Transcription, Audience du 8 décembre 2023

Les participants et l'endroit

Tenue à :

Centre de Conférence
Portage IV
140, Promenade du Portage
Gatineau (Québec)

Participants :

• Présidente :Vicky Eatrides
• Membres : Alicia Barin, Vice présidente, Radiodiffusion
  Adam Scott, Vice président, Télécommunications
  Nirmala Naidoo, Territories/Conseillère, Alberta et Territoires du Nord Ouest
  Joanne T. Levy, Conseillère, Manitoba et Saskatchewan
• Conseillères juridiques : Valérie Dionne
  Bianka Lauzon
• Secrétaire : Jade Roy
• Gérantes d'audience : Courtney Fitzpatrick
  Marie Lyse Lavallée

Table des matières

Présentations

11495 Documentary Organization of Canada

11596 Forum for Research and Policy in Communications

11668 Ontario Association of Broadcasters

11721 Byrnes Communications Inc.

11846 J.J. McCullough

12028 UFC

Transcription

Gatineau (Québec)
8 décembre 2023
Ouverture de l'audience à 8 h 59

Gatineau (Québec)

‑‑‑ L'audience débute le vendredi 8 décembre 2023 à 8 h 59

11492 LA SECRÉTAIRE : Bon matin.

11493 We will now hear the presentation of the Documentary Organization of Canada.

11494 Please introduce yourself and you may begin.

Présentation

11495 MS. SPRING: Good morning.

11496 My name is Sarah Spring and I am the Executive Director of the Documentary Organization of Canada. We represent 1,300 documentarians across the country and for 40 years DOC’s mission has been to ensure that Canada’s documentary creators are able to thrive within an equitable, accessible and sustainable sector. As both the Director of DOC and a former documentary producer myself, I am proud to be speaking to you today on behalf of Canada’s documentary community.

11497 First of all, I would like to commend the Commission for the sense of invitation that has infused this entire hearing. It has been moving and inspiring to hear from respected colleagues from across the country, including many voices that are appearing before the CRTC for the first time. I am truly honoured to be here on the last day of this historic proceeding.

11498 Canada is known as a leader in documentary filmmaking. In March, Canadian filmmaker Daniel Roher’s Navalny took home the Oscar for best documentary. And in August, for the second year in a row, Telefilm put forth a documentary to represent Canada’s best film at the Academy Awards.

11499 Our projects have incredible reach and a lasting impact on public discourse. John Grierson, who founded the National Film Board, spoke of documentaries as a key tool to understand, to see and to care about the changes that are transforming our society.

11500 Documentaries are part of Canada’s cultural fabric and have been for over 60 years. Among the more than a dozen intervenors who have spoken about the importance of documentaries, the CMF called it a critical genre that is at once very successful and fragile. The DGC and Telefilm pointed to the fundamental role that documentaries play in the Canadian sector, and the ARRQ mentioned the crisis in funding for feature documentary films.

11501 As was also referenced by the Rogers Group of Funds, documentaries are a gateway into the sector, where creators grow their skills and their careers. Before Sarah Polley’s Women Talking came the documentary Stories We Tell. Tracey Deer’s first feature was the 2005 documentary Mohawk Girls about her community of Kahnawake. And 10 years before Shasha Nakhai made her breakout feature Scarborough, she directed the personal documentary The Sugar Bowl.

11502 Documentary is a gateway for those who face historic barriers. Many of the intervenors who have spoken before the Commission to advocate for equity within the new framework began their careers in documentary and have gone on to be leaders across the sector.

11503 Documentary is a gateway to relearning Canada’s history. Indigenous filmmakers are making seminal documentaries that are fundamental to our collective process of reconciliation, from Alanis Obomsawin to Tasha Hubbard to Alethea Arnaquq‑Baril.

11504 However, we do have a problem. Despite the many successes and the importance of this genre of content, there has been a significant drop in support for long‑form documentaries.

