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TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS BEFORE
THE CANADIAN RADIO‑TELEVISION AND
TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
TRANSCRIPTION DES AUDIENCES DEVANT
LE CONSEIL DE LA RADIODIFFUSION
ET DES TÉLÉCOMMUNICATIONS CANADIENNES
SUBJECT:
REVIEW OF THE OVER-THE-AIR TV POLICY /
EXAMEN DE CERTAINS ASPECTS DU CADRE RÉGLEMENTAIRE
DE LA TÉLÉVISION EN DIRECT
HELD AT: TENUE À:
Conference Centre Centre de conférences
Outaouais Room Salle Outaouais
Portage IV Portage IV
140 Promenade du Portage 140, promenade du Portage
Gatineau, Quebec Gatineau (Québec)
December 4, 2006 Le 4 décembre 2006
Transcripts
In order to meet the requirements of the Official Languages
Act, transcripts of proceedings before the Commission will be
bilingual as to their covers, the listing of the CRTC members
and staff attending the public hearings, and the Table of
Contents.
However, the aforementioned publication is the recorded
verbatim transcript and, as such, is taped and transcribed in
either of the official languages, depending on the language
spoken by the participant at the public hearing.
Transcription
Afin de rencontrer les exigences de la Loi sur les langues
officielles, les procès‑verbaux pour le Conseil seront
bilingues en ce qui a trait à la page couverture, la liste des
membres et du personnel du CRTC participant à l'audience
publique ainsi que la table des matières.
Toutefois, la publication susmentionnée est un compte rendu
textuel des délibérations et, en tant que tel, est enregistrée
et transcrite dans l'une ou l'autre des deux langues
officielles, compte tenu de la langue utilisée par le
participant à l'audience publique.
Canadian Radio‑television and
Telecommunications Commission
Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des
télécommunications canadiennes
Transcript / Transcription
REVIEW OF THE OVER-THE-AIR TV POLICY /
EXAMEN DE CERTAINS ASPECTS DU CADRE RÉGLEMENTAIRE
DE LA TÉLÉVISION EN DIRECT
BEFORE / DEVANT:
Michel Arpin Chairperson / Président
Rita Cugini Commissioner / Conseillère
Richard French Commissioner / Conseiller
Elizabeth Duncan Commissioner / Conseillère
Ronald Williams Commissioner / Conseiller
ALSO PRESENT / AUSSI PRÉSENTS:
Chantal Boulet Secretary / Secrétaire
John Keogh Legal Counsel /
Valérie Lagacé Conseillers juridiques
Shelley Cruise
Peter Foster Hearing Manager /
Gérant de l'audience
HELD AT: TENUE À:
Conference Centre Centre de conférences
Outaouais Room Salle Outaouais
Portage IV Portage IV
140 Promenade du Portage 140, promenade du Portage
Gatineau, Quebec Gatineau (Québec)
December 4, 2006 Le 4 décembre 2006
TABLE DES MATIÈRES / TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE / PARA
PRESENTATION BY / PRÉSENTATION PAR:
Ontario Ministry of Culture and 1627 / 8980
Ontario Media Development Corporation
Canadian Television Fund 1657 / 9155
Media Access Canada 1679 / 9271
L'Union des artistes (UDA) et SARTEC 1698 / 9387
Coalition of Canadian Audio‑visual Unions 1734 / 9552
Writers Guild of Canada 1770 / 9765
Directors Guild of Canada 1791 / 9882
ACTRA 1823 / 10040
Communications, Energy and Paperworkers 1852 / 10171
Union of Canada
Media Awareness Network 1884 / 10346
The New Canada Institute 1910 / 10472
Gatineau, Quebec / Gatineau (Québec)
‑‑‑ Upon resuming on Monday, December 4, 2006
at 0830 / L'audience reprend le lundi
4 décembre 2006 à 0830
LISTNUM 1 \l 1 \s 89738973 THE CHAIRPERSON: Order, please. À l'ordre, s'il vous plaît.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18974 Madame la Secrétaire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18975 LA SECRÉTAIRE : Merci, Monsieur le Président.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18976 Good morning, everyone. Before we begin I would just like to indicate to all parties and participants in these proceedings that there is additional documentation that has been added to the record since the beginning of this hearing. The documents are available in the examination room.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18977 L'interprétation gestuelle est également disponible à cette audience. Toute personne qui aimerait utiliser l'interprétation devrait m'en aviser, et puis je le communiquerai aux interprètes qui sont ici, à ma gauche.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18978 We will now proceed with the next participant, which is the Ontario Ministry of Culture and the Ontario Media Development Corporation. I would ask Minister Caroline Di Cocco to introduce her panel, after which you will have 15 minutes for your presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18979 Minister.
PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 18980 HON. CAROLINE DI COCCO: Thank you. Thank you very much and good morning.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18981 Ontario is pleased to contribute to the Commission's review of the regulatory framework for over‑the‑air television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18982 Joining me today are: to my right, Stephen Stohn, a member of the Board of the Ontario Media Development Corporation; Steven Davidson, to my left, Assistant Deputy Minister of Culture; and Kristine Murphy, Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18983 As Ontario's Minister of Culture, I am here in support of culture and cultural industries.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18984 Ontario is home to the largest critical mass of Canada's cultural industries. These industries are creating content in a multiplicity of forms.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18985 Ontario is also home to an array of content creators, producers as well as writers, musicians, performers and other artists who breathe life into our culture industries and who also deserve recognition.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18986 Over‑the‑air broadcasters provide major market access and much needed exposure for Ontario's and Canada's creative content.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18987 Entertainment and cultural industries are key economic drivers as well, contributing $9.9 billion to Ontario in 2005 and accounting for almost half of Canada's culture GDP.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18988 Ontario's over‑the‑air broadcast sector is a significant part of this contribution. It is nearly $1.4 billion to Ontario's economy and supporting an estimated 5,500 jobs.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18989 However, as the Commission knows, sweeping new market forces are now under way.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18990 Cultural industries are facing constantly evolving changes in technology, intense international competition and new business models. To address these challenges and to build globally competitive industries, Ontario has adopted a strategic policy framework that we are calling the Entertainment and Creative Cluster Strategy.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18991 The cluster strategy is designed to harness the full potential of our cultural industries by encouraging individual players to increase their competitive advantage through the pooling of knowledge and resources. This strategy emphasizes partnerships, innovation, research and development.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18992 As a major segment of Ontario's Entertainment and Creative Cluster, over‑the‑air broadcasters clearly stand to benefit. Ontario's cluster strategy aligns well with the goals of the Broadcasting Act.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18993 We are looking forward to working together with you as we navigate this environment of change.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18994 Ontario has some specific comments to offer the Commission, which my Assistant Deputy Minister Steven Davidson will address in his remarks.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18995 So I am going to turn it over to Steven.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18996 MR. DAVIDSON: Thank you, Minister.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18997 Ontario's support of its entertainment and creative industries is longstanding and constantly evolving.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18998 As the Minister described we recently adopted a new cluster strategy, one that focuses on innovation, transition to new technologies and partnerships. This strategy informs our response to the issues put forward at this hearing.
LISTNUM 1 \l 18999 We believe the cluster strategy aligns well with key objectives of the Broadcasting Act, particularly facilitating the provision of Canadian programs to Canadians, the development of Canadian expression and diverse perspectives and ensuring that the broadcasting system is readily adaptable to scientific and technological changes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19000 Recognizing that the current regulatory tools may be less effective in the future, our strategy emphasizes the use of incentives and aligns with a light approach to regulation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19001 As video‑on‑demand, podcasting, IPTV, mobile television and other new technologies emerge, they bring with them new challenges and business models. Greater flexibility in regulatory requirements and increased use of incentives would permit industry players to innovate and compete with those who operate outside regulation, both in Canada and around the world.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19002 I would like to highlight three main points from our submission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19003 The first addresses the Benefits Policy.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19004 We believe that the Commission's current Benefits Policy works well. Benefits funding encourages risk‑taking and provides capital to get promising new projects off the ground. The current Benefits Policy has the capacity to support targeted research and development activities.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19005 We support the principle that the benefits should flow to the community in which the transaction occurs. This is especially important where broadcasters such as CHUM make strong contributions to community and diversity, elements that contribute to the unique nature of our local and national voice.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19006 Our second point addresses how best to facilitate the transition to new digital technologies.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19007 The Commission has identified this as a priority not just for over‑the‑air broadcasters but for all types of content producers. We agree that producers need to build a library of high definition television programming to remain competitive in international markets. The question is how to speed up this transition so we are not left behind.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19008 It is also important to ensure that funds make their way through the system so that content creators are encouraged to produce HD content for national and global audiences and markets.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19009 To balance the different perspectives expressed at this hearing we have proposed several options for the Commission's consideration:
‑ Incentives for HD programming;
‑ Flexible advertising guidelines could accommodate innovation by enabling broadcasters to bring new ad revenues on stream;
‑ Carriage fees for value‑added HD services; and
‑ Funds from the auctioning of analog channels could be an effective method of generating additional funding for content producers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19010 Finally, the development and dissemination of Canadian content is key to the success of our entertainment and creative industries.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19011 Because content creators are central to the success of cultural industries, we support an expenditure approach to programming requirements that allows broadcasters and producers to adapt to changing market conditions as quickly as possible and encourages a wide range of programming, including high‑quality drama, documentary, children's and cross‑platform convergent forms.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19012 These activities, we believe, will result in a more profitable, sustainable cultural sector.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19013 Ontario's cluster strategy encourages partnership and collaboration among a range of players. We believe that our strategy will help manage the rapid transition to a new and diverse multi‑platform universe.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19014 The Commission's decisions will be critical to helping foster an environment in which creators of Canadian content can innovate, embrace new technologies and find new audiences in national and international markets.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19015 I will now invite Stephen Stohn to comment on behalf of the OMDC.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19016 MR. STOHN: Thank you, Steven.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19017 The OMDC, Ontario Media Development Corporation, is an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture and we have been in existence for 20 years.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19018 Initially we were the Ontario Film Development Corporation ‑‑ you might know us as that ‑‑ but six years ago our mandate was expanded to capture books, magazines, music and interactive digital media along with, of course, film and television industries.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19019 So the OMDC, we feel, truly is a vehicle through which the Ontario government supports the growth of Ontario's entertainment and creative cluster.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19020 At OMDC we are proud of our ability to support Ontario's independent production companies that play such a pivotal role in the Canadian broadcasting system.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19021 We do this in a variety of ways, including six individual media tax credits, film commission activities ‑‑ that is location services ‑‑ as well as support for content creation, marketing and export activity.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19022 And the OMDC, together with the Ministry of Culture, delivers the Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund. This Fund promotes growth in the cluster through things like capacity‑building, prototype development and domestic and international market support.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19023 Given our role in supporting the production industry in Ontario, OMDC would like to highlight the following points from our submission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19024 First, we support the establishment of an expenditure requirement for Canadian programming. Such an expenditure requirement should promote a strong and broad mix of genres on Canadian television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19025 Second, the Commission's current expectation that at least 75 percent of all priority programming should be produced by independent production companies, we believe, should be maintained.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19026 And third, OMDC supports the current Benefits Policy. To ensure ongoing commitment to local programming and news in any transfer of ownership, we believe the policy's emphasis on local benefits and diversity should be maintained.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19027 The diversity found throughout Ontario's urban centres as well as its rural communities is a defining feature of Ontario's entertainment and creative cluster and Ontario companies are demonstrating their eagerness and ability to embrace emerging technologies and to produce innovative content.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19028 As a result, we feel Ontario's independent production community working hand‑in‑hand with broadcasters are uniquely positioned to create and distribution information and programming that reflects Canadian perspectives to Canadians and Canadian diversity and creativity to audiences around the world.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19029 Thank you. I now invite Minister Di Cocco to provide her final comments.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19030 HON. CAROLINE DI COCCO: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19031 Our presence here today, I just want to say, reinforces the importance that we attribute to this hearing and I would like to state how important it is that we work cooperatively in this new world of rapid and complex change in the entertainment and creative cluster industries.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19032 Ontario wants to strengthen and support its industries in meeting the challenges and opportunities in this changing environment and these challenges must be met in order to ensure that Canadian voices are heard and that our industries remain competitive globally.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19033 We believe that the Commission has a pivotal role to play here.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19034 Our submission has the intent to provide, we hope, some useful comment to inform your policy deliberations.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19035 We are happy to answer any questions that you may have. I would ask that you maybe direct your questions to my Assistant Deputy Minister Steven Davidson.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19036 Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19037 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Minister. I am asking Commissioner Cugini to ask the first questions. Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19038 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Good morning and welcome to all of you. I do find your comments very useful and I would like to thank you very much for participating in these proceedings. I understand it is your first time in front of a CRTC Commission, so I hope to make this as painless as possible.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19039 HON. CAROLINE DI COCCO: Thank you for that.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 19040 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: I have questions that are specific to both of your submissions and I also have questions that I am sure will be common to both of your submissions. So I just invite you, if either the OMDC or the Ministry has something to add to one of my questions, to just please turn your microphone on and we will be glad to receive your comments.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19041 The first question I have is with regard to the cluster strategy and I just want to put some logistics around it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19042 Is it a forum where you meet on a regular basis with the members of the cluster strategy or exactly how does this exchange of information work in a practical sense?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19043 HON. CAROLINE DI COCCO: Well, I will just begin. The whole aspect or the whole, if you want, approach is about collaborators from all these different areas, that they come together in innovative ‑‑ it is kind of a network of creation basically. I mean it is the new paradigm that our creators are working in.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19044 And what we are trying to do with the cluster is maximizing opportunities, opportunities from sharing of information and new processes basically, and also sharing business models to create products, products that are innovative, that are visionary and that are about the future, about being competitive globally.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19045 I will give you an example. In Toronto there is the Liberty Village. This is kind of an example of the model that we hope comes from this approach. The Liberty Village, there are producers who are specializing in animation, in children's TV, convergent products, ITV, web or mobile, mobile content forms, and they come together and they share expertise and skill.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19046 Then, out of that, there are also satellite hubs that have grown throughout Ontario around this type of centre. There are game producers for instance in St. Catharines that have come out of this hub, London as well. Then there is digital media and animation in Sudbury. It has come out of this concept, if you want, of everybody coming together.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19047 It is a new approach. This approach is forward‑looking. It is unique and it recognizes that there is this rapidly changing transition to new digital formats and distribution technologies.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19048 I will pass it over to Stephen Stohn because he can give you some more detail, but it is basically the premise is about supporting this new era for the sector, and it is about keeping us globally competitive.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19049 It is new. Again, it is a way that we are going to be measuring as well what works in this and what doesn't. So in a year or two's time we will be able to be able to say this is how this investment or this approach has worked.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19050 Because it hasn't been done before in this way, it is kind of groundbreaking. But we believe that the model and working with our stakeholders that we really have great hope that it will help in this development of this innovative new world that we live in.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19051 Stephen...?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19052 MR. DAVIDSON: Before Stephen talks about some of the programmatic approaches that we are taking to implement the strategy, I would just build on what the Minister has said.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19053 One of the core competitive advantages that we have recognized in Ontario is our strength across a breadth of creative industries, from film, television, book publishing, music, interactive digital, so the notion of the cluster is really based on an appreciation of the common challenges being faced across these sectors in terms of the importance of transition into new technologies and the importance of being able to undertake innovative activities to help support that transition.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19054 So the cluster strategy is really about defining some specific approaches that can be taken both by government and collaboratively amongst the members of the sector. "Members" I use very loosely, it is really just a whole group of companies, large, small, who do a variety of things but share an interest in a common marketplace.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19055 So in terms of the kinds of strategic thrust that we are pursuing underneath the cluster strategy, one is working with market forces to incent the kind of innovative activities that are so critical to enabling our creative cluster companies to embrace new technologies.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19056 Encouraging partnerships is a key way of doing that. Stephen will talk in a second about a Partnership Fund that we have just launched, but recognizing the value of small companies in particular, small and medium, coming together and pooling their knowledge and their resources to address issues of common interest and together come up with new approaches that might not otherwise be possible if they were working on their own.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19057 Finally, improving our access to global markets, thinking particularly in terms of HD and that kind of thing.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19058 So those are some of the components of the strategy. It is really a policy framework that we have developed, but Stephen can talk a little bit more about some of the programmatic approaches we are taking.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19059 MR. STOHN: Yes. I will just try and be very brief because the OMDC, one element is delivering certain programs, and that is what we do.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19060 In essence, almost all the programs of the OMDC contribute to the cluster strategy, either indirectly because they are aimed at helping to increase the core strength of individual partners, and also there are programs that are more directly related.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19061 I have already talked about the entertainment and creative cluster Partnership Fund which we administer with the Ministry of Culture, and just to quickly restate that that supports specifically strategic partnerships amongst players in the cluster, so two or three or more partners coming together from different backgrounds for projects that include capacity‑building and prototype development and skills development and export marketing.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19062 The Interactive Digital Media Fund is very important to us. That assists interactive digital media producers to move their proprietary projects into production. Of course, in so many of the innovations today interactive play is a part. It's not just the interactive digital media, it is television, film, books, magazines. They are all moving into that interactive universe. So that is a core program.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19063 Finally, as Steven has mentioned, the Export Fund is very important. It provides eligible companies with funding to pursue export development activities that correspond to a strategic company growth initiative.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19064 Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19065 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you. I certainly think ‑‑ I'm sorry.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19066 MS MURPHY: I'm sorry, Commissioner Cugini.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19067 MS MURPHY: I was just going to add to what Steven Davidson was saying, and Stephen Stohn, as they mentioned all of the programs of the Agency relate to the culture, but I would also like to state that we do have content and marketing programs for the book publishing sector, for the magazine sector, and for the music sector, and we also have a Feature Film Fund as well.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19068 As Steven mentioned, they all in their way contribute to the growth of that cluster.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19069 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you for that additional information.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19070 I think you guys have placed quite a bit on your plate and you are to be commended.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19071 Your written submission talked about a $7.5 million investment in the cluster strategy announced by the government.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19072 Is this to provide funding for initiatives that stem from the cluster strategy or as a result of this cluster strategy having been implemented?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19073 MS MURPHY: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19074 The $7.5 million that was announced in the budget is specific to the cluster Partnerships Fund and that is money that will spent over the next few years, so this year the government is going to invest $2 million into those initiatives.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19075 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Have you been able to target what specifically those initiatives will be?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19076 MS MURPHY: At this point the applications are in and they will be adjudicated by a jury. The applications have come in across those four theme areas that were mentioned in terms of capacity‑building, prototype innovation, marketing, that sort of thing.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19077 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Okay. Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19078 MS MURPHY: So we will get back to you on the results of that.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 19079 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: The Deputy Minister spoke also about the transition to new technology.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19080 Would this cluster strategy, for example, fund new, innovative HD programming, or would it fund transmitter build‑up to allow for digital HD transmission?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19081 In particular here I am thinking about TVOntario. We heard that they have a number of analog transmitters.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19082 Would the upgrade of their transmitters be eligible for funding from the cluster strategy?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19083 MR. DAVIDSON: No.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 19084 MR. DAVIDSON: The Partnership Fund is really intended to do two things, to encourage partnerships amongst content‑creating industries and, second, to fund innovative activities.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19085 So investments in infrastructure is outside the scope of the fund.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19086 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19087 One thing you said about the Benefits Policy in your written submission, and you repeated it today in your oral, is that the emphasis should be on the communities in question and that it is necessary and appropriate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19088 I'm wondering if you could elaborate for me. For example, if broadcasters are based in Ontario they should be encouraged to allocate some monies to local programming for example, a majority of the monies to local programming?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19089 In other words, what do you mean exactly when you say "communities in question"?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19090 MR. DAVIDSON: We support the current Benefits Policy which does, my understanding is, attach priority to allocation of funds to the community affected. So our understanding of that is that the transaction, if it were to occur in Ontario, then a significant portion of the benefits should be invested into that community, Ontario.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19091 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Including local programming or local news?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19092 MR. DAVIDSON: Yes. We would encourage a broad definition of what would be eligible, so across genres and acknowledging the importance of drama, documentary, children's, cross‑platform programming, the important role of the local broadcasters versus the larger ones.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19093 So we would favour a broad ecumenical approach.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19094 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19095 Subscriber fees. As you know, it is one of the major subjects of these proceedings.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19096 In your written submission you thought it should be restricted. Today, in your oral presentation, you said perhaps for the provision of HD programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19097 Do you think it should be exclusively given to broadcasters who transmit HD programming?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19098 MR. DAVIDSON: Our interest in the Commission's consideration of a fee for carriage is to support and expedite the transition of our content‑creating industries to these new platforms, HD specifically.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19099 So we have proposed a couple of tools that would be available for the Commission's consideration to move that process along more quickly. So our interest in a fee for carriage is within that context, so we have, in our submission, suggested it as one way where a fee could be applied for HD services and the cost borne only by those receiving those services as one source of revenue, amongst others, that could help fund that process.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19100 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: There are varying points of view as to which broadcasters should be eligible for a fee for carriage. Some think it should only be over‑the‑air broadcasters privately held; others think that it should exclude religious and ethnic broadcasters; others believe the publicly‑funded broadcasters should be there and others think that they shouldn't.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19101 What is your opinion? In particular, TVOntario of course.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19102 MR. DAVIDSON: Well, our view is that all broadcasters, private, public, educational play an important role in the entertainment and creative cluster that, as have said, we define quite broadly as all those engaged in the creative content industries in Ontario.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19103 So we would not discriminate against public or educational broadcasters, including TVO, as eligible candidates for funding for the transition to HD.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19104 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: You would include CBC in that?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19105 MR. DAVIDSON: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19106 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19107 During these proceedings the distributors, the cable companies, commissioned a report wherein they wanted to get from average Canadians their points of view on a fee for carriage and, in summary, they say that there is very strong opposition from Canadians to a fee for carriage. And in almost all of the indicators the strongest opposition came from Ontario no matter what the reason was for applying a fee for carriage.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19108 And for HD programming they say:
"... two‑thirds of subscribers, 67 percent, continue to impose the imposition of a fee if some of the fee is intended to cover the cost of providing channels in a high definition format. Opposition is again notably strong, one in two, so 49 percent of subscribers strongly oppose even with this rationale. The most intense opposition came from Ontario at 70 percent." (As read)
LISTNUM 1 \l 19109 Would you care to comment on these findings?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19110 MR. DAVIDSON: Again, I would say that we have, in our submission, suggested a number of tools that could be available for the Commission and the fee for carriage for HD services is only one, incentives for HD programming is another. Perhaps introduction of greater flexibility in advertising regulation could be another and then even the, you know, revenues drawn from auctioning off of analog channels through the transition to digital process could be another. So certainly those findings are of interest.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19111 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: So they are one of a number of options ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19112 MR. DAVIDSON: That is right.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19113 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: ‑‑ that would be satisfactory? Okay.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19114 Now, both the OMDC's submission and the Ministry's submissions supported maintaining the 75 per cent requirement of priority programming be produced by independent producers. Again, through these proceedings one of the things that the broadcasters have said about that 75 per cent requirement is that this is a legacy requirement imposed at a time when major broadcasters owned production companies and it was a way of ensuring that the independent production community would continue to thrive and that broadcasters wouldn't have all of their priority programming produced or a majority of their priority programming produced by these productions companies that they owned.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19115 That is no longer the case and therefore broadcasters feel that this 75 per cent requirement is therefore no longer necessary, that it shouldn't matter who produces the shows, as long as the shows are shows that Canadians want to watch. They also say that there are certain genres of programming, probably the higher budget programs, will never be produced in‑house and that they will always rely on independent producers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19116 So I don't know if you had an opportunity to hear this point of view from the broadcasters, but this is it in a nutshell, if I did it any justice, and I would just like to ask you to comment.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19117 MR. STOHN: Sure. Well, there is no question that the aim in the end is high quality programming that engages Canadian audiences. As you pointed out, there are genres of programming that it is absolutely appropriate that broadcasters produce in‑house, it is by far the most efficient way of going.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19118 There are areas of programming and it is particularly the high‑cost areas of programming, it is drama, children's and youth, high‑end documentaries that I think we all want to encourage and incent and, partly, that is what this hearing is all about. Those areas of programming, typically because the costs are high, it would be very difficult except in extraordinary circumstances for the broadcaster to cover, you know, more than a portion of the production costs.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19119 So, you know, consistent with the cluster strategy which says let us go with the core strengths of the individual partners. The producers, one of their core strengths is in finding those sources of financing through international distribution arrangements perhaps and working with the funding agencies like Canadian Television Fund and others to help fund those projects.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19120 You know, if we couple a requirement for independent production along with a meaningful expenditure requirement, the two have a very interesting synergy and in that case it may be that the requirement almost becomes moot. Because if there is a meaningful expenditure requirement there is only so many broadcast hours in a day, I think we are going to see more of that high‑cost programming and therefore we are going to see a lot of that programming automatically be produced by independent production companies and not just at the 75 per cent level, probably at much higher levels. So in that sense, the market itself would drive us to even higher levels.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19121 So if there is a meaningful expenditure requirement it may be that as a matter of course the 75 per cent isn't necessary in some sense because in fact the market drives it up. But we still think that the current policy ‑‑ it is not just a legacy policy ‑‑ it really reflects the value that the independent production community brings.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19122 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: You know I am going to ask you what, in your opinion, is a meaningful spending requirement.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 19123 MR. STOHN: Well, you know, our approach ‑‑ and I will answer the question ‑‑ but our approach has been to come with some frameworks for suggestion and to open a dialogue and to, you know, introduce ourselves to you and hopefully to carryon, not to come in with the specific figures.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19124 Clearly, we would think that an expenditure requirement that was lower than the current levels that are being spent would probably not be meaningful. Something that is higher than the current levels that are being spent would be meaningful.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19125 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Just one more detail question about that. Do you think it should apply to Canadian programming or do you think a spending requirement should be required of particular genres of Canadian programming?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19126 MR. STOHN: We know that some submissions have been made that would target, for example, drama. We have take a very broad approach. If the expenditure requirement is significant and meaningful, we believe that as a matter of course that the high‑cost programming, which will include the drama and the children's and youth and the high‑end documentaries, will as a matter of course end up being a focus in the priority programming. But really, we have talked generally about Canadian programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19127 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Well, thank you very much, Minister Di Cocco, Deputy Minister.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19128 Did you want to add something before..?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19129 MR. DAVIDSON: If you don't mind, Commissioner.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19130 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Please.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19131 MR. DAVIDSON: If we could just go back to the fee for carriage question. There is one other point I would like to make just because I think it illustrates what we mean when I talked earlier about the entertainment and creative cluster strategy and working with market forces.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19132 So in terms of our thinking in arriving that as one of the options that we would propose, our thinking on that is based on the acknowledgement that consumers have identified a value for high definition content or the market has identified a value for that, but the revenues generated by that higher value aren't flowing through to the creators of that higher value content.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19133 So our thinking in proposing this as one of the options is simply to acknowledge that fact and to look at a way that the market's recognition of that value and associated revenues can then move through to support the quicker transition of the content producers to those higher value formats. So that is just by way of illustrating our thinking behind this.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19134 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you. I think you did make that point in your written submission. Certainly, the OMDC talked about producers who had responded to the survey saying that they have to produce in high definition if they have any hope of selling their programming internationally. So I thank you very much for being here this morning.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19135 Those are all my questions, Mr. Chairman.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19136 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Ms Cugini.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19137 Mr. Stohn, just for me to better understand the role of OMDC, is it similar to SODEC somehow?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19138 MS MURPHY: Thank you, I will answer.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19139 The OMDC is an agency of the Government of Ontario, specifically the Ministry of Culture, so in that regard I believe we are similar to SODEC because they are an agency of the Government of Quebec.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19140 We have a similar mandate, in that our breadth is across a number of industries as we talked about. I can't comment specifically on SODEC, so I can't ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19141 THE CHAIRPERSON: Their mandate also covers books ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19142 MS MURPHY: That is right.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19143 THE CHAIRPERSON: ‑‑ music and film as well.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19144 MS MURPHY: Right, so we are similar.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19145 THE CHAIRPERSON: So you are, both organizations have similar mandate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19146 MS MURPHY: That is correct.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19147 THE CHAIRPERSON: Are you working in cooperation sometimes?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19148 MS MURPHY: We actually do cooperate with a number of our fellow funding agencies across the country and SODEC is one of those, yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19149 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19150 Minister, Thank you. Gentlemen, madam, thank you very much.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19151 Madame Secrétaire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19152 LA SECRÉTAIRE: Merci, Monsieur le Président.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19153 I would now call on the next participant, the Canadian Television Fund, if they would come forward for their presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19154 Mr. Douglas Barrett is appearing for the CTF. Mr. Barrett, once you've introduced your panel, you will have ten minutes for your presentation. Please go ahead.
PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 19155 MR. BARRETT: Monsieur Arpin, Commissioners. My name is Douglas Barrett et avant de commencer notre présentation, je veux introduire mes collègues de C.T.F.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19156 À ma droite, j'ai Valerie Creighton, présidente de F.C.T. À sa droite, madame Michèle Fortin, membre du conseil d'administration de F.C.T. et aussi membre du Comité de finances. Elle est aussi la présidente de Téléquébec. À sa droite, j'ai monsieur Stéphane Cardin, le vice‑président Politique stratégique et relations avec l'industrie de F.C.T.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19157 I thank the Commission for presenting the Canadian Television Fund with the opportunity to participate in this important public policy hearing.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19158 The Commission does outline specific goals regarding the continued success of high quality Canadian programming in its P.M. In 1994, the Commission created a precursor to the C.T.F., the Cable Production Fund specifically to support under‑represented genres in prime time on Canadian television screens.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19159 Cet appui au F.C.T. s'est avéré d'une importance capitale et a favorisé son avancement et son succès ainsi que ceux de la production et de la diffusion d'émissions de télévision canadiennes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19160 Notre mandat de portée pan‑canadien est de soutenir et de nourrir une programmation de grande qualité et distinctement canadienne au profit de l'auditoire télévisuel canadien, tout en assurant à la télévision un rôle d'influence en tant que moyen d'expression culturelle.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19161 In Canada today, the C.T.F. is one of the only forms that brings together all members of the television industry with the sole purpose of bringing great distinctively Canadian television to Canadians.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19162 The C.T.F. is a non‑profit profitable corporation that unites public, private and educational broadcasters in both official languages as well as producers, government and other stakeholders to deliberate the issues affecting Canadian programming and production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19163 The industry leaders and experts who make up the C.T.F.'s Board of Directors ensure that the fund operates efficiently and transparently. Policies and decisions are made at the board by a double majority consisting of stakeholder representatives on the one hand and independent directors on the other, to ensure that all C.T.F. programs are equitable, professionally administered with rules and guidelines.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19164 This significant rules based funding environment has professionalised and improved the development and inventory of high quality Canadian dramatic productions in both English and French, such as "DaVinci's Inquest" and *Annie et ses hommes+. It has also been an important leaver to assist broadcasters to maintain their condition of licence.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19165 MS. CREIGHTON: The Canadian Television Fund is marking its tenth anniversary as a public private partnership between the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Broadcasting Cable Satellite and direct‑to‑home industries.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19166 The partnership has exercised the representation on the board and the policy direction that's provided through the Contribution Agreement between the C.T.F. and the Department of Canadian Heritage.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19167 This partnership has been an outstanding success, having supported more than 23,000 hours of original high quality Canadian programming delivered in prime time to hundreds of millions of viewers. After tax credits, the Canadian Television Fund is the largest funder of television production in Canada supporting those programs that cannot always find sufficient financing in the marketplace.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19168 In 2005‑2006, the C.T.F. invested more than $264 million in Canadian production, creating 2,300 hours of quality new programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19169 The C.T.F. supports the production of broadcasted programming that speaks to Canadians about our culture, our issues, our stories. All C.T.F. funded projects, therefore, must meet four essential requirements to verify their authenticity as Canadian content.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19170 To meet these essential requirements a project must receive ten out of ten Canadian audiovisual certification points, speak and reflect Canadian themes and subject matter, be shot and set primarily in Canada, and Canadians must own and significantly develop the underlying rights.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19171 The Canadian Television Fund supports the under‑represented genres of drama, documentary, children and youth and variety in performing arts on Canadian television in both official languages in prime time.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19172 C.T.F. funding is delivered through an objective ruled based broadcaster performance envelope stream and special initiatives programs. Broadcaster envelopes are financial allocations accorded to broadcasters by the C.T.F. and are calculated on the four performance factors of historic access, above average licences, regional production licences and a growing audience success component.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19173 Production companies apply at the C.T.F. and receive financial support for projects. These projects are required to have a financial commitment from the broadcaster allocated from their envelope in order to be eligible for C.T.F. financing.
In 2005‑06, 65 broadcasters were allocated envelopes which supported 435 new productions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19174 Mme FORTIN: Le Fonds canadien de télévision finance également les initiatives spéciales pour le développement, le doublage et le sous‑titrage des productions de langue française à l'extérieur du Québec et les productions en langues autochtones.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19175 L'aide financière de ces deux derniers programmes est accordée sur une base sélective afin d'encourager la production d'émissions en milieux linguistiques minoritaires et en région et d'assurer le succès et l'accès à ces productions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19176 Depuis 1996, le Fonds canadien de télévision a accordé son appui à plus de 133 projets en langues autochtones, ce qui représente plus de 445 heures d'émissions originales. Avant la création du Fonds canadien de télévision, ce type d'émission n'existait pratiquement pas.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19177 Investir dans des émissions de télévisions peut être risqué, spécialement pour les télédiffuseurs puisque rien ne peut garantir le rendement du capital investi. Le Fonds canadien de télévision est important catalyseur qui favorise le développement de projets.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19178 En 2005‑2006, le Fonds canadien de télévision a versé un montant total de $27 millions de dollars pour assurer le développement de productions de langues française, anglaise et autochtones.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19179 De plus, en 2004‑2005 seulement, le Fonds canadien de télévision a distribué plus de $251 millions de dollars pour appuyer des productions totalisant $841 millions de dollars qui ont généré 22,400 emplois à temps plein.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19180 Ces productions télévisuelles sont réalisées dans toute les régions du Canada, assurant le développement de compétences sur les plans créatifs et techniques d'un bout à l'autre du pays.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19181 MR. CARDIN: Canadian programming is growing in audience appeal. This is extremely important to the C.T.F. as it is our objective to fund high quality Canadian programming watched by Canadians.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19182 In 2003‑04, the C.T.F. began tracking television audiences of C.T.F. funded programs, specifically during peak viewing hours or prime time. C.T.F. financed productions make up a significant percentage of viewing to Canadian programming and C.T.F. genres in both the English and French markets.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19183 In 2005‑06 more than 41 per cent of viewing to Canadian drama series in English during prime time was the C.T.F. financed productions. In French markets, more than 68 per cent of viewing to Canadian drama was the C.T.F. financed productions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19184 The success of quality program has also been acknowledged by Canadian broadcasting industry. C.T.F. funded productions have consistently received more awards than non‑C.T.F. productions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19185 In 2005, almost half, that is 38 out of 75 Gemini Awards in eligible categories were given to C.T.F. funded productions, including "The 11th Hour", "Beethoven Air" and "This is Wonderland".
