The Mark 2010

By relying on policies drawn from old media systems, the CRTC is squandering an opportunity to stake out a spot for Canadian content in the new-media landscape.

The phrase “two solitudes,” drawn from the novel by Hugh McLennan, is commonly used to describe the irreconcilable differences between English and French Canadians. The same phrase also applies when considering two very different conceptions of television in this country. One sees television as being a problem in need of solving, while the other sees it as serving our need for entertainment or information. The emergence of new technologies has spurred a discussion at the highest levels of government and in the press about the future of television. Yet television’s two solitudes – between what audiences want and what a domestic industry and its policymakers want them to want – has been part of public discourse about television throughout its history.

A prominent characteristic of television in Canada is that the industry has always lagged behind its audiences. A Canadian television system was born in 1952 with the establishment of the CBC to serve English and French language markets. A private network, CTV, was established less than a decade later. However, Canadians were watching television well before their own television system was born, picking up American signals from towns close to the border. Two of the biggest measures in the broadcasting policy arsenal have attempted to mend the gap between the availability of television and the availability of Canadian television. The first are rules permitting networks to simulcast programs airing on American television and replace them with Canadian commercials (“simultaneous substitution”); the second is Canadian content regulations.

If the intent of these policies was corrective, the rationale behind them was about smallness and choice. Canada is a small market so making Canadian programs would not be profitable without policies guaranteeing a marketplace. There is a small number of television channels so some should be reserved for Canadian voices. Finally, in the small window where most Canadians watch television (“prime-time”) there should be Canadian options alongside the American ones.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of these measures. Simultaneous substitution ensures a steady stream of revenue for the broadcaster. Canadian content regulations ensure a place for Canadian productions on the schedule. In return for this, Canadian broadcasters are protected from competition, either from foreign suitors (which cannot take a majority stake in broadcasting properties), or from competing genres (there cannot be two networks offering competing material to that aired on The History Channel). This has created an ecosystem for television that, while subject to occasional tinkering, has achieved a level of industrial stability.

But at the same time these policies have shaped the way Canadian audiences are conceived. Since the measures themselves are corrective, they imply that the television Canadians watch is insufficient, either because it is not “Canadian enough” or because popular shows represent ideas that do not reflect “Canadian values." Therefore, it is a view that equates audience preferences with expressions of citizenship. It also bypasses questions about a show’s aesthetic appeal or how it is marketed or scheduled in favour of pursuits to uncover a program’s inherent “Canadian-ness.” Such arguments, then, are profoundly naïve because they treat the failure of a television program not as an artistic or industrial problem but as a policy problem, a failure of the policy apparatus to connect audiences with content which they are presumed to want or need. As anyone who has ever made television before will attest, one could only wish the formula for success were that easy.

And now things have changed. If scarcity was the overarching problem for policymakers, abundance challenges the arguments on which the current system was built. The “few frequencies” argument is tenuous because of the proliferation of distribution channels across new gadgets and on new platforms, whether it is YouTube, or MySpace, or on someone’s blog. Equally problematic is the argument about audience size. All media industries – including those in the U.S. – are experiencing a fracturing of audiences that they once could count on. This is due to the internet and the popularity of technologies that turn viewers into media producers, but it is also a function of the proliferation of television channels available on cable or satellite systems. In this context one might easily conclude that even many American television programs are now behaving like Canadian shows, desperately seeking audiences amid a sea of choices. Arguments about limited time for watching television must now account for the fact that television is available on-demand on our iPods, computers, and on DVD, as well as in our living rooms.

Given all of this, now is the perfect time to change the way we think about television. However, there are few indications that this is happening. In the first half of the year, both the CRTC and the Standing Committee of Canadian Heritage have held hearings on both the state of the television industry and the role for the regulator in a digital environment. This comes amid the news that broadcasters are closing local stations in one breath, and lobbying the government for new rules to give them more revenue to support those stations in another. After initially opting to stay away from the internet the CRTC is considering ways to regulate the activities of broadcasters online. The recurring threat of new legislation governing intellectual property threatens to stifle creativity and the flourishing of Canadian online culture.

What is the effect of these developments? They may make economic sense in the short term, providing stability to an industry which desperately needs it. However, by borrowing policies drawn from old media systems to solve new problems, the long-term implications may be more negative. In one sense, such moves will effectively continue the slow closing off of the free culture that abounds on the internet. But in a more serious vein, such measures may be putting the cart before the horse, setting down policies for new media before anyone really understands those media. Finally, such a move may perpetuate television’s two solitudes in Canada, even if the logic that has underwritten those policies – and the public talk that has accompanied it – was always out of step with the television many Canadians were watching.