11505 DOC commissioned a study from Nordicity that was published in September ‑‑ that we will be pleased to file with the Commission ‑‑ that shows that while audiences for our homegrown documentaries continue to grow, the type of long‑form documentaries that are so important to our cultural expression are at risk. Support for documentaries that can be expensive to produce, take a long time to make, tell our important stories, and which the CRTC moved to protect when they defined the genre in 2010, are decreasing every year.

11506 Our study shows that the vast majority, over 80 percent, of documentary production in Canada is now lower budget documentary series. Now while there is of course a role for this type of market‑driven content in our ecosystem, it is also critical that long‑form author‑driven documentary content also continues to have an important presence. This content requires regulation.

11507 If we have an imbalance in the stories we tell, we face a crisis in which we are not meeting our cultural objectives. So this is where regulation is so important.

11508 A modernized regulatory framework that includes minimum requirements for these crucial long‑form documentary productions is consistent with key public policy objectives of the Broadcasting Act and the Policy Direction, which points to the importance of a diversity of genres in its instructions to the Commission to support a wide range of Canadian programming and Canadian creators.

11509 We recommend that 20 percent of a base contribution be mandated for spending on feature films, with half of this for fiction work and half for documentaries. We recognize that this is a bold proposal, but we are in unprecedented times. This urgent contribution is absolutely necessary to ensuring that these stories persevere.

11510 Supporting documentaries ensures a diversity of programming, a diversity of voices, a diversity of stories, and a living library of Canadian perspectives. This is reasonable, equitable and appropriate.

11511 Both the Broadcasting Act and the Policy Direction point to a historic shift in our sector that offers the possibility of meaningful structural change towards narrative sovereignty and towards equity. These commitments must be at the foundation of the CRTC’s regulatory framework.

11512 Supporting Indigenous narrative sovereignty is essential to our screen sector. Indigenous content is a key pillar of our broadcasting system. DOC supports mandatory funding from the base contribution to the ISO.

11513 DOC supports the proposal that the CRTC mandate 35 percent for creators from equity‑deserving communities, and we support direct funding to the CISF and BSO.

11514 We also support the proposal by the DSO that the CRTC mandate alignment with the 2019 Accessible Canada Act and that funds be obligated to identify, remove and prevent barriers to accessibility.

11515 Finally, we echo many of our colleagues and also recommend:

11516 ‑ a 5 percent base contribution as part of a larger framework;

11517 ‑ that the public‑private split should be 80‑20;

11518 ‑ that new contributions to public funds be split 60‑40 English to French; and

11519 ‑ finally, that the CRTC support the BPF and BAF.

11520 Thank you for your time and your consideration. I look forward to answering your questions.

11521 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much to DOC for participating in the proceeding and for being here with us this morning. As you said, it's our last day of a three‑week hearing, so it's great to have you kick it off with us.

11522 I will turn things over to my colleague Commissioner Levy to start with the questions for the Commission. Thank you.

11523 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Good morning.

11524 You've talked about the difficulty and the reduction in the number of long‑form documentaries, but aren't you up against the issue of demand? If there simply isn't the demand for these features, how do we create the opportunities for them?

11525 MS. SPRING: Thank you for that question. It's a great question. I think it comes to the heart of our discussion here in some ways.

11526 There's market‑driven content that has a quick payoff, an immediate payoff, and this is the type of documentaries that we're seeing, is the majority of the documentary production in Canada. It's most of what the streamers are doing as well.

11527 And then there's long‑term demand, the long term, what we call the long tail in the documentary sector. The years and years and years that documentary filmmakers ‑‑ you talk to any documentary filmmaker and they will say, “I released my film 10 years ago. I'm still getting requests to do a community screening in a small town in Canada that doesn't have a movie theatre, that wants to bring me out to speak to them in their community centre in their library.”

11528 So, I argue that there is a massive demand for documentary films. It's a slightly different paradigm than what we're thinking about when we think about market success. We're talking about success over the long term, success in reaching Canadians.