LISTNUM 1 \l 19186 Les productions de langue française financées par le F.C.T. ont même rapporté davantage de prix. En 2005, près des deux‑tiers des Prix Gémeaux attribuables aux catégories soutenues par le F.C.T., soit 48 sur 74, ont été attribués à des productions ayant bénéficié du soutien financier du F.C.T. dont *Annie et ses hommes+, *Rumeurs+ et *Ramdam+.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19187 Au Canada, le Fonds canadien de télévision est le principal outil permettant de diffuser les histoires canadiennes partout dans le monde et de définir la place du Canada sur la scène internationale.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19188 Certaines émissions ont fait le tour du monde. Selon le New York Time, l'émission distinctement canadienne *Degrassi, the next generation+ serait l'émission pour les jeunes la plus populaire aux États‑Unis et des émissions de langue française à succès comme la comédie de situation *Un gars, une fille+ et la série documentaire *Les Artisans du rebut global+ ont été vendues sous différents formats dans plusieurs des principaux marchés de télévision à l'échelle internationale.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19189 MR. BARRETT: Commissioners, I am now in my third year as Chair of the fund and it has been a challenging complex and interesting experience to say the least. I tell you this because I continue to be struck by the incredible importance of the fund in the context of the overall Canadian Broadcasting System.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19190 Simply put, this is a great success story and a genuinely and uniquely Canadian one at that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19191 The C.T.F. puts thousands of hours of high quality visibly and unabashedly Canadian programming into the prime time schedules of some 65 Canadian broadcasters.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19192 Il s'agit d'une programmation que le diffuseur élabore, commande, diffuse et promeut avec fierté. C'est une programmation que le public espère et que des millions et des millions de canadiennes et canadiens regardent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19193 And its programming that's produced, written, directed and performed by thousands and thousands of creative professionals in every province and corner of Canada in English, in French and in numerous aboriginal languages.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19194 And the industry expertise present on the board along with the extensive stakeholder consultations we do every year, ensure that the C.T.F. is in a position to monitor the production environment constantly and to assess the challenges the industry is facing not only now, but in the future.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19195 I would remind you that the original creator of the funds forbearer was the Commission itself. With your initial push in 1994 and design work by the way, and the ongoing support of Canada's distribution undertakings on the this project has delivered everything that has been expected of it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19196 And needless to say in order to continue this work, to continue to provide the supply side leaver to the demand side regulatory framework of the Commission, the Canadian Television Fund needs your continued support and encouragement.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19197 We appreciate the opportunity to speak to you this morning and we are obviously available for any questions you might have.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19198 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr. Barrett. I am asking Vice‑Chair French to ask the first questions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19199 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Thank you for being here, Mr. Barrett and colleagues. Do you have specific policy recommendations you would like to comment to our attention today?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19200 MR. BARRETT: No. We see ourselves as an instrument of the process. The job to make the policy determinations that affect the fund's future belongs to the Government of Canada through whom we operate under a Contribution Agreement and yourselves, using your regulatory framework.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19201 Our job is to operate the fund under the policy guidelines that we are provided and to make sure that the Rules and Regulations are transparent and fair and equitable and that we deliver the services to our customer and client base in a user friendly fashion at modest costs. So, we are an operation agency not a policy‑maker.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19202 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: You've indicated in your brief today that audiences for Canadian programming are growing. And yet, probably the most important issue before the Commission in this proceeding is the result of declining audiences for Canadian conventional broadcasters, those same broadcasters who tell us, and I have no reason to think they're wrong, as they are primary vehicle for Canadian content.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19203 How would you reconcile your assertion that audiences for Canadian programming are growing with the consistent story that we've heard from all the general broadcasters that their audiences are diminishing?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19204 MR. BARRETT: Well, I guess I'll make a couple of opening comments and ask Valerie and perhaps Stéphane to add a comment.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19205 The first thing, I think, is that we focus on the audience performance of individual shows that we support and we look at those shows in a competitive environment against their peers on ‑‑ broadcast on both conventional and specialty and across a variety of genres and those genres naturally draw different levels of audience in different circumstances.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19206 One of the things I've had an association with the fund for a very long time and the tradition in Canada has been to use what's known as a selective system for selecting programs for funding.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19207 So that essentially, in that environment programs were assessed, there were competing programs assessed prior to production without any audience data before them in terms of how those programs would do. So, it was very hard to bring an audience measurement factor to determining what programs would be funded.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19208 When we switched to the envelope system two years ago, we are now focusing on measuring the performance of broadcasters as a whole in a competitive environment against their peers and we reward their success in promoting and scheduling and achieving audience success with their programs.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19209 What we found when we moved into the envelopment environment was that the audience measurement tools that were available to track both Canadian programs and also specifically C.T.F. funded programs were quite primitive and so, we have been on a catch‑up game to work with the various rating agencies to introduce measure that accurately track the success of our programs. We are now two years into the program.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19210 So, we are beginning, only beginning with the switch in a kind of phases of how the decisions, the funding decisions are made. We are only two years into building the kind of audience measuring base of what to allow us to actually specifically answer your program.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19211 And the only other comment I would say before I pass of to Valerie is that I think there is a difference between raw audience to an individual program and success or failure in that context and share of market vis‑à‑vis specialty and conventional and I think we have heard a lot of information over a period of time about the relative shift in an audience share between the conventionals and the specialties as a group.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19212 MS. CREIGHTON: I would just add that in terms of the system, audience success is one of the mandates we are directly compelled to respond to in terms of the Contribution Agreement and this was an initiative of the Federal Government towards us, which we appreciated.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19213 And in the first year of the envelopes, we used the measurement for audience at 30 per cent. As we go into the 07‑08 year, that factor will be increased to 40 per cent, so it's clearly the focus of what the fund is all about in terms of ensuring those audiences are growing and developing and building through our programs.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19214 MR. BARRETT: Stéphane, tu veux ajouter quelque chose?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19215 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: So, while the C.T.F. is paying attention to the audiences for the programs that it sponsors, it doesn't have any evidence to offer us that Canadian programming is growing in audience appeal?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19216 MR. BARRETT: We can only track the aggregate audiences on a year‑over‑year basis to the pool of programs we support and as I say, we're two years into that, to the ability to do that exercise.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19217 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Yes. I guess I can only note that if indeed it were true across the board as you assert that Canadian program we were growing in audience appeal we would be unlikely to be here with the kinds of problems that the conventional television broadcasters are bringing us, unless I'm missing something in the equation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19218 Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19219 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Barrett, I don't know if you feel comfortable to comment, but some of the interveners that we've heard over the last couple of days have suggested to us that the Commission contemplate increasing the genre categories, particularly including category 11 as eligible category for access to the qualifier priority programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19220 If the Commission was to go into that direction, will that impact on C.T.F.?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19221 MR. BARRETT: We have ‑‑ the genres of programming that we fund is established in the contract that we have with the Department of Canadian Heritage. So, we are given a pool of money that applies to the specific genres.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19222 So, I think what would happen is if the Commission changed its approach to priority programming, there would be a reconsideration presumably at that level as to what could be funded or not.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19223 But unless I'm missing something, I don't think that all genres which the Commission currently treats as priority programming are in fact eligible for us.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19224 So, I think there are certain priority programming genres that you have that we do not support and I'm going to get ‑‑ I don't want to get caught out on details.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19225 But the other thing that I would say is ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19226 THE CHAIRPERSON: Surely we could have our staff to investigate that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19227 MR. BARRETT: Yes. But I think we look to the Contribution Agreement to set the broad framework for us and while the Contribution Agreement doesn't directly apply to the revenues received from the Broadcasting Distribution Industries, as a practical matter, we administer the monies as a pool and we make no distinction in terms of the rules and regulations that apply to the BDU revenues, as opposed to the Department of Canadian Heritage revenues.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19228 The other point I was going to make to you and it's a point that may come up in other questions, is this:
LISTNUM 1 \l 19229 We have had a period of growing revenues in the late nineties with the introduction of various new table services, but the contribution of the Department of Canadian Heritage has remained stable for ten years and as a result, the overall pool of funds available to the Canadian Television Fund really doesn't change very much from year to year.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19230 And in that context, and in the same time period, that same ten year time period, something in the order of 40 odd new television channels that are technically eligible to receive, to have an envelope from the C.T.F. have come on stream.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19231 So, we feel we find ourselves under growing pressure to manage these different appetites in the context of our current rules and one of the things that comes up whenever we're asked to consider a new opportunity or a shift in eligibility or an addition of another program category or whatever, is we tell our stakeholder community because we work very very closely with them, that all of these things require, have a cost, because it is an income shift or a resort shift debate that we have, so, if we take on something new, it has to be paid for out of the resources we are currently applying in some other area.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19232 And so, currently, for instance, we have genre allocations among the various genres, we often hear a view, for instance, that a particular genre is under greater distress than another and we should increase our resources applicable to that genre.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19233 Well, that's a fine debate to have until you ask which other genres will we take it from in order to satisfy that appetite.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19234 So, we look at any new challenge as a ‑‑ in a somewhat stressed environment because we won't have and there is no immediate prospect for significantly resources to be able to manage those challenges.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19235 LE PRÉSIDENT: Comment expliquez‑vous que les deux principaux diffuseurs généralistes francophones se soient retirés de la diffusion de séries lourdes et qu'en est l'impact pour le Fonds canadien?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19236 Est‑ce que ça libère des crédits qui peuvent être utilisés de manière différente ou si ces crédits‑là vont servir? Enfin, parce que c'était des sommes importantes quand même qui étaient allouées aux séries lourdes, probablement davantage... c'est toujours en fonction des coûts de production?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19237 M. BARRETT: Tu veux répondre à ça?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19238 Mme FORTIN: Je pense que, globalement, le genre c'est dramatique et ce qu'ils ont choisi de faire, c'est de faire moins de séries lourdes et davantage de séries mi‑lourdes avec le même argent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19239 Dans le cas de Radio‑Canada, l'enveloppe est fermée, ça ne change rien. Au lieu de faire une série 800 000,00 $, ils en font deux à 400 000,00 $.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19240 Je veux dire, par rapport au Fonds, comme c'est leur choix, je veux dire c'est une stratégie des diffuseurs, qui ne change rien par rapport à la réallocation par genre.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19241 LE PRÉSIDENT: Bien, écoutez, ce sont l'ensemble de nos questions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19242 Mr. Barrette, madame Fortin, Mrs Creighton et monsieur Cardin, je ne vous demanderai pas si la SODEC c'est la même chose que l'OMDC.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19243 Mme FORTIN: Est‑ce que je peux...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19244 LE PRÉSIDENT: Oui, madame.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19245 Mme FORTIN: J'aimerais conclure sur quelque chose. Je veux dire, quelles que soient les orientations de l'avenir de la télévision, il y a des choses que nous savons, c'est que la compétition va être de plus en plus grande, je veux dire par rapport à l'international, les plate‑formes, les chaînes, et caetera.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19246 Mais, je veux dire, la diversité culturelle pour laquelle nos gouvernements se battent sur le plan international et qu'ils supportent par des fonds publics, je veux dire, va devenir l'élément essentiel si on veut que les Canadiens aient des histoires canadiennes à se mettre sous la dent et ce qu'on voudrait témoigner ici, c'est quels que soient les arrangements, il faut tenir compte que le contenu canadien, surtout dans les genres que nous finançons, je veux dire, n'est pas nécessairement quelque chose qui peut être financé par le marché uniquement.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19247 Il est important que le contenu canadien soit support, je veux dire, dans un contexte de diversité culturelle et de compétition internationale.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19248 LE PRÉSIDENT: Évidemment, j'apprécie votre témoignage, madame Fortin. Évidemment, je pose... on pose nos questions en fonction de votre présence comme représentants du Fonds canadien de la télévision et non pour des rôles principaux que vous jouez...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19249 Mme FORTIN: Bien sûr.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19250 LE PRÉSIDENT: ... dans d'autres milieux.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19251 Il y a aussi des questions qui sont... dont la réponse est d'une certaine évidence. Il y a des intervenants qui nous ont suggéré de ne pas autoriser de redevances, mais d'accroître les contributions des distributeurs au Fonds canadien de la télévision.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19252 Je ne vous pose pas la question parce que tout le monde...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19253 Mme FORTIN: Je n'ai pas d'opinion là‑dessus.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19254 LE PRÉSIDENT: Un, vous n'avez pas d'opinion... vous n'avez pas d'opinion mais si vous en aviez une, de toute façon...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19255 Mme FORTIN: Vous avez raison; je n'en aurai pas.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19256 LE PRÉSIDENT: Et on n'a pas besoin de poser la question pour connaître la réponse.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19257 Mme FORTIN: Non, non, mais je pense que ça veut juste illustrer l'importance du contenu...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19258 LE PRÉSIDENT: Oui. Non, non, mais...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19259 Mme FORTIN:.. dans tout cette... dans tout ce débat‑là.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19260 LE PRÉSIDENT: ... on apprécie votre témoignage.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19261 M. BARRETT: Nous sommes non‑partisans ici ce matin.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19262 LE PRÉSIDENT: C'est ça. Merci beaucoup.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19263 M. BARRETT: Merci beaucoup.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19264 LE PRÉSIDENT: Nous prendrons dix minutes d'interruption, donc de retour à 0950.
‑‑‑ Suspension à 0938 / Upon recessing at 0938
‑‑‑ Reprise à 0955 / Upon resuming at 0955
LISTNUM 1 \l 19265 THE CHAIRPERSON: Order, please. À l'ordre, s'il vous plaît.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19266 Madame la Secrétaire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19267 LA SECRÉTAIRE : Merci, Monsieur le Président.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19268 I would now call on the next group, Media Access Canada to come forward for their presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19269 Ms Beverly Milligan will be speaking on behalf of Media Access Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19270 Ms Milligan, you have ten minutes for your presentation, whenever you are ready. Thank you.
PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 19271 MS MILLIGAN: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19272 Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19273 My name is Beverly Milligan, and I have a certain expertise in broadcast technology, the Canadian disability community, policy and standards and a hands‑on historical understanding of the evolution of accessible media in Canada in the work that I did in closed captioning for Canadian broadcasting.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19274 I'm here today to represent a body of thinking, not of a specific membership base. This body of thinking, primarily representative of the senior citizen community and the disability community and substantiated in market research done over the last two quarters of fiscal 2006, are the footings of what we know today as Media Access Canada, a non‑membership based research and information sharing organization that specializes in the disability and seniors demographics as they relate to media and its accessibility.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19275 In the CRTC's review of certain aspects of the regulatory framework for the over‑the‑air television, the Commission, in paragraph 57, asked for ideas around the exploration of ways to improve the accessibility of television programming for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19276 In a written response we addressed the specific questions posed by the Commission and today would like to further detail the Commission's request for concrete and specific proposals to address the ongoing concerns about captioning quality.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19277 At this point it is important to note that accessible media is more than just captioning, closed captioning, but that captioning has traditionally set precedent for other media. It is critical therefore to all accessible media that we understand what is happening right now with captioning.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19278 In 1998 Canada Captioning, then a charitable organization, donated the Association of Broadcasters its captioning quality standards that were later published on the CAB website. The CAB Closed Captioning Manual ‑‑ and I quote:
"...was approved in principle by both the CAB's television and specialty and pay boards at their last meeting in October 2002 and is designed to establish English language closed captioning standards acceptable to all stakeholders, the captioning consumers, the captioning creators and private broadcasters."
LISTNUM 1 \l 19279 The CAB and its membership approved it but today, while we do not have the empirical evidence of the existence of poor quality captioning, we have received enough negative feedback to write paragraph 57 in the CRTC review of the regulatory framework for over‑the‑air television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19280 If the CAB and its members cannot self‑regulate, then what needs to happen?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19281 The opportunity to remedy the spirit of Public Notice 1995‑48, where the Commission mandated as a condition of licence 90 percent caption broadcast day, does not happen often. Today I will provide tangible and achievable activities that would improve the quality of captioning and set the baseline precedent for future accessible technologies.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19282 First, require all revenue gained from the social marketing advertisement "closed captioning brought to you by" be directed to accessible media spending and not become part of general revenues. Currently this airtime is considered non‑advertising. Common sense tells us that if there is accountable revenue, then there is accountability.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19283 Second, existing CAB conditioning caption guidelines become an industry standard for the purposes of research.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19284 Third, regular and ongoing monitoring of accessible media‑based on the industry standard. This monitoring would occur on a rotational basis across all CRTC‑licensed media. We propose that this data become compiled and circulated to all stakeholders, including the CRTC, government, service, business and community organizations so that they might better understand the state of accessible media content delivery services in an industry sector.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19285 A sample of this type of monitoring is the Monitor Project, a comprehensive study undertaken by the Canadian Captioning Development Agency in 1992. This study did not identify any one broadcaster. Instead, it randomly measured quality and quantity of captioning to create a baseline of captioning activity that could be measured through future studies.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19286 The monitor project will form part of this presentation today.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19287 Lastly, any over‑the‑air broadcaster who may in the future receive new revenues from BDUs contribute to a fund that underwrites industry‑wide accessible media monitoring of their content. The Commission has demonstrated through its ongoing published monitoring reports the importance of such work. We hope you agree that ongoing monitoring for accessible media is also important.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19288 We believe measurement and accountability is the beginning of improved quality. We have presented just a few ways in which monitoring could be underwritten, and MAC, this body of thinking and research from over 450 stakeholders in the Canadian disability and senior sector, has many more practical ideas for win‑win solutions to accessible media inclusion.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19289 Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19290 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Ms Milligan.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19291 I will have Commissioner Williams ask you the first question.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19292 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good morning, Ms Milligan. Welcome to our process.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19293 MS MILLIGAN: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19294 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In reading through your written submission that you submitted electronically, in the area of background you talk about ‑‑ just to quote you:
"However, with the establishment of a baseline standard for captioning 10 minutes of a 30 or 60‑minute program could be captioned would qualify the entire 30 to 60 minutes as captioned falling within the 90 percent rule. Illegible captioning falls within the 90 percent rule. Further, there has never been any actual monitoring to ensure consistency for what has been reported captioned and what is actually captioned."
LISTNUM 1 \l 19295 Is there more that you wish to add to that to help give us a better understanding of how captioning that doesn't sound to be that effective has actually been coded to and qualifies as captioning?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19296 MS MILLIGAN: Certainly. You will see it in the Monitor Project. One of the things that was measured and one of the greater complaints is that, first of all, captioning that can't be understood for a number of reasons, or inappropriate, or some kind of quality of captioning that makes a program illegible, for example; or that for whatever reason ten minutes of a program is captioned in a 30‑minute program, so parts of it. Again, this is considered quality of captioning; that is, that the whole program isn't captioned. And these types of things do occur.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19297 Falling under the rule, because it is captioned, it is reported captioned regardless of the quality of the captioning, first of all. And also if only a portion of that programming is captioned, it still would be reported as captioned and fall within the 90 percent rule.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19298 We will see this in news. We will see this in live events and in many other areas where they are using a certain style of captioning in an inappropriate programming venue.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19299 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19300 Are you proposing that your group become the independent adjudicator of captioning complaints? And if so, could you elaborate. How would you do that?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19301 MS MILLIGAN: I think what our group is looking for ‑‑ it certainly could become an independent adjudicator because it's a collaboration of all of the stakeholders, inclusive of the producers of closed captioning, consumers of closed captioning, service organizations and virtually anybody else that wants to participate in the process. It's an open process of ongoing dialogue and information sharing.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19302 So this organization certainly could do that and has the qualifications for that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19303 The primary goal of this organization, however, is to see a continuation of the type of research done and the underlying monitoring of accessible media and captioning in particular so that we have an idea of where we are on an ongoing basis.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19304 This has traditionally not happened, and in fact it has been since 1993 that the last research undertaking in this particular area has happened.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19305 Again, the Monitor Project was a random activity; that is to say, it monitored broadcasters across the country quite randomly. It did it over the course of eight weeks and then dissected what was going on and gave the full report.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19306 It needs to happen a little bit more often than every 15 years, we believe.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19307 If we have some kind of baseline 15 years later for accessible media, then we can, first of all, see where we are and start going forward, not only in English but English captioning and English accessibility is far further ahead than French, for example. So there needs to be a lot of work in that area as well.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19308 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Can you tell us what you would do about the monitoring of French programming, and how would you go about the monitoring of quality programming in both French or English?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19309 MS MILLIGAN: As you will see in the Monitor Project, what we would do is we would randomly select taped programming and then we would dissect it based on CRTC programming categories and based on a standard.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19310 This standard that we used 15 years ago is in fact the same standard more or less in the current voluntary code that the CAB has published on its website, because we in fact donated that standard to them and they worked it for their purposes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19311 First of all, in the area of French language, there isn't any published standard. So we need to get a baseline going, a baseline standard that all organizations and stakeholders would collaborate on. This is really important because what we have out there right now is, for example, we have captioning businesses, producers that in order to keep competing with each other, are really pushing down the quality of the captioning because the cost to caption is a very real cost, and to do it cheaper and cheaper is really compromising captioning quality.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19312 That doesn't need to happen. The revenues are there through on‑air sponsorship in other ways. There's all kinds of win‑win solutions to get revenue. So there is no need for that quality compromise if in fact there is a baseline standard that everybody can follow.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19313 So that is where you begin, and then you just monitor randomly on a rotational basis and report back.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19314 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In your written presentation again, you stated that it is important to note that all American programming arrives at a broadcast facility already fully captioned. Telefilm underwrites 100 percent of the time all closed captioning of any program it invests in, and most broadcasters put in their co‑production broadcast licence agreements that a captioned master is delivered.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19315 The only programming a Canadian television broadcaster will underwrite is their original programming, like news and live sporting events.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19316 Are you saying that that is the portion that has to be monitored or would you monitor all?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19317 MS MILLIGAN: No. I would monitor right across the board, absolutely.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19318 There are certain styles and there are certain levels of quality that you can introduce into captioning due to the time that you have to caption. So you would use a differing technology, allowing you to produce better quality captioning, more literate, more attached to depending on ‑‑ for example, a drama ‑‑ and I guess this is true too just with production in general. In a drama you have a far better quality of captioning than you would get in news, and that is accepted and that is understood.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19319 But it's not happening. What is happening is they are using the style and the way in which they capture news for drama, and this really affects the quality.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19320 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You have also stated in your written remarks that there are profit opportunities for the broadcasters in captioning. Can you elaborate on that and give us a few examples?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19321 MS MILLIGAN: Certainly. Canada Caption Inc., for example, a lot of what it did was that it brought closed captioning ‑‑ brought to you by that sponsorship ‑‑ to the market and created an awareness, and eventually introduced a sunset clause and gave back to the broadcast industry the idea and the proven business model to generate revenue through the model.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19322 For example, our 10‑second piece in the Super Bowl, which we were working on with one of the broadcasters, we sold for $10,000.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19323 This was way back. This was 15 years ago.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19324 Did it cost $10,000 to close caption the program? Of course not. It cost $400 then.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19325 The rest of the revenue, because we were a charity, went to caption other programming for that particular broadcaster, and that $10,000 went a long way.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19326 We see closed captioning brought to you across all channels, and throughout the broadcast day.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19327 Typically, again, this is empirical, because there have not been a lot of studies, but certainly, through anecdotal research and discussions, what we are finding is that, in fact, it is now being thrown in to close a bigger deal.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19328 We will just throw in that sponsorship and close the bigger deal. Where is the revenue for that? There is nothing there. It goes into general revenues, and that is that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19329 When it was done outside, or separate from ‑‑ through CCI ‑‑ and I am not suggesting that that happen again, I am just saying that if, in fact, it goes into a different pot, then we all know it is there.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19330 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: CCI was the non‑profit ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19331 MS MILLIGAN: Charitable organization.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19332 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Canada Caption Incorporated.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19333 MS MILLIGAN: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19334 I am not suggesting that that be started again, but I am saying that the idea of a separate line, or a separate pot that this would go into ‑‑ one, it would generate new revenues for the broadcasters, because, suddenly, the power to throw it in to close a deal isn't there any more. They need to actually show revenue. So it wouldn't be treated in the way it is currently being treated.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19335 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You suggest that, since this change has happened, the quality of captioning has progressively worsened.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19336 MS MILLIGAN: It certainly has. Absolutely. It has progressively worsened.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19337 In fact, when we implemented the sunset clause for CCI in 1998, and finally closed up around 1999, we were working with Heritage Canada and the CRTC and Industry Canada to figure out who was going to take care of the quality of captioning issue, which had not been resolved.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19338 Nobody, at that time, was able to ‑‑ everybody was sort of finger pointing at each other, saying: No, it is Industry, because it is technology. It is Heritage, because it is culture.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19339 Then, of course, the CRTC can only do what it can do in terms of its mandate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19340 So it never ever actually got resolved.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19341 I think that, certainly, the quality issue has affected the industry of closed captioning ‑‑ the production industry that we call the accessible media production industry. It has really been affected.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19342 We are going to see the same things happen as we see more and more descriptive video.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19343 Is descriptive video today overpriced? Absolutely.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19344 Should it come down? Is there room for it to come down? Absolutely.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19345 But do we want to set the precedent, like we already have with captioning, where it is virtually, in some programs, illegible?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19346 We are beginning to see that development as the descriptive video production industry grows, as well.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19347 It is hurting the production industry. It is virtually useless, if you are depending on it to understand the program. It is completely frustrating. And it is just not necessary.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19348 There are really simple, tangible, win‑win solutions to fixing the problem.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19349 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Ms Milligan, what do you think of the Monitoring Committee established by Radio Canada?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19350 Would such committees be a satisfactory way to monitor the quality of captioning by individual broadcasters?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19351 MS MILLIGAN: I'm sorry, I am not familiar with that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19352 Radio Canada is self‑monitoring?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19353 Are you suggesting self‑monitoring?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19354 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19355 Not as the total monitoring, but just to help the organization itself.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19356 MS MILLIGAN: I think, in that particular case, absolutely.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19357 First of all, I think that any monitoring is good. One has to assume that if you are monitoring, whether or not you are self‑monitoring ‑‑ albeit, there is an implied bias ‑‑ it is, nonetheless, better than nothing; so, yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19358 In a perfect world would that be my first choice? No.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19359 I think that it doesn't have to be that way. I think there is some precedent, in terms of voluntary codes that haven't been adhered to in any way, that are strong indicators that maybe what we want to do, if we are looking at this, is third party it out to some independent research organization.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19360 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If broadcasters were to work together to develop and implement universal standards, which organization, in your view, should be responsible for coordinating such a working group?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19361 Should it be, say, an individual broadcaster, or the CAB?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19362 Who do you think would be best to coordinate ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19363 MS MILLIGAN: To coordinate ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19364 I'm sorry, could you ask me that again?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19365 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19366 MS MILLIGAN: Are you suggesting that, if the broadcast community, the industry itself, wanted to get together and look at this ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19367 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, and implement some universal standards.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19368 Which organization, in your view, would be the best to pull it all together?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19369 MS MILLIGAN: The Canadian Standards Association, as suggested in 57, would be perfectly fine.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19370 It could boil down to a different set of numbers, and a different set of criteria, and be part of a reporting process.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19371 That is to say: Okay, we have captioned it and in this program ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19372 You know, valuing ‑‑ assigning a number to the different styles and correlating them to programming categories.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19373 It could be quite streamlined and quite simple, so that, ultimately, it wouldn't have to become huge.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19374 But it is getting there. Do I think that we should let the broadcast communities and the CAB do this? I think they have tried, and I think it is great what they have done, the initiatives they have taken, and I believe, sincerely, that the CAB and a number of broadcasters and employees of broadcasters out there have a tremendous sensitivity to accessible media, but I am not convinced that that is going to be the solution to the issue of quality.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19375 I think that there are many ways that are not ‑‑ let's put this group of people together in the same room as this group of people and let's spend the next year and a half hammering something out that, then, goes on a shelf or goes on a website, and we get a little bit of publicity from it, and then we move on.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19376 I certainly hope that isn't what the opportunity is here, because I think this is an extraordinary opportunity to fix a little problem, which seems really, really big.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19377 It is like coming up with a whole broadcast standard, like MPEG‑10. You plan now, and you put accessibility into it, and when it comes to fruition in 15 years, it is there.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19378 That is what I see the opportunity being, and that is what we would like to see in our world. We would like it to go a little bit beyond the CAB.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19379 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Ms Milligan.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19380 Thank you, Mr. Chair, that concludes my questioning.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19381 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr. Williams.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19382 Ms Milligan, thank you very much for your presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19383 We will now move to the next item.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19384 MS MILLIGAN: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19385 LA SECRÉTAIRE : J'appellerais maintenant le prochain groupe, l'Union des Artistes et la SARTEC, à se présenter à la table en avant.
‑‑‑ Pause
LISTNUM 1 \l 19386 LE PRÉSIDENT : Monsieur Curzi, à votre convenance. Nous vous écoutons.
