’s impossible to do a 30-minute newscast with one or two journalists.” – Martin Everett, SCFP
The union representing TVA’s Quebec City station was more aggressive, accusing the company of replacing local programming with programs from Vidéotron’s MAtv community channel, saying that only half the local newscast in Quebec City is local news, that “every day we receive orders from Montreal” and that often there are as few as one or two journalists working on a given day.
“It’s impossible to do a 30-minute newscast with one or two journalists,” said Martin Everett, the union vice-president.
Blais noted the complaints about TVA’s Quebec City station come up every time its licence is up for renewal.
The day began with Corus Entertainment making its case for renewals of its licences for Séries+ and Historia, acquired in the Bell-Astral deal, the French version of the Disney Channel and the bilingual service Teletoon. Corus called for more flexibility but also more predictability in regulations. It noted that the French version of the Disney Channel is not yet at the point where it can afford to commission original programming.
The Commission threw Corus for a loop when it inquired about splitting Teletoon’s bilingual licence into separate ones for the English and French channels. Blais noted that it would make a difference by, for example, counting as two services in the ratio of how many related channels are carried by Shaw Cable.
Corus resisted strongly, arguing that a standalone francophone channel would have minimal revenue and difficulty meeting obligations. “With one licence, we have a revenue base that allows us to have quality programming,” said vice-president Sylvie Courtemanche. “Why add complexity when we have a formula that works and is simple?”
As with many responses on unexpected questions, the full response will come in written form by Dec. 2.
Other issues brought forward Wednesday included:
– Jeremy Torrie, calling for more representation from indigenous communities in conventional television programming. He said it was inappropriate to “ghettoize” indigenous voices at the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and in any case APTN does not have the financial resources to support Canada’s many indigenous artists.
– ADISQ, Quebec’s music industry association, argued that YouTube can’t replace specialty channels as a source of music videos, and demanded that MusiquePlus be required to maintain some music video programming, worried in part because of the funding its members would lose.
– The Union des Artistes and associations of Quebec directors and screenwriters, defending requirements for PNI funding for all groups.
– The Documentary Organization of Canada demanding a minimum requirement for, unsurprisingly, documentary programming.
After a very quiet day on Tuesday with only a single question asked, new commissioner Judith LaRocque was much more active on Wednesday, leading the questioning of Corus and some interveners.
The hearing concludes Thursday with replies from the four broadcasting groups. The hearing on English-language TV licence renewals begins on Monday in Gatineau.
Photo by Steve Faguy