11529 When you talk to the Canadian film festivals that focus on documentary films ‑‑ Hot Docs in Toronto, RIDM in Montreal, DOXA in Vancouver ‑‑ there are so many films being created, there are so many films that they are receiving, and the audience demand is enormous. These festivals are growing every year.

11530 There's a massive demand for Canadian films internationally. As we see, the Academy Awards are just one measure of success. But Canadian films travel for years, they win awards at festivals.

11531 At the Amsterdam Film Festival that happened earlier this month, which is the biggest documentary festival in the world, a very renowned filmmaker was asked to program 10 films that must be watched and re‑watched, and one of them was the Canadian film Last Train Home by Lixin Fan that came out in 2009.

11532 So, I argue that there is a massive demand. It's just a question of are we thinking about demand in terms of eyeballs on a broadcast premiere, people sitting in cinemas for a certain number of weeks, or demand over years and years and years and years and years? And I think that links to the idea of the return on investment, because I would argue that documentaries have an enormous return on investment if we're thinking about that investment as Canadians seeing ourselves reflected back to ourselves.

11533 COMMISSIONER LEVY: The difficulty seems to be that you have a fixed number of gatekeepers and not all of them are as persuaded that it's in their interest to essentially rent a very high‑cost program in the kind of system that we have right now.

11534 Would the allocation of initial contributions to production funds be the right way to ensure that Canadian documentaries are financed and produced, given the issues of demand?

11535 MS. SPRING: Absolutely. I think that, you know, in the broadcasting sector, which of course is market‑driven, they're operating within a system that requires them to have a focus on advertising, on audience eyeballs in the short term, I get that, they're competing with streamers, with international players. The funds are where we can focus and carry out much of our public policy and documentaries are key to that public policy. So there is a fund that is already disbursing content for future documentaries, the National Film Board ‑‑ well, not a fund but a co‑producer. But funds like Telefilm, the Canada Media Fund, the CIFF, 14 percent of their funding last year went to documentary films.

11536 There's many, many places where this funding can be disbursed that are oversubscribed. The Rogers Documentary Fund spoke of that as well, oversubscribed, they would love to be giving out more money.

11537 So, I think when you look at the places where this can go and the number of years that these films can return that investment to Canadians, it does make quite a lot of sense, it's reasonable and equitable.

11538 COMMISSIONER LEVY: What changes in the system as a whole do you think need to be made to ensure that the existing funds better support this type of content both online and on traditional platforms?

11539 MS. SPRING: Well, we believe that there should be an urgent and quickly disbursed base contribution of 5 percent of the previous year's annual revenues of the online undertakings, that 20 percent should be for features, with half of that for documentaries. So we're estimating $25 million, that that money go into funds that support feature documentary films. And I'm talking about the type of content that the CRTC was speaking about in 2010 when you defined the genre, stuff that is not market‑driven, that speaks to our priorities as Canadians.

11540 In terms of the rest of the sector, I'm hoping we will have a robust discussion on PNI in following stages, because I think that, as I wrote in my submission, we do have a situation in which PNI is not accomplishing its intended goals for a specific type of documentary film. The majority being programmed in Canada right now by broadcasters categorized as 2b), I argue, is not exactly the type of documentary film that the CRTC had in mind.

11541 COMMISSIONER LEVY: So if we're going to have the biggest impact on your desired outcomes, do we get that from giving priority to some of the larger funds? Because you've certainly talked about the Certified Independent Production Funds and so forth and making sure that they're taken care of, but are they really the best venue for getting to these larger, more expensive projects with, as you say, the very long tail?

11542 MS. SPRING: Well, we see the $25 million being disbursed in public and private funds.

11543 So, Telefilm supports around twenty‑‑ I think it was 28 documentaries. Canada Media Fund supported, I believe ‑‑ I'll look back at the stats so I don't misquote. But there is a lot of support within the CMF's POV Program, for example, for author‑driven documentaries, Telefilm, NFB.