PRÉSENTATION / PRESENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 19387 M. CURZI : Merci, Monsieur le Président. Bonjour, mesdames les commissaires, messieurs les commissaires.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19388 Donc, je me présente, Pierre Curzi, président de l'Union des Artistes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19389 Je suis accompagné de Marc Grégoire, le président de la SARTEC; accompagné par Anne‑Marie des Roches, notre directrice des affaires publiques de l'Union des Artistes; et par monsieur Yves Légaré, directeur‑général de la SARTEC.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19390 Vous avez reçu notre mémoire. Il est axé surtout sur les télévisions généralistes privées. Je ne reviendrai par sur ce mémoire‑là. Je voudrais juste insister sur deux points.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19391 Le premier, c'est, quelque soit le résultat de l'examen du cadre réglementaire de la télévision en direct, pour nous, cet examen doit atteindre un objectif très précis, qui est l'augmentation du contenu des émissions prioritaires, et non seulement l'augmentation du contenu des émissions prioritaires, mais plus spécifiquement du contenu des émissions prioritaires dramatiques.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19392 On pense que cet objectif‑là, de la création du contenu, doit être l'objectif premier de quelque mesure que ce soit.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19393 Nous ne sommes pas défavorables, par exemple, à l'augmentation des redevances, mais nous croyons que les redevances doivent être en lien direct avec la production de contenu canadien spécifique, et en ce sens‑là, ce que le Fonds canadien de télévision déploie comme investissements dans des émissions prioritaires nous apparaît être un cadre beaucoup plus conforme à nos attentes que les conséquences des décisions qui ont été prises en '99.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19394 Donc, dans un sens, nous souhaitons qu'il n'y ait pas d'élargissement du contenu des émissions prioritaires, mais, au contraire, un resserrement, parce que notre but clair et net, et ça touche l'ensemble des membres que nous représentons, c'est qu'il y ait plus de contenu canadien, plus de dramatiques et plus d'émissions prioritaires canadiennes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19395 L'autre aspect sur lequel je voudrais... Ceci dit, il y a plusieurs des affirmations qui ont été faites la semaine dernière, avec lesquelles nous sommes plus ou moins d'accord.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19396 La première, et la plus importante, à mon sens, c'est qu'il faut cesser de considérer que TVA ou TQS sont des organismes détachés de l'ensemble des autres parties des groupes à l'intérieur desquels ils existent, et qu'il y a un mensonge profond à dire que les auditoires diminuent et que les revenus publicitaires diminuent, alors que, par ailleurs, les sources de revenus de différentes formes proviennent de l'ensemble du secteur.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19397 Alors, on croit qu'il y a là une inadéquation dont il faudrait commencer à parler sérieusement.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19398 L'autre aspect sur lequel je veux insister, c'est l'introduction du placement de produits et des commandites.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19399 Là, évidemment, on a été obligé de vivre avec le développement du placement de produits à l'intérieur des émissions, mais, très franchement, si on avait eu le choix ou si on avait été conscient de ce vers quoi nous allions, on aurait refusé qu'il y ait du placement de produits, et on pense qu'il faut, au contraire, éviter soigneusement d'ouvrir encore plus la possibilité d'avoir du placement de produits dans les émissions, parce que c'est une menace directe à l'intégrité des oeuvres.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19400 Et s'il y a des phénomènes qui ont amené des baisses d'auditoire, on peut se dire que peut‑être que l'abus publicitaire a été une des raisons, mais chose certaine, aller dans le sens d'une augmentation, à la fois de la quantité ou de la façon d'introduire de la publicité, aurait pour résultat de contrer tout effort pour produire du contenu canadien.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19401 Donc, si on augmente le contenu canadien, mais que ce contenu‑là est en quelque sorte gangrené par la publicité, je pense qu'on n'atteint pas l'objectif fondamentale de toutes les politiques culturelles du gouvernement du Canada, qui est de permettre aux Canadiens d'avoir accès à une culture diversifiée et de qualité. Voilà.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19402 M. GRÉGOIRE : Dans le même ordre d'idées, la multiplication des émissions de téléréalité américaines, avec surimpression vocale francophone, les émissions qu'on appelle comme * Les drôles de vidéos +, * Les bloopers +, ça, ça nous fait craindre le pire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19403 Il ne faut pas oublier que les deux télédiffuseurs privés vont mettre fin à sept ans d'avantages liés aux transactions en 2008. Les dépenses consacrées aux émissions canadiennes, et ça inclut les émissions prioritaires, sont en bonne partie attribuables à ces avantages.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19404 Nous le constatons tous, la politique de '99 constituait un début de flexibilité en ce qui concerne la réglementation, et elle a mené à une réduction des émissions de fiction.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19405 Vous avez lu notre mémoire. J'aimerais terminer en vous rappelant les faits saillants de celui‑ci :
LISTNUM 1 \l 19406 ‑ d'abord, que l'usage des radio fréquences canadiennes constitue non pas un droit, mais un privilège;
LISTNUM 1 \l 19407 ‑ que c'est la télévision généraliste qui, en grande majorité, déclenche le financement des émissions prioritaires originales;
LISTNUM 1 \l 19408 ‑ que seules des licences de diffusion plus élevées, un nouveau financement gouvernemental et des exigences précises du CRTC pourra assurer la pérennité d'émissions prioritaires;
LISTNUM 1 \l 19409 ‑ qu'il faut exiger un traitement équitable de l'ensemble des grands groupes, dont TQS, avec un minimum de huit heures d'émissions prioritaires originales par semaine, et que, sur ces huit heures, il y ait un minimum de cinq heures de dramatiques originales par semaine de toutes les chaînes généralistes francophones, par condition de licence;
LISTNUM 1 \l 19410 ‑ et finalement, d'accepter un tarif d'abonnement à la condition que les exigences en matière de contenu soient accrues.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19411 Un dernier point. Pour ce qui est des demandes nombreuses qui concernent la déréglementation, l'augmentation ou l'ouverture au placement de produits, comme parlait Pierre, nous tenons à réitérer notre ferme opposition et à souligner l'importance des oeuvres des créateurs et de leur public.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19412 Les créateurs et les artistes sont au cour de notre secteur audiovisuel, ce sont eux qui définissent le caractère original des oeuvres, et puisqu'ils sont les premiers titulaires du droit d'auteur, ils doivent être associés à la vie économique des oeuvres de façon équitable.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19413 Voilà. Merci.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19414 LE PRÉSIDENT : Merci, messieurs Curzi et Grégoire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19415 Je vais peut‑être commencer par le biais de la production indépendante par rapport à la production faite à l'interne pour la production des émissions prioritaires.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19416 Il s'est fait toute sorte de représentations au cours des derniers jours quant à la politique actuelle qui favorise de manière notable la remise de la production des émissions au secteur de la production indépendante. Certains, notamment les télédiffuseurs, ont demandé au Conseil une relaxation de cette règle‑là, qui exige, notamment, que 75 pour cent des émissions dites prioritaires soit dévolu à la production indépendante et qu'on révise ce quota‑là à la baisse, de façon à permettre aux télédiffuseurs qui voudraient eux‑mêmes le faire, de produire des émissions de plus grande envergure, ou encore, de favoriser l'intégration entre le secteur de la production indépendante et le secteur de la télédiffusion, comme ça s'est fait aux États‑Unis, où on a vu les Viacom devenir les partenaires de CBS, puis les Disney les partenaires de ABC, donc, de faire en sorte que peut‑être qu'on pourrait permettre au secteur de la télévision d'être mieux intégré avec les producteurs indépendants.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19417 Est‑ce que vous avez des commentaires, des observations à faire par rapport à ce secteur?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19418 M. CURZI : Bien, le premier commentaire, c'est qu'on reviendrait sur un historique qu'on a mis beaucoup d'énergie à créer, c'est‑à‑dire la création d'un secteur indépendant de production. On sait bien que c'est ce qui existait auparavant, c'est les télédiffuseurs étaient les principaux producteurs, et on a souhaité... pour augmenter la qualité, la compétitivité, la diversité surtout, on a souhaité créer un secteur indépendant.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19419 Alors, maintenant, revenir sur cet état de fait nous apparaît comme étrange, et d'autant plus que le système ne fonctionne pas mal. Ce qui fonctionne moins bien, c'est la façon dont les revenus sont générés et répartis. Il y a là une espèce de déséquilibre actuellement, très, très évident, puisqu'on multiplie les moyens de diffusion qui génèrent des revenus importants et qu'il n'y a pas suffisamment de revenus qui retournent au niveau de la production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19420 Donc, le système est un petit peu débalancé, mais je ne vois pas trop quels seraient les intérêts ‑‑ ou si je les vois, je ne suis pas sûr que je les souhaite ‑‑ à ce qu'il y est une fusion plus intime entre les deux.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19421 LE PRÉSIDENT : Bien, un des motifs, et probablement le motif central de cette réflexion de la part de ceux qui nous invitent à considérer cette possibilité, c'est le fait qu'on veut être capable d'utiliser les produits pour les diffuser sur des multi plates‑formes, alors que, présentement, les droits sont limités uniquement à la diffusion sur l'antenne hertzienne, et ils ne peuvent, donc, être réutilisés à d'autres fins, et les télédiffuseurs, évidemment, qui font cet argument là disent : Bien, nous, on veut amortir sur des multi plates‑formes ces coûts de production, pour être capables, effectivement, de continuer à générer d'autres activités. Donc, c'est le sens de leur démarche.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19422 Et vous, je sais très bien que vous avez... La raison pour laquelle je vous pose la question, je sais que vous avez un intérêt au dossier des multi plates‑formes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19423 M. CURZI : Oui. En fait, ce qu'on cherche... puis là, vous entrez directement dans certaines remarques qui sont dans certains des rapports où semble‑t‑il qu'on n'empêche l'utilisation des multi plates‑formes ou qu'on complique les choses.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19424 Effectivement, on les complique, puis on va continuer à les compliquer. C'est l'objet d'une négociation, ce que les syndicats... que nous représentons ce que nous sommes. On cherche à trouver un nouveau modèle d'affaires qui tienne compte de la réalité.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19425 La réalité, quelle est‑elle? Il y a une diminution de l'importance de la télévision généraliste, puis une multiplication des autres plates‑formes de diffusion.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19426 Nous, ce qu'on dit, c'est qu'il faut associer intimement les créateurs ‑‑ c'est vrai pour les auteurs, c'est vrai pour les interprètes ‑‑ à la vie économique de l'ouvre. Donc, dans un sens, le modèle d'affaires qu'on cherche serait de favoriser la création en n'augmentant pas nos demandes exagérément au moment où il y a production des oeuvres, du contenu, mais en s'assurant que lorsqu'il y a revenus ou succès, les créateurs touchent une part équitable des oeuvres qui fonctionnent bien, et on travaille fortement sur ce modèle là.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19427 Et ce modèle‑là est très souple. On peut envisager des pourcentages de revenus de ventes de location. On peut envisager différents modèles économiques pour tenir compte de la réalité.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19428 Ce qui est vrai, c'est que le modèle qui préexistait ‑‑ en tout cas, je parle pour l'Union des Artistes ‑‑ était un peu archaïque, et actuellement, tout l'effort de notre négociation avec les producteurs indépendants et avec les télédiffuseurs, dont TVA et TQS, cherche à créer de nouveau modèle là, qui va être adapté à la réalité de l'utilisation des oeuvres.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19429 Mais le principe fondamental, c'est que lorsqu'il y a succès ou vie économique heureuse du contenu, on veut y être associé. On prendra des parts de risque qu'il faut pour maintenir la qualité de la production, mais on va s'assurer qu'il y a un juste retour lorsqu'il y a bénéfices.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19430 Et en ce sens‑là, il faut s'interroger sur ce dont on parlait tantôt : quand une émission est produite par TVA, il est sûr que l'empire qui l'entoure, qui entoure TVA, va utiliser toutes les façons possibles de générer des profits. Et on l'a vu dans leur démonstration, ils sont les premiers au niveau des revues, les premiers au niveau de l'exploitation de la musique, les premiers partout.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19431 On n'a rien contre, mais il est clair maintenant qu'un contenu, il est multiplié et que les sources de revenus qui en sont tirées sont multipliées.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19432 M. LÉGARÉ : Et le débat va devoir se faire, qu'on parle de production à l'interne des diffuseurs ou de productions indépendantes, donc, que les plates‑formes sont utilisées, de toute façon, peu importe le secteur, et les enjeux sont les mêmes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19433 LE PRÉSIDENT : Oui, c'est évident que... d'ailleurs, on a eu les représentations de l'APFTQ, vendredi dernier, qui nous ont aussi fait part de leur ouverture à la négociation avec les télédiffuseurs, un peu sur le même modèle que celui que vous proposez, qui est l'objet de négociations bipartites et multipartites, finalement.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19434 Vous avez fait état dans votre présentation orale que plutôt de penser à élargir les catégories ou les genres d'émissions prioritaires, qu'on devrait plutôt les restreindre.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19435 Si je vous demandais quelle catégorie d'émissions vous voudriez qui ne soient plus considérées comme des émissions prioritaires, qu'est‑ce que vous nous suggérez?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19436 MME des ROCHES : Bien, je pense le premier principe qui devrait prévaloir, c'est de ‑‑ pour les fins de cohésion en termes de politiques culturelles ‑‑ probablement lier davantage la définition des émissions prioritaires aux émissions qui sont finançables sous le Fonds canadien de télévision.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19437 Alors, au départ, les dramatiques, on inclurait maintenant la jeunesse, et nous, ça surtout dans le documentaire. Il y a deux choses, le documentaire de longue durée... des émissions comme les quotidiennes de * Star Académie +, on n'a jamais compris que ça soit un documentaire de longue durée. Pour nous, ça ne va pas avec l'esprit même de ce qui était une émission qui était, oui, vitale, mais aussi peu représentée.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19438 L'autre chose, il y avait les émissions de priorité. Il y avait les émissions... dans le côté francophone, il y a des émissions d'entertainment, de divertissement, des trucs comme * Flash +. On n'essaie pas de faire un jugement de valeur sur ces émissions‑là, elles sont très bonnes, elles sont écoutées et tout, mais je pense, dans le marché francophone particulièrement, ce n'est peut‑être pas de ça qu'on a besoin, parce qu'on l'a le Star system, et on en parle, et il y a peut‑être lieu de mettre l'accent sur davantage d'émissions des heures de la scène et de la chanson, des vrais documentaires et des dramatiques.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19439 LE PRÉSIDENT : Dans votre mémoire, à la page 5, vous nous présentez deux options face aux émissions prioritaires, une option sans redevance, puis une option avec redevance. Dans votre option avec redevance, vous nous dites d'accroître les heures d'émissions prioritaires de huit à 10 et d'accroître les heures dédiées à la dramatique de cinq à heures de dramatiques originales par semaine.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19440 Quand on parle de ladite redevance, je vois que vous l'appuyez un peu du bout des lèvres, mais le Conseil allait dans cette direction‑là. Vous nous dites, donc, d'accroître les heures d'émissions dramatiques, tout en continuant à maintenir qu'on doit resserrer la définition des émissions prioritaires. Malgré le fait qu'on accroîtrait les heures de diffusion prioritaires, il faudrait, simultanément, en réduire les catégories d'accès?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19441 M. GRÉGOIRE : Écoutez, en fait, l'idée de base dans ça, c'est s'il y a plus d'argent qui vient dans le système par un tarif d'abonnement, par des redevances, c'est évident qu'on exigerait, à ce moment‑là, qu'une partie importante de cet argent‑là revienne en production, puisque l'idée pour nous, pour nos membres, tant auteurs que comédiens, c'est d'arriver à faire en sorte qu'il y ait plus de productions et que ce succès qu'est nos émissions dramatiques continue à avoir droit de cité.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19442 C'est bien évident que s'il y a un tarif d'abonnement et que cet argent‑là va pour augmenter d'autres catégories dites prioritaires actuellement, comme du divertissement et tout, c'est bien sûr qu'on se tirerait nous‑mêmes une balle dans le pied. Ça augmenterait les profits des compagnies, et ça diminuerait, ça scléroserait, éventuellement, le travail créateur dont on est les gardiens.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19443 LE PRÉSIDENT : Cependant, les télédiffuseurs nous suggèrent que si on leur autorisait la redevance qu'ils seraient prêts à accepter un minimum de dépenses au soutien de la production canadienne, comme c'était le système antérieur à '99.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19444 Pour vous, est‑ce qu'il y a une adéquation entres ces...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19445 M. CURZI : Bien, '99, on le voit, puis je pense qu'on le démontre assez clairement dans notre mémoire, que les effets ont été une baisse de la production. Alors, non, on ne souhaite pas que ça soit comme ça. Le minimum n'est pas acceptable. Il faut que ça soit un maximum.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19446 C'est clair qu'on est victime d'un certain succès dans le milieu francophone. On a mis en place une structure qui génère actuellement énormément de créativité, de compagnies, de talents, et on est aux prises avec un développement. On ne peut pas imaginer qu'on va arrêter ce développement‑là, mais la politique du CRTC en '99 a eu des effets qui n'ont pas été positifs pour ce qui est de la création des dramatiques, en tout cas.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19447 LE PRÉSIDENT : Mais celle qui a prévalu avant '99, où le financement était basé sur un pourcentage des revenus des années précédentes, est‑ce que cette formule‑là était mieux adaptée à la télévision francophone que celle qui est présentement en cours?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19448 MME des ROCHES : En fait, en '99, je ne suis pas certaine qu'on avait des dépenses de revenus bruts chez les télédiffuseurs francophones. Il y en avait seulement dans le secteur anglophone... j'attends. Non, ils ne le savent pas, mais...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19449 LE PRÉSIDENT : Je pense que vous avez raison. Effectivement, il n'y en avait pas parce que, effectivement, les minima que le Conseil avait mis en place pour la télévision anglophone étaient nettement dépassés par la télévision francophone. Donc, il n'y avait pas eu nécessité de...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19450 MME des ROCHES : Mais nous autres, on recommande les bretelles puis la ceinture, peut‑être vous allez me dire, Monsieur le Président, mais, dans le fond, on recommande également qu'il y ait un pourcentage des revenus qui soient attribués aux dépenses d'émissions canadiennes. Outre ça là, la réponse était positive à la question à cet égard.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19451 M. LÉGARÉ : En 1997‑1998, TVA, par exemple, atteignait facilement le cinq heures de dramatiques, et il y a eu un déclin depuis la politique de '99.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19452 LE PRÉSIDENT : Maintenant est‑ce que vous avez analysé les motifs qui font que, effectivement, l'écoute des dramatiques a diminué, parce que, évidemment, vous faites état vous même que, bon, il y a eu le succès... les services dits spécialisés ont contribué en partie à la désaffection des auditoires face aux généralistes, mais est‑ce que ce n'est pas le droit des téléspectateurs de consommer les produits qu'ils veulent? S'ils ont choisi de moins écouter de dramatiques qu'autrefois, est‑ce que ce n'est pas un choix libre de la part des téléspectateurs?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19453 M. CURZI : Oui, mais l'effet clair des canaux spécialisés, c'est que, en... je me souviens bien, l'esprit de cette politique‑là était il y a une spécialisation aux États‑Unis, une offre de marchés spécialisés, nous adoptons des résolutions pour permettre qu'il y ait une offre canadienne équivalente. C'était ça.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19454 L'effet concret dans le marché francophone, ça été de faire diminuer considérablement l'auditoire chez les généralistes et d'augmenter celui de tous les canaux spécialisés agglomérés. Le problème, c'est qu'on a exactement le même problème que l'Hydro Québec, tout d'un coup, il y a une section de production qui ne fait pas d'argent, puis il y a une section de distribution qui fait des milliards. L'avantage avec l'Hydro‑Québec, c'est que ce milliard‑là est retourné au gouvernement, puis qu'il nous revient sous forme de services.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19455 Dans le cas des télévisions spécialisées, elles ont augmenté la production d'ouvres, mais chacune d'entre elles n'est jamais capable de déclencher des productions majeures. Or, ce qui nous touche, nous autres, directement, et ce qui touche directement le contenu canadien, ce sont les dramatiques pour une grande part. Que les gens aient le choix, oui, mais qu'on n'oublie pas que le fondement de ce que c'est que la culture et l'identité canadienne, ça demeurera, qu'on le veuille ou pas, encore maintenant, des histoires qui seront racontées par des professionnels de ce conte‑là.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19456 Alors, un moment donné, et sans faire de jugement moral ou d'empêcher des gens d'avoir accès, il faut quand même s'assurer qu'ils ont des denrées saines à se mettre sous la dent et qu'on ne détériore pas nous‑mêmes la qualité de ce qui leur est offert.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19457 MME des ROCHES : J'aimerais rajouter aussi que c'est sûr que, il y a 10 ans, on parlait de 2,5 millions d'auditeurs, c'est sûr que la fragmentation est là. Mais là, on parle quand même de 1,5 million d'auditeurs dans les dramatiques lourdes ou moins lourdes. Ce n'est pas des pinottes, ça. C'est beaucoup de personnes qui l'écoutent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19458 On est là en train de dire que les gens ne l'écoutent plus, mais ils l'écoutent encore en grand nombre. Ça reste encore. La télévision généraliste reste encore pour encore un bon moment, je pense, dans le milieu francophone, la place des grands rendez‑vous, pas l'unique rendez‑vous, puis pas des gros, gros, gros party de famille, les familles sont rapetissés un peu, mais ça reste quand même significatif l'auditoire des dramatiques.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19459 Et on en parle, oui, il y a une baisse, mais en même temps, il y a du donnant‑donnant, finalement. Il y a des émissions qui vont coûter plus chères, qui vont aller chercher 1 million d'auditeurs. Il y a des émissions qui vont coûter vraiment presque rien à produire, qui vont aller chercher 2 millions d'auditeurs, et comme télédiffuseurs, bien, il y a un équilibre à faire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19460 Le problème avec ça, c'est que les télédiffuseurs, quand ils regardent les dramatiques, regardent juste la dramatique comme telle. Ils vont regarder * Vice caché +, ils ne regarderont pas * Kilomètre heure +, puis * Histoires de filles +, qui est beaucoup plus rentable. Il faut regarder l'ensemble de l'offre des dramatiques dans une grille.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19461 M. GRÉGOIRE : Si je pourrais juste terminer sur quelque chose. Si on pensait que la désaffection des dramatiques était du fait qu'il y a une lassitude du public, on aurait un problème. Nous, ce qu'on pense, c'est que la désaffection est une question souvent beaucoup plus économique que culturelle. C'est que ça coûte plus cher, et pour le même montant d'argent, certains diffuseurs ou producteurs sont capables de faire plus d'argent. Alors, il y a une question d'offre et de demande.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19462 C'est comme n'importe quoi. Si vous mettez énormément de publicité sur un produit qui est un produit X en fast food, par exemple, vous risquez d'avoir plus de gens qui vont aller là que sur un produit différent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19463 Alors, nous sommes persuadés que les dramatiques... si on met des dramatiques à l'écran francophone, oui, le public est là, il va continuer à les écouter. Bien sûr, il peut y avoir des vagues, ou, par certains moments, il y a eu, comme dans n'importe quoi, des peak, mais lorsqu'on est au sommet de quelque chose, on ne peut pas nécessairement rester complètement au sommet. Mais la moyenne générale de l'écoute des dramatiques demeure extrêmement positive en français au Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19464 M. LÉGARÉl Il y a aussi 30 pour cent de l'écoute qui a migré vers les canaux spécialisés. Or, les canaux spécialisés offrent très peu de dramatique nationale. Donc, lorsqu'on pense justement au calcul de l'écoute, il faut voir que l'offre en dramatique n'est pas toujours aussi présente partout.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19465 LE PRÉSIDENT : Mais est‑ce que ce 30 pour cent d'auditeurs fait un choix délibéré de ne pas écouter de la dramatique, d'aller consommer d'autres produits?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19466 M. LÉGARÉ : Lorsqu'on lui offre de la dramatique, il y a quand même quelques dramatiques qui ont été offertes, les cotes d'écoute ne sont pas mauvaises. De même façon que lorsqu'on offre des documentaires nationaux sur des chaînes comme Canal D, l'écoute est très bonne également. C'est simplement que l'offre n'est pas toujours présente.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19467 M. CURZI : Monsieur Dion de TVA vous a sûrement dit que, oui, il y a une baisse de la télévision généraliste, mais, grosso modo ‑‑ enfin, c'est le discours qu'il nous tient ‑‑ c'est qu'il y a le même public qui a d'autres habitudes de consommation. Grosso modo, ça baisse à TVA, mais ça augmente sur je ne sais pas quoi là, ilico ou à d'autres façons. On voit le marché des DVD, par exemple, qui augmente énormément. Puis c'est en ce sens‑là qu'on essaie de faire des efforts pour adapter notre structure de droits, donc, nos revenus sur la différence, mais c'est toujours le même bassin.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19468 Leur affirmation, c'est que ça n'augmente pas, que c'est la même tarte. Moi, je ne suis pas certain de ça. Je pense que, dans certains cas, il y a une augmentation mais qui est difficile à calculer, à aller chercher, mais on est là dans l'impression.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19469 LE PRÉSIDENT : Évidemment, il n'y a rien qui nous dit que... c'est parce que c'est toujours une question de thématique aussi au niveau des dramatiques. Il n'y a rien qui nous dit que l'année prochaine, une thématique n'attirera pas encore un 3 millions de téléspectateurs? Trois millions, je mets la barre haute là.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19470 M. CURZI : Oui. Peut‑être que ce temps‑là est fini, effectivement, parce que...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19471 LE PRÉSIDENT : Et peut‑être que non.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19472 M. CURZI : Et peut‑être que non. Mais chose certaine, il faut essayer, et ça devrait être le but de la télévision généraliste.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19473 LE PRÉSIDENT : Bien ça, je pense que c'est... tous les responsables de programmation dans les entreprises rêvent au jour où ils ont un succès de cette nature‑là, puis ces succès‑là sont généralement non‑anticipés. On les découvre au fur et à mesure. Le pense à * La petite vie +. Je ne suis pas persuadé que les concepteurs de * La petite vie +, puis le diffuseur de * La petite vie + avaient en tête le succès que ça eu. Ils s'en sont bien réjouis, cependant.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19474 M. CURZI : Mais ce qu'on sait, c'est qu'en culture, il y a peut‑être une production au cinéma. La règle est bien connue.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19475 LE PRÉSIDENT : Oui, oui.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19476 M. CURZI : Alors, il faut maintenir un volume. Puis le problème qu'on commence à avoir, c'est que si on prend une gang d'individus, qu'on les met dans une maison, puis qu'on les film là, on peut appeler ça une oeuvre, mais au niveau du contenu, on commence à s'effriter le contenu.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19477 Il faut maintenir un minimum de contenu de qualité si on veut espérer obtenir des succès puis on voit que cette formule‑là fonctionne, en tout cas, au niveau du cinéma francophone, le nombre de films génère, a généré depuis plusieurs années une augmentation de l'auditoire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19478 Il n'y a pas de raison que le modèle soit si différent dans la télévision.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19479 LE PRÉSIDENT: Dans votre Mémoire, vous écrivez que le développement des nouvelles plate‑formes technologiques favoriseraient certains types de programmation telle la télé‑réalité. Or, ça m'a un peu étonné de voir cette affirmation‑là, je me suis posé la question.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19480 Est‑ce que vous avez des évidences que la télé‑réalité a du succès sur d'autres plate‑formes que la télévision?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19481 Mme DesROCHES: Bien, en fait, ça a été le cas pour Star Académie. On disait, par exemple, l'internet, Star Académie où les gens avaient la caméra 24 heures sur 24, si tu achetais pour 10,00 $ ton bouquet de votes et puis, là, tu avais...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19482 Et donc, tes possibilités non seulement de faire du marketing, mais de faire de l'argent et sur d'autres plate‑formes d'aller recueillir... de nourrir ça, permet... la télé‑réalité se prête très bien à un marketing multi plate‑formes et des sources de revenus multi plate‑formes parce que tu n'as pas autant de... tu n'as pas de droit à payer.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19483 Mais, c'est dans ce sens‑là, ce genre de chose‑là va beaucoup plus, comme les Nouvelles TVA a décidé d'avoir toutes ses nouvelles, sa production comme ça qui est faite à l'interne, c'est dès lors que tu as des droits à payer, mais c'est plus ça qu'on a voulu dire par les plate‑formes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19484 Et Pierre parlait tout à l'heure du marketing; bien, effectivement, ça donne beaucoup plus de possibilités de placements de produits, d'occasions d'affaires là‑dessus.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19485 LE PRÉSIDENT: Alors, du placement de produits, mais si vous voulez en parler du placement de produits, je suis bien prêt à vous écouter parce que, effectivement, tous les télédiffuseurs qui ont comparu devant nous nous ont tous dit relaxer les règles quant au placement de produits, n'en faites plus le décompte dans les 12 minutes de temps alloué à la publicité formelle.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19486 Parce qu'en ce qui a regard à la publicité formelle, ça, il y a clairement deux camps : il y en a qui disent, maintenez le 12 minutes, il y en a qui nous disent, laissez tomber les règles de temps associé à la publicité, faites comme les Américains qui n'ont pas de règle et on ne trouve pas... de règle absolue.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19487 On entendra demain l'Association canadienne des annonceurs qui nous dira, maintenez le 12 minutes, mais libérez le placement de produits. Nos membres les annonceurs cherchent des nouveaux moyens pour se positionner quant au placement... par le biais du placement de produits et je sais qu'à l'UDA à tout le moins vous avez aussi des ententes avec l'Association canadienne des annonceurs. Donc, c'est un sujet pour lequel je suis sûr que vous avez... vous pouvez partager une réflexion.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19488 Mais je vois que monsieur Légaré est prêt déjà à sauter.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19489 M. LÉGARÉ: Bien déjà, pour les 12 minutes de publicités, je pense que, effectivement, unanimement, on considère que c'est amplement suffisant. Au‑delà de ça, on va tomber dans le télé‑achat. Il y a des canaux qui se spécialisent dans la vente de produits à la journée longue.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19490 Lorsqu'on parle de dramatique ou d'émission que nous représentons, il est sûr que déjà le 12 minutes est une contrainte très grande et qu'il ne faudrait pas déborder plus, on n'aura même pas le temps d'argumenter nos histoires que déjà la publicité va arriver.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19491 Pour ce qui est des placements de produits, là où il en existe aux États‑Unis, entre autres, c'est à peu près le seul pays qui le fait de façon régulière, c'est de plus en plus décrié tant par les auteurs que par les comédiens parce que, justement, on tombe dans des utilisations carrément irrespectueuses de l'intégrité des oeuvres et du public.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19492 Une question d'ailleurs qu'il faut se poser, c'est : est‑ce que les consommateurs ne devraient pas être consultés lorsqu'on parle de placement de produits puisque, justement, on serait en train de les abreuver sans nécessairement les aviser de différentes publicités camouflées.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19493 Mais ce qu'on a vu aux États‑Unis, par exemple, c'est que, d'une part, le placement de produits favorise certains genres d'émissions, la télé‑réalité puisque, par exemple, on peut plus facilement intégrer ces produits‑là ou ces placements‑là aux oeuvres.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19494 Je vous donne l'exemple de "Survivor". Après avoir empêché les gens de se laver pendant deux semaines, on leur apporte comme paquet de cadeaux, du dentifrice, du rince‑bouche et du savon, mais pendant 15 minutes les gens se sont extasiés sur le goût du rince‑bouche davantage que si ça avait été une bière belge.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19495 Donc, il y a quand même un placement très facile avec la télé‑réalité qui passe beaucoup mieux au niveau du public et ça favorise, donc, la télé‑réalité.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19496 Ce qu'on a vu aussi dans les dramatiques, c'est qu'on a commencé à intégrer des scènes où, là, effectivement, on introduit un produit.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19497 Il y avait une émission qui s'appelait *Septième ciel+ commandité par *Oréo+ où un des personnages demandait sa compagne en mariage. Ce personnage‑là est un amateur de biscuits Oréo et lui a remis pour la demande en mariage un biscuit Oréo, il avait camouflé l'anneau dans la crème du biscuit Oréo.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19498 Je pense que pour le public ça déborde un petit peu ce qu'on s'attend d'une dramatique sérieuse et on ne voudrait pas que vous initiez des politiques qui pourraient nous amener dans quelques années à amener les membres que je représente à écrire de pareilles inepties.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19499 On veut hausser la qualité de la télévision. Je ne pense pas que le placement de produits contribuerait à cette qualité.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19500 M. CURZI: En fait, il y a le problème contraire. C'est qu'il y a des films qui sont en train de se spécialiser à transformer tous les produits utilisés courant, ce avec quoi on est pleinement d'accord, parce qu'ils craignent d'être poursuivis si jamais le dépositaire de ce copyright‑là s'aperçoit qu'il y a une mauvaise utilisation du nom de son produit.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19501 On boit une bière, on meure l'instant d'après parce que... et là, alors, évidemment, on change le nom de la bière, mais pas parce qu'on s'y oppose, nous, parce que les propriétaires de copyright craignent une mauvaise utilisation. Ça amène des situations aberrantes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19502 M. GRÉGOIRE: Regardez, je voulais... par exemple, comme auteur si, par exemple, il y a une très jolie femme qui va dans un bar et puis qui est un personnage important dans une émission et qui commande de la Vodka, on dit, bien, c'est parfait, tiens, on va lui donner, tiens. Finlandia, Vodka Finlandia, une belle fille, beau programme et tout et tout, et caetera, mais si deux épisodes plus tard la fille se retrouve complètement saoule à vomir sur la Vodka, Finlandia, je ne suis pas certain que Finlandia ne dira pas, écoutez, on ne veut plus être associé à ça, vous nous avez mis dans un piège.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19503 Et ce que ça veut dire par l'absurde, c'est que, à ce moment‑là, ça obligerait les auteurs à définir leurs histoires en fonction des bons, des méchants, de ce qu'on peut faire, de ce qu'on ne peut pas faire pour que Finlandia puisse ou non vendre son produit.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19504 Et, ça, bien sûr, là, on n'est plus dans la création là. Là, on est dans l'auteur sandwich‑là. On devient des porteurs de publicité et je ne crois pas que ça soit ça l'idée de raconter des histoires au public.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19505 LE PRÉSIDENT: Mais vous n'êtes pas confronté déjà à ça avec le cinéma où il y a du placement de produits dans les longs métrages.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19506 M. CURZI: Oui, mais vous n'êtes pas écoeuré de voir l'annonce de Budweiser dans les films américains, vous, quand ils rentrent dans un bar?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19507 Je veux dire, on est confronté à ça parce qu'on a laissé s'installer. Même l'UDA a négocié...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19508 LE PRÉSIDENT: Mais dans le cinéma québécois, là, je me réfère...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19509 M. CURZI: Le cinéma québécois... bien, ce n'est pas encore un problème majeur.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19510 LE PRÉSIDENT: Avec des véhicules auto... avec des véhicules?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19511 M. CURZI: Oui, tout... par exemple, c'est toute la même sorte de... c'est tout des GM ou des choses comme ça.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19512 LE PRÉSIDENT: Oui, oui.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19513 M. CURZI: Oui, on y est déjà puis on le constate déjà. Alors, on dit, n'allons pas plus loin parce que c'est difficile de revenir vraiment en arrière.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19514 Puis, vous savez, l'argument de... des nouvelles formes de publicité, moi, je serais prêt à... il faut examiner ça sérieusement parce que ce qu'on voit, c'est que, par exemple, il va y avoir un déplacement de la publicité vers l'internet et la tendance, c'est que, là, il n'y a plus de limite au niveau du temps, il n'y a plus de limite au niveau du contenu et les publicitaires sont en train d'inventer des formes de publicités extrêmement adaptées qui font devenir, en fait, probablement une sorte de fiction en elles‑mêmes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19515 Qu'on fasse de la fiction liée à la vente de quelque chose et qu'elle s'affiche comme telle, on n'est pas opposé à ça. Ça s'est fait dans le cas de certaines voitures, mais qu'on gangrène un contenu avec la publicité, là on pense qu'il ne faut vraiment pas aller plus loin.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19516 On est déjà aux prises avec ce problème‑là, mais il n'est pas majeur. Il ne faudrait pas ouvrir plus.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19517 LE PRÉSIDENT: Les télédiffuseurs nous disent: on est en péril et on a besoin de... on a besoin de solutions et on nous propose une série de résolutions réglementaires ainsi qu'une redevance.
Vous, ce matin, vous nous dites: touchez à aucune des solutions réglementaires, même fermez davantage le robinet.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19518 Qu'est‑ce que c'est que vous... qu'est‑ce que vous avez à nous suggérer comme modèle pour la télévision du futur?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19519 M. CURZI: Il y a les redevances. On se dit, oui, on est d'accord avec les redevances.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19520 LE PRÉSIDENT: Oui, vous le dites du bout des lèvres.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19521 M. CURZI: Non, non, on ne le dit pas du bout des lèvres. On fait... si la redevance... là, on parle des télévisions privées, on pense que, oui, ça a une certaine logique qu'ils puissent bénéficier de cette redevance‑là.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19522 Mais on dit, ça ne sera pas une excuse pour échapper à ce qui est déjà menacé, au contraire. L'afflux supérieur d'argent nous assure qu'on va avoir sur les ondes publiques une offre de qualité maintenue.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19523 LE PRÉSIDENT: Et aux télédiffuseurs publics, vous...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19524 M. CURZI: Ah!
LISTNUM 1 \l 19525 LE PRÉSIDENT: ... qui nous demandent aussi la redevance?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19526 M. CURZI: Ça, j'avoue qu'on n'en a pas parlé puis, personnellement, je trouve qu'il y a des... je suis plus prudent en tout cas.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19527 C'est clair que ça dépend... par exemple, Téléquébec bénéficierait grandement d'avoir une redevance et des revenus supplémentaires.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19528 Pour Radio‑Canada, c'est... la réflexion est plus délicate puisqu'il y a déjà un financement public important et, moi, je me dis que ce principe‑là de devoir en plus payer un autre accès, en tout cas, s'ils avaient accès à la redevance, je pense qu'il faudrait être assez parcimonieux et avoir une gradation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19529 Personnellement, j'ai de la difficulté à considérer que c'est exactement la même chose.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19530 M. GRÉGOIRE: Par contre, je voudrais dire, même sur Radio‑Canada, si globalement il y avait redevance même à Radio‑Canada et si une portion importante est remise en productions dramatiques, ça pourrait être une façon de voir les choses puisque, encore là, fondamentalement, s'il y a plus d'argent qui rentre dans le système, ce qu'on souhaite, c'est qu'une bonne portion de cet argent‑là revienne aux dramatiques et aux documentaires de qualité.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19531 Et notre assertion est que s'il y a ça sur... de présenté aux gens, les gens, oui, vont continuer à écouter ça parce qu'il y a une volonté du public, il y a un désir du public et il y a un goût du public pour ce genre d'émission‑là, mais il faut toujours bien être capable de leur en présenter.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19532 M. GRÉGOIRE: Donc, l'appui n'est pas du bout des lèvres, mais il est conditionnel, il est au mérite, eu égard au contenu canadien et à la contribution des diffuseurs à ce contenu.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19533 LE PRÉSIDENT: Si on parle maintenant de diffusion comme telle, je vous en... vous avez peu écrit sur cette question mais un des... il y a plusieurs scénarios qui nous sont présentés pour le passage au numérique dont un modèle que je qualifierais de *hybride+, c'est‑à‑dire que la desserte des grands marchés en mode hertzien et des entreprises de distribution pour le reste des citoyens.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19534 Dans l'autre cas c'est uniquement l'utilisation des entreprises de distribution pour l'offre de service aux citoyens, or, forcer tout le monde à s'abonner à une entreprise de distribution pour avoir accès à des services de programmation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19535 D'autres disent, on pourrait peut‑être maintenir nos antennes analogiques tant et aussi longtemps qu'elles seront capables de maintenir... tant que l'existence, effectivement, des équipements ne sera pas terminée et donc, un jour, théoriquement, ces équipements‑là arrêteraient de fonctionner par elles‑mêmes, là, mais en espérant que d'ici ce temps‑là tout le monde se soit abonné par eux‑mêmes à des entreprises.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19536 Je vois que dans votre Mémoire, vous avez écrit qu'au Royaume‑Uni, la télévision par satellite sans frais est disponible à tous les foyers et que c'est probablement ce que vous voyez comme opportunité.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19537 Mais il n'y a pas, à ma connaissance, sur l'Amérique du nord de satellites qui sont suffisamment puissants pour offrir la télévision satellitaire en direct?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19538 Mme DesROCHES: La raison pour laquelle on a si peu parlé de ça, je pense que ce n,est pas... peut‑être pas notre core business, d'une part, et...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19539 LE PRÉSIDENT: Mais c'est votre...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19540 Mme DesROCHES: Mais on est ouvert. En fait, je pense qu'il faut être sensible. Le message qu'on fait là‑dedans, c'est qu'il faut être sensible aux consommateurs,
LISTNUM 1 \l 19541 Au Québec, c'est peut‑être ceux qui sont les moins câblés, qui sont moins abonnés à la câblodistribution et que si jamais le gouvernement ou le Conseil décidait d'aller vers le numérique pour tous, il faudrait essayer de prévoir une forme d'aide.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19542 Je pense qu'on a davantage voulu être sensible aux plus démunis là‑dedans et de voir à faire en sorte qu'ils aient de l'aide et qu'ils puissent avoir accès parce qu'on pense que l'accès de la télévision généraliste par tous est essentielle.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19543 LE PRÉSIDENT: Écoutez, je pense qu'on a couvert des points formels de votre Mémoire. Votre Mémoire est bien complet par lui‑même, là, et vos recommandations étaient claires. Votre exposé de ce matin était succinct et clair et, personnellement, je n'ai plus d'autres questions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19544 Je vais voir si mes collègues en auraient. Non?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19545 Messieurs, madame, nous vous remercions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19546 M. CURZI: Merci, monsieur le président.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19547 LE PRÉSIDENT: Alors, merci.
Madame la secrétaire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19548 LA SECRÉTAIRE: Merci, monsieur le président.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19549 We will now proceed with the next participant, the Coalition of Canadian Audio‑visual Unions. If you would come forward, please.
‑‑‑ Pause
LISTNUM 1 \l 19550 THE SECRETARY: Mr. Peter Murdoch will be introducing the panel. After which, you will have ten minutes for your presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19551 Please, go ahead when you are ready.
PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 19552 MR. MURDOCH : Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19553 Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19554 My name is Peter Murdoch and I am Co‑Chair of the Coalition of Canadian Audio‑Visual Unions. I am also the Vice President, Media, of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19555 The CCAU is a coalition of ten Canadian audio‑visual unions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19556 However, the CCAU's submission to you in this proceeding focuses only on English‑language television. So it was prepared by the English‑language guilds and unions within the CCAU.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19557 Let me now introduce our panel.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19558 In the front row, to my far right is David Hardy, Business Agent, NABET Local 700‑CEP.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19559 Next to him is Pamela Brand, National Executive Director and CEO, Directors Guild of Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19560 On my far left is Steve Waddell, National Executive Director, ACTRA.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19561 Next to Steve is Maureen Parker, Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19562 Behind us, and from left to right, is Ken Thompson, Director, Public Policy & Communications, ACTRA, Monique Twigg, National Research and Policy Manager, Directors Guild of Canada, Kelly Lynne Ashton, Director of Industrial Policy and Research, Writers Guild of Canada, and finally, Peter Grant, our outside counsel from McCarthy Tétrault.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19563 Commissioners, we appreciate the opportunity to appear as part of your proceeding and I would now ask Steve Waddell of ACTRA to begin our group's formal presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19564 MR. WADDELL: Thank you, Peter.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19565 Good morning.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19566 Our focus today is on the continuing crisis of Canadian English‑language drama and comedy on our television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19567 We want to tell you what caused the crisis and what we think will solve it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19568 Canadian dramatic programs, including comedy, are the corner stone of our broadcasting system.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19569 Programs written, directed and performed by Canadians ‑ original ten‑point dramas ‑ strengthen and enrich our broadcasting system.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19570 They resonate with Canadians, and they allow us to see ourselves and serve to strengthen our national identity.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19571 Of the 30 top‑rated programs in Canada measured by BBM, 21 were drama programs. All you have to do is look at a TV guide to see how many dramas there are on TV these days.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19572 The problem is that they are mostly not Canadian. In fact, Canadian dramas, I am sad to say, are few and far between.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19573 When it comes to Canadian drama, the record is clear. The private broadcasters have tried to do as little as they could get away with.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19574 The past seven years since 1999 paint a pathetic picture that demonstrates graphically that Canadian drama is in crisis.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19575 Just before the CRTC hearings on what we call the 1999 TV policy, private broadcasters in English Canada spent 73 million on Canadian drama, a new high.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19576 But their Canadian drama spending has deteriorated ever since the 1999 policy. Private broadcasters' financial support for Canadian drama dropped to only 54 million last year. The lowest it has been for eight years.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19577 More appalling is that the broadcasters' low spending actually included spending on Canadian drama required by transfers of ownership and new licence benefits.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19578 In 2005, their spending on Canadian drama had declined to only 3.2 per cent of revenues, again the lowest level in eight years and a drop a 37 per cent since 1998.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19579 The 1999 TV Policy is and was a failure. It let the private broadcasters off the hook for Canadian drama program. It is time to change that policy.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19580 MR. HARDY: There are a couple of constants whenever the Commission holds hearings such as this.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19581 One of them is that Canadian English‑language over‑the‑air broadcasters always seem to have sufficient funds to bid up the prices on U.S. drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19582 Another is that the future always looks gloomy, no matter how good or bad the last licence term has been.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19583 This round is no different.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19584 Much has been made of the threat of the Internet and whether or not it will cannibalize the viewing of television. You should take those arguments with a large grain of salt.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19585 Contrary to what you may have heard from some broadcasters last week, viewing by Canadians has remained remarkably constant over the past five years, despite significant growth in broadband access to the Internet.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19586 In fact, overall viewing numbers have risen from 23.7 hours to 25.1 hours a week.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19587 Moreover, TV viewing by children and teens, two demographics that might have been expected to drop because of increases in video games and cell phone use, rose in the same period.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19588 At this stage, it does not appear that the new platforms will cannibalize existing television. Instead, they will complement and promote the over‑the‑air services.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19589 According to a Stats Can report released last August, TV viewing habits are no different for heavy Internet users than they are for non‑Internet users.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19590 Cross‑platform projects are increasingly anchored around major television properties, and are used to promote traditional viewing.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19591 In addition, to the extent that Canadian content created for traditional media reappears on the new platforms, there may be a favourable multiplier effect in terms of the accessibility of Canadian programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19592 In order to prepare for this proceeding, CCAU retained Nordicity to validate projections for the advertising revenue likely to be generated by CBC and the private broadcasting sector in the period up to 2010.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19593 Nordicity concluded that ad revenue for conventional TV in Canada will increase over the next five years. In dollar terms, the ad revenue for conventional private TV stations in English Canada is forecast to increase from 1.68 billion in 2005 to between 1.85 an 1.91 billion in 2010.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19594 The over‑the‑air licensees are the foundation for the financing of Canadian drama. Thus, it is all the more important that they be subject to meaningful drama requirements, given that the content may then appear on multiple platforms.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19595 MS BRAND: It is clear that more money needs to be invested by the private OTA broadcasters in Canadian drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19596 The experience around the world is that broadcasters in other countries pay far more for local drama, either in terms of proportion of their own overall programming budget or in terms of the licence fee as a percentage of the production cost of the program, than is the case in English Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19597 In 2003, the Commission stated that it agrees that the lack of funding is a key contributor to the difficulties facing Canadian drama. Now is the time to do something about it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19598 We are not surprised to hear the OTA broadcasters seek a lighter hand of regulation. Of course they don't want to be forced to spend money on Canadian drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19599 But you never hear the other side of the coin, the extensive benefits and protections that they get from the Broadcasting Act and from the CRTC.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19600 We have listed those benefits in our written submission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19601 They include :
LISTNUM 1 \l 19602 Limits to the licensing of competing over‑the‑air TV broadcasters, must‑carry and priority provisions for local Canadian signals on BDUs;
LISTNUM 1 \l 19603 The simultaneous substitution policy;
LISTNUM 1 \l 19604 Section 19.1 of the Income Tax Act;
LISTNUM 1 \l 19605 Prohibition against competing U.S. pay and specialty services; and
LISTNUM 1 \l 19606 Financial support for priority programming from the Canadian Television Fund, tax incentives and other sources.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19607 And at this hearing, the OTA broadcasters have come to you asking for still more.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19608 They want loosening of Cancon rules, loosening of the advertising rules and a fee for carriage.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19609 Our view is very simple. It is time that the CRTC require the OTA broadcasters to give a quid pro quo.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19610 It is time for a new regulatory bargain.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19611 It is clear that the Canadian broadcasting system needs more original hours of Canadian drama and fewer repeats.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19612 It needs more distinctive Canadian series, not fewer.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19613 It needs more support for script and concept development.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19614 But mostly, and this is a simple corollary of the first three requirements, it needs more money from OTA broadcasters.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19615 The CTF cannot be expected to make up the difference in cost, given the pressures on its funding. Nor can foreign pre‑sales or export sales make up the difference.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19616 It's time that the private OTA broadcasters be required to step up to the plate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19617 MS PARKER: Over the past week broadcasters have told you about the great Canadian programs they have produced or are producing.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19618 CTV attributes some of these shows' success to the use of transfer benefits.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19619 While that may be true ‑ we cannot build an industry that is dependent on mergers and acquisitions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19620 The benefits program is inherently unpredictable. There are no guidelines for how benefit packages are allocated. It also only affects that specific broadcaster.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19621 Drama funding needs to be reliable, consistent, and accessible.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19622 You have already recognized the need for higher levels of drama spending by introducing the incentive plan. When the plan was introduced, the Commission hoped that broadcasters would voluntarily increase spending from four per cent of ad revenues to an eventual high of six per cent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19623 Instead, it has dropped to 3.2 per cent ‑ and that even includes benefits. So how are these incentives working?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19624 Private broadcasters are owned by shareholders who focus on profit. Canadian drama will always cost more ‑ and generate less ad revenue ‑ than buying already‑made and paid for American drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19625 Broadcasters need to be compelled by the CRTC to spend money where the return is lower. Simply put, this is a cost of doing business in Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19626 That is why it is crucial that the CRTC put a long‑term regulatory safety net in place to ensure Canadian drama doesn't fall below an acceptable level.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19627 A key component is to require private conventional TV broadcasters to spend at least seven per cent of their gross ad revenue on Canadian drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19628 This must be part of a revised policy that applies equally to all over‑the‑air broadcasters.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19629 It is a very manageable formula. Spending will go up as revenues go up ‑ and go down if revenues go down.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19630 And it would still only result in one‑third of what the broadcasters have spent on foreign drama last year.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19631 According to the Commission, regulation is needed when the goals of the Broadcasting Act cannot be met by any other means.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19632 The Act provides broadcasters with regulatory protections. We are now asking the Canadian public be given the same consideration.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19633 We need firm drama expenditure requirements so Canadians have the choice to watch Canadian drama programs on television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19634 MR. MURDOCH: As you can see, Mr. Chairman, we have focused our oral presentation entirely on the key point, the need for an expenditures rule on Canadian drama, although we have addressed many other points in our written submission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19635 That concludes our presentation and we welcome your questions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19636 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr. Murdoch.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19637 I am asking Commissioner Cugini to ask the first questions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19638 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19639 Mr. Murdoch, and to the rest of your panel, welcome.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19640 Should I direct my questions to you, Mr. Murdoch, and then you will .
LISTNUM 1 \l 19641 MR. MURDOCH: Deal it off.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19642 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: OK.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19643 I do have some questions that are specific to your written submission, and we will go through those. And then perhaps we can have a bit more of a general discussion after we have gone through these details.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19644 My first question is, of course ‑ you were suggesting that conventional broadcasters should be required to spend seven per cent of their advertising revenue on Canadian drama. Is there a formula by which you calculated seven per cent, and not five or ten per cent, for example? Why seven?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19645 MS PARKER: Yes, that is a good question. No, there is not some inherent formula.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19646 What we looked at was: A) we tried to be reasonable; B) we looked at the Commission's ruling, where the Commission itself targeted six per cent as an acceptable spend; and ‑ we basically went after a gross figure where, you know, there can be no manipulation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19647 It is relatively simple to administer. If revenue goes up, it goes up. If revenue goes down, it goes down.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19648 We are saying that it is a minimum spent, however, of seven per cent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19649 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Did you look at, for example, the advertising revenues of any of the OTA broadcasters or perhaps all of them for the last year and figure out how much this seven per cent would translate into in terms of dollars, and then in you opinion how many hours of drama that might translate into?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19650 MS. PARKER: Yes, we did, actually, look at that figure. I am sorry, I don't recall the figure off the top of my head. Yes. And we did calculate that it would be approximately, and we will go back and check this, a hundred hours of drama production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19651 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: That would be incremental to what is already there.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19652 MS PARKER: Incremental. On top of. Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19653 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Do you think that, if we were to impose the 7 per cent spending requirement, would this be in lieu of the drama incentives or coupled with the drama incentives already in place?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19654 MS PARKER: We would actually not object to having the incentives run at the same time. You know, we figure they can work, they can be complimentary to one another. And if someone is putting on enough drama, that will qualify them for the additional ad incentives, we would not have a problem with that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19655 However, we think the incentives alone will not work, as demonstrated by the drop in spending from 4 per cent of ad to 3.2.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19656 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thanks.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19657 MR. WADDELL: Can I supplement please? Just to ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19658 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Sure.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19659 MR. WADDELL: ‑‑ just to add that in our initial brief to the CRTC way back in March 2003 we actually promoted and suggested an ad incentive program, but we said it would only work if coupled with spending and content requirements, so it is consistent that we would come back with this position now. Thanks.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19660 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you. I should have added that, given that you do represent a number of guilds, if any of you have anything else to add just jump on the microphone and between myself and my colleagues I am sure they will draw my attention the fact that one of you wants to speak.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19661 What are you including in your definition of drama? I know in your oral presentation you said drama and comedy. But in drama, is that 10 out of 10 only, 6 out of 10, MOW, series, etc.?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19662 MS PARKER: We are leaving that up to the broadcasters. But drama, of course, we mean scripted programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19663 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Right.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19664 MS PARKER: We are not looking at sketch comedies. What we are including is some sitcoms, feature length documentaries, dramatic programs of any length, MOWs half‑hours, one‑hours. And yes, we are here as a coalition for 10 point production. We believe that we make better programs that appeal to the Canadian audience when we all work together and pool our talents.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19665 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you. Again in your written submission you say that script and concept development is a crucial area that needs attention.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19666 Should we allocate a percentage of the 7 per cent to script and concept development?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19667 MS BRAND: I would just like to say that we would like to allocate a good percentage to script and concept development because, as you know, it is the key, that is what everything starts from.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19668 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Right.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19669 MS BRAND: We also would like to see some go towards feature films, but we haven't actually worked out a percentage. We would be very pleased if some broadcasters did some work in feature film because feature films, when they get on television, reach the largest audience, much larger than they can in theatres, and script and concept development is fundamental.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19670 If the Commission would like us to come back to you with some numbers, we can certainly workout a percentage for both and get back to you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19671 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Because a lot of your submission hinges on an actual spending requirement, then perhaps it would be useful if you can undertake that exercise.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19672 MS PARKER: Just answering your question a little bit more about the script and concept development, Rita. We have done a lot of research at the Writers Guild about how a program can, you know, be a much better program with additional development, additional volume in terms of ideas, in pitches at the outset, also how there is a winnowing process that will take place throughout production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19673 We have learned a lot from our American colleagues where there is, you know, a large number of projects put into development and that keeps getting winnowed down as you look for best, additional drafts, there are presentation models, there are pilots and that all speaks to producing and, finally, what you have on air are high quality programs that have been tested every stage along the market.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19674 Now, we are reasonable people, we know that we are not able to do what the U.S. can do. But we need to do more and, as part of our verbal presentation, we cited the figure that only 3.2 per cent of CTF is allocated to script and concept development, which I think is a very very low number. And what writers will tell me is that there is simply not enough time to get a script ready for production that will work. You know, often times you need unlimited drafts, you might have to go back to outline. The way our system is set up and the deadlines and the funding processes, it is just not adding to creating better product.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19675 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Now, your position is, of course, the same as that of the UDA and SARTEC who were just here and their recommendation is that five of the eight hours of priority programming be devoted to drama. Do you have a number in mind?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19676 MR. WADDELL: Yes certainly ACTRA does.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 19677 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Do you want to wait until ACTRA comes on?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19678 MR. WADDELL: Well, we will be telling you later that we are looking for two hours ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19679 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Two hours.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19680 MR. WADDELL: ‑‑ two hours out of the eight specifically for drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19681 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Okay.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19682 MS BRAND: And we would be, the Directors Guild, would be looking for more than the two hours.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19683 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Okay, so we will wait for your independent presentations since they are ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19684 MS BRAND: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19685 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Okay, that is great.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19686 Priority programming, there has been quite a bit of discussion so far. You, in your submission, expressed criticism of the broad definition of priority programming. You have heard the broadcasters last week say we need more flexibility with the definition of priority. Some have asked that everything be included, except news, sports and public affairs. Others have been more specific where they have said category 11, we would like that to be included in the definition of priority programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19687 What are your suggestions to us in our deliberations on how we can reconcile these two seemingly opposing views?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19688 MR. WADDELL: Sure, that is the problem, is that the definition of priority programming was expanded in 1999 to include Entertainment Tonight type programs and cheap reality‑based programming, which has watered down the requirements, specifically with respect to drama, which is the most expensive genre. Without a specific requirement for drama what we have seen is that production has just plummeted in terms of production of dramatic programs. So quite the opposite to what the broadcasters are telling you, we are saying that we must have a requirement reinstated with respect to drama that is specifically, and ACTRA is asking for at least two hours out of the eight hours of priority programming, to be dedicated specifically to drama. Because if you leave the broadcasters to their own devices they are going to produce the cheapest programming they can get away with and that is what they are doing.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19689 So, you know, we are here to say that is not the way that Canadians want to watch TV. Canadians want to watch scripted drama and this Commission should be telling the broadcasters that they must at least licence and broadcast at least two hours of drama per week. We are only looking for two hours out of 20 of real primetime, it is only 10 per cent, not a big deal.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19690 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Your position is clear.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19691 MS PARKER: Rita, and I think just adding to that, what we saw happen in 1999 ‑‑ priority programming just means less expensive programming. If you look at the schedules right now, certainly the conventional broadcasters love American drama, they wouldn't be thinking of taking those off the air and putting on a cooking show or more Entertainment Tonight.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19692 You know, when this occurred in 1999 we were hopeful that the advent of these entertainment magazine shows would help us in English‑Canada build a star system and it has not done that. We think very much that the spirit and intent of that policy has been twisted and misapplied by the broadcasters. All of you can watch these shows. I can say, at the Writers Guild of Canada we took this on as a particular project, we have taped many episodes, we filed a complaint with the CRTC because the shows themselves did not meet the level of Canadian content required by the Commission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19693 Now, we are still going back and forth on that and some of these shows did not meet Canadian content requirements as defined by the Commission. The Commission has decided to give them another year to make up those numbers. Some of the programs on air did meet the definition, but the definition itself I don't think goes towards building an industry.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19694 In my opinion, having Canadians who are no longer resident in this country come up and talk about their American shows goes against the intent of the entertainment magazine show. It is in no way helping to build a star system in Canada and that was the purpose of allowing that in and expanding the definition of priority programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19695 So you can see that we have antsy feet whenever we hear that broadcasters want more flexibility, because what it really means is cheaper programming, cheaper Canadian programming, but they won't touch their very precious American drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19696 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Ms Parker, you said something that triggered this next question. And just to quote Mr. Rogers, I am going to soar at about 35,000 feet here and I hope you can appreciate the context in which I would like to have this conversation with all of you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19697 You said broadcasters love U.S. drama and no doubt they do, we all know that it is a healthy business for them. But I would venture to say that so does the Canadian viewer love U.S. drama. So if we were to summarize the position of the broadcasters, they need flexibility, especially in the area of priority programming, to allow them to respond to viewers' needs and tastes that, you know, of course imposing spending and exhibition requirements and certain program categories will result in viewers going to other platforms for their entertainment, some are regulated, some aren't, perhaps even at the risk of Canadians totally abandoning the Canadian broadcasting system altogether.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19698 We have examples and you have examples of great Canadian drama, well‑scripted, well‑directed, well‑acted, well‑promoted, critically‑acclaimed, unfortunately didn't find a Canadian audience. You mentioned the U.S. pilot system. We don't have one in Canada, whereby if something fails in the U.S. it is quickly replaced by something else.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19699 Canadian broadcasters are committed to 13 parts of a Canadian drama series as per the CTF. So even if something doesn't work, they have to keep it on. Viewers' tastes, it is cyclical in nature. Up until a couple of years ago sitcoms were in crisis, reality shows were the rage at the expense of U.S. drama as well, there were a fewer number of hours of U.S. drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19700 So I guess the question is, is it enough to say build it and Canadian viewers will watch Canadian drama, given all that we know, all that we see, all of the different platforms that are available for the viewing pleasure of Canadians not only, you know, what is available on the U.S.? There is the black market, there is the internet, DVDs, they can go out and get DVD of just about any show they want. We have the distributors telling us the future is on‑demand programming. Is it enough.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19701 MS PARKER: We all want to take a crack at answering this.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19702 MR. WADDELL: Yes, let us start over here, all right.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19703 So yes, I guess the statement I want to talk about ‑‑ thanks for the question ‑‑ is that Canadians love U.S. drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19704 Well yes, and it is because U.S. drama has the money behind it to produce excellent programming, there is no question about it. What does an episode of 24 cost or Lost, you know, $3 million to $4 million, $5 million U.S. What do we have to produce one hour of Canadian programming $1 million Canadian? You just can't compete. The money available is five times the amount in the U.S. as it is in Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19705 In Canada our beloved private broadcasters are paying the lowest licence fees of any broadcasters in the English‑speaking world, about maximum of 30 per cent of the production budget is paid by the licence of a private broadcaster, maximum 30 per cent. Whereas in the U.S., it is upwards of 80 per cent, 100 per cent is covered by the licence fee paid by the network.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19706 I mean, you can't compete because broadcasters are not putting enough money into licence fees, not enough money into production. Then when they do air the shows, they will air them in shoulder periods on Saturday or Friday evening, you know, and then move the schedule around because of figure skating or some event. We haven't got a chance in this country and the reason we haven't got a chance is because the rules aren't strong enough and aren't requiring the broadcasters to put enough dough into the licence fees.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19707 That is what we are here today to talk to you about and we will be here as well to talk about the need for scheduling and requiring those programs be put into the schedules and, you know, fixed into those schedules.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19708 MS PARKER: Okay, my quick crack at this.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19709 I get your point and we welcome the question, because nothing drives us crazier than the conception or that misconception that there is no demand for Canadian drama. I think that is absolutely wrong.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19710 What there is a demand for is good programming and it doesn't matter whether it is Canadian or British or American. Yes, we love American drama, we also love British drama, we like people who can tell a good story. We can tell a good story as well. I refuse to believe that Canadians are not as talented as other talent groups around the world. But we have the cards stacked against us, as Steve was saying. And this isn't whining, this is reality.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19711 Please don't misunderstand what we are asking for. We are asking for choice, we are asking that Canadians have a choice to watch Canadian programming. We are not mandating 24 hours a day Canadian programming. What we are saying is we live in this country, it is our country and we deserve a share of our primetime in order to earn and get decent numbers in that primetime, because no one feels it more than an artist who has worked for a year on a show and the numbers are dismal.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19712 But there are a couple of recipes, a couple of ingredients that have to go into the recipe to make a good programming. I want to start with, first of all, broadcasters pick what goes on the air, they are the gatekeeper. So I want to start with that very important premise. We don't pick what goes on the air, they have a volume selection of projects, they go with them. So once they have made that choice as to what project they want to back, then you have to get into the money, time in development, time in production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19713 The time slot is so absolutely crucial. I mean, we have specific examples of shows for all networks, Global, CTV, where the show has been run in the summer, one show in particular was a ski show, started in July, ran until August, the last two episodes of the one‑hour drama were run back to back on a Friday night at the end of August. I don't think that that is going to draw an audience. I just don't think that that is doing a wholehearted gung‑ho effort on promoting a Canadian show or scheduling it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19714 I mean, there has to be fair rules applied for all of us. Primetime spot, a regular spot, not pre‑empted, consecutive from September to May, and we also need promotion and we need the money to do the product well.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19715 MS BRAND: I just want to add to that very briefly, because a lot has already been said.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19716 In Europe, the situation was very similar a few years ago, the U.S. shows were among the top 10. But what happened in Europe and in Britain in particular, but also in other countries such as Italy and Spain and France and Germany, they put a lot more money into their own programming for television, they tightened up the rules. And three or four years later, guess what, almost all of them have their own indigenous programs in the top 10.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19717 Also, the DGC is going to be dealing with this issue in its own brief, so I won't go into a lot of detail. But if you look at the track record of Canadian programs, when they are good quality they engage the audience, they engage the imagination and they attract the viewers. That is what it takes to attract viewers. And I mentioned Corner Gas and Degrassi and Trailer Park Boys and, going back a few years, Avonlea. You make good, well‑produced drama with money in it, it engages the imagination and draws the viewers in and we have done it, our track record is there.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19718 MR. HARDY: Everything has been said, but I will just add my two cents. The members that I represent are the technical crew, they are the people on the set who are lighting, who are dressing the actors, who are creating the sets and painting and building them.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19719 The number of occasions in the last number of years where we have had a series that goes more than two years you can count on one hand. In our particular realm Degrassi is that series and we now just about concluded the sixth year, the sixth year of a Canadian series and they are coming back for a seventh year as far as I can tell, knock on wood.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19720 The reason for that is that the proper promotion, the proper timeslot and the fact that the broadcaster has stuck with this throughout, has allowed this show to find its audience, and that is what it is all about. We don't give our productions the opportunity to find an audience, they are bounced around the schedule as the other events or sporting events or what have you would dictate. That is a fundamental reason that networks, whether they are American, Canadian, British, whatever, that they create successful shows that find an audience is that they put the promotion in and they put the consistent timeslot in and they do it in a good time slot in primetime, not on a shoulder season or in the summertime.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19721 Finally, I would just like to say that.. Actually, I think I will leave it there, thanks.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19722 MR. MURDOCH: Maybe I will just add one, why not. I would just say in a general kind of way is that while there is some affection for Americana by Canadians, Canadians are fiercely proud of their country and their culture and the diversity within that. And if we give them an opportunity by resources, by timeslots, but quality programming, they will respond.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19723 MR. HARDY: If I may, I have remembered my final point.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19724 These two programs in particular, Corner Gas and Degrassi, have really found and integrated delivery. They are now producing websites, they have online internet access and internet persona if you will and they are being able to capitalize on that and that will contribute to their revenues that they generate for the broadcasters.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19725 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Well, thank you all very much for that answer. But we are going to come in for a landing now and get back to just a couple of the detail questions and then my colleagues may have more questions for you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19726 In your written submission you didn't take a position on a subscriber fee regime. Based on what you have heard over the last few days, do you have a position now on whether or not you agree that OTA broadcasters should receive a fee for carriage?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19727 MS BRAND: After listening to the interveners and over the past week, we feel that it would really make sense for the Commission to use its judgment on subscriber fees. But again, our position is the same as UDA and SARTEC. If in your wisdom you decide that subscriber fees are the way to go, we would like money going into Canadian programming and Canadian drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19728 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: And so would your recommendation change to say 7 per cent of gross revenues as opposed to just 7 per cent of advertising as is currently written in your submission?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19729 MS BRAND: Well, I had never thought about that, gross would be better.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19730 MR. WADDELL: Gross is always better.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19731 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Product placement, we have again heard quite a bit about the relaxation of the rules on advertising and that we should allow for more produce placement.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19732 What impact would that have on the programs that you represent?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19733 MS PARKER: It is an interesting one, particularly for writers, because they are writing in the product placement. And I just saw a reel put together by the Writers Guild of America, we were at an international conference, and my colleagues, Yves LeGaré from SARTEC, mentioned it as well. Basically, it was a reel of programs in which writers had written in various products. One of them was an Oreo cookie. The cookie became the focus of the show, how the cookie was dunked, do you like it in milk, out of milk, you know, memories about the cookie. So I have to say I found it shocking and funny at the same time because it really was an extended ad.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19734 I can tell you that, having worked with very very talented writers for a while now, there is no way you are going to ask a talented driven writer who wants to tell a story, to write a commercial about an Oreo cookie. So they really are nothing but ads and I think we are going to have to be very careful how we tread along those lines.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19735 I would like very much to be able to send a copy of that reel to the Commission, it was put together by the Writers Guild of America. I think it was just the Writers Guild of America, but it was very interesting and a number of different American shows and the slippery slide towards integrating products and writing commercials.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19736 MR. WADDELL: Just to add if I may, performers, and we represent performers as you know, appear in and work in commercials for radio, television commercials, commercials for digital media and so on. Product placement is obviously another and newer form of advertising. It tends to compromise performers who, when they are associated with a product, become exclusive to that product. It takes away from the production of commercial advertising, it introduces advertising into the body of the program therefore, as Maureen says, having an impact on the integrity of that program and obviously could in fact jeopardize the integrity of a program, because it becomes all about the product and the story is amended to reflect the product in some ways.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19737 It further dilutes advertising but, you know, in the final analysis if this Commission decides that produce placement is okay, then the 7 per cent of revenue should incorporate product placement as well.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19738 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Well thank you all very much. I look forward to your individual presentations in just a few moments.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19739 Mr. Chairman, thank you, those are my questions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19740 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Cugini.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19741 Mr. Murdoch, and maybe one of your contributors will answer to the question, but we heard CTV suggesting that the Commission introduce a 200 per cent credit applicable to the largest multi‑station owners group in order to implement any additional episodes over 13 episodes for series.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19742 Do you have any comments to make on that suggestion? They were making that comment in order to reduce the program repeats and to create more episodes than the standard 13 on any given year. But they were requesting that the Commission granted 200 per cent credit for the episodes above 13.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19743 MR. WADDELL: Thanks for the questions. We are opposed to time credits, period. All they have the effect of is reducing the presence, in our view, of drama on the schedule and what we need to do is go the opposite way and reinstate a two‑hour drama rule in primetime in the eight‑hour priority rule and a 7 per cent expenditure rule, not go the other way because a broadcaster, you know, does something, does a 10 point drama, they get a bonus. You know, we need more drama, not less.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19744 THE CHAIRPERSON: They were arguing that we need more episodes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19745 MS PARKER: We do need more episodes, but the purpose of the time bonus is that you actually do less content and we are not in favour of that. You know, they already have bonuses on place, we don't agree with them, but the thought of extending those is an abhorrence to us because it just means less Canadian programming in primetime.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19746 THE CHAIRPERSON: Well, thank you very much.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19747 I want acknowledge on behalf of the Commission that today is the last time Peter is making a contribution, at least as a legal counsel, for the furtherance of Canadian broadcasting in this country.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19748 I am sure that all my colleagues will share with me that we will miss his passion for Canadian broadcasting. But I am quite sure that he will remain close to us and will keep producing while he is moved to senior counsel at the firm, that he will still be involved in putting together the annual books on one end and also the programs with the Upper Canada Law Society that he bi‑annually has been working on and we are looking for further contribution, sir.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19749 MR. GRANT: Thank you so much for those generous comments, Mr. Chairman and members of the panel.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19750 This is I guess my last appearance before the Commission at a public hearing on behalf of a client, because my firm has asked me to move into a counsel position where I won't be billing any hours to clients and I will have some more time to write and perhaps sit on a few boards and take people to lunch.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 19751 MR. GRANT: I have committed however, you will be happy to know, to edit at least one more edition of the three handbooks, which I guess will be in 2008. After that, I don't know what may happen, but I am certainly going to be a bemused observer of the broadcast scene. Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19752 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, gentlemen and ladies.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19753 MR. MURDOCH: Thank you for your time.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19754 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you for you're the contribution.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19755 We will take an eight‑minute break, so we will be back at noon sharp for the next item.
‑‑‑ Upon recessing at 1153 / Suspension à 1153
‑‑‑ Upon resuming at 1204 / Reprise à 1204
LISTNUM 1 \l 19756 THE CHAIRPERSON: Order, please. À l'ordre, s'il vous plaît.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19757 Madame la secrétaire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19758 LA SECRÉTAIRE: Merci, monsieur le président.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19759 We will now proceed with the next participant, the Writers Guild of Canada and Ms Maureen Parker will be introducing her panel, after which you will have ten minutes for your presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19760 MS SCHECHTER: Ms Maureen Parker is just, I think, giving an interview to the press out there and she will be here momentarily.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19761 THE CHAIRPERSON: Could you...
LISTNUM 1 \l 19762 MS. SCHECHTER: I can begin.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19763 THE SECRETARY: If you would just, please, identify yourself for the record and introduce the panel and you may go ahead.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19764 Thank you.
PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 19765 MS. SCHECHTER: Good morning, members of the Commission. I am Rebecca Schechter. I am the President of the Writers Guild of Canada. The Writers Guild represents more than 1,800 professional screen writers across Canada who create the Canadian entertain that we enjoy on our television, movie screens, radios and computers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19766 To my right is James Hurst who is the Executive Producer and head writer of one of Canada's most enduring and popular television shows "Degrassi, the next generation". And to my left is Maureen Parker who is the Executive Director of the Writers Guild of Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19767 And on her left, Suzette Couture, an award screen writer who has worked both in the U.S. and Canada. Suzette is one of the very prestigious humanist award for her mini‑series "Haven" and her CTV movie "The Man Who Lost Himself" which was last year's most watched Canadian television movie.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19768 Also joining us to the left of Suzette is Kelly Lynne Ashton, WGC's Director of Industrial Policy and Research.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19769 I'll now turn things over to Maureen.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19770 MS. PARKER: I remember well appearing in front of this Commission in 1999 to comment on Regulatory Provisions as they stood at that time. We were concerned about the effects of reality programming, the limitations of the export market, consequences of media consolidation and market fragmentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19771 In response to those challenges, the CRTC revised its television policy and decided, among other things, to remove expenditure requirements for priority programming, including drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19772 While this was well‑intentioned, the outcome has been disastrous. Over the last week, broadcasters have been saying that the sky is falling and conventional television is dying. But the CRTC's own statistics show that the average Canadian is watching more TV.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19773 While it is true that conventional broadcasters' share of the add pie is declining, the actual dollar amount of revenue is increasing. If only the rest of the industry was so lucky.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19774 Here is the story our stats tell us. In 1998, 61 per cent of the W.G.C. members earning came from writing adult drama series. By 2005, that figure dropped to 47 per cent. That's because work shifted from high quality one‑hour dramas to lower budget animation and kid shows and writers overall earnings dropped.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19775 In 1999, CTV and Global produced three one‑hour adult drama series each, totalling over 100 episodes. By 2005, they were producing only three one‑hour series between them, for a total of 39 episodes. That's 60 episodes less of one‑hour drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19776 Global, in particular, shifted to half‑hour low‑budget productions such as "Train 48" to meet its drama commitment.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19777 After 1999, writers were increasingly forced to look for work south of the border and today 25 per cent of our membership resides in the U.S. and works in both markets.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19778 So, in a nutshell, here is how the 1999 policy affected us. By 2005, less than half of Canadian writers' earnings came from series drama. The volume of one‑hour drama dropped by over 60 per cent and was partially replaced by lower quality half‑hour affair. And now, over one quarter of our members live and work the U.S.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19779 The CRTC is obligated to protect the public's interest, so why should you care about the writing community? Well, we'll tell you why. Because writers are the canaries in the coal mine. Their earnings are a clear indicator of the level of domestic production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19780 When we look at CRTC stats we see that the English language broadcasters spent $54 on Canadian drama in 2005, down from $73 million in 1998.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19781 In addition, that percentage of ad revenue spent on Canadian drama dropped from five per cent to 3.2, the lowest level in eight years and that even includes CTV's transfer benefits. That's atrocious.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19782 MS. SCHECHTER: Canada is in a unique position. We live next door to the largest exporter of film and television programming in the world. I personally love television and as a kind of serve good TV, I can say that Americans make some of the best entertainment programming in the world, and they should because it is their number one export.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19783 Americans are very smart. They use their shows to sell their way of life to the rest of the world, including Canadians.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19784 We need to offer Canadians the ability to see our way of life on TV. We have our own sense of humour, our own values, our own history, our own daily experiences and the best way to showcase our differences is on television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19785 Over 90 per cent of Canadians have access to over‑the‑air television, which makes it the most popular and accessible form of entertainment we have.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19786 Broadcasters are saying that we should let the market rule, but if you go this route, due to our smaller size and our proximity to the U.S., we would have no Canadian content in TV, in music or in publishing. But given the opportunity, if it's well done, Canadians watch, read or listen to Canadian products.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19787 Broadcasters are also saying drama is too expensive to produce, yet their spending on foreign drama continues to grow. Why are they buying foreign drama? Because drama, in particular one‑hour series drama, remains the most popular form of entertainment programming the world over.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19788 When Canadians watch television, one‑hour dramas are what they want to watch. In fact, eight of the top ten rated programs in Canada are one‑hour U.S. dramas. One‑hour dramas give writers a huge canvass, sometimes a hundred hours to tell a story.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19789 In the hour form, we can tackle weighty themes that we can't touch in a half hour show. We have the room to create the perfect blend of plot and character that makes for satisfying addictive drama that gets deep inside the viewer. That's why audiences love it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19790 Some are saying there is no demand for Canadian one‑hour drama, but CTV's audience numbers show that Canadians are watching television movies and half hour dramas like "Degrassi" and "Corner Gas".
LISTNUM 1 \l 19791 Surely, Canadians would watch a one‑hour drama if it was done well. If this country doesn't produce a quality one‑hour drama of its own, Canadians will just watch someone else's.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19792 MS COUTURE: But if you want to see some really great Canadian TV shows, you should tune in to the American networks because that's where many of our Canadian writers are working now. Writers like David Shore who wrote for "Due South" and "Traders" is the creator of the U.S. hit "House". Hart Hanson who was the show‑runner on "Traders" is the creator of "Bones" for Fox and I am just listing two people there.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19793 We are losing many of our most talented writers and we are in danger of losing our next generation as well. I now work in the U.S., but I still continue to work in Canada because I believe that your best work comes from writing about what you know.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19794 Since the late nineties, writers in Canada face many challenges. There are few opportunities, there is rarely enough money for development or production and both of these monies are equally important.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19795 U.S. broadcast executives know development makes a huge difference in determining the quality of a script.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19796 In U.S. ten scripts are developed for everyone that's produced and then only the very best are broadcast.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19797 In Canada, development money is in short supply; only 3.2 per cent of the CTF is attributed to English script development. This affects the quality of our productions because more development equals better television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19798 The lack of money also plagues the production phase. According to CTF statistics broadcasters contribute on average a licence fee of at most 25 per cent of the total budget for a one‑hour drama. These are among the lowest licence fees paid in the world for domestic drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19799 The fact is drama is the most expensive type of program to make. On average, one‑hour Canadian drama costs approximately 1.2 million dollars whereas a half‑hour magazine show like "eTalk" costs around $120,000 to make.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19800 Broadcasters have to up their licence fees if we want to see more shows like "Corner Gas", "Degrassi" or "Slings and Arrows".