11544 The independent funds are equally important. They are sometimes a little bit easier to access, easier to navigate. There's some funds like the ISO, the BSO and the CISF that are going to specifically support creators who have been underserved within the larger sector, and we know that documentaries are going to be a large part of their offering because these communities are largely represented within the documentary community.

11545 COMMISSIONER LEVY: What about the streaming services, how are they working their way into the system and how could they be incented to program more of these kinds of works?

11546 MS. SPRING: So the streamers, the DGC submitted a report on the presence of feature films on the streaming platform and I thought it was really interesting that docs are 22 percent of streaming platforms' content, that's Canadian and foreign; an average of 8 percent of the catalogues of the six biggest online streaming platforms are documentary; and 10 percent of streaming services have between 75 percent and 99 percent documentaries.

11547 So I think it's really interesting to say that documentaries are present, they're not not a part of the landscape of the streaming platforms. Documentaries are an important part of the service. We're just trying to guarantee that it's not just market‑driven.

11548 We have a situation in the States where they don't have the CRTC, they don't have this emphasis on public policy, they don't have the same concerns that we do, they're not under the same threat, they're not worried about a loss of American voices in the world. But when you talk to American documentary filmmakers, they're very concerned because the streamers are moving away from author‑driven, creative narrative docs that are sharing a diversity of stories and they're moving much more towards celebrity‑driven documentaries.

11549 So, documentaries have a place on the streaming platforms. Audiences like them. Here in Canada we have the opportunity to ensure that the streamers are not the only ones in the driver's seat about what exactly is being made. There's demand there, we just want to shift it towards Canadian stories to ensure that our communities are represented.

11550 COMMISSIONER LEVY: And again, just to go back to the notion of incentives if you like, that would be a way for the Commission to intervene perhaps earlier on than generally considered?

11551 MS. SPRING: Yeah.

11552 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Can you think of ways that we could do that within the regulatory system?

11553 MS. SPRING: Yeah. I mean, I think expenditure obligations that are measurable are one clear option. The Policy Direction says that you can consider expenditure requirements where appropriate and I think this is a perfect example of an appropriate expenditure requirement.

11554 We want to see clear results to Canadian programming and to the kind of Canadian programming that the CRTC and our cultural policy has already decided is absolutely important to our cultural expression, the longevity of Canadian stories.

11555 And I think in 50 years when we look back we are going to want to see what did Canadians think about this moment in time. There's historic changes that are happening and when I look back I want to make sure that I can see across the country what did people say, how were they speaking to each other.

11556 If you're in a small town in Nova Scotia and you can watch a documentary by someone who's living in a northern community, you're coming into contact with a Canadian in a way that you would never has otherwise, because you can't afford to travel. So you're getting to know a story, you're understanding someone.

11557 It's fundamental to our democracy to make sure that these stories exist. This contributes to a harmonious, empathetic society. When someone sees a documentary about someone who had a different lived experience than they do, it is the most intimate and effective way to promote democratic conversation in this country.

11558 COMMISSIONER LEVY: All we have to do is get them there, right, get the viewers in front of the material, which is a whole nother conversation which I believe has to be left for another time.

11559 MS. SPRING: If I may, I just want to say something about that.

11560 There is a robust profession called impact producing, outreach producing. This is something that ‑‑ it's a profession that gets documentaries across the country to Canadians, with a little bit of funding. The Telus Fund, for example, supports this type of initiative.

11561 There's an institute in Vancouver called Story Money Impact. They are training impact producers, they are running programs, they're getting films out to thousands and thousands of Canadians.

11562 So, just to say that there is a rich network of professionals who are getting films out to Canadians and doing this work. Filmmakers are doing it on their own, underfunded, but there are models to finance it as well. And I think we will talk about it in later stages and I'm excited about that.

11563 But I believe that not only the talent is there, the demand is there and the audience demand is there.

11564 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Thank you very much. That's all my questions for this morning and I had it back to the Chair.

11565 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.

11566 I will hand it over to our Vice‑Chair for Broadcasting, Alicia Barin.

11567 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Thank you Madam Chair.

11568 Good morning, Miss Spring. I have a question, it's a bit of a follow‑up on Commissioner Levy's questioning on the online streamers.

11569 In the course of this proceeding we've heard from most of the online streamers and they have spoken to us about their intangible activities for Canadian programming. I heard you give us the statistics on the percentage of libraries of some of the online streamers and that documentaries obviously have a place on these platforms.

11570 Can you tell me what kind of support or partnerships Canadian documentaries are managing to have with the online streamers? I know, for example, on Netflix there's a lot of Netflix‑branded documentaries. Are any of those Canadian?

11571 MS. SPRING: It's very rare that a Canadian filmmaker will do a Netflix original film. It's very rare that an American filmmaker will do a Netflix original film.

11572 You know, we were looking at some statistics. There's a group in the States called the Distribution Advocates and they are trying to help American filmmakers understand how to advocate for themselves within this landscape, because it's only streamers as far as they're thinking about how to get it out to Canadians. They looked at the films that came out at Sundance, at Tribeca, at South by Southwest, so the biggest festivals in the States, and there were only a few films that were supported by streamers and they were supported almost 100 percent. But it was a very small percentage of the films that were getting out there.

11573 And in Canada, obviously, we have much less access. So what I'm hoping for is that we can build a system in which Canadian filmmakers that own their content can work with a streamer, can work with the funds, public and private, and build out a really robust financing for a high‑quality Canadian‑owned production.

11574 So working with the streamers is something where it's a bit newer in Canada. I think we're still figuring out how that works.

11575 I thought it was very interesting to listen to a presentation by producers and industry associations from France in Ottawa several weeks ago, who talked about how the model had worked there. They own their films and they're working with streamers and it's working very successfully.

11576 So, I do believe that there's wonderful paths forward for how to work with the streamers. We're still figuring it out. I think that the guiding light needs to be that we own our content and we are partnering with them.

11577 The Rogers Group of funds, again, had some interesting examples of how they're partnering with streamers. Our broadcasters have partnered with streamers. I think it's just figuring how to bring everyone together at the table for something that everyone has already agreed is important, it's already a part of everyone's offering, and to maintain ownership in Canada, strong Canadian stories, and we need to be in the driver's seat of what that content is.

11578 So I think the danger is if the streamer is the only one deciding what content to greenlight, and that is where we don't want to go. That's the opposite of what we want. We want to have regulation to ensure that Canadian storytellers are developing their stories, are deciding what is important, are looking around them, often at their own lives. I mean, 43 percent of our membership responded that they have made a film about themselves, their family or their community. So this is the kind of content that we want.

11579 So yes, partnership with streamers. It's not a ton yet, I hope it's going to be more. I think this is a great opportunity to move in that direction.

11580 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Thank you very much.

11581 MS. SPRING: You're welcome.

11582 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Back to the Chair.

11583 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Thank you, Madam Vice‑Chair.

11584 We would like to make sure that you have the final word.

11585 MS. SPRING: It has been encouraging and uplifting to see that we are not alone in advocating for the key role for documentaries in our sector.

11586 Intervenors who have mentioned the importance of documentary include ‑‑ and please bear with me ‑‑ the CMPA, the AQPM, the CMF, Telefilm, the NFB, the DGC, Coalition M.É.D.I.A., the AARQ, SARTEC, GMMQ, UDA, ACTRA, the WGC, APTN, TVO, Rogers Group of Funds and TIFF, as well as many of the independent presenters such as John Choi and Sobaz Benjamin.

11587 Recognizing documentaries as priority content of national importance has been part of the CRTC's own policy for decades because these films are so vital to our cultural expression. We know that long‑form documentary productions urgently need