LISTNUM 1 \l 19801 Another challenge to Canadian writers, the chances of getting reliable to slot in prime time during months of October to May are pretty slim and that's because there are few prime time slots available for Canadian programs. Most of the schedule is filled with simulcasts of American programs.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19802 And speaking of American programs everyone at this table was surprised to hear Global say last week that they are committed to drama. Global even complained about not getting a fair share of CTF. The irony is that their envelope is calculated on how much Canadian programming they have produced in the past. Currently, there is only one Canadian drama series on air in Global's prime time schedule.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19803 And overall, this is all discouraging for professional writers, it's even more discouraging for emerging writers who would like a career in this country. But, ultimately, this means less Canadian television drama for Canadian audiences and, in my opinion, that's a loss to our country that's unacceptable.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19804 Now, beside me is one of the few screen writers in Canada, good new story here, who has a show on the air in a regular time slot, the show runner from one of Canada's most successful series "Degrassi: The Next Generation", James Hurst.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19805 MR. HURST: Thanks, Suzette.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19806 I started at "Degrassi" in 2001 as a story editor, it was its first season. Since that time, I've worked on 100 episodes of our show which allowed me to learn what works with an audience.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19807 Some broadcasters have made the pitch for quality over quantity, but granting time bonuses for Canadian content productions actually means airing fewer Canadian shows. As a professional writer I can tell you that's a wrong way to go.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19808 You can't make quality programs that Canadians want to watch by producing only one series a year. You can't build an audience on limited runs and repeats.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19809 Part of the reason why "Degrassi" has been such a hit both here and in the U.S. is because it has a regular spot on CTV's prime time line‑up and has been promoted well. It also is different from other teen shows.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19810 We developed a loyal following because we tackled topics like abortion, homosexuality, drug use that the U.S. networks are hesitant to touch, I dare say wouldn't go near it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19811 But for the most part, our American broadcaster has accepted our stories because of the manner in which our experienced writers handle these topics. Our Canadian audience loves the show because they see real teenagers living in a recognizably Canadian society.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19812 As a guardian for the Canadian audio‑visual industry the CRTC can't underestimate how important this is. We are a vast country filled with different languages and traditions, but television binds us together, shows that the traits and values that make us Canadian no matter where we live.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19813 We want to have our national identity reflected back to us in our television programs.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19814 Throughout these proceedings, you have heard that it is impossible to regulate content because of the internet, that no one is watching traditional television any more. Well, that is just not true.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19815 The CRTC's 2004‑2005 monitoring report tells us that overall per capita television viewing numbers increased from 23.7 hours per week to 25.1 hours. This is further supported by a StatsCan Study which found that there was no difference in TV consumption between heavy internet users and non‑users. My experience tells me that the internet will not detract from traditional broadcast either.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19816 CTV is airing "Degrassi" and other Canadian‑American shows on‑line. CTV decided to do this because watching the show in your computer is quite different from watching with your friends.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19817 We think the internet broadcast is going to drive traffic to the show and generate excitement about the upcoming season.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19818 The same goes for the webisodes for the show. They are intended to complement the half‑hour program and reward our faithful viewers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19819 I am now in my sixth year of "Degrassi" and if it wasn't for the chance to write for this show, my colleagues and I, we wouldn't have the chance to be able to go on and create other shows such as Global's new dramas, "The Best Years" and "Da Kink in My Hair" which are both run and created by former "Degrassi" writers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19820 The ability to work on a long‑running show in a competitive ratings‑driven industry provided all of us with the opportunity to learn our skills and apply them to new experiences.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19821 When I look at the market place I see that my options are pretty limited. Despite having worked on an award‑winning show that is sold all over the world, when this cake is over it's possible I won't have a show in production for several years.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19822 But in the U.S., I wouldn't have to start from scratch again. I would probably be given a development deal to come up with another show, and that's a difference between staying here and moving to the U.S. for everyone in this industry.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19823 MS PARKER: There is no denying that there is less Canadian drama on air. There is less in development and less in production. According to the Commission, regulation is needed when the goals of the Broadcasting Act can only be met with other means. We are here to tell you that regulation is needed now.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19824 Two years ago, you introduced incentives because you realized that drama was in trouble, but despite those incentives and required benefit spending as well, drama expenditure has continued to plummet. We've waited seven years for the TV Policy to be reviewed. This is a watershed moment for the CRTC.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19825 We need a revised policy with expenditure requirements that will apply equally to all over‑the‑air broadcasters. We are asking that these broadcasters spend seven per cent of their ad revenue on Canadian drama. This is a very fair and very reasonable requirement when revenues are up, they will spend more, revenue is down, they will spend less.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19826 Please ensure that Canadians have the chance to see Canadian drama on TV and that there is a Canadian talent pool left here to work on those shows.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19827 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mrs. Parker. I am asking Commissioner Duncan to ask the first questions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19828 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Good morning, and thank you for ‑‑ this is good afternoon now. Thank you all for appearing. And we have heard, of course, some of your comments in the previous presentation, so I'll try not to be repetitive, but I do want to do justice and you're all here and we appreciate that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19829 You have indicated that you support the CCAU's recommendation that the private broadcaster spend seven per cent of the gross revenue on drama and that a reasonable portion of that amount should be allocated to script and concept development. And on the previous panel you undertook to tell us what that percentage would be.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19830 But what I am curious to know is that reasonable to expected it would be a percentage. Wouldn't it not depend on the show?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19831 MS. PARKER: I think what we're looking at is a commitment from each broadcaster to spend a percentage of their ad revenue on development and then, from that, that pool of money the broadcaster would be able to allocate development individual shows.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19832 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Thank you. That's helpful. Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19833 With respect to repeats because I notice in your written submission that you mentioned, of course, that that was a concern. Should there be a Canadian content requirement that specifies the minimum or the maximum amount or maximum ratio for repeats the original programming?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19834 MS. PARKER: Well, I'm only going to leave you with this thought. On Saturday mornings, on the Saturday morning schedule, "The Littlest Hobo" is still on the air. "The littlest Hobo" is older than I am.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19835 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: It's well‑said. Thank you. But do you have a ‑‑ but you don't have a specific guideline because if we're going to come up with rules ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19836 MS. PARKER: No, I don't. I don't at this time have a specific guideline, but we could certainly think about that and get back to you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19837 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Yes. And we've had a lengthy discussion about the need to show new shows during prime time and I read with interest your comment again this morning about the series that was ended before it was completed and shown at inappropriate times and winter show in the middle of the summer and, you know, we can't reach the prime audience, but I am wondering the prime audience being when Canadians are watching TV.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19838 But specifically, what regulatory mechanisms do you see need to be modified to address this situation? What exactly type of rule do you want put in place or do you envision being put in place?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19839 MS. PARKER: Well, we're a hopeful group. What we would like to see is an expenditure requirement, which is here what we're talking about today, but we think it has to go hand in hand with the scheduling requirement and promotion.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19840 And it is our opinion that writers and all of the rest of our colleagues in our industry deserve a shot at prime time, regular prime time, and that's from September to May.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19841 I am not saying that there aren't programs that will not work in the summer, absolutely, you know, the broadcasters should have some flexibility in terms of programming, but just as we should have some input into our own prime time, in our country.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19842 But we would be looking at a prime time requirement for drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19843 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: So, you're leaving the specifics of that up to us then, the more specific up to us?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19844 MS. PARKER: Well, more specifics; we have talked about two hours.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19845 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Uh‑huh!
LISTNUM 1 \l 19846 MS. PARKER: And, you know, I think that you will hear from my other colleagues that we are talking about two hours a week for drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19847 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Thank you. I noticed in your brief, you mentioned that significant improvements in the regulatory frame work are needed to attract more viewers to the over‑the‑air Broadcasting system, which of course is consistent with what you've said here today, but are there other specific recommendations you would like to see added, other than what you've talked about today?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19848 MS. PARKER: You know, no. I think it's our recipe, you know, scheduling, promotion, money, help with the star system in that entertainment shows that might actually focus on Canadians living in this country and making Canadian shows.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19849 There is not one component, you know. It's a punch of ingredients that are required in order to build the successful industry.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19850 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: So, am I correct in assuming that the seven per cent that you're looking for would be allocated in those various areas, including promotion?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19851 MS. PARKER: No. The seven per cent we are purely targeting for content to actually make the production and that's development and production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19852 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: So, are you suggesting rules over and above then with respect to a certain percentage of ad revenues being spent on promotion ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19853 MS. PARKER: We haven't fully developed that. Yes. I guess what we're looking at is in terms of a concept that if you're going to put a Canadian show on air it has to be promoted. And certainly we can say that our colleagues at CTV have done a fine job with that, you know, on their American shows, you'll often see lead‑ins for "Corner Gas". So, we think that that's a good idea.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19854 But, it's you know on‑air promotion, it's bill boards, it's a comprehensive advertising commitment to the Canadian schedule.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19855 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Do you get to work with ‑‑ sorry, go ahead, sure.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19856 MS COUTURE: I just wanted to make a ‑‑ to add a comment, but if you would like to continue with your question which is related to this.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19857 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: No, no, you go ahead. Go ahead, sure.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19858 MS COUTURE: Okay. Rebecca and James and I were talking about how our perception today has been all about, you know, crisis, and our Canadian audiences watching and if you do it, will they watch. And the perception is seemingly quite negative.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19859 And in my experience, for instance, with "The Man Who Lost Himself", I mean that to me is just such a simple model. It was a terrific Canadian story, it had 100 per cent backing from CTV, which gave us ample time and money to develop the project, came on board 100 per cent and production. We had an American pre‑sail and then, the promotion went into gear it came on air and at its peak it attracted 1,800,000 viewers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19860 I mean, that's not an unusual story and it's a good story to tell you because I think we feel we need to temper this sense that the shows aren't great, the audiences are not watching. I think that the more of this kind of formula of a great story and terrific support from the network, the more of these projects get to air, the more audiences will tune in and that's my simple message for the day.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19861 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Did you come to the CTV with the American sale?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19862 MS COUTURE: We developed ‑‑ my company developed the project with CTV and once the script had been written, we went to lifetime, at which time they signed on with a licence fee that actually gave us a much higher level of production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19863 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: So by that, you mean it did influence the amount that CTV invested in it or was that already pre‑determined?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19864 MS COUTURE: That was pre‑determined as far as I know.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19865 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Was it? Surely.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19866 MS COUTURE: Yes, it was.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19867 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Okay. Thank you. Thanks. That's helpful.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19868 I was going to ask you if you get to it as writers when you see the networks are buying your programs, do you get to have input in the type or amount or promotion or do you just take what you're given? Do you have a dialogue?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19869 MS. SCHECHTER: There is sometimes a dialogue with the producers and sometimes producers will amplify out of their own pocket the promotion that the networks will put into a show. So, if you are a writer producer, you may have some sale for that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19870 But, for example, with "Corner Gas" I believe a lot of the promotional gimmicks they used before the show went on air where they gave out free gas and things like that, those were ideas generated from the producer who was working with Brand, but you know is the show.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19871 So, there is a dialogue, yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19872 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: I'm also interested because I know that, I believe at least that you're directing a comment on the seven per cent towards drama. But are there other genres of programming that you feel also warrant safeguards?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19873 MS. PARKER: Not in terms of expenditure requirements, you know. Other forms of programming and we do cover them, our members work on other forms, but they are relatively inexpensive to produce and they don't need a safeguard. They will always be made if there is a demand because they're cost effective.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19874 So, no, we are not looking for any other expenditure requirements.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19875 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Thanks for that explanation and thank you all. Those were my questions, Mr. Chairman.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19876 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Ladies, thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19877 We will now break for lunch and be back at 1330.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19878 Nous reprendrons à 1330.
‑‑‑ Upon recessing at 1230 / Suspension at 1230
‑‑‑ Upon resuming at 1336 / Reprise à 1336
LISTNUM 1 \l 19879 LE PRÉSIDENT: Madame la secrétaire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19880 LA SECRÉTAIRE: Merci, monsieur le président.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19881 We'll now proceed with the next presentation of the Directors Guild of Canada, Mr. Alan Goluboff will be introducing his panel, after which you will have ten minutes for your presentation, when you're ready.
PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 19882 MR. GOLUBOFF. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission and Commission staff.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19883 My name is Alan Goluboff, I am President of the Directors Guild of Canada, a national labour organization representing more than 3,800 key creative and logistical personnel in the film and television industry.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19884 Joining me today are Pamela Brand, the D.G.C. National Executive Director and C.E.O. On the far right, Monique Twigg, National Research and Policy Manager for the Guild and Tim Southam, an award winning director of Canadian film such as "The Bay of Love and Sorrows" and television dramas such as "One Dead Indian, the Tale of Teeka" and the comedy series "Moose TV" and a distinguished member of the DDC.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19885 We thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and we are pleased to contribute to this important proceeding, the results of which have a significant impact not only on Canada's Broadcasting System, but also on the livelihoods of DGC members.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19886 The DGC is a founding and active member of the coalition of Canadian audio‑visual unions, the CCAU which made its presentation to you earlier. We would like to take the opportunity to underline our strong support for the recommendations put forward by the CCAU and urge you to implement its recommendations for a drama expenditure requirement for the over‑the‑air OTA private English language broadcasters set in a minimum of seven per cent of their advertising revenues.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19887 It cannot be stressed often enough that the broadcasters receive lucrative benefits along with their licence to exploit the public airwaves. In exchange for those benefits, the Broadcasting Act requires that their activities support public policy objectives, contributing to the creation of broadcast of Canadian programming, making maximum use of Canadian creative and other resources as key amongst these objectives.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19888 Drama is the most popular genre of programming and the one that can contribute most powerfully to the cultural objectives enshrined in the Broadcast Act.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19889 More than any other kind of programming that unites Canadians from coast to coast by creating a shared methodology that resonates with Canadians. Telling stories from unique and diverse perspectives that engage the imagination and allow all Canadians to share in that experience, creating a common culture and identity.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19890 The production of Canadian drama is essential to our sovereignty, therefore the decline in broadcaster support for Canadian drama is no minor matter.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19891 Because of the realities of our market Canadian programming is always a matter of societal choice, a matter of political will. Decades ago, Canada as a nation made the decision to nurture and create Canadian programming by mandating it in the Broadcasting Act. The amount of television drama on Canadian screens has followed well below the critical mass needed to meet our cultural and social objectives.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19892 Today we are once again faced by a choice: we either get behind drama or we don't. A drama expenditure requirement is essential because it is clear from the numbers that the private English language broadcasters will not voluntarily fulfil their responsibility to provide Canadians with an adequate supply of high quality, home growing drama on the OTA stations.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19893 If they are allowed to continue neglecting their responsibilities in this respect, the production sector will be substantially weakened, with consequences for all Canadians.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19894 MS BRAND: Thank you, Alan. The DGC's submission briefly discussed the negative effect that decline in drama production is having on the lives and livelihoods of Canadian creators including DGC members.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19895 Over the years, Canadian policy‑makers have rightly decided to nurture the conditions to ensure that Canadian voices and stories are heard and seen on the most powerful media in the world, film and television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19896 The Broadcasting Act and Broadcast Regulations are just two of the policy tools that have helped Canada develop an indigenous production sector, including the human resources the sector needs to thrive.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19897 The fact is making high quality television drama requires considerable skill, talent and creativity. Many Canadians want to work in this industry to create and express themselves in audio‑visual media and they have worked hard to learn their crafts.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19898 Canada has built an enviable production sector that includes a highly skill of talent pool, technological expertise and production infrastructure.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19899 The decline in Canadian English language drama production is taking a toll on Canada's talent pool, arguably, the most important element of the production sector. Most people working in the film and television sector are striving to stay in the industry and in the country, but some are facing significant hardship as production levels suffer.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19900 Any industry sees people come and go, but the DGC has seen a disturbing increase in its annual drop‑out rates since 2000. Directors have traditionally been our most stable category of members, but I am said to say that in the last couple of years we have seen a marked drop in the number of director members in the Guild.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19901 Another indicator can be found in the activity of the Actors' Funds, the major guilds, unions and professional associations from film and television and theatre all contribute to the Actors' Fund. Their members can apply to the fund in emergency situations or if they are in serious financial need.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19902 It is telling that the fund has been demand double over the last five years, a dramatic indication of the effects that weakened production levels are having on the people working in the sector.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19903 Talented Canadian creators have made the choice to work in this industry and to remain in Canada, but they won't be able to if they don't have the opportunity to make an adequate living and support their families. This is serious for the individuals involved, of course, but it is even more serious for the industry that we have worked so hard to build here in Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19904 Creators are the heart and soul of Canadian programming. It is their talent, vision and insight that draws viewers to Canadian television. If we don't support and nurture them, they will leave and Canadian programming will be greatly diminished.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19905 We are in danger of undoing all that we have accomplished. The goals and objectives of the Broadcasting Act continue to be essential and relevant. Canadian drama makes a critical contribution to achieving those objectives.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19906 The private English language OTA broadcasters continue to rip lucrative benefits from the protection afforded them by the Broadcasting Regulation and they can well afford to invest more in drama production. Therefore, imposing an expenditure requirement for drama is both and reasonable.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19907 MR. SOUTHAM: Thank you, Pamela. My fellow directors and I would like to emphasize several issues before you today.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19908 First, we would like to assert that Canadian viewers have shown a strong appetite for Canadian drama. In the last 18 or so months, we have seen programs like "Degrassi: The Next Generation", "Corner Gas", "Canada‑Russia '72", "Prairie Giant", "Terry", "One Dead Indian", "The Man Who Lost Himself", capturing between 800,000 and two million viewers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19909 To put it in perspective, ratings of 1.5 million viewers represent better than five per cent of the Canadian‑English language market. In the U.S. five per cent of the market is 15 millions viewers; 15 millions viewers is a huge hit.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19910 In the United States, it's also a number that pays for the show. In our small market, an hour of Canadian drama made to competitive standards is too expensive. Any shareholder would reject the idea of committing to the required resources.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19911 So, though Canadians have expressed an undeniable appetite for Canadian drama, we believe Canadian drama must be mandated by the CRTC so that the cost of making it becomes part of the operating reality of all publicly protected broadcasters, not an excruciating quarterly choice on their part.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19912 J'aimerais aussi parler rapidement des conditions de travail auxquelles les réalisateurs canadiens se trouvent actuellement confrontés. Dans une majorité de cas les budgets de tournage sont maintenant si bas que mes collègues trouvent la tâche de plus en plus insurmontable.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19913 C'est tout simplement une question de nombre de jours de tournage devenu très très bas et de nombre d'heures de tournage devenu de plus en plus élevé.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19914 Afin de livrer une émission, les équipes doivent tourner très vite et longtemps tous les jours. Souvent pour des raisons de sécurité nos coéquipiers ne peuvent pas prendre la route le soir pour entrer chez eux, souvent nos comédiens manquent de temps pour maîtriser leur texte et leur prestation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19915 Souvent nos scénaristes se voient obligés de livrer des premiers jets tellement la période de développement et les échéanciers de tournage sont comprimés. Souvent le producteur doit renoncer à son forfait afin de mener à bonne fin son émission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19916 Pour le réalisateur, c'est une question de santé et de qualité du rendu. Poser la question à tout réalisateur, c'est la meilleure profession qui soit, sauf qu'elle est devenue exténuante. La question est pertinente devant cette Commission car de notre point de vue c'est principalement une question de financement.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19917 Finally, many members of the DGC, particularly director members have grown up professionally working on Canadian productions. The fact that so many of us seem less into directing the very top U.S. shows and the wonderful Canadian work they continue to direct at home are testimony to the quality of apprenticeship in the Canadian system.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19918 We came of age directing Canadian drama, yet we know that the current levels of Canadian drama production, there is little prospect of a younger generation of directors following in our footsteps and pushing the bar higher.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19919 There is no question in our view that Canadian drama has now dropped far below this threshold of sustainability. It's a shame.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19920 You know, as professionals, we've only ever existed because of the laws and regulations of the land. Someone at some time expressed the collective will for us and for our work to exist. We believe the issues that impelled this collective choice still prevail.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19921 The CRTC is the custodian entrusted with the survival of our profession and our work so we are laying our case before you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19922 MR. GOLUBOFF: Thank you, Pamela and Tim. Mr. Chairman, we have concluded our presentation and would be pleased to respond to any questions from the panel.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19923 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr. Goluboff. I'm asking Commissioner Williams to ask the first questions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19924 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome members of the Directors Guild, Mr. Goluboff and Ms Brand and Mr Southam and Ms Twigg.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19925 Ms Brand, in your portion of the presentation you talked about the Actors' Fund and that members can apply to the fund in emergency situations, if they're in serious financial aid and that demand has doubled.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19926 What is a typical fund request? What is the size of the Fund and how is this Fund helped?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19927 MS BRAND: It's the size of the request is confidential information to the Fund, but we do know that in the past the Fund has helped our members who have not been able to pay their rent, doctor's bills for their children, dental bills and just to get them through a situation where they can survive till they find a next job.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19928 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do you know how much the Funds spends on an annual basis?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19929 MS BRAND: It spends not just on Directors Guild members, it spends on the industry as a whole. I don't know exactly how much it spends because that's information ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19930 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's only when you say "demand has doubled", so how do you measure that then?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19931 MS BRAND: We measure it because the Actors' Fund has informed us that the demand from DGC members has increased, has doubled over the past five years, that they have been helping more DGC members in the past five years than they have in the previous years.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19932 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, but it's not just demand and it's demand is being met by the Fund then?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19933 MS BRAND: It is being met by the Fund on a temporary basis, at some point they have to go out and find the work in the industry or leave it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19934 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Mr. Southam, you said in your remarks that's the best job in the world only it kills you and you have been quite successful at it from your résumé.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19935 How do you mean like "it kills you", like it finishes you off financially and you decide to not ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19936 MR. SOUTHAM: No, not at all financially. I think that working directors are adequately compensated in Canada. It's a hard job physically and we all know it going in. It's not as hard as nursing is what I tell myself every time when I feel tired.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19937 However, at a certain budget level the demands placed on the director become impossible to meet, especially if the director and the production team have any ambition to produce a quality show.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19938 The thing I am discovering right now is that far from feeling victimized by the producer in this respect, I feel that we're all collectively just swatting blood to get the thing across the finish line and this has happened a couple of shows in a row where the budget has been uncommonly low, the scripts have been good, the cast has been great, now we feel our production team is very good, but then we found ourselves shooting impossible hours and big overtime, to such an extent in one case where the crew had to be housed because the rules about whether they can drive themselves home or not after a certain number of hours.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19939 I think in the long run this is bad for me, I can only assume that's true for my colleagues. I think of it as the Tour de France of occupations, in the sense that you really have to train for it, you do it, you know you have to do it, but it has gotten ‑‑ either I have gotten too old or it has gotten silly.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19940 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How long have you been in this business?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19941 MR. SOUTHAM: I made my first short film in 1990.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19942 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Has it been a steady decrease in the size of budgets compared to projects or is it a more recent phenomenon or what's the trend then?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19943 MR. SOUTHAM: I have noticed that in 2004, I directed two long foreign projects which were clearly developed and financed in the early part of the start of the 2000 years. One mini series and one television movie. I also directed a couple of documentaries, it was a busy year.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19944 What I noticed immediately after that was that I was being offered half‑hour drama consistently, which is fine because it was comedy and it was a genre I wanted to try and one of the privileges in Canada for any director is we really can try anything and you hope you're good at it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19945 But the half‑hour budget is I think a response to a clear compression of overall budgets available to create drama in our country and I would refute any argument that it's more appropriately tailored to our country because there are a whole types of stories, you simply can't tell in a half‑hour and a half hour, as you know, is 22 minutes and 30 seconds; it's not a half hour.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19946 I am noticing now that I had three in a row, so from my point of view which is purely anecdotal, that's different from what I was going, what I was experiencing before when I was shooting long form.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19947 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And you made the comment that maybe you're getting older or maybe you're not, so you're down to half hour now and then you described in your presentation a bunch of other conditions like impossible shooting hours and ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19948 MR. SOUTHAM: Well, I think it's a particular quality of series in any case that it's a demanding occupation. I don't think anyone is surprised by that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19949 What I am finding difficult now is the number of days is decreased per episode and half hour in particular, we are now shooting on average three days per half hour. That's a specific challenge, it's one that I honestly believe is not good for the show and I believe it's simply a result in good faith on part of all concerned to deal with lower budgets.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19950 It trickles down from an overall diminishment from all the stakeholders, all the investors are simply able to put less in and it's our way of coping with it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19951 So, the result is that cruising casts are physically very challenged by this and I believe the overall quality is not what it could be, although they are wonderful successful stories mixed into that, I want to highlight as a director the sacrifice is being made by crew and cast together.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19952 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Southam and Ms Brand.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19953 Mr Goluboff, I'm going to work through before five questions just to try and add a bit more depth to our file on your presentation. Can you elaborate on the European policies that require television broadcasters to invest in feature film presentation? What are some of the successes, what are some of the challenges and how might such a policy figure in the Cain context especially with respect to the cultural and regional diversity?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19954 MR. GOLUBOFF: For a start I'll ask Monique here to comment on that because she's better versed in that subject than I, so ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19955 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Absolutely. I am just directing the question to you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19956 MR. GOLUBOFF: Yes, that's fine. So, Monique.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19957 MS TWIGG: Hi! We haven't done a whole lot of research into this. There is 23 countries in Europe that require broadcasters to put some money into feature films and they are different ones.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19958 I guess the success of it is that broadcasters contribute more to the feature films that are made in their country.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19959 In terms of our suggestion here, we are hoping that ‑‑ we wanted to offer the CRTC examples and we would be happy to do a little bit more depth on it, but the information is not that easily available to us. A lot of the studies, for example, cost money and so we more wanted to point in the direction this is something that has been done successfully in many european countries, in different ways, you know, for example, in Italy I think is requiring four per cent of their expenditures to go to feature film, other countries have more.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19960 Just that there is an array of options for the CRTC to look at if they find that putting part of the drama expenditure towards to feature films is inappropriate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19961 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do you have any examples of some successes from ‑‑ your easier example Italy where they allocate four per cent?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19962 MS TWIGG: Of specific films?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19963 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19964 MS TWIGG: No. Sorry, I don't.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19965 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. How do you think this would help Canadians in this industry?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19966 MR. GOLUBOFF: Well, I mean as far as directing some of the resources towards feature film production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19967 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19968 MR. GOLUBOFF: Well, I think as Canadians, Canadians benefit in and I think one of the things that ‑‑ the position that we have continued to put forward along with our other colleagues for this expenditure and expenditure rule to be reimplemented is that the level and quality of programming is going to improve.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19969 If there is more money in the system, higher quality programming is going to be delivered to Canadians and our view, and it's paramount to us, it's not just about working conditions. It's not just about my ability to pay my mortgage. That is not the issue here, as far as I think we are concerned in general. The issue is Canadians deserve and have the right as Canadians to see high quality programming on the airwaves and not only high quality programming which we get at infin item delivered to us from south of the border primarily.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19970 So, if there is more money in the system, which is the point that we are trying to make, if there is more money in the system, higher quality programming will be delivered to Canadians. Canadians will be the beneficiary of a decision from the Commission to go down this road and take a recommendation that many of us are putting forward.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19971 So, if a percentage of that money is being directed towards supporting feature film production, that is only again a benefit to us as Canadians and to all of us as Canadians, to be able to see ourselves on screen and on television and participate in stories that reflect who we are, who we are as Canadians. And that is what is ‑‑ that's paramount and that is the foundation of everything that, you know, we are trying to push here.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19972 It's not about jobs, though jobs ‑‑ my membership, my 3,800 members across the country are the immediate beneficiaries. If more money starts to flow in the next couple of years, no question, Tim and I and 3,800 other members as well as other actors and writers are all going to be working more and that's only ‑‑ that's good for us personally.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19973 But I can't reiterate more strongly the benefit or more money in the system is a benefit to us as Canadians and without that money in the system we are weakened as Canadians and I think that that's not a road I hope that we continue to travel on.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19974 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If we had to focus on quantity and quality, which should be our more dominant focus?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19975 MR. SOUTHAM: We believe that there is a clear synergy between then, you know, quality and the number of shows which get made and the reason for that is none of us are rocket scientists. We don't know what shows are going to be good. We need a critical mass of shows to generate hits and the audience knows that. They are waiting for us to come across with something that is worth watching.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19976 To sort of treat each separate show is a sacred thing that's going to generate that hit is a real danger. I think we need to get the law of averages back on our side and, therefore, we believe that quantity is the road to quality.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19977 Both in development where some of the shows do not see the light of day and then, of course, in production where we simply don't know what shows are going to hit. It's a model which is obviously practised in huge volume in the U.S. We believe there is a volume, an appropriate volume which will deliver better programming and more of it to Canadians and our position to reiterate is that Canadians have shown through the ratings.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19978 And I have just finished a movie called "One Dead Indian" which, you know, has a cast which most, you know, ten years ago we would have said, this is a marginal film, this is a mandated film. We had 1.2 million viewers, I was second only to CSI that evening. We are competitive with all the other U.S. shows, we beat them. It's a political show is turned from headline CTV did a masterful job in marketing it, they should be credited with that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19979 And by the way, I should say most of us feel that production executives care about what they're putting on the air. The perverse situation we find ourselves in is that perhaps the owners are less motivated to put expensive material on the air because shareholders really have to at some point question among this, but we believe the production executives want to make good shows for Canadians and CTV did do a good job with "One Dead Indian" as they did with "The Man Who Lost Himself" as Suzette Couture talked about that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19980 These ratings are encouraging They tell us Canadians are responding. However, to use each of those films as solo test balloons in the market is really ill‑fated. We need to get volume out there, test the market through that volume, find the hits and make more of those.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19981 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Southam. Mr Goluboff, last week CTV proposed a fee for carriage regime for the over‑the‑air television stations in which 50 per cent of the money would be allocated for the production and acquisition of incremental Canadian priority programming and the other 50 per cent would be used for initiatives such as upgrading for high definition, as approved by the licensed ‑‑ as proposed by the licensee and approved by the Commission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19982 What are your comments on CTV's fee for carriage proposal?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19983 MR. GOLUBOFF: Well, Pamela Brant will speak to it because I know she commented on it in the CCAU brief just before lunch.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19984 Pamela.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19985 MS BRANT: We feel that, yes, it is important for high definition and conversion to digital and all of those things, but we don't agree that the fee for carriage should be used for that kind of cost of business. It is a cost of business and it would be in any other industry, you know, to get a new model of a car, that is a cost of business. Broadcasters have been through many new forms in the past, like converting from black and white television to colour television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19986 We believe that they have the resources and they have the revenues to do both without diverting from Canadian programming, you know, the fee for carriage, 50 per cent, yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19987 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If I understand you then, the focus should be on Canadian programming ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 19988 MS BRANT: Yes, that is right.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19989 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: ‑‑ or other initiatives and that capital stuff is a cost of doing business.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19990 MS BRANT: That is right.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19991 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: A number of parties opposed CTV's proposal for a variety of reasons, including the contention that it would be impossible to ensure that the programming would be incremental to that which is already being produced or acquired.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19992 How would your panel respond to these concerns?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19993 MS BRANT: I am not sure the question was very clear.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19994 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, I will run it through again, no problem.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19995 A number of parties opposed the CTV proposal. They say it would be impossible to ensure that the programming would be incremental to what is already currently being produced or acquired, that there be no new programming as a result of this.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19996 How does your panel respond?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19997 MS BRANT: I can respond by saying I am not sure why anyone would say that, because broadcasters are required to report to the Commission, you know, under CTV, under the current benefits policy, is required to report, so anything additional would also be reported. I don't see why it would be difficult.
LISTNUM 1 \l 19998 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well maybe they are thinking there is only so much shelf space and the need is being met and it is filled?
LISTNUM 1 \l 19999 MS BRANT: Well yes, there is always a limited amount of shelf space, but the need is not being met. If you take just one specific broadcaster, maybe in certain periods the need is being met by CTV, but over the broadcast year there are large gaps when there is not a lot of Canadian programming on CTV. And certainly other broadcasters, such as Global, you know, there are examples where we need more shelf space for Canadian programming, they are not fulfilling the requirements.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110000 Do you want to add to that?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110001 MS TWIGG: I think it was Ted Rogers that said you would need forensic accountants to make sure that it didn't drop to the bottom line, I assume that is what you are talking about.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110002 One of the reasons why we go for a percentage of revenue requirement is for exactly that reason. To say something is incremental, when I listened to that proposal I was wondering incremental to what, to what you were intending or to what you are saying you are intending? I think Commission Duncan mentioned this morning possibly changing ‑‑ our proposal has been a percentage of advertising revenue, it becomes a percentage of all revenue. Perhaps if there is fee for carriage that is simpler to police.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110003 As you know, we are not saying that there is any particular number of hours or kind of programming that has to be produced out of that amount of money, it is merely an expenditure requirement.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110004 MR. SOUTHAM: If I may as well, yes, to complete that thought, the beauty of the percentage is that it also demonstrates clearly that none of the stakeholders in this proposal are indicating their desire to micromanage or tell broadcasters how to build their slates. They are very good at building their slates, we see it on the whole range of their programming, it is just that very little of it is Canadian.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110005 We also know that the market shifts constantly. As I indicated clearly, I am moving from one genre to a next, adapting as a director, I believe that is what the networks are doing too. So the 7 per cent is lovely in the sense that it says we may believe this is a managed industry, but we are not trying to tell you how to run your business. We just believe it is a protected business, that you have a right to broadcast here and that Canadians have a right to see Canadian programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110006 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay thank you, Mr. Southam.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110007 In your written submission you expressed concern that the current benefits policy effectively opens the door to multistage transfer of ownership and control of broadcasting undertakings as well as major ownership restructurings that allow parties to avoid payment on substantial benefits as is intended by the policy.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110008 In the Bell Globemedia Decision 2006‑309 we approved the change of control in Bell Globemedia and stated that the Commission would reserve the right to review the entire sequence of transactions to determine the appropriateness of any proposed benefits package.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110009 In addition to reviewing multi‑step transactions on a case by case basis, what specific measures would you propose to prevent parties from avoiding payment of benefits in multistage transfer of ownership and control as well as in major ownership restructurings?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110010 MS BRANT: I am not sure that we are able to propose to you today specific measures, we just do feel that ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110011 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You are just expressing a concern?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110012 MS BRANT: Yes, we are expressing a concern with the way, particularly the example you used, that in the multi‑staging, in the end the transfer of benefits were on a much smaller amount then if it had been a full transaction counted as one. But to be able to propose today specifics, I am not certainly able to.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110013 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is there further comment, Ms Twigg?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110014 MS TWIGG: Just a comment that in our submission on that particular proceeding we had argued that there was in fact a change of ownership control and dissenting opinion by Commissioner Langford also said that and so we just wanted to be on the record as saying we are a little concerned. Obviously the majority of the Commission didn't agree on that particular transaction, but we wanted to highlight it, that is all.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110015 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay thank you, Ms Twigg and fellow panelists from the Directors Guild.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110016 That concludes my area of questioning, Mr. Chair.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110017 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Williams.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110018 At the beginning of interrogatory Commissioner Williams raised the European policies. Aren't they those policies that are now curtailing the ability of the Canadian producers to do international financing through the various treaties?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110019 MR. GOLUBOFF: Well, I guess yes in part. In part, the shows that we often used to produce in this country that were sold willingly and bought willingly in Europe, that environment has changed and that is to the benefit ‑‑ and back to my comments earlier ‑‑ that is to the benefit of Europeans, to the French, to the Italians, to the Germans who, because of legislation there, are now producing homegrown product for the Germans, the French or whoever they may be. So that is a benefit to them.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110020 It has damaged our ability to sell because they don't need our product as much. So we now need to have a place to put our own product. Well, where can we put our own product? Where should we be able to put our own product? We should be able to put our product and place our product in front of Canadians on Canadian broadcasters.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110021 THE CHAIRPERSON: Because it comes out of European community directive that is promoting European content, and obviously that was done at the expense of smaller countries like Canada, obviously as the European countries altogether have surely a market of the size or even of a bigger size than the U.S.A. So we are like the meat in the sandwich and obviously that has a major impact on our ability to produce drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110022 MS BRANT: I just have one comment to add to that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110023 You are absolutely right in the case of the so‑called industrial productions. But when it comes to distinctive Canadian productions such as Trailer Park Boys or Degrassi they do extremely well. They have sold, I think some of them, in 16 or 20 countries in Europe. So distinctive Canadian program does well in spite of the taste for indigenous programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110024 MR. SOUTHAM: And the final comment from the point of view of the practitioner, sir. A director in Canada has always the dilemma of whether he should or she should export his or her work or whether he should export himself or herself as a craftsperson.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110025 The hope is, of course, naturally to be able to export one's work and work from a strong base here. However, culture is probably the one area most countries, other than the U.S., agree is not a free trade item and so I think it is not so hard for us to understand why the European Union closed ranks on culture and it is hard to disagree philosophically with that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110026 THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner French.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110027 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Mr. Southam made a point which I confess surprised me a little bit. He said that no one was asking for micromanagement of the broadcasters' business.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110028 Well, here is what we have been asked to do in the last two or three hours, Mr. Southam, and you tell me, maybe it will be an enlightening discussion.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110029 We are going to require them to invest a minimum of their revenue in Canadian drama. We are going to require them to produce a minimum amount per week. We are going to tell them when they have to schedule that drama. We are going to require them to pay an unspecified amount for an unspecified source to promote the drama. We are going to require them to take a percentage of the total monies and invest them in the development of scripts and projects. We are going to regulate the entertainment shows so that only real legitimate bonafide Canadians get built into stars in our star system promotion machinery.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110030 You know, I know that the purposes for all those recommendations and, you know, I see the happy coincidence between your members' interests and the Canadian public interest, but I submit to you that there is not a hell of a lot left for a programmer to do after your or we have told them to do all those things, is there?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110031 MR. SOUTHAM: I would disagree with the last statement, because running a network involves reaching viewers through such a myriad of products that we really are actually talking about a tiny little tranche of the schedule, which is the Canadian drama schedule.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110032 Secondly by micromanagement, specifically, I was referring to the potential beauty of the expenditure percentage means that we are not differentiating between subgenres of drama, which is a very big deal from a production executive's point of view, in marketing terms it is a huge deal. Do I do an MOW, do I do a one‑hour drama series, which is a huge financial commitment, do I do half‑hour, do I do comedy? These are huge huge creative decisions, careers are built and founded on these decisions internally. And the potential beauty of a global expenditure requirement is, first of all, we are not asserting marketing expertise.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110033 We are simply saying we believe this is mandatable and should be under the Broadcast Act, given the privilege of broadcasting in this country, and this is where we think it should land, drama. That is a very big category. The subcategories are also very big. What we are saying is essentially we are staying away from that kind of thinking, which is a big improvement over previous proposals from people like myself.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110034 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Thank you very much, Mr. Southam.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110035 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Goluboff and your team, thank you very much for your presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110036 We will now move to the next item, intervener. Ms Secretary.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110037 THE SECRETARY: We will now proceed with the position of ACTRA.
‑‑‑ Pause
LISTNUM 1 \l 110038 THE SECRETARY: Mr. Richard Hardacre is appearing for ACTRA. He will introduce his panel and then you will have 10 minutes for your presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110039 Mr. Hardacre.
PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 110040 MR. HARDACRE: Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Vice‑Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110041 As you just heard, my name is Richard Hardacre. I am a Canadian actor, I am also the National President of ACTRA. I am here today with Fiona Reid, R.H. Thomson, two of the most accomplished and acclaimed performers in Canada in the English language. We are here today on behalf of the 21,000 members of ACTRA, our union of English‑speaking performers working in Canadian film, television, radio and new media industries.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110042 Also joining us are Stephen Waddell, you have met earlier today, ACTRA's National Executive Director and Ken Thompson, gentleman on the far right, ACTRA's Director of Public Policy and Communications.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110043 We want to thank you, first of all, the Commission, for giving us the opportunity to speak today.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110044 We are here because our country's culture means a great deal to us. We know that these hearings are critically important to Canada's creative community, to our members who are the core of the professional performing industry in English Canada, but the big picture is we also maintain that these hearings are critical to our national identity.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110045 The decisions that this Commission will be making following these hearings are either going to help or stymie our goal to bring Canadian drama back to Canadian television screens and will either increase or reduce work opportunities for our members.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110046 But I need to be clear, this is not just about jobs. There is no doubt, in our industry that decisions that can be made by this Commission are able to shape the future of English‑language culture of our country. We believe that this Commission has the ability to create an environment that allows the imagination of Canadians to soar rather than narrowing our vision to the stories that others want to tell us, that others want to show us, the narrow stories that come from other countries.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110047 Earlier the Coalition of Audio‑visual Unions addressed many of these issues and asserted why it is critical that spending requirements be re‑implemented. Now, among other things, we would like to talk to you this afternoon about the primetime schedules of Canada's private broadcasters, why minimum Canadian drama‑scheduling requirements must be created by this Commission
LISTNUM 1 \l 110048 MR. THOMSON: I am R.H. Thomson, thank you for having me here. I am sorry, I am R.H., my name had to be approved through New York when I joined the union, so there is a Robert Thomson who lives in Chicago, so I am R.H., but I am also RH positive, which in fact is my blood type. So there you go, I come by it honestly.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110049 I agree that these hearings are critical to the Canadian creative community. I live in a wonderful country where a population of 33 million is spread out along the border with the world's largest television producer and consumer market of 300 million. We simply do not have the critical mass to make the market work for us.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110050 Our film industry is the perennial sick puppy of the arts, produces only 1 per cent of box office revenues and since 1999, seven years ago, our television screens have become more and more dominated by U.S. programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110051 On any given week the top 10 programs on our televisions, eight or nine are imported from the United States. Canadians can't see our stories on Canadian television in large part because the private broadcasters aren't putting enough money into licensing and supporting Canadian dramatic programming. And to top it all off in this wonderful environment, the CBC is now chronically under‑funded.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110052 So we are here to tell you today that it is time now to restore to Canadians the chance to see ourselves and our stories on television and this Commission, the five wonderful people in front of me, you are the body that can make that change and you can return to the values and principals of the Broadcast Act.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110053 Audience watch dramas, Canadians want drama. Of the top 20 shows in primetime in North America 18 are scripted drama. Audiences are tiring, thank God, of so‑called reality programming and the last reality programming that I saw were babes in bikinis eating live slugs and to see who would be sick first. So maybe there are higher aspirations for what actually is the content of our television networks.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110054 So where are the Canadian dramas? We know Canada's private broadcasters know the value of dramas because each May they travel to L.A. screenings and take part in a spending frenzy to outbid each other for U.S. dramatic programs and then they place these programs in the choice spots in our primetime. The broadcasters spend over four times as much on buying U.S. programming than on licensing Canadian programming and that is why ACTRA and the CCAU members argue the 7 per cent solution. Seven years for 7 per cent, that the private broadcasters should be required to dedicated a minimum of 7 per cent of their gross advertising revenues to the production of new Canadian dramatic programs.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110055 We don't think this is good enough for you just to re‑impose a spending requirement, 7 per cent. We ask that you also implement a scheduling requirement, that broadcasters should be required to exhibit a minimum amount of dramatic programming in primetime. Why? A glance at any TV listing on the board in front of me shows that the primetime schedule of Canadian private broadcasters is saturated with U.S. programming leaving precious little space for indigenous stories.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110056 We supplied you with copies of the primetime listings for CTV and Global which tell a dramatic story of the dramatic absence of our own dramatic programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110057 MS REID: There is no doubt that Canada has the capacity to make hit drama series. But as you can see from these schedules, practically none of them are showing up on our television screens. While the dearth of opportunity here has forced many of our best and brightest to head to Los Angeles, a deep pool of creative talent remains and may be enticed back if there is work.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110058 Corner Gas stands as the lone example of what can be accomplished if you put money into script development and production. If you give shows consistent time slots and promote them well, then audiences will watch. Corner Gas has risen to the top 10 in ratings and its first season's DVD is sixth on HMV's bestseller list.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110059 The rest of the world is also buying and watching what little drama and comedy we do produce. Corner Gas and CBC's The Newsroom both scored prestigious international Emmy nominations and CBC's This is Wonderland is selling in more than 100 countries despite being cancelled by the CBC.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110060 While these few success stories have shown us the way, Canada's private broadcasters have shown little interest in investing in and airing Canadian dramatic stories since they were let off the hook in 1999. The 1999 television policy allowed broadcasters to fill content requirements with programming other than drama. In practice, this has resulted in low budget lifestyle and reality programming which networks can cram in whenever they want wherever they want, saving the big money timeslots for U.S. programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110061 And why are they simulcasting American programming? Because they can get increased ad revenue at very low cost. We are simply asking that they return 7 per cent of that revenue to dramatic programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110062 It is clear that the private broadcasters will not commit money and prime timeslots without being required to do so. The CRTC's drama incentives program implemented last year has not worked. The Commission remembers that the CCAU suggested a drama incentive program in our first drama report back in March 2003, however we cautioned that it would only work if combined with spending and schedule requirements.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110063 Meanwhile, Canada's private broadcasters pay the lowest licence fees of any country in the English‑speaking world for the rights to Canadian drama programs. Clearly, there must be a regulatory obligation placed on the broadcasters to spend a minimum amount on Canadian drama and to schedule that drama in real primetime.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110064 The private broadcasters will only listen to their shareholders unless this Commission imposes certain rules on them, rules that would require broadcasters to invest in, produce and air Canadian drama. Corner Gas is one half‑hour across CTV's entire primetime schedule. This one small example of success, high audience ratings, advertising dollars and shareholder profitability could be replicated only if this Commission reinstates spending and scheduling requirements
LISTNUM 1 \l 110065 MR. HARDACRE: So our message is quite simple. To sum up, ACTRA proposes that the Commission reinstate expenditure and scheduling requirements on Canada's private broadcasters. We recommend a minimum of two hours per week on new Canadian drama programming in real primetime. That is to say Sunday to Thursday, 7:00 to 11:00 p.m., the timeslots that attract the most viewers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110066 The business of broadcasting, we feel, is not just the business of broadcasting and the business must not be only about maximizing profit at any cost, it is also about the content of what is broadcast and in that content must be the voices of Canadian storytellers, the drama that builds the identity of this country, the ideas and the imagination that make us unique. We hope the choice is clear to the Commission. We can enrich the content of our broadcasting industry, we can create a heritage that our children will be proud to inherit.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110067 That ends our formal presentation. We thank you very much for your time.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110068 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr. Hardacre.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110069 I am asking Vice‑Chair French to initiate questioning.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110070 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Well thank you very much for your presentation and we appreciate the fact that your presence here today indicates the importance that you attach to the issues that you have raised and we thank you for being here.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110071 I confess to having a bit of difficulty to see what my role in this particular drama at this particular point is. I will try to be a good straight man, but much of what you have proposed is exactly what was proposed by your predecessors. I don't want to foreclose the opportunity to expand on it, but neither do I have any particularly brilliantly new ways of asking you questions about it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110072 I guess the fundamental issue for the Commission is to try to reconcile a number of frankly radically different proposals going in 360 degree opposite directions. But I suppose at the end of the day the issue that will trouble us the most is the sense that to achieve these important national goals which you have been kind of almost poetic about today requires some rather prosaic and very precise regulatory decisions cloaked in legalese and reaching fairly dramatically into the prerogatives of the activities of private companies.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110073 We need to know exactly how this should be framed and I would like to give maybe Mr. Waddell the opportunity to ensure that you have explained to us, in all the detail that you would like to add, precisely how are we going to do the various things you have proposed to us.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110074 I don't know if I am making any sense to you, but today and on Friday we were passed a load of huge philosophical problems and told that the people who are passing us the problems hadn't thought too much about the details, they didn't have the time. I am not accusing you of this, I am simply telling you what we got from a certain number of interveners. We had to do this, that and the other general thing, but at the end of the day we have to write in black and white something that can be operationalized in the real world.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110075 So I mean it just occurs to me, Mr. Waddell, because you are at the business end of this, that this might be an opportunity for you to tell us, you know, in precise detail anything you would like to add to the general philosophical directions that you have made very clear to us in the course of the last three or four presentations?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110076 MR. WADDELL: Thank you, Mr. French. Thanks for the opportunity.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110077 I understand how you are struggling with the question because obviously we have been repeating over and over what the problems are that are facing Canada's creative community and, frankly, the Canadian public. You mentioned that, you know, these are private companies we are talking about. Yes, but they are dealing with public airwaves and therefore, in our view, they have an obligation under the Broadcast Act and have an obligation to put back, to replant the trees which they are taking down or else we are going to have a clear cut culture in this country.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110078 But enough of the rhetoric, you want to know what we are talking about. We are talking about implementing a spending requirement, Mr. French, reinstating that spending requirement that was taken out, specifically for drama, it was watered down and removed in the 1999 TV policy decision.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110079 Would you please revoke that decision and implement spending requirements and it is 7 per cent of gross advertising revenue. That is pretty straightforward, that is an arithmetic formula that can be done on an annual basis and we are asking the Commission to do that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110080 And similarly we are asking for, as you said before, two hours out of eight in terms of priority programming, two hours out of 28 in terms of primetime and two hours out of 20 in terms of what we call real primetime, the Sunday to Thursday spots. Not have Canadian drama shoved into Friday evenings or Saturdays or, you know, as was said by the Writers, have Whistler shown in the summertime, I mean, all that is crazy. We are asking for very precise rules to be re‑implemented, Mr. French.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110081 But I am happy to repeat back our position and I think it is pretty straightforward and I think you got it and the Commission can do it, the Commission can implement these rules if you choose to do so.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110082 As you can see today, you had a host of creative people here talking to you about how it is impacting them directly. We have seen a substantial decline in work opportunities across the board for Canada's performers, writers and directors. The creative community in this country is in difficult straights. I have been around a while, 35 years, doing this and seen things come and go but I have never seen anything as bad as what we have going now and it is all because of the 1999 TV policy. You guys can change that policy. We ask you to implement these suggested rules. Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110083 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Could I just pursue something you raised there. You know, Mr. Waddell, I am an amateur in the regulation of broadcasting, so you are going to help me a little bit here.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110084 But I would have thought that in addition to what you would see as the flaws of the 1999 decision that the vast expansion of choice for the average consumer between now and 10 years ago would have been a fundamental part of the problematic you currently find yourselves in. Is that a misconception?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110085 MR. WADDELL: That there is too much choice?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110086 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Well, you know, I am the type of thick‑headed guy to think that there would be too much choice, but ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110087 MR. WADDELL: I doubt that you are an amateur, Mr. French.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110088 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Pardon me?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110089 MR. WADDELL: I doubt you are an amateur in these regulatory ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110090 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Well maybe not, but I am an amateur in broadcasting. So you know, I am not arguing there is too much choice. What I am saying is part of the problem of building sustainable audience size for any particular type of programming, but in particular for Canadian drama which is your sole concern, would be that there is simply more choice out there and therefore the aggregatable audience is smaller or what they call generally more fragmentation and that in and of itself is not the 1999 policy, although the 1999 policy must be a part of this problem, I take your word for it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110091 But aren't there other aspect than the 1999 policy as you just implied?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110092 MR. WADDELL: I get your point. There is now a lot of different folks in the market that are providing a variety of choice, there is no question about that. You know, Canada has the benefit of being able to receive the signals of all of the U.S. networks, local stations, their specialty and HBO, etc. I mean, we have more choice in this country than anyone in the world.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110093 The problem that we haven't got, unfortunately, is the opportunity to watch Canadian drama. It is the one thing that is really really missing in all of the choices that are available to the Canadian viewing public. And you know, we go back to why that is and, as we say, there is just not enough money in the system, there is not enough money being expended by Canada's private broadcasters on dramatic programming. And as our brief says, they are not going to unless they are forced to and the only way they are going to be forced to is for this Commission to implement some rules.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110094 So, Mr. French, give Canadian viewers one more choice and that is the opportunity to watch Canadian drama. They are not getting that choice now.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110095 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Mr. Hardacre.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110096 MR. HARDACRE: Thank you, I wonder if I may respond as well to your questions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110097 Choice is a very important matter and I am not sure the Commission is aware of it, but up until 1999 there actually was a great deal of choice in Canadian programming, dramatic programming available. We had actually 12 one‑hour 10 point pure CanCon series being produced in this country and some of those series were actually attracting audiences over a million on a regular basis, series like Traders and Street Legal up to then.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110098 That choice of 12 Canadian content dramatic series has disappeared. We have been reduced since 1999 down to one year there was one or two series, one and a half hours, now we have perhaps ‑‑ depends when you count it, what time of the year and whether you are counting reruns or not ‑‑ it looks to be two or three series, including a half‑hour series called Corner Gas.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110099 So the choice is much limited now compared to what it used to be. That kind of choice is what we feel the viewing public and our industry deserves to see. Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110100 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Thank you for that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110101 Benefits policy, the same answer as your predecessor? That is you are concerned that there might be a stage takeover and you want to make sure we don't allow that to occur, thereby narrowing the basis on which the benefits would be calculated or do you have something more to express now?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110102 MR. WADDELL: Nothing to add. Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110103 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Mr. Chairman, I would like to hear more from the panel and do a more respectable job of asking the questions, but all the questions have already been asked, I regret it. I hope my colleagues have other questions they may want to raise. Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110104 THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner Duncan.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110105 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: I would like to ask a question in regards to the 7 per cent and we sort of touched on it earlier. I think Commissioner Cugini tried to discuss it earlier about how you arrived at the 7 per cent. Because I am concerned that we will do the 7 per cent and it won't be enough, it will be 8 or 9 per cent. I just wonder what type of calculation you went through to satisfy yourself that 7 per cent was the right number.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110106 MR. WADDELL: Sure. I mean, the target that you set was 6 per cent, so we went 1 over, it is real simple and it is double what is being done now. That would be a good start and give us an opportunity to ask for more. Thanks.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110107 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Okay, so it is not very scientific then.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110108 MR. THOMPSON: Excuse me, just to be clear, it comes from the incentives program decision from last year which the broadcasters themselves with their own data established that they were able to reach a 6 per cent level and that was actually what the Commission said I believe.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110109 So based on the Nordicity and PricewaterhouseCoopers projections, we came to a very reasonable and conservative 7 per cent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110110 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: So what you are saying is that 7 per cent of their projected revenues would allow you to meet the two hours of Canadian programming and would cover the cost of that?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110111 MR. THOMPSON: Well if I may, the private broadcasters are already putting some Canadian programming in the schedule, Corner Gas, for example, is a half hour and there is Whistler and Falcon Beach and so on and so forth, but it would be nice to see it consistently so that Canadians know that it is on at a time when most of them are tuning in to watch television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110112 I know we have heard that the percentage of 90 per cent of Canadians are still watching over‑the‑air television one way or the other, either through cable or bunny ears, and that would me to me at least that it is still very much a live medium and a choice that Canadians are taking despite the multitude of choices out there.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110113 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: I don't think I am arguing that at all. I agree with that, that is fine. I just wanted to know if it is going to generate enough funds to fill the two hours, and if you are satisfied it is, that is fine.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110114 MR. WADDELL: Yes, our figures show the spending on Canadian drama right now is $54 million in 2005. With 7 per cent, it would increase to $134 million by 2009, which is almost two and a half times as much money available as currently exists and, boy, that would go a long way to producing some good shows.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110115 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110116 MR. HARDACRE: If I may. I am sorry, Mr. Vice‑Chair.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110117 A partial response to that, it is a bit tangential, but the same study which ACTRA along with our coalition members commissioned, a study from PricewaterhouseCoopers, also showed that the revenue levels of the private broadcasters through advertising over the last four years has increased by 15 per cent. Our study denies that revenue is actually shrinking through advertising. We believe that a 7 per cent figure is supportable.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110118 COMMISSIONER DUNCAN: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110119 THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner Cugini.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110120 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110121 I, for one, want to take advantage of the fact that we do have some of Canada's finest actors in the room.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110122 UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Off Microphone)
LISTNUM 1 \l 110123 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Pardon?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110124 UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Off microphone)
LISTNUM 1 \l 110125 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Well we heard Mr. Southam, for example, in the previous panel tell us how his craft has changed over the years.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110126 I am wondering if you could tell us how your art has changed over the last 10 years, for example?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110127 MS REID: Well, I can tell you the results have been dire over the course of the last seven years. I think it is too allied to the 1999 policy in terms of chronology for it to be a case of other militating factors. The figures speak for themselves. But I can tell you, that in my industry ‑‑ and again I would reiterate what Mr. Southam said, we are not here to speak for our jobs ‑‑ but it has been a very desperate scenario in the entire profession with people leaving.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110128 I am very lucky that I can perform in the theatre so that I can earn a living. Also, when something is done it is done on such a wing and a prayer. I had a chance at a comedy a few years ago and there was not appropriate script development, so we were getting the scripts on the days we were shooting and we were given two and a half days and it was a bit like, you know, a bunny in the headlights scenario.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110129 It is just very sad, because we know that we have the craftspeople, the artists, the writers, the directors to do the best job in the world. And when we are asked to do something on a wing and a prayer with little resources, yes, well I suppose it is arguably better than doing nothing at all, but it is most frustrating when you have to make the kinds of compromises that compromise the product at the other end.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110130 Then the other reality is that there has just been no work, just been no work. And so there has been, I would say, a remarkable atrophy in the profession as a whole. I know people would come back, they would come flocking back from outside the country and from their other occupations if they have been lucky enough to find those.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110131 MR. THOMSON: If I may. The impact is you get very dry ears, but that is okay, we are in a crazy gypsy profession here, we take anything that comes along.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110132 But I have a very rough sort of parameter, it is the page count you shoot per day. And October 1970 we shot eight, eight and a half, nine pages a day. You can't do that, you just can't do that. They can't light that fast, they can't light well, they can't compose a camera that well, the designers can't design that fast, the actors can't deal with that many scenes and actually do anything with them, the director doesn't have time to actually put any creativity into what they are doing, you are just covering the script.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110133 So when you squeeze money you get shoots of eight or nine pages a day and it looks like it. "October 1970" was a decent script and a great story and told a great story about us and the FLQ, but they are shooting eight or nine pages a day and you see it, in spite of the wonderful talent that was doing it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110134 For whatever reason, I shot "The Englishman's Boy" this summer, which is a Guy Vanderhaeghe book, three pages a day, three pages a day. And the difference shooting three pages a day is creativity suddenly jumps in front of you and suddenly you can create and suddenly there is some innovation and suddenly you can do scenes and tell stories in unique ways that actually catch people.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110135 When you are shooting eight or nine pages a day you are producing product and you are producing as fast as you can because you know you can't go over and you have to finish it, so you go to old patterns and you turn out product.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110136 Is there some money for creativity there which, if you want Canadian stories to have shelf life, if you want someone to look at a series 20 years from now and go, wow what was.. Like the guy who sold me my Via Rail ticket coming up. He said, I saw you, you were on that show about Banting, the insulin thing. That is like 20 years ago. But because 20 years ago there was time and money put into that, that that product stands up not only when you show it again, but in the imagination of that Canadian who saw it and it meant something to him. So the overall thing is, the very rough and crude thing, is page count.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110137 The other thing you lose is innovation and creativity, is you turn the creative professions, lighting, camera, design, costume directors, actors, we become more industrial because we have just got to turn it out. So you weed out and you discourage those folks who actually have a vision, who want to produce in a new way.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110138 I mean, look at Helen Mirren in "Prime Suspect", there is a conventional ‑‑ sort of set the story how it goes. But because the director and the writer and all the rest of them actually had time and did it, it becomes an enduring story that will stay with you for a very long time. So when you squeeze the money out of the system that is what you do, you end up with industrial product and then the tent starts to fall.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110139 MS REID: If I may just add. It seems that Via Rail is a wonderful way to meet fans of Canadian content, because I too had people behind me who were... And people don't know why they are not seeing. They say, why is there no Canadian television anymore except for "Corner Gas"? I am hearing that anecdotally enough times that it gives me pause to think that the public knows that something is missing and they are not sure why.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110140 I just would like to add that Robert, in being fortunate enough to have done two projects this year, is very very much the rare exception rather that the rule.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110141 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: You both must come in contact with up and coming actors or kids who want to get into acting. Do you tell them to run for the hills or do you say there is hope?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110142 MS REID: That questions speaks to my heart, because I don't and I try not to show it in my face that there may not be a profession for them to enter and that is not hyperbole on my part at all. We are training and educating from high school on up so many budding artists and they are so bright‑eyed and bushy‑tailed and I really hope we have something that they can enter and perform and improve in their particular way.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110143 To be an artist is to be of your local, of your country and it feels rather pointless to go somewhere else to practice it. It is what we have to do sometimes, but our hearts are here and the public knows us and wants more like us to come up in the ranks in their younger years too.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110144 MR. THOMSON: Briefly, if I may.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110145 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110146 MR. THOMSON: I tell people to run. I say it is a very cynical profession and look out and especially hard on women, because your best‑before‑date is roughly when you are 30 and good luck to you after that, unless you are in a culture like Britain, which uses the Judy Denches and the Helen Mirrens.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110147 To give you an example, in a very drought period, I did a sci‑fi movie of the week called "Bugs" and I dare say that the title "Bugs" itself will tell you roughly what the program's about. So, you know, there is a hunk, a babe and a nerd and I played the nerd. The babe was played by Angie Everhart and we crunched this program out and there she is in all her décolletage and all the rest of it. And she made an off‑hand remark ‑‑ this is a woman in her 30s who was, you know, some stature in the American television industry ‑‑ and she made a remark halfway through the film and she said you know, Robert, I have never done a piece of filming I have been proud of, ever.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110148 You can't have a creative community, you cannot tell great stories about yourself, you cannot tell a story that will last forever, that you want to read Moby Dick again because it actually had some meaning and some depth to it, you cannot do that if you take your creative community and drain it like that. Sorry to be cynical.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110149 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you all very much.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110150 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110151 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Cugini.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110152 In your oral presentation and in other presentations that we heard today you said that Canada's private broadcasters pay the lowest licence fees to producers to purchase the rights to Canadian drama programs than any country in the English‑speaking world. Have you done any study to sustain that statement?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110153 MR. WADDELL: Yes, and we will send it to you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110154 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, fine.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110155 THE CHAIRPERSON: Because we have also heard the contrary, not the contrary, not that they were putting more money, but we also heard that the independent producers were not putting anything, they were living with the licence fees, the tax credits and the CTF funding and they were really putting as little as they can into the production and that little was really little.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110156 MR. WADDELL: We are not here today to criticize the producers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110157 THE CHAIRPERSON: But you don't have the public forum to do that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110158 MR. WADDELL: We do that in our collective bargaining negotiations.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110159 MR. WADDELL: But, you know, the real problem here is the lack of funding and the lack of funding comes from the broadcasters. Yes, there are a host of other issues involved. You know, there are a lot of mechanisms in place to fill the gap, obviously the Canadian Television Fund is the main mechanism and there are all sorts of private agencies and so on that provide funding.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110160 I mean, the fact is that the producers are getting squeezed just like everybody else, you know, there is lots of stories of producers who were into production and suddenly they realize there goes my fees, right. I mean, they are just so starved by the lack of money that the producers themselves are losing their fees as a result of this crunch. And it all goes back to the fact that the broadcasters aren't paying enough money for the programs. I mean, that is the bottom line and we will send you the study that proves it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110161 THE CHAIRPERSON: Could we expect receiving a copy of that study?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110162 MR. WADDELL: As soon as we get out of here.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110163 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110164 We will take a 15 minute break and so we will be back at 3:05.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110165 MR. WADDELL: Thank you very much to the Commission.
‑‑‑ Upon recessing at 1430 / Suspension à 1430
‑‑‑ Upon resuming at 1509 / Reprise à 1509
LISTNUM 1 \l 110166 THE CHAIRPERSON: Order, please. À l'ordre, s'il vous plaît.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110167 Madame la Secrétaire.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110168 LA SECRÉTAIRE : Merci, Monsieur le Président.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110169 We will now proceed with the next presentation of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Mr. Peter Murdoch will introduce his panel, after which you will have 10 minutes for your presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110170 Mr. Murdoch.
PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 110171 MR. MURDOCH: Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, CEP appreciates the opportunity for brief comments on the challenging decisions facing the Commission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110172 I have with me today two colleagues, Rob Lumgair, a CEP National representative from Western Canada and David Lewington on my right, a representative from Ontario.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110173 As you know, CEP is Canada's largest media union. Our members are at private conventional broadcasters, independent film and television production, public broadcasters and Canada's newspapers. We represent approximately 25,000 men and women working in the media from St. John's to Victoria.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110174 Let me begin by stating what may be an insight into the obvious. Conventional broadcasting is not in dire straights. If it were, we would not witness the feeding frenzy whenever a broadcaster is reported to be up for sale.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110175 Media companies continue to be solid investments, attracting the resources and confidence of the financial community. We need look no further than the BGM CHUM $1.7 million deal as evidence.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110176 Further we are also aware that senior management of these companies have a feduciary responsibility to shareholders to achieve the best deal possible, even here at the CRTC.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110177 Often in competition with this corporate interest is the public interest. It is your role to strike the balance. We are here to help you do that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110178 Our focus today is on 3 key issues, news programming, concentration of ownership and fee for carriage in English language private sector broadcasting.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110179 We would like to first address the realities ‑‑ the reality that in using the term local programming we are actually referring to news production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110180 From the figures provided by the Commission, news and information represent 90 percent of local station production expenses. In fact, we believe from our on the ground experience and commission data that in medium and smaller markets that number is closer to 100 percent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110181 So while we hear from broadcasters that local programming is the cornerstone of the broadcast system, it is safe to say that with the exception of news this cornerstone has been excavated.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110182 The CRTC's own data show, for instance, that in Atlantic Canada the 8 stations there allocated on average not even an entire person to their non‑news programming in 2005.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110183 Indeed, in station groups of most small to medium‑sized markets there is no non‑news broadcast activity taking place. In these markets, the 2 largest private sector broadcast networks have centralized virtually all of the functions that 5 years ago were part of the "local station" and contributed to the local economy and program production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110184 Master control, traffic, programming, accounting, payroll, et cetera, have all been centralized. This translates not only into jobs erased from the local community but a loss of capacity in support of local production.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110185 Other than news there is little or no local programming left in the system. Is it simply a brazen misrepresentation for broadcasters to come here and talk about their commitment to local programming when in fact there is almost none left.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110186 While CRTC data show a healthy availability of studios, this is a false promise on a page. The reality is that in most smaller markets these studios have been either converted to new sets or act as storage areas.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110187 Commissioners, we refer you to our submission during the 2001 license renewal hearings. At that time we submitted pages of shows once produced, no longer being aired and not replaced. The picture has darkened. We have attached that list to this submission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110188 But today we are now at an even more critical juncture. Broadcasters who emptied the studios of local programming are now considering vacating the news desk. The last and most important programming for local and community reflection, the local news, is in danger of fading to black in small, medium and now even larger markets.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110189 CHUM, the third largest OTA broadcaster in Canada, this summer laid off 274 employees and took new programming in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg off the air. The reason cited for this decision by CHUM was that the newscasts weren't making sufficient returns. Of course, we have no way to confirm this.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110190 Last week here CanWest Global told the Commission that 8 out of 14 global markets were losing money on news. Again, there was no way to confirm this.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110191 They then said that this put that programming in jeopardy. And CTV, for example, has ceased to originate from 3 of their northern Ontario stations and 2 of their small market Saskatchewan stations.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110192 These same broadcasters shamelessly told you that local programming was the cornerstone, the very foundation of the broadcasting system and that they were the only players in the system who could provide this essential service.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110193 The questions of whether or not advertising can support local news needs to be answered but we don't have the data. We are hoping you do.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110194 But even without these data, however, our intuitive sense and the experience of small independent broadcasters tell us, yes, local advertising can support local news if given the opportunity.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110195 There should be ample opportunity at affordable rates for advertisers in small markets to gain airtime for their products. For the 2 major broadcasters, too often local rates are priced too high for the local economy or capacity is already committed to regional or national advertisers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110196 Should the Commission grant broadcasters more advertising time, more than the 12 minutes per hour, the additional time should be made available only to local advertisers in support of local programming and local news.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110197 Commissioners, major broadcasters have told you in the past of their commitment to local non‑news programming. But over the last 5 years we have seen the virtual end of this programming. It is our fear now that small and medium news programming is about to suffer the same fate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110198 CEP believes the Commission has to be clear, strong and unequivocal on this issue. Even if local news proves not to be the rich revenue producer of prime time, it cannot be abandoned. Broadcasters must be required to maintain this service for the privilege of using our public airways.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110199 If the Commission gives up on this last bastion of local production, news, then I am afraid it has lost the central role as regulator in the public interest.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110200 CEP believes the most important question facing the CRTC is not whether broadcasting companies should receive subscriber fees but whether Canada is to maintain a diverse and democratic flow of information of which conventional television, local news, is a key contributor.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110201 The question for the CRTC is how to ensure a healthy and robust existence of local news. We would propose quantitative requirements of a minimum number of hours per day and that this be original news.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110202 This should be a requirement established by regulation, though we understand that there may be rare occasions for independent small market stations when a condition of license might be more appropriate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110203 A draft regulation would ensure that there be not less than 14 hours per week of original local news program, at least two‑thirds of this program should be after 5 p.m. and before midnight. We also encourage the CRTC to report annually on the actual hours of local news broadcast by each station.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110204 Further, we think it is important for the Commission to conduct a content analysis in a cross‑section of markets in order to know what actually counts for news. We believe that there is a significant qualitative difference between so‑called info‑tainment and what in journalism is known as hard news. In order to better understand what is being described as news today we need data.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110205 Now, let me take you to our third related point, the question of media ownership which ties directly to the CRTC's question about the degree to which large ownership groups should or should not support the stations they control in small or medium‑sized locations.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110206 As a reminder we point to the 2004 FCC study in the United States which was ordered destroyed after it clearly demonstrated that locally owned stations provided significantly more news, 33 hours a year, than absentee ownership which is often, of course, large chain ownership.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110207 As you know, Canada has arguably the highest concentration of media ownership in the world. We refer the Commission to our media monitor chart at cepmedia.ca which graphically demonstrates the extent of this concentration.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110208 The claim by broadcasters this week that the marketplace is being fragmented flies in the face of an increasing pyramid of ownership. As your broadcast policy monitoring report shows, Canada's 5 largest over the air TV groups obtained 91 percent of private television station revenues in 2005.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110209 While Canada has had many commissions, inquiries and studies about the media which have warned of the dangers of increased concentration, tragically nothing has been done.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110210 The real danger is not just consolidated ownership and private television but more consolidated cross‑media ownership. It is a charade for us to sit in this room and listen to the dangers of fragmented markets when single ownership of the different platforms is more the norm than not.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110211 CEP was alarmed at Quebecor which in its submission has asked that its code of conduct which defined a firewall between newsrooms of different platforms be dropped. Quebecor, through its ownership of cable, newspapers, broadcasters and publishing companies has enormous reach into the hearts and minds of Quebec.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110212 To contemplate a single news operation for these enterprises is a disservice to the maintenance of a vibrant dialogue in Quebec and is a dangerous precedent for the rest of Canada where firewalls were also agreed to at CTV, Globe and Mail and CanWest and its newspapers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110213 Commissioner, CEP represents many of the best journalists in this country and I can assure you there are deep concerns about the effect of ownership concentration in Canada's boardrooms.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110214 For example, the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper has been allowed ownership participation in its prime competitors, CTV and the Globe and Mail.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110215 It is hard not to believe that the boardrooms of these powerful corporations with the shared interest of responsibility to shareholders do not strategize to avoid significant damage to each other. Competition is thus eroded.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110216 You may find it interesting to hear that even last week there was a new twist on media concentration. Global announced the layoff of sports employees at its Toronto station to be replaced with sports programming from Rogers. Competitors? Not any more.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110217 CEP is aware that the Commission does not have the regulatory authority to deal with the full impact of an increasingly concentrated media.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110218 What we would ask you to do is to express unequivocally your support for one regulatory body ‑‑ and why not the CRTC ‑‑ to have the power to monitor and deal with this increasingly dangerous trend in Canada.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110219 Finally on the issue of fees for carriage, CEP's view is absolutely clear. If fees are permitted in your wisdom, fully 100 percent of the revenue should be devoted to replacing and enhancing the cornerstone of the Canadian broadcasting system, local news and local programming.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110220 But with or without what CanWest Global described as replacement revenue, broadcasters need to be told through regulation that they cannot abandon local news as they have local programming. Commissioners, the foundation of the broadcast system is crumbling fast. It is long past time that the cornerstones gets shored up. Canadians need news, they need information.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110221 I was appalled at CBC's Richard Stursberg's comment that some eyeballs are better than others. At CEP we don't make that distinction. We believe Canadians in Halifax, Sherbrooke, North Bay, Winnipeg, Calgary and Victoria should all have access to information and news of their local communities.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110222 We firmly believe it is the responsibility of broadcasters using Canada's public airways to provide that programming. And with due respect, it is your responsibility to ensure they do.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110223 I thank you for your time. We will be pleased to answer any questions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110224 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr. Murdoch. I am asking Commissioner Cugini to raise the first question.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110225 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110226 And Mr. Murdoch and to your colleagues, a welcome. Thank you for participating in these proceedings.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110227 Your ‑‑ both your written submission and your oral presentation here this afternoon are quite clear. And I do have some questions for you but, like I say, your position is quite clear as you said as well in your oral presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110228 So I only have a few questions. And they deal with details of your presentation also because your oral presentation this afternoon answered some of the questions that I had. And one of them was the number of hours and you said this afternoon, 14.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110229 Do you think that this minimum numbers hours of 14 should be the same regardless of the size of the broadcaster or the size of the market that the broadcaster is serving?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110230 MR. MURDOCH: I think ‑‑ I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be. What we do suggest is that we understand, and I think that we have said in our document, that there might be circumstances in which you would ‑‑ you might want to play around with some of that because ‑‑ and make it a condition of license rather than a regulation. But, go ahead.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110231 MR. LUMGAIR: Yes, Commissioner, I think we see it as a floor with respect to the industry.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110232 We would, we believe we would see a continuance in the larger markets of hours produced in excess of that simply because there's money in those markets. That advertising is sold and indeed is a profit generator.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110233 It is our concern in terms of the smaller and medium markets that that's where that minimum needs to be placed. And you would certainly see, I think, excess of that in the major markets.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110234 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: So in your suggestion there is room for analyzing or assessing the requirement on a case by case, market by market basis. And your suggestion is that perhaps the best time to do that would be at license renewal time.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110235 MR. MURDOCH: Right.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110236 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110237 In your written submission you recommend that all ‑‑ sorry. If a satellite provider carries local stations, they should be required to carry all stations serving that market? And that was at paragraph 32, I believe.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110238 And we have heard this past week that that could be as many as 100 ‑‑ or that is as many as 124 local stations across the country. And it was the DTH providers in particulars who said we just don't have the capacity to do that today and that they reach a compromise when they decide which local stations they will carry.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110239 MR. MURDOCH: Right.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110240 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Would you care to comment on what you heard from the DTH providers in particular.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110241 MR. MURDOCH: I heard that and to tell you the truth some of that is news to me. And so that, you know, we are prepared to take that under consideration and think about it perhaps a little more carefully.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110242 What we were looking for, of course, is fairness and equality across the system and at some time and whether it's ‑‑ no matter who it is, somebody is going to have to make some pretty tough decisions there. And our concern is that it's not just going to be the small markets that get left out of the equation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110243 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: I see.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110244 Also at paragraph 39, you suggest that a media advisory council be created, devoted solely to the issues of news and particularly local news.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110245 How would this media advisory council differ from what the RTNDA is currently doing, for example?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110246 MR. MURDOCH: We have given a lot of thought to this because as you know there are some concerns both within our own membership but certainly within ownership about somebody sticking their hand into the newsroom and particular concerns whether that hand is the hand of state.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110247 And so what we have done is we are suggesting that advisory councils, panels, be set up, made up of both ownership, working professionals and the public. And that these panels are both community based and chain wide based so that you can have an opportunity to both monitor things such as the national news and national news programming and the local.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110248 Right now there is no monitoring. And the concerns expressed, as I say, is the concerns, well, you're going to have the state involved in this and we don't want the state, we don't government involved in the news, this is a free press, et cetera, et cetera.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110249 Well, the fact is, is with a pyramiding of ownership, corporate interests are having a huge affect on the news. And nobody at this point seems to be that concerned. I mean, and let's face it, government has a hand in the CBC operations but nobody has asked Peter Mansbridge yet to wear the uniform of a colonel.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110250 So I would ‑‑ I'm not afraid that the idea of us having media advisory panels to, as some sort of oversight into news and responsibility of news organizations, particularly when there's such a concentrated media ownership, that some panel, made up, as I say, of citizens, or working journalists and of ownership, be responsible for that kind of oversight.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110251 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: I suppose ‑‑ I mean my question, maybe I didn't phrase it properly but what is it that you would like this media advisory council to monitor?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110252 Are we talking about the 14 hours? Would they monitor how many actual local news stories versus national or international? Would they monitor whether or not the news programmings are reflecting the cultural diversity within their community?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110253 In other words, do you have a broad strokes term of reference for this advisory council that you are proposing?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110254 MR. MURDOCH: To be fair, I could suggest a number of areas including everything from does the organization report on its municipal politics? Does it report on the health and safety? Does it report on the judicial system? Does it report on the education system? All of these variety of areas which we would consider to be the domain of a solid news operation, no matter its size.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110255 So, I think that ‑‑ those kind of parameters are fairly easy to put together without saying necessarily that it has to report on those individual departments, if you will, in a certain way.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110256 The concerns that people have is that is somebody going to say, you know, well you have to ‑‑ they didn't report on it from the point of the view of the left or they didn't report from the point of the right. We're not interested in that. We want to make ‑‑ first of all, are they reporting it? And b) Are there diverse voices reporting it?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110257 The great concern we have with media ownership is that ‑‑ and particularly with the loss of local news here, is that we lose competing opinions about the way city hall functions, about the way the judicial system functions, about the way the legislator. What we need, and for a democracy to survive, is a diversity of opinion, a diversity of reflection. So that is what we're talking about. I hope that answers your question a bit.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110258 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: It does.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110259 Well, like I said at the beginning, both your written submission and oral presentation here were clear.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110260 Those are all my questions, Mr. Chairman.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110261 Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110262 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. French.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110263 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Mr. Murdoch, when the Senate Committee in its recent report raised the kinds of issues you are now raising ‑‑ I think I'm being ‑‑ doing justice to both of them, I may not be. If I'm not, you tell me. But when that ‑‑ there was kind of a widespread sense that this was a movie we'd already seen and that in practice if you looked at the diversity of sources of information involving the internet, additional radio signals and a whole range of new media, that the notion that taking the restricted universe of, say, newspapers or television stations ownership, was unduly constraining and didn't give one a full picture. And I don't have a view on it. I'm just interested in your response.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110264 MR. MURDOCH: A couple of things. I think there are certainly more avenues on the net for those people that are interested in the news than there ever were before. But that ‑‑ usually what that means is that I can call up the New York Times or the Jerusalem Post.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110265 In Canada, for instance, I am still very much reliant on paid professional journalists. The other people are bloggers who are commenting on what the paid professionals journalists have provided as information.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110266 There's not a lot of money yet, never mind that ownership wonders how to make money from the internet, those people that are writing on the internet, there's not a lot of money to be made yet. So these people are out there generally commenting on information and news gathering that has been provided by people at the Globe and Mail and CTV National News.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110267 So in terms of kind of, is there more and diverse news? No, I don't think there is right now on the internet. There's a lot of opinion and I do have access to international news that I didn't have before unless I subscribed and waited 2 days to get it by the mail.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110268 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: So, Al Jazeera in English and BBC and the new French station of which I'm unaware, the title of which I have forgotten, and Télé‑5, et cetera, et cetera, don't in your mind leaven the Canadian supply of news.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110269 MR. MURDOCH: Right. I mean the ‑‑ we don't ‑‑ I do have access to the BBC and I do have access to Al Jazeera or whatever through ‑‑ but in terms of Canadian news and particularly local news, I would say that if anything we have shrunk, particularly in broadcasting.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110270 Now I know both my friends and colleagues want to comment.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110271 David.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110272 MR. LEWINGTON: Yes, it ‑‑ I mean essentially is the quality of local news.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110273 If you live in a town like I do ‑‑ I live in Whitby, Ontario, and I ‑‑ the only place that really provides me with anything local is either the local municipal website which will give me information about candidates running in the municipal election but doesn't really report, you know, in any strong way on what the issues are at play.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110274 The local advertiser will have selected stories but they won't in any way be very detailed and there won't be very many of them.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110275 The daily newspaper that existed 10 years ago is gone and long gone. And the daily newspaper in Oshawa that used to exist is gone. And all we are left with is the Metroland newspapers that are there that in more than any other way provide advertising for local retailers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110276 So the issue really is quality. And people are thirsty to find out what is going on in their communities. And unless they actually have the time to attend council meetings or other types of functions within the community, they don't hear what's going on.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110277 And so that local radio stations are important but you don't find them attending council meetings and going out at night to do reporting on boards of education unless there is something very controversial going on.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110278 Well I don't just need to hear about traffic accidents in my community. I don't just need to hear about murders or shootings. I need a little bit more context and a little bit more detail about what is going on in some of the community organizations that exist within the place I live.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110279 And so those are the kinds of things we are talking about and the internet does not provide them.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110280 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Well, Mr. Lewington, sorry just to ‑‑ can I just ask Mr. Lewington and we'll come ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110281 MR. MURDOCH: Certainly.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110282 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Mr. Lewington, if people are thirsty to know what happened locally, why did those local newspapers fail?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110283 MR. LEWINGTON: Because they couldn't compete with free advertising newspapers. They couldn't compete with the Metrolands because there was a subscription fee.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110284 And quite frankly, Mr. French, I would prefer to pay a subscription to keep that service going rather than to accept a free newspaper. But that's not the way that the other people in the community look at it and they couldn't survive.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110285 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Yes, I mean with the greatest respect, that does suggest that they don't value local news as much as you do.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110286 I mean, well, I guess what you're saying is there is a strictly market‑based logic to the provision of news and that's unfortunate because there are other values which deserve defense and will not be defended as long as the market logic is allowed to reign relatively untrammeled. I guess that is the message.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110287 MR. LEWINGTON: No, I am not sure that is the message. And I do somewhat disagree with you. I think that if the service is provided and we are here principally to talk about broadcasters and in that venue, television broadcasters, then I think that people will tune in and they will watch.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110288 There was an experiment some half a dozen years ago by CHEX Television in Peterborough to do more in the way of news programming in Durham region, in the Oshawa, Whitby area. And I thought it was quite successful.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110289 And they turned that back; they do do some ‑‑ they do purchase some content that they air out of that market now. But it's not as robust as it used to be when there was a legitimate newsroom and news operation there in which, you know, viewers could tune in and find out what was actually going on in a news sense as opposed to, well, who came to town today? We're going to sit them down and have a nice little interview with them.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110290 I think there needs to be more in terms of what's going on in the community and what's happening.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110291 MR. LUMGAIR: I guess a couple, starting the most recent question, and there were a couple of comments I wanted to make prior to that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110292 But what we've seen, where broadcasters have in local, in particular markets, put more money into that production and promotion of that news product, a desire in that particular community to make it a profit centre, to in fact, we'll improve this, we think that there's money out there, what we've seen from our experience is that has worked. That programming has been considerably more successful and has in fact increased those ratings and turned those ‑‑ the profit considerably upward.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110293 The comment made by CanWest in their submission that there's lots of news out there and in fact, in places where we're not, in those 8 out of 14 stations, that were not turning a profit, that programming is in jeopardy. But there's alternatives.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110294 We couldn't disagree more and particularly in smaller and medium markets. The converse was pointed out to the Commission, I think during the CTV oral where the comment was made that the 2 types of programming that conventional multi‑station broadcasters can provide, that no one else can, is local news and local programming and news and high budget prime time programming. And we do agree with that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110295 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: You know, businessmen are among the most deciduous imitators that I know of. So if this can be made successful to what do you attribute their disinterest in serving this need that you says exists? That's what I'm trying to understand.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110296 MR. LUMGAIR: It is a very good question. I don't ‑‑ I guess there's ‑‑ it's a question that we would like answered and we don't know to what extent those 8 out of 10 stations ‑‑ I assume that there would be some correlation with CTV in terms of the small and medium markets with respect to their profitability.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110297 We don't know to what extent that that lack of profit ‑‑ what level that loss is or lack of profitability.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110298 What we do see is that there's a fair amount of regional and national advertising on those news programs, particularly regional. And we do know that that advertising is sold through head office centrally.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110299 And what we don't know is what's attributed to the profitability of that station. Is that money credited to that local station in terms of the revenue from that accredited to that station with respect to the overall profit picture of that local station or is it credited to the national sales unit, to the body?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110300 I ‑‑ we don't know that information. We do know we see ads that aren't local and that are regional and national in nature.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110301 I would just add that I think that there are people who would look for information in their community more than others. I mean there are people who don't watch anything but, you know, the space channel from the time they turn a TV on.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110302 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: And that's our problem for the last week and a half as a matter of fact.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110303 MR. LUMGAIR: There you go.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110304 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: If we could just get hold of those people.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110305 MR. LUMGAIR: But for those who do look for that reflection in their community and even if, I guess the bottom line, even if given all the answers and all the data that in fact in, when you get into those kinds of, that smaller market, that it's not profitable, we believe that it's something that is a responsibility of over the air broadcasters, conventional broadcasters, to provide that information to those who seek it out and those who want it provided.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110306 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: When you raise the local and national ‑‑ just a moment, Mr. Murdoch and please feel free to intervene. You may want to react to what I say because I'm going to react to something you said.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110307 You know, you quoted Richard Stursberg and said you really don't agree that every pair of eyeballs ‑‑ all pairs of eyeballs aren't equal. And to be fair to Richard Stursberg, he was not saying it is my value judgment and in the eyes of the CBC all pairs of eyeballs are not equal.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110308 He was saying that it proved to be difficult to get advertisers to pay for pairs of eyeballs outside the primary market that they were in fact buying despite the fact that the signals were carried elsewhere in the country because of the way our BDU's operate. So just to be perfectly fair to him ‑‑ I take your point and I think it is a very legitimate point.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110309 But it shouldn't be made at the expense of Stursberg who was making a different point which is, I repeat, that advertisers, if I have a big Ford dealership in Toronto, I might want to pay for Whitby, but I sure as heck don't want to pay for Cranbrook. And that was his only point.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110310 Sorry, you were going to intervene and say something.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110311 MR. MURDOCH: Well, no, point taken.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110312 I do think a couple of things in terms of the local advertising is that, Rob's point is, I guess, is that ‑‑ and we don't know how much of national regional advertising is subscribed back to the ‑‑ to where it's actually being run which is on the local news show. We don't know that and we'd like to know that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110313 The other thing is is there's often more money in that kind of advertising. And the other thing is is that is thresholds of profit.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110314 I mean there is an obligation ‑‑ I don't forget and we all bargain here with these large corporations. We know them on a different level. And we know that they are ‑‑ they have responsibilities to shareholders and they have responsibilities for profit margins. We're quite aware of that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110315 And so it might be that that local news show does not provide the same kind of profit margin as another show coming up. But the fact that it doesn't provide the same kind of revenue does not mean that it shouldn't be aired. In fact, it must be aired.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110316 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: So are ‑‑ not for the first time, we as regulators realize that we are being called upon to make decisions, the requisite information for which is not always available.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110317 And it happens on both sides of the house and in all the different industries that we regulate. At the end of the day we have to do our best with the information that we have.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110318 And well I appreciate the clarity of your points and the fact that, you know, you have come forward with figures and a viewpoint that we can get our teeth into as opposed to leaving us with ‑‑ and I'm not looking at any particular intervener but there have been some ‑‑ you know, leaving us with huge philosophical problems without, you know, really giving us the black and white.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110319 So we appreciate that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110320 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Murdoch, only for me to understand, you have appended a list of, well, of TV stations and some titles. Those were local programming that had been removed from their schedule.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110321 What was the length ‑‑ it's over 1 year, 5 years?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110322 MR. MURDOCH: 5 to 10 years. I'll tell you what we did. We ‑‑ you know it's not a very scientific survey.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110323 We asked folks at this stations, what shows do you remember that you used to produce and has anything replaced them? And this was 2001.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110324 So they gave us a list of these programs that were ‑‑ used to be produced at the local stations. And there's nothing there now replacing them.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110325 And I think the purpose of the list ‑‑ and it's not exhaustive and it's not scientific but the purpose of it there is to sort of say that kind of programming is now out of the system.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110326 And we are very nervous that if we don't keep a very solid eye on it the same thing is going to happen to local news.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110327 THE CHAIRPERSON: I know that you are the bargaining agent for the TV station in Sherbrooke and there is no list about Sherbrooke here. It's because things are going smoothly and there's no issues?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110328 MR. MURDOCH: Yes, there's ‑‑ yes, it's always wonderful in Sherbrooke.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110329 MR. MURDOCH: No, no. We have been dealing with English language and so we ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110330 THE CHAIRPERSON: So that's why you didn't mention anything about Sherbrooke.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110331 Well, Mr. Murdoch, gentlemen, thank you very much for your presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110332 MR. MURDOCH: I had a couple of things I just want to say something about the presentations that I've been involved in.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110333 I was interested to see Stéphane Dion's first press conference. And I asked him why, you know, what made him think he was going to accomplish these goals that he set out. And he said, because people always underestimate me.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110334 And I thought, isn't that a funny thing. He's sort of saying, people have no faith in me and therefore I can accomplish them. I think that that ‑‑ there's something very Canadian about that, not to get very political about it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110335 And I think whether it's drama or local news ‑‑ you provide us the opportunity we'll make sure it gets done.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110336 Thank you for your time.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110337 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much for the last comment. It's very well appreciated. It surely will go into our deliberation.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110338 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110339 Mrs. Secretary.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110340 MR. MURDOCH: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110341 THE SECRETARY: Merci, Monsieur Président.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110342 We will now proceed with the next presentation of the Media Awareness Network.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110343 If they are present, if they could come forward.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110344 Thank you.
‑‑‑ Pause
LISTNUM 1 \l 110345 THE CHAIRPERSON: When you are ready.
PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 110346 MS SCARBOROUGH: Well, good afternoon. And thank you for having us. My name is Michelle Scarborough. I am Media Awareness Network's Executive Director.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110347 To my right is Julien Lavoie, Media Awareness Network's Director of Communications.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110348 And to my left is Wendy Newman, Senior Fellow, Faculty of Information Science, the University of Toronto and the Chairperson of our board.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110349 Today we would like to tell you a little bit more about the work of the Media Awareness Network and provide our comments on a few of the issues outlined in the public notice issued to this proceeding and which we commented on in our submission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110350 Media play a powerful role in our culture and society by disseminating news, information and entertainment and by providing a public sphere in which Canada's diverse voices are reflected and share space.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110351 With the advent of new technologies that sphere is expanding rapidly. Young people need to be given the tools to understand their media environment and to think about why and how they used their media in their daily lives.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110352 Once of the first things a person learns as they become media literate is that media are constructed not only with specific points of view and values but with layers of creative techniques which influence how audiences interpret meaning.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110353 The power of brands, the images we have of our bodies, our race, our culture, our conceptions of media violence versus real world violence, bias, stereotyping and our understanding of journalistic choices are all issues which media education forces us to grapple with as we become media literate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110354 With a vision to ensure Canadian children and youth develop a critical understanding of, and engagement with media, in all of its forms, the Media Awareness Network, which Wendy and Julien will describe in more detail, is a unique non‑profit educational solution to developing critical thinking skills in Canadian kids about media and a solution everyone can and should participate in.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110355 MS NEWMAN: The desire for media education is growing in Canada and we see that reflected around the world as well. In Canadian schools, in communities and households we see a growing awareness of the need to connect learning to the real world and to bring media into the forefront for analysis and for evaluation and for discovery.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110356 Recognizing that media education is important to the healthy development of our young people, all of our school jurisdictions in all of our provinces and territories have mandated media education.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110357 Internationally the U.K. and the U.S. and Australia, among others, are also working to develop their approach to media education practice. And they use Canada, including the Media Awareness Network, as their model for doing this.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110358 So, while Canada is considered a world leader in the field of media education, there is still a long way to go before the subject is fully integrated into Canadian schools and top of mind for Canadian parents.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110359 In fact, teachers and parents have very little in the way of support to help them help kids understand media and this is in an environment that is changing so quickly that it is virtually impossible for them to keep up.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110360 In this environment, however, Media Awareness Network has been a leader in the field of media education since our incorporation in 1996. Our organization actually grew out of a recommendation made at a round table on television violence hosted by the CRTC in 1993 and our organization was initially formed under the auspices of the National Film Board of Canada but we have been an incorporated organization separately since 1996.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110361 The Commission has continued to support and recognize the role of the Media Awareness Network within the industry. In fact, in Public Notice CRTC 1996‑36, the Commission noted its encouragement of programmers and distributors to deepen their involvement in media literacy and public awareness initiatives, citing the Media Awareness Network as a solution.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110362 We commend the Commission on continuing to ensure that media literacy retains an assured place as a necessary literacy among Canadian audiences.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110363 MR. LAVOIE: Media Awareness Network's award‑winning and world‑renowned website acts as the main distribution point for the dissemination of resources information to our many stakeholders.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110364 Our bilingual website, which has about half a million visits monthly, provides a wide range of interactive resources for educators, for parents, for youth, as well as information for media and our partners.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110365 Including interactive lessons, award‑winning games, tips, tools and workshops for parents, the latest research on the trends that we see in the media for kids, the website is a highly sought after resource.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110366 The first ever National Media Education Week, held two weeks ago, brought media education into the mainstream. Together with many of Canada's broadcasters, radio companies, internet service providers and community groups, school groups as well, this week significantly raised the awareness of media education and reached millions through a national public service announcement campaign sponsored by CHUM Limited and a myriad of other media sponsors.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110367 The campaign's theme, "A Lot Goes Into Media, What Do You Take Out?" is an important message and one that we hope will go a long way in raising awareness about the importance of media education.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110368 MS SCARBOROUGH: In an informal manner, the Media Awareness Network is playing an important role in the industry's self‑regulation strategy. Key members of the media industry, including many broadcasters and content creators, have recognized the importance of fostering an audience that is able to critically question the nature of media and content.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110369 Media Awareness Network is committed to continuing to play a leadership role in helping audiences be more responsive to shifting media issues and trends.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110370 As a registered not‑for‑profit organization, Media Awareness Network receives funding from corporations, foundations, government organizations and licensing activities to fund our core operations, research and development, resource creation and our awareness activities.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110371 Media Awareness Network's corporate partners span both traditional and non‑traditional over‑the‑air television licensees. These partners have demonstrated an understanding of the importance of an educational approach to ensuring that Canadian children and youth are media‑literate and continue to look for opportunities to assist our organization to fulfill its mission through both sponsorships and public benefits.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110372 These trailblazers in media education include CHUM Limited, CanWest MediaWorks, CTV and Globemedia, Rogers, Shaw Communications, TELUS, Bell and Microsoft.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110373 For the record, I would like to thank these companies and make their organizations known to the CRTC for their forward‑thinking approach to engaging audiences in discovering media education and for helping our organization empower youth to understand and use media to its fullest potential.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110374 The organization has received over a six‑year period spanning 2001‑2006 more than $1.8 million from benefits incurred through the mergers and acquisition activities occurring in the broadcast sector. This funding has been an essential component of the organization's ability to produce high‑quality resources and awareness programs for youth both across Canada and those which have been utilized around the world.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110375 With regards to this proceeding, the Media Awareness Network strongly recommends to the Commission that when it considers applications to transfer ownership or control of a television or profitable radio broadcasting undertaking that it maintains current benefit requirements. We encourage the continuation of the need for applicants to make commitments to clear and unequivocal tangible benefits representing a financial contribution of 10 percent of the value of the transaction.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110376 Taking note of the pace of change in the industry, the Media Awareness Network proposes that a percentage of total allocated public benefits be earmarked for media education in Canada. This percentage of the total benefits contribution can and will have substantive impact on audiences, especially young viewers, and help ensure that all Canadians become media‑literate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110377 Media Awareness Network is thankful to the Commission and to Canadian broadcasters for their recognition of media literacy as an important facet of the broadcast industry in Canada. We look forward to continuing our leadership role in ensuring that our future citizens and leaders are media‑literate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110378 Thank you very much for having us today and I would be pleased to take any questions in either French or English.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110379 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, Ms Scarborough. I am asking Commissioner Cugini.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110380 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110381 Thank you, Ms Scarborough and your panellists for being with us here this afternoon.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110382 You say that our school jurisdictions have mandated media education in the curriculum in every province and territory.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110383 Did you work with the various school boards to develop that curriculum for media education?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110384 MS SCARBOROUGH: No, not initially. The provinces and territories have worked with the organization to utilize a lot of our resources. The province that differs in this regard is Ontario, where we did assist them in the development of new curriculum that has just been implemented at the elementary school level. That curriculum is now being modified and adjusted for secondary school level and will be implemented next year.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110385 So we participated in that process and we will see that the outcomes of those resources roll across the country over the next few years.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110386 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: And what kind of resources do you provide?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110387 MS SCARBOROUGH: What we provide are a variety of resources for K‑12, primarily starting in grade four, for educators interested in doing media education in their classrooms and those resources include things like lesson plans, interactive games ‑‑ I believe one of the interactive games is in your kits.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110388 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Uh‑huh.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110389 MS SCARBOROUGH: We provide also professional development workshops both in an online interactive environment as well as in the classroom and through Train the Trainer Program so that teachers can be trained by other teachers in the workplace because we don't have the resources to facilitate those within our own organization.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110390 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: You talked about there's still a long way to go before the subject is integrated fully into Canadian schools and top of mind for Canadian parents.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110391 I am wondering if you could elaborate on that statement and how much further do we need to go?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110392 MS NEWMAN: There is, I think, a perception among many Canadian parents that they are still in this alone, they are still trying to cope with the huge expansion of media exposure of their children without a lot of kind of technical language and proficiency on their own.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110393 Michelle has outlined our work with the formal education system. We have initiated a lot of work with the informal education system as well, particularly through Canada's 3,600 strong network of public libraries and that gets us into communities and into venues where parents are with their children.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110394 So that combination of work at the community level, work with the formal education system and so on is iterative but is well along.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110395 We also ‑‑ when I talk about the informal networks with which we work, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is a partner to our efforts, the Vanier Institute for the Family. We have a number of partnerships that ripple through informal and community‑based approaches to strengthening media awareness as well.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110396 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: One of the tools that you use is obviously your interactive website to cast your net wider and you do say that it is bilingual.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110397 So are there plans to provide information on that website in languages other than English and French? I can imagine that new Canadians are just as confused, if not more so.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110398 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Do you have plans for providing that kind of information?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110399 MS SCARBOROUGH: What we have done is we have talked about a redevelopment strategy for the website. Because our website gets more than about 6 million visits per year, our bandwidth is, as you can imagine, insane.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110400 So what we are trying to do is develop a redevelopment plan for the website in which we will move to a different platform, expand our resource complement by making some of the resources more packageable and easier to download for teachers, and then we will look at what the highest priority of resources are that individuals want, both at the teacher level and the parent level, through some informal evaluations and some more market research, and then from there we will make decisions on a systematic basis as to what languages we start to put things into on a go‑forward basis.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110401 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Do you have a broad strokes timeline for such a project?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110402 MS SCARBOROUGH: We are going to need about a year to get the website redeveloped because we have to do a lot of the back‑end programming and we want to make it a lot more interactive. We want to have webcast capabilities and so on.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110403 So we are going to need about a year to do that and then it will be a year after that to get it organized, beta tested and then get some feedback from the community and from all of our stakeholder groups as to what is working and what is not and then we should be able to go forward. So about a two‑year total time frame.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110404 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Okay, thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110405 Your ask of the Commission is quite clear and today you also said that you propose that a percentage of total allocated public benefits be earmarked for media education in Canada. Do you have a percentage in mind that you would also like to propose?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110406 MS SCARBOROUGH: Ten percent ‑‑ no.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110407 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Ten percent of 10 percent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110408 MS SCARBOROUGH: That would not be fair.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110409 We have talked about percentages and I think I would leave that to the discretion of the Commission to make that decision based on all of the other information that you also have to consider. I know it is a difficult decision at the best of times, so I would rely on the Commission to come back with a recommendation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110410 COMMISSIONER CUGINI: Well, I thank you very much for your participation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110411 Those are my questions, Mr. Chairman.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110412 MS SCARBOROUGH: Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110413 THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner French.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110414 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: You must be very much experts in children's experience of media, I would think, and there can't be too many people who know more about it than you do. I am just wondering, and I am probably wasting your time but let me ask you this anyway.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110415 At what age does a young person become aware that there is Canadian television and American television?
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110416 MS SCARBOROUGH: I am not sure that we have asked that question in our surveys to that level but we do know that young people are getting online earlier and earlier than ever before. We have got statistics showing us that they are getting on as early as grade four and being social in an online environment in grade four, so going into chat rooms and developing relationships with others in an online environment, which is something that is disconcerting and interesting all at once.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110417 We also know that teachers and early childhood educators are starting to ask for information so that they can teach media education concepts in the classroom as early as pre‑school because some of the children that are coming to their pre‑schools are already running to the computer when they come into the classroom and are able to navigate and sometimes better than the teacher themselves.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110418 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: You do see though in following this hearing, as you have done to a degree at least ‑‑ I hope for your sake you haven't followed every word ‑‑
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110419 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: ‑‑ the pertinence of the question because the main problem that we are here discussing is the Canadian television viewer sees him or herself as part of a continental or global conversation and this crosses underlying structural change in cash flow and audience distribution and so forth in the industry and some people ‑‑ and the controversy is about what we can do to re‑engage them in a national conversation in the face of this continental and global conversation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110420 And when you tell me that they are going online in the fourth grade, I sort of think to myself, well, you know, we could patch this thing up a bit but in the long run are consumers simply going to walk away from what we put in the window even if we think it is very Canadian and appropriate for them and important?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110421 We just heard that it is just a shame that people can't get local information about what is going on in Whitby and that is legitimate.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110422 MS SCARBOROUGH: Uh‑huh.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110423 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: But the point is what can we or policy‑makers anywhere really do about that if people's tastes and interests are running elsewhere?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110424 And you may not want to say anything. It is the end of a long day and you have had a lot of experience with sort of these kinds of problems. I am just interested to see if you have any comments.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110425 MS NEWMAN: This is not a direct answer to your question but I can't resist commenting on it that the statistics that Julien mentioned, the statistics of access to the material that we have put together, which was fairly widely publicized in spurts as our partnerships enable us to do that, indicate very strongly that when we make available a useful, high‑quality product for their consideration that they use it. They access it, they use it. They use it to help their understanding. They use it to help them make decisions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110426 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Are they overwhelmingly Canadian?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110427 MS NEWMAN: We keep statistics and we have a really interesting distribution of them.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110428 MS SCARBOROUGH: Uh‑huh. The majority of the people that are using our resources on the ground are Canadian.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110429 There are organizations that use our resources in the U.S., Australia, the U.K., and they are using our resources as the model for creating their own resources for their own countries.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110430 But I can tell you from a user perspective, an audience engagement perspective that when we talked to parents and teachers independently ‑‑ about a year ago we did a market assessment and when we talked to each of those groups independently, the top categories that kept coming back, internet aside, were topics related to production, news creation, media and violence in programming of all kinds, not just the internet but media and violence generally speaking, self‑image portrayal in the media generally speaking.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110431 And when we continue to do surveys to assess resources after they have been created for efficacy, we still find that our users, our teachers, our parents, even the students that come to the website looking for information, those topics generally are the cream of the crop for them and it is media generally speaking as opposed to pinpointing one particular area over another.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110432 Now can we say whether they are going to watch more Canadian content than American content? We would have to ask that question but I will bet if we asked it, they would probably give us an answer.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110433 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Well could we just, while we are at it, talk about body image and the problems that are created for young women.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110434 I hope that Mr. Chairman will not be unhappy with me but since we are all working and we are going to be working actually, the five of us, until about eight or nine at night, along with some of the people in the audience, I hope you don't mind if I take the opportunity to ask you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110435 MS SCARBOROUGH: No.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110436 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: There has been an implication, and I use the word advisedly, that the CRTC might at some point ‑‑ and I am not sure we could even do it legally at the moment ‑‑ but might at some point wish to use some of its regulatory prerogatives to try to influence the way the media portray young women, for the purposes of which you can imagine, in order to help them to cope with their concerns about their appearance and their body and so forth.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110437 It does seem to me to be a serious problem and on the other hand it is not clear to me what we could do and I am asking you: Around the world, in this area, are there any programs that have been effective in this regard?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110438 MS SCARBOROUGH: Good question. Well, you know about the Dove Real Beauty campaign, I assume, and that is getting ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110439 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: We know about it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110440 MS SCARBOROUGH: Yes. Should I ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110441 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: No, no, that is fine.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110442 MS SCARBOROUGH: Okay, you got it. That campaign is getting a lot of recognition and what Dove has done ‑‑ well, Unilever has done very, very well is they have created, and we have partnered with them on the implementation of this in Canada, a program whereby they are going out to communities and working with us and the Girl Guides to talk to young women and their mothers about this whole issue around self‑image.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110443 But in addition to that and to take it to more of an umbrella approach, the educational approach to teaching young girls about why they look at somebody on TV and why they look the way that they look on TV, we have created a resource that we are looking to expand with Unilever and take into school systems across Canada at both the elementary, second and middle school levels, called "The Way We Look" and it is about exactly what we are talking about, body image and the portrayal of young girls, yes, but also guys. Boys are feeling the same pressures as girls are, it is just not as obvious. And again, when we have talked to people doing our surveys and our studies, what we are finding is that girls express it more readily than the boys do but that it exists in both areas.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110444 So in terms of a solution, the educational approach, we feel, is the right way to go and with a full‑scale implementation in the classroom, which is what we are being asked to do by teachers in the classroom. I think we can safely say that that may be a solution that would help you not have to step into that arena.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110445 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Yes, I am concluding that to the best of your knowledge, the use of the coercive power of the state to try to resolve or influence media treatments of women, of the image of women, are probably ‑‑ you don't know any programs or you don't know any successful programs but you are part of a voluntary program with industry players and schools and so forth which you think is the constructive way forward?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110446 MS SCARBOROUGH: And certainly we have seen the most results with those kinds of approaches in other things that we have done like the issue around violence, like the issue around bullying. Those approaches have tended to work best because they are participatory and they are interactive.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110447 So if you engage students in the activity of learning, they are more likely to take away more from that experience and incorporate it into their activities than if you point the finger and tell them that they should or not do something.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110448 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Yes, and of course, we would be pointing the finger at broadcasters basically because they are the people we have some control over and we can all imagine whether that would be effective or not. Some people seem to think it might be but I guess our concern as regulators is that we are already criticized for the things that are dead within the centre of our legal responsibilities and to extend those legal responsibilities just to get into more detail so we would be criticized by more people seems to be maybe not the thing we are all real enthused about, especially since we were named with a view to having a certain kind of expertise and this is not the kind of expertise we were named for.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110449 MS SCARBOROUGH: Uh‑huh. And I think if the ‑‑ as we mentioned in our presentation, the broadcasters that we mentioned are involved in helping us to create strategies for implementing media education both in and outside of the classroom and if we can continue to engage those broadcasters and other broadcasters, even if it is at the local level where impact can be readily ‑‑ it can be measured a little bit more precisely at a local level than at a sort of a broader umbrella base, then I think there could be a huge impact for some of the resources that we have available already.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110450 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Just to go back to where we were before, I am struck by the fact that we have spent several hours in this room and the one organization that talks about media awareness is ‑‑ and I use the word advisedly and I hope you won't take it critically because I don't intend it to be ‑‑ oblivious of the national origin of the media about which it is teaching awareness. That is a fair statement, is it not?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110451 And it just suggests to me, first, that you have your priorities correct, in my view, because clearly the reality is that young people are watching media from all over the place and in different ways and you have to cope with the potential educational and social benefits and ills that can rise out of that. And more power to you, I think that is the right thing to do.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110452 But all of your predecessors, I think, if they were in your shoes would have said, and by the way, you know, they should tell them to watch more Canadian drama or at least more Canadian programming. It is not one of your issues at all? It doesn't strike you at all, does it? It is not your world?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110453 MS NEWMAN: I think that our programs reflect in many ways implicitly a distinct Canadian approach to multiple media but they are not ‑‑ the territory that we have staked out is to strengthen awareness and understanding and that that itself is tremendously empowering and we have done that within a distinct Canadian bilingual and multicultural framework. Yes, it is admired worldwide but it is quite distinctly Canadian in its approach and assumptions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110454 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: The Canadianness of which does not extend to militating in favour of people watching Canadian content?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110455 MS NEWMAN: Our view and our message is understanding and awareness of what you see and hear and experience.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110456 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Well, that was great. Thank you very much. I enjoyed talking to you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110457 LE PRÉSIDENT : Vous nous avez dit tantôt que vous pourriez prendre des questions en français, mais je voudrais savoir qu'est‑ce que le réseau Éducation Média offre au marché francophone.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110458 Je vois que vos commanditaires, oui, certaines entreprises sont des entreprises nationales ayant une présence dans le marché francophone comme dans le marché... l'ensemble du marché canadien, mais vous n'avez pas de partenaires qui sont typiquement dans le marché francophone. Or, moi, qui, quand même oeuvre dans ce milieu‑là depuis une quarantaine d'années, j'entendais parler de vous, pour la première fois, aujourd'hui.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110459 Alors, qu'offrez‑vous au marché francophone?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110460 M. LAVOIE : Toutes nos ressources sont disponibles en français et en anglais. Comme un organisme national et bilingue, une adaptation est faite, en général, pour les marchés francophones de la majorité de nos ressources.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110461 Vous avez bien noté que certains de nos commanditaires ne sont pas nécessairement du marché francophone, mais on a souvent travaillé avec les commanditaires du... les acteurs du principal de l'industrie de la radiodiffusion sur le côté francophone.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110462 Mais aussi, notre financement est aussi accordé du gouvernement fédéral, qui apprécie aussi le caractère bilingue de notre organisme.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110463 LE PRÉSIDENT : L'ensemble des programmes que vous nous avez présentés aujourd'hui, est‑ce qu'ils existent également pour les francophones, ou si c'est seulement... le focus est plus étroit?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110464 M. LAVOIE : Non, la majorité, la grande majorité des ressources sont toutes disponibles sur notre site web en français et en anglais.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110465 LE PRÉSIDENT : Écoutez, Madame Scarborough, thank you very much, and your colleagues, to have come up here today. I learned something, so thank you very much.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110466 MS SCARBOROUGH: Thank you for having us.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110467 THE CHAIRPERSON: We will pursue with the following intervenor.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110468 LA SECRÉTAIRE : Merci, Monsieur le Président.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110469 I will now call the last intervenor for the day. The panel has agreed to hear The New Canada Institute. If they would come forward for their presentation.
‑‑‑ Pause
LISTNUM 1 \l 110470 THE SECRETARY: Mr. Andrew Cardozo will be making the presentation on behalf of The New Canada Institute. Once you have introduced your colleague, you will have 10 minutes for your presentation.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110471 Mr. Cardozo.
PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
LISTNUM 1 \l 110472 MR. CARDOZO: Thank you, Madam Secretary.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110473 Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the Commission. It is a real pleasure to be here at the Commission and a pleasure to be on this side of the table.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110474 I would like to introduce my colleague, Professor Lionel Lum, who is an Adjunct Professor at Carleton University, having specialized in diversity management and portrayal, and I should tell you he has also been Senior Executive in Production at the BBC, Global TV, CTV and CBC before he was recruited by Carleton University.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110475 I should just tell you that in my voluntary capacity I chair The New Canada Institute, which is a new and developing organization that addresses a number of new and dynamic issues of our time, including cultural diversity in broadcasting.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110476 As you can imagine, there are many, many issues that interest me in this hearing and I want to compliment you on a hearing that has been extremely interesting and I am sure challenging for you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110477 I will limit our comments to one issue, namely, cultural diversity in broadcasting, for reasons of time, and in that sense what I am talking about is the diversity that is reflected in our television screens and in the stories that are told both in terms of ethnic and racial diversity and in terms of Aboriginal peoples.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110478 Television remains ‑‑ despite technological change, television remains one of the most, if not the most, influential media in our society. It is the most influential one in setting and reinforcing attitudes about who we are as a people and how we communicate and get on with each other.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110479 Canada has had a remarkably diverse society and is also remarkably peaceful it its diversity as we look around the globe today.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110480 In terms of diversity in broadcasting over the last five years, that the CRTC has had a policy in this area, I think that there has been some progress. The progress is being primarily in the area of English language news, especially with regards to african and racial minorities.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110481 There has not been as much progress in the French language media, even tough we do see certain stars such as Michael Jean, of course, and Maxime Bertrand, Céline Galipeau and others. There has been very very little progress in terms of aboriginal peoples in terms of the reflection of aboriginal people in media.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110482 I wanted just refer to three paragraphs in the written submission that I sent you earlier. First, if I can refer to paragraph 3 and just point to the projections for a change in our society over the next few years.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110483 A few months ago Stats Can put a projections for the year 2017 which will be our 150th birthday, point out that at that point about 23 per cent of the population will likely be visible minority figured that is now only about 14 per cent, so it's a figure that is growing quite fast.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110484 I also point to you the fact that the aboriginal population is the fastest growing cultural group in our society. Currently about four per cent of the population, this population will grow very fast, most notably in places in various cities in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. You may be aware that at this point about 50 per cent of the aboriginal population is under the age of 25 and about 50 per cent of the population lives in urban centres.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110485 The median age is about 10 years younger than the rest of the population. Basically, that points to a very high birth rate and a growing size of that proportion of the population and I would suggest to you an important one from the perspective of what is broadcast and what is seen.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110486 Second, I would just like to direct you to paragraph 7 which just looks at some of the projections for the year 2017. Halifax, the Atlantic Provinces are not expected to gain a lot in terms of immigration, in terms of visible minorities, but that would likely be around 9.6 per cent in the year 2017.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110487 Montreal, about 22 per cent; Toronto and Vancouver, over 50 per cent; Edmonton and Calgary, 22‑26 per cent respectively and you may be aware that Richmond, B. C. and Richmond Hill, Ontario, cross the
50 per cent mark in the last sentence, in 2001. So, in effect those two cities which are growing will have minority white population.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110488 I would like just to turn to paragraph 23 and just to highlight a few of the issues that are important. Some of these are issues that the Commission has addressed in terms of diversity, such as having senior management being responsible for cultural diversity programs, having minorities in senior management positions.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110489 News and current affairs, on our personalities and I'll mention the study that I conducted a couple of years ago attaching the appendix, which looked at a number of broadcasters in terms of the numbers of people from visible minorities and aboriginal background who were on air and certainly in that group CHUM leads the pack, CTV or CBC in second place, CTV close behind and Global coming up after that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110490 Some of the specialties have done fairly well most notably the Weather Network which always intrigues me they seem to get the ‑‑ they seem to understand that this minority seems to suffer the weather just like everybody else, so it was worth it to reflect that diversity. But it was a case of people in that corporation who really made it a point of making change and going out and finding people.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110491 I would just like to close off my part and suggest that the Commission should pack, you should path yourself on the back that there has been some success in this policy. You began to see change take place in our television stations and if you go to places like Australia, you will see a stark difference where a country which has a relatively similar immigration pattern, has not had the diversity reflected on a screen and it's quite ‑‑ it's quite amazing to watch when you watch in comparison to Canadian television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110492 I would like to turn to professor Lumb for his comments. Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110493 MR. LUMB: Good afternoon and thanks for having me here.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110494 I have been here before and I would like to start with a praise because indeed there has been much progress and diversity and a broad trail of Canada's increasingly multi‑cultural society in the past ten or twelve years.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110495 When I first started making presentations to the CRTC in the mid‑nineties, the TV landscape was pretty bleak. The only visible minorities on air, for instance, were to be found in News and current affairs programs and possibly the commercials during drama and entertainment programs, with a few notable exceptions, of course, such as the "Degrassi" series.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110496 There was very little that accurately reflected the streets and neighbourhoods of Canada's cities and you have just read some pretty remarkable statistics where many of these dramas were set. Indeed, when a prominent series like the CBC's "DaVinci's Inquest" first debut in the nineties, one TV observer lamented that the only people of colour in the opening episodes were dead, aboriginal prostitutes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110497 The reality of the city in which that series was set, Vancouver, the reality of Vancouver's cultural and ethnic mix was visibly distorted by that program when it started, but a few years later as the series progressed and after considerable pressure from the CRTC in general, not on the producers of that program only, but in general on broadcasters, and much to your credit none white viewers of "DaVinci" could feel comfortable they were watching a show produced in a city with which they were familiar, the city around them.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110498 Much credit of that to Haddock Productions and "Da Vinci's Inquest" over its seventh season justifiably won one of our 35 industry awards and five Geminis for best dramatic series, I believe.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110499 Not surprisingly it was something of a road model. It was a Canadian drama that worked, it drew audiences and it won critical acclaim, three points on which anyone would love to draw praise and credit.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110500 Also I know that in part because of that continuing pressure from presenters at CRTC licence hearings and yourselves, the Commissioners, later dramas like the CTV, "The eleventh Hour" had a much more balanced cost of characters when they started of and every bit as important, story content cost a much white in it than earlier programs, the roles that characters played. Progress indeed, and "The eleventh Hour" demise has to be regretted deeply.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110501 I want to return to Chris Haddock, "Da Vinci's" producer. Now, this season he has seen the debut of another of his creations, the CBC drama intelligence. It's powerful, it's well‑written, it's believable, it's a continuing series and I, for one, am eager to learn what's going to happen week after week. And there is no mistaking that the Vancouver, that it's wide ranging cost of characters and habit, you could say the city is one of the characters and this time, Haddock has right from the start, has raised the bar even higher and what has to be seen as something of a break‑through, one of the two main characters is a black woman played by Clea Scott, not only a woman, but a boss; not only a boss, but a tough problem solving woman who outsmarts, outplays, out‑gambles the men who try to bring her to heal. Now, that's intelligent, I would say, and a genuinely creative dramatic at once. There is, of course, in TV a down side. Where is Canadian drama in general? It's not alive, it's now well, and there is very little of it, CTV and Global who like CHUM does so well in the area of diversity with the news programming are content to slug it out with the cheaper American imports when it comes to drama.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110502 Sure there are Gemini winners like CTV is going to guess and the movie networks slings in ours, not seen by a little of people but very good, shows which could only be produced in Canada, recognizably Canadian. But there is a growing wish lying out there. Drama is clearly not the stuff of Canadian life as it ought to be.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110503 I think by now you the Commissioners, the Chair, must have heard plenty of grief from people like ACTRA and others, so I won't go in a great detail there, but I do wish to sound a warning note. If there is not a search in support for Canadian drama, there is even less likelihood that the visible reality of our splendid multi‑cultural society is going to get a fair shake.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110504 Viewers are losers again and I support ACTRA's call for regulations that will obligate Canada's private broadcasters to spend at least seven per cent of their advertising revenues on new Canadian English language programming. I also support asking the CRTC to impose content regulations that will obligate the private broadcasters to schedule at least another two hours of Canadian drama in real prime time.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110505 I also hope that ACTRA will use its influence, whatever it has with broadcasters to ensure that all Canadians see themselves on our television screens, not on the old stereotypes that used to perpetrate negative images and to a much less extent now, but they would see themselves all Canadians see themselves as in the roles they play in real life. Nurses, doctors, academics, high tech leaders, lawyers, volunteers that keep so many government neglected services running. You name it, the aboriginal peoples and the minorities are there.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110506 But there is no doubt, there is no doubting the need for a continuing pressure from you, from the CRTC, you can take the credit that your actions in the past and the pressure that you exerted in the past have brought about some of the advances that we have seen and I just hope that you don't ease up on the gas pedal there.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110507 Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110508 THE CHAIRPERSON: This concludes your oral presentation?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110509 MR. LUMB: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110510 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, gentleman. Commissioner Williams.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110511 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good afternoon, Mr. Cardozo and welcome. It is professor Lumb or Young? I'm sorry.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110512 MR. LUMB: It's actually Lumb, L.U.M.B. It's like "lamb" with a "U".
LISTNUM 1 \l 110513 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. L.U.M.B., professor Lumb, okay, thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110514 I have the new Canada Institute presentation here and you highlighted three of the paragraphs in it and I actually had highlighted some as well, so we have heard the ones you've highlight and I'll ask you about the ones that I did and we had some cross‑over, of course.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110515 The premise that cultural diversity presents a strong business base is only partially true ‑‑ this is the statement that you have made in your presentation. If the issue was totally a matter of the business case, many more television stations would be doing all sorts of wonderful things.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110516 Can you please elaborate on that? Why do you think it's only partially true and why have the television stations reacted in the manner that they have?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110517 MR. CARDOZO: I think ‑‑ now let me tell the Commissioner, my thinking has evolved on this question a little bit over the years. I think some time back it was primarily a social issue that there was a small percentage of the population, it was a very very small population, of the proportion of the population was of various visible minority average and backgrounds and it was purely only a social thing of let's do the right thing and reflect people in our society.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110518 I think as time developed, I certainly began to see that there was a business case and I think certain broadcasters began to see it as a business case. Certainly CHUM, the CHUM‑TV Network built itself in terms of diversity recognizing that as the business case.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110519 But if it was a business case only, then everybody would have done it and would have done it to a complete degree. I think the part where the Commission comes in is to make that case, is to show leadership. Lionel used the word "pressure", I would use the word "leadership" and I think the Commission used the leadership, took the leadership quite well, but in essence, the business case has been understood and what's happened to date reflects that business case, but I would suggest we haven't gotten to reflect diversity enough yet and a little more push, so coming back to the social aspect of it is important.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110520 And the social aspect is this: that in a society that is diverse, I think peaceful society to a large extent is created by media, by broadcast media and be it radio, television or newspapers, the degree to which people are reflected in the media and seen as normal, and seen as part of the norm, as opposed to some people feeling they don't belong and others feeling they belong, that says to a lot of people, it sort of gives you the impression of who is in and who is not in.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110521 I am not sure I am answering your question pointedly enough, but I hope I am sort of suggesting the business case is being understood to some extent and that there is still that social need that ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110522 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are you saying they could be doing better I guess is what I am hearing?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110523 MR. CARDOZO: Yes, yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110524 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In paragraph 13 you said, in a study which you've attached, you found that there were 189 non‑white on air personalities in mainstream English and French television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110525 What percentage of the on air personalities did that 189 make up of? And it's a 2004 study.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110526 MR. CARDOZO: Yes, I've been asked that a few times. I don't have the percentage for that. My rough estimate was about, in the range of about 4 or 5 percent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110527 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. So 4 or 5 percent compared to ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110528 MR. CARDOZO: Yes, but when you broke it down to individual stations, sometimes you might get a station where there's a single person who's a visible minority in a large city.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110529 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I see.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110530 MR. CARDOZO: So it might be, then, lower than 1 percent. And you may get some of the higher percentages in certain stations in cities like Toronto and Vancouver.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110531 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. And so Toronto and Vancouver are projected for 2017 to have visible minority populations exceeding 50 percent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110532 MR. CARDOZO: Yes. And you generally, there are maybe ‑‑ I can't think of too many ‑‑ you might have news programs as quite often, so for example, the CTV station in Toronto will have a visible minority and white person on their 6 o'clock news, I've seen on ‑‑ news anchors.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110533 But whether that's reflected through the report isn't all that ‑‑ I don't know. I've seen, on occasion, you might have a duo where both are visible minorities. I've seen that on CP24 in Toronto. But that's more the exception than the rule.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110534 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In paragraph 9, you said there's a need to ensure adequate support for Aboriginal People's Television Network but a great deal more needs to happen in English language television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110535 APTN is supported by a subscription fee. Do you feel they need more support than that?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110536 MR. CARDOZO: Well, I noted that you did, the Commission did increase their subscription fee the last time they were up. And I totally congratulate you for that. I think that has been one of the real success stories of the Commission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110537 What I'm referring to here is other broadcasters can pick up their, you know, increase their role as well.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110538 Just to give you an example, one of the things I currently have been drafted into doing is being a member of a community advisory committee with CGOH, which is the local CTV station, primarily people from visible minority communities. That's the type of activity people can do with Aboriginal communities as well.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110539 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. In paragraph 21, you state:
LISTNUM 1 \l 110540 "In my opinion, it's now time to focus a lot more on bringing diversity to the mainstream broadcasting system in English and French which does not adequately reflect the rapidly evolving mainstream Canadian society." (As read)
LISTNUM 1 \l 110541 So when you bring ‑‑ you mean to bring on diversity, you mean in terms of reflection on screens, stories, on air personalities and why not in their own languages? It's important to be in English and French; is that what you're saying?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110542 MR. CARDOZO: Yes. I think this is another area that my thinking has evolved over time. But I think it evolved with the changes in that I think the last number of years the Commission has delved correctly in 2 aspects of diversity, one being linguistic diversity and the other being on air reflection of diversity in English and French television.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110543 I think as a society we have done fairly well in terms of third language broadcasting, both in terms of local where there's radio stations or local television. I think in places where there are not stations, there should be. So, for example in places like Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, there could well be Canadian multilingual broadcasting.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110544 But in terms of when you look at the overall picture and you factor in the number of foreign services coming into the country in other languages, I think we've got a fairly good level at this point.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110545 I'm sure there can be more here or there in languages here and there. But I don't think that that's the major role to go. I think the major role to go is the major focus of our broadcasting system should be getting that diversity increased in terms of English and French language.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110546 So, I hope you don't mind me commenting on English language Al Jazeera. I don't know if it's before the Commission or not. And if it is you can stop me.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110547 But to me that is a better service because it's in English bringing you something from another country than Al Jazeera in Arabic which can only be viewed by a small number of people.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110548 So I think the more that we can get understand‑‑ that all of us who, you know, even people who speak other languages usually speak 1 or 2 or 3 other languages and don't speak the 50 or so out there. The more we can get in the official languages, the better, in terms of this, the issue I talked about at the beginning, which is making this society work together.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110549 This experiment of having a diverse society is a very exciting one; it's a very dynamic one; it's a risky one. And it's the one we're going in; we're not going to change that and it's going to go further. But I think that in terms of the broadcasting, the more focus that can be put on diverse stories, diverse news in English and French, is important.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110550 And I look at APTN which I think is the, you know, the dream of that station was, I think their original slogan was something like, by Aboriginal people, for all Canadians, or, about Aboriginal people, for all Canadians. And I think that the "for all Canadians" is an important aspect of how diversity in broadcasting needs to go.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110551 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Thank you.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110552 In paragraph 27, you state:
LISTNUM 1 \l 110553 "While television services now file 7 year plans and annual reports on progress, it may be time for the CRTC to publish an annual report on diversity." (As read)
LISTNUM 1 \l 110554 What would the goal of this report be? Or why is it needed and why do you think it's important?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110555 MR. CARDOZO: I think since I left the Commission it became clear to me that the world out there doesn't read everything that happens at the CRTC all the time.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110556 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Hmm.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110557 MR. CARDOZO: In terms (laughter) ‑‑ in terms of all the reports that are filed here and everything that happens at the Commission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110558 So it's a matter of making it easier for the world out there, for ordinary folks like myself. But, you know, everybody, anybody across the country who's interested in seeing what's happening across broadcasters, who doesn't have the time to go through entire reports and pull out those parts across the board.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110559 So it would be ‑‑ it wouldn't be ‑‑ it's a matter of taking what is already public information, compiling it into one area, even if it's just on your website.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110560 THE CHAIRPERSON: Sir, we're doing that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110561 MR. CARDOZO: In cultural diversity?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110562 THE CHAIREPERSON: Yes, in the annual monitoring report that we are publishing, there is a chapter on cultural diversity.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110563 MR. CARDOZO: And does that discuss each of the broadcasters? Does it break down by broadcaster?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110564 THE CHAIRPERSON: Good question. But ‑‑ and I don't have a copy here.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110565 MR. CARDOZO: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110566 THE CHAIRPERSON: But I know that we surely in the current monitoring report there is a chapter on cultural diversity which deals with the issues that have arisen over the years, we'll say.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110567 Is it an update of each of the diversity reports that we've received for that year? I can't say that. But we have something in the annual monitoring report. There's a ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110568 MR. CARDOZO: Yes. I'm certainly aware of that, Mr. Chair. And what I'd like to do, if you don't mind, is to send you my thoughts shortly after. I'll take a look at that and give you any thoughts as to how it could be more consumer friendly. But I thank you for pointing that out.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110569 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you Mr. Chair and Mr. Cardozo.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110570 Professor Lumb, as an educator and someone I assume to be somewhat removed from the Canadian Broadcasting System, what's your opinion of the evolution of the broadcasting system over the last, say, 10 years, in terms of cultural diversity and reflection? Like what's your opinion? What have you been seeing?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110571 MR. LUMB: Yes. Great strides in many respects. I mean, I suppose one of the greatest of all were the codes of diversity both in portrayal and in management strategies that various broadcasters, starting with, I think CHUM was the first one off the mark, have logged with you, with the Commission.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110572 And other developments ‑‑ CTV, for instance took its commitments, its license renewal commitments very seriously and organized a lot of training programs for its regional newsrooms. We heard a lot said earlier about local programming and I can't agree more.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110573 I couldn't possible argue with any of the comments that they made because it is at the local level that Canadians are most easily reached and are reflected, as society changes. CTV did a lot of training at that level.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110574 It felt it needed to do that and it did it. People went out around ‑‑ the various trainers went out around the CTV regional newsrooms and, in essence, gave them, you know, a week or so of ‑‑ everybody ‑‑ everybody at the station gave them a week or so of training in how to think in a more diverse way.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110575 And it's very important to understand that it is not just having an anchor or 2 anchors who may be people of colour or recognizably different from the majority. But it is very important also to have people be ‑‑ and reporters, as well ‑‑because you know, it's a question of access and it's a question of being able to go out there and get your stories.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110576 It makes a lot of sense to have, if you're going to cover a very diverse population, you need a population of reporters who reflect the diversity because they can get in and get out with the stories that they need to do.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110577 But also, back in the newsrooms of the country you need to have people who think in diverse ways, who are willing, happy, eager to have a multiplicity of voices out there offering opinions, offering cultural minutia, offering different ways of thinking and so on. And I think in that respect we have seen a lot a progress.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110578 But not, perhaps as much behind the scenes as we have seen ‑‑ it's easier to fix the problem in front of the camera than it is behind the camera. And in senior management and mid‑level management, the changes have not been as dramatic.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110579 And I'm actually not that out of touch because I do some training myself. So I do visit newsrooms and ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110580 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes. I didn't mean to imply you were out of touch.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110581 MR. CARDOZO: No, no, no. No I ‑‑ no, no that's fine. I'm just adding a little extra there.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110582 I do visit newsrooms and I do stay in touch. And as recently as just 3 or 4 years ago, I was of course still teaching journalism at Carleton. And in order to stay in touch I did visit newsrooms regularly.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110583 So the signs are good. But I don't think that we can absolutely count on continuing progress unless there is leadership. And Andrew prefers that word to pressure.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110584 And so I'll change my word "pressure" to "leadership" (laughter) as long as there is continuing leadership that may come from you but most important of all from the broadcasters themselves. If they feel it, they can achieve it. If they have the will, they certainly have the means.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110585 And if they can hand that sense of, "be real, look around you, walk our streets", things will change for the better even more so.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110586 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Thank you, gentlemen, Professor Lumb and Mr. Cardozo.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110587 That completes my line of questioning, Mr. Chair.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110588 THE CHAIRPERSON: Vice‑Chairman French.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110589 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: I'd like to ask you kind of a philosophical question or a series of philosophical questions. And I hope you'll take them in the spirit in which they're intended.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110590 You mentioned Richmond and Richmond Hill. And you know, my first reaction was that the average income in those towns is probably higher than 95 percent of the cities in the country ‑‑ municipalities in the country.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110591 And that led me to ask myself whether all minorities were in somehow equal because the way that you've presented it to us is that if you look different it's desirable that ‑‑ and you think differently ‑‑ it's desirable that ‑‑ or you have a different culture ‑‑ you be represented in the media. And that seems to be incontrovertible proposition for which you militate, as we say in French and I ‑‑ for which you a militants and I congratulate you for it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110592 But I thought to myself, it seems to me there's a small number of identifiable minority groups in the country who clearly have social and cultural and economic requirements that call up on our collective generosity and sense of fairness.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110593 And then there's a large number of minority groups in the country who are pretty damn competitive, are making wonderful contributions are making on average, you know, on most demographic indices are doing better than the Canadian average.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110594 And let me give you a few examples of the groups for which, it seems to me, we have a collective responsibility and then ask you whether you think that that makes any difference to your basic proposals and proposition.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110595 It seems to me that Aboriginal people, English and French speaking probably have special needs that we ought to pay a lot of attention to and you've mentioned them.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110596 It seems to me that Caribbean Blacks, French and English speaking probably have, as groups, very important needs and requirements that collectively we have to pay attention to.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110597 It seems to me that people with physical and mental disabilities, which you haven't mentioned, have special requirements that we ought to pay attention to. And so I say to myself, now that's where I can get, you know, kind of excited about the kinds of programs that you are advocating.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110598 And then I'm saying to myself, I wonder if and I, you know, may well be wrong but in not differentiating and in assuming that, you know, an Indian university professor or a Vietnamese entrepreneur or a Japanese truck farmer with "X" acres in the Fraser Valley, really need the same kind of attention.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110599 Are we diluting the effort by spreading the net too large?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110600 MR. CARDOZO: That is a good question. And I don't think there's a definitive answer to that. I think it's, at the end it's a subjective thing that one comes down to.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110601 But I think you're right about the Chinese Canadian community in Richmond and Richmond Hill, who are largely quite wealthy. Where I'd look at that same community and say there are still kids, probably not in Richmond and Richmond Hill, where you might have a majority in a school, for example, of Chinese Canadians.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110602 But in other parts of the country where there are smaller numbers, where it is still unfortunately not uncommon for kids to be called names, it is still a situation where, for example, recently the Prime Minister conveyed an apology to the Chinese Canadian community for certain historical incidents back several decades ago.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110603 And the ‑‑ and what was behind that was a feeling of those individuals in those communities of wanting to be recognized as first class citizens. That because the government of Canada had taken certain steps to keep Chinese Canadians out almost a century ago, there was a feeling that they had never been recognized as first class citizens.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110604 If you look at the political world, for example, where one of the areas of the normative is set, there are currently, I think, 1, maybe 1 or 2 Chinese Canadians who are Members of Parliament, maybe a little more than that. There was 1 in the Ontario legislature who just stepped down to run municipally. There are 1 or 2 in British Columbia.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110605 So there aren't many at senior corporate levels for example and not in the media. So if you look at the range of the way we would say have people arrived, have people become part of the society, become part of the mainstream and the power structure and decision makers, I would say that that community hasn't arrived yet.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110606 Although there is considerable wealth in certain parts of that community but not in other parts. And the parts where there's most wealth are, for lack of a better terms, the more recent Hong Kong Chinese immigrants who came over.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110607 And there ‑‑ but there's no doubt at the same time when you mention certain groups, whether it's the Caribbean English‑speaking, the Haitians and the Haitian community in Montreal, within a community there's a variety of stages that people are at in terms of their settlement and their success.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110608 But I wouldn't only say that their success ‑‑ because there's a certain number of entrepreneurs who've been successful ‑‑ that that is the same thing as what we're talking about in terms of diversity in broadcasting.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110609 If there were more ‑‑ at some point we will reach that level which I would suggest is quite satisfactory. But we're not there. You don't see that many people in terms of drama, playing mainstream roles. We can all point to 1 or 2 or 3, but not very many.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110610 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: But, if I may respectfully, I hear you. But what I asked you was, don't you ‑‑ or I'll ask, I'll rephrase my question ‑‑ don't you think the members of the groups that I mentioned have a greater claim on our attention and your militancy than to ensure that we have a strict demographic reflection of racial characteristics in television?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110611 MR. CARDOZO: Do certain groups deserve more attention than others, the ones that are more disadvantaged in society?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110612 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: I think that's basically what I'm ‑‑ I'm just ‑‑ I'm groping for a way to understand ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110613 MR. CARDOZO: Yes. I would say, yes. But I wouldn't forget the ones who are somewhere in the middle. But I'd agree with you that those are sort of the most, I guess you would say the more urgent.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110614 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Mr. Cardozo, when I graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1968 in Science, I was the third leading graduate. And the other 9 people in the top 10 were male Chinese. Now, I'll guarantee they're all doctors and physicists and they're...you know, and that's 1968.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110615 Now, you know, we're talking about a community that, in fact there's a famous joke that when the Jewish students occupied the admissions office at Harvard in 1967 and they said, "You", to the Dean of Admissions, they said, "You know what would happen if you took racial and religious quotas out of the admissions policy in Harvard." And he said, "Yes, the entire freshman class would be Chinese."
LISTNUM 1 \l 110616 You know, the point is that this is a community that decides to do what it wants to do and goes out and does it. I'm not trying to convey to you that there aren't individual Chinese that are worthy of your attention.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110617 I'm just simply saying, you know, after ‑‑ when is the statute of limitations over. My Protestant ancestors fought to keep Catholics out of Massachusetts in the 18th and 19th century. They thought it was the end of the world that all these Irish people were arriving and Italians were arriving with their funny religion and their Pope and all the rest of it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110618 And it's over; it's over. And I'm just asking myself whether, you know, we really oughtn't to allow that process to takes its, you know, logical process ‑‑ or, excuse me, its logical historical course and concentrate on those parts of those parts of our society that ‑‑ and please excuse my excitement because I'm not trying to be aggressive about this ‑‑ you know, concentrate on the 4 or 5 or 6 groups which visibly suffer from day to day prejudice, which suffer from social and educational failures. We can see them, they're tangible and they're there everyday.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110619 MR. LUMB: Just, if I may get into this a little bit. When you talked about your own graduating class, when did you last see or ever see the main actor in a leading dramatic series in this country produced by one of our broadcasters, who was a Chinese Canadian?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110620 I've just mentioned intelligence as the first time I can recall seeing a major prime time acting role go to a black woman. There may have been others; I may have missed them. And I say "major" dramatic series, "major" role. There is that to consider as well.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110621 And, you know, this city is full of very smart, mostly young, eager to get on with their careers, Aboriginal lawyers. And I think there was one Aboriginal lawyer in a legal series a few years ago and it didn't last very long. But that is a reality that we're not going to be able to see, not for a long time.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110622 One of the regrets that I personally had at Carleton University was that we had lots and lots of diversity among our students. And we had, by the way, at one time, and perhaps it's still true, 7 women to 3 men in every television class that I ran. That's diversity, I suppose and it's going the wrong way possibly, or an overabundance if you like.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110623 But ‑‑ and we had a lot of people from different communities, but there was, I think in the entire time I was there, 12 years, I only came across 3 Aboriginal students who wanted to be journalists.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110624 So how do we get those people who are reluctant to come out, up and be right up there for their communities? How do we sort of encourage them to do so?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110625 And without any question, one of the ways that you do that is for them to be able to see people like themselves on air playing major roles. When somebody is a news anchor, that is a major life role. We know, I mean, you know, it's a fact of life.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110626 When they are in a dramatic role, the same thing. When they are reporters, the same thing. And we see ‑‑ we are seeing that. We are seeing that. We're seeing Chinese Canadians; we're seeing South Asians, we're seeing Black people.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110627 And so there is that encouragement for people to say, "I can do that too; I can be like that." And the more we see people like that playing leading roles, roles with some authority and not, for instance, as might be discovered in parts of the country where, you know, you only get one kind of story about Aboriginal peoples or you only get one kind of story about poor Black areas of a major city, or something like that.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110628 But when you see a mix and when you see the reality of people who are also doing well ‑‑ you know when the Jamai‑‑ in the, was it the ‑‑ yes, the early 90's when there were some very strong, both newspaper series, the Globe and Mail and somebody else, I can't remember, did series on the Jamaican criminals, t give you a name, to be an actual name to it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110629 I also saw just 1 or 2 stories and they were very welcome, talking about Jamaican lawyers, talking about Jamaican shelter workers, talking about Jamaican non‑governmental organizations that were helping out in literature and so on, and magazines and arts, writers.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110630 So I don't think it is correct to say that we should concentrate our efforts on the most needy. I think that if we as a society more accurately reflect in general the reality of the society, then we are doing a decent job.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110631 MR. CARDOZO: Perhaps could I just add one suggestion. I just wonder, in terms of the point you are making, Vice‑Chair, perhaps the issue is reflecting visible minorities and in particular groups that are particularly disadvantaged in society that maybe ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110632 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: I guess I'm making my ‑‑ I'm making the argument, which, you know I'm more than willing to be told by people who know about it such as yourselves, that it is misconceived, that probably the whole effort would be better invested in terms of its social results and more legitimate in the eyes of the population at large, if it were focused on groups about which I think we can collectively agree, there have been some social structural disadvantages and they've been permanent and grinding and problematic, not for one generation but for a very long time.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110633 MR. CARDOZO: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110634 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: I mean, I personally as a Canadian feel much greater sense of responsibility to Aboriginal people than I'm able to generate for the average second generation Southern European or South Asian or East Asian immigrant simply because their parents made a choice.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110635 It was tough. They came to a new country. Now their children are getting a wonderful education. They're becoming part of our society. They're contributing tremendously well. I think that's great.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110636 I, you know, I guess I'm more motivated to focus on the smaller number of groups with the greater need. But that may completely conceived for the purposes of your ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110637 MR. CARDOZO: Well, it's not. But I guess the thing is, keep in mind a couple of things, that these change over time depending on when immigrants arrive.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110638 And I don't think you want to say, well, you're first generation so you'll have to wait, let's see how the generation does before we focus on your needs. And I don't think that's what you're saying but I just ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110639 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: No, I ‑‑ not really, no.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110640 MR. CARDOZO: I'm putting words in your mouth mischievously.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110641 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Yes, I know. But ‑‑ yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110642 MR. CARDOZO: But I'm just ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110643 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: It's a good point.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110644 MR. CARDOZO: But I'm just taking ‑‑ the other thing is that things change over time for geo‑political reasons. So, say about 8 years ago, there wasn't a lot of concern about the mis‑portrayal of Muslims, for example, Muslim Canadians. Whereas after 9/11 it becomes a big issue because there are various things that happen in our society in terms of how we look at that community.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110645 The Sikh community, for example, 10 years ago, it was the "it" community that was under attack in some ways whereas today things in that community are a lot more peaceful.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110646 So even communities that have been here for a long time, their situation in a sense evolves over time which may not allow you to sort of say, well, this here, this is the flavour of the month. And this here ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110647 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Well, I mean, this is a good discussion. I submit to you that the groups I named ‑‑ this is not what happened in yesterday's news. This is not because there was a debate over ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110648 MR. CARDOZO: No, I agree with those ones.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110649 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110650 MR. CARDOZO: I agree with those. But I'm just saying ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110651 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Well, the other ones ‑‑ the other ones ‑‑ the other ones if I, you know, with the greatest respect, you get into a taxi cab in Malton 15 years ago and the guy's giving you Khalistan pamphlets. Fine, he's chosen, he's made a choice.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110652 I mean I know it was tough, but it was tough in India. And we all paid a price for that. There's nothing you can do about representation in the media on that kind of a problem.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110653 The other one, you know, it ‑‑ probably larger than we discuss usefully. It's a very important point and I take it. But, you know, I guess I resist the notion that you can build any kind of media program or regulatory program that can address that particular one. It's a tough one.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110654 MR. CARDOZO: Okay, just to give you one.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110655 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110656 MR. CARDOZO: And I'm sorry to continue this on. To give you one example, the community advisory committee that I've been a member on with the local CTV affiliate, or station, there are a number of people from different communities.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110657 And, you know, for some there may not be an issue, for others there is an issue at certain times. And by having, rather than saying we'll just have these 4 or whatever, which are the most important, what you get with the group of them working in that situation is there's learning and sort of cross‑examples that go on.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110658 So somebody may be able to say, well, you know, 10 years ago we used to have this kind of problem that you're facing now and this is how we dealt with it.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110659 So it's that ‑‑ it's bringing people around the table from different communities that allows the station, if I can sort of bring it down to that level, to be able to respond to situations in society, in this city at any given time and yet have that, a fairly good cross‑pollination between communities, whether it can be almost like a mentoring, protégé relationship or just people sharing best practices or worst practices that they've seen from the past.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110660 So I would just say to you that when you have ‑‑ to bring it down to the station level, if they have a multi‑community approach, there's a lot of good things that happen through that sharing and interaction.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110661 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: Just in conclusion, I mean, what you basically ‑‑ I want to make sure, and this is a statistical and not a philosophical thing at all.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110662 In your comments, you basically said, I heard it, Vancouver and Toronto are the multicultural cities of Canada. The other ones will have, or the other major centers such as, I think you mentioned Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton, you said they're going to be in the 20‑25 percent. But the 2 big cities that I mentioned are going to be over 50 percent in the very near future.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110663 MR. CARDOZO: Yes, and the greater Toronto, greater Vancouver ‑‑ well sometimes people use, in the demographic world, use the term MTV, meaning Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110664 It's more than those 3. I would argue that when you were hitting 20 percent, which is Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, that that's quite a high percentage too. But the 50 percent is the Toronto and greater Toronto. So in certain parts of ‑‑ like Richmond Hill which is just north of Toronto, they crossed the 50 percent level some years back. Toronto is about 40, 45 now.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110665 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: And Montreal is...?
LISTNUM 1 \l 110666 MR. CARDOZO: Montreal is about ‑‑ going to be 26, I believe.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110667 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: So Montreal is more like Calgary and Edmonton.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110668 MR. CARDOZO: A little more, yes, but in that range.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110669 COMMISSIONER FRENCH: But, you see Montreal's different because there's already, you know, 30 percent of the city goes one way and 60 percent goes the other way and the other 10 percent's going to ‑‑ I mean it's already a multicultural place, you know.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110670 MR. CARDOZO: Yes. But keep in mind that in Montreal there's a growing, sort of Francophone aspect to the diversity as well, with the Haitian community and the kids of Bill 101.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110671 THE CHAIRPERSON: And there's the island and the greater Montreal.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110672 MR. CARDOZO: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110673 THE CHAIRPERSON: And obviously the statistics that you've referring here includes Laval and Longueuil and the South Shore and North Shore.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110674 MR. CARDOZO: Yes. Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110675 THE CHAIRPERSON: But if you restrict yourself only to the island, then the ethnic population is much greater ‑‑
LISTNUM 1 \l 110676 MR. CARDOZO: Much higher. It would be percentage wise much higher.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110677 THE CHAIRPERSON: Than the number that is quoted there. And that's where the action is.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110678 MR. CARDOZO: Yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110679 THE CHAIREPRSON: It's on the island, not in the suburbs.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110680 Mr. CARDOZO: Yes. And certain areas are ‑‑ you're correct, yes.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110681 THE CHAIRPERSON: Well, Professor Lumb, Mr. Cardozo, thank you very much for your presentation. It, I think, it surely adds to the complexity of our deliberation.
‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires
LISTNUM 1 \l 110682 THE CHAIRPERSON: And on another subject, the meeting is adjourned until Wednesday morning, December 6th at 8:30.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110683 L'audience reprendra mercredi matin, le 6 décembre à 8 h 30.
LISTNUM 1 \l 110684 Thank you very much.
‑‑‑ Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1711, to resume
on Wednesday, December 6, 2006 at 0830 / L'audience
est ajournée à 1711 pour repondre le mercredi
6 décembre 2006 à 0830
REPORTERS / STENOGRAPHES
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Johanne Morin Jean Desaulniers
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Monique Mahoney Madeleine Matte
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Sue Villeneuve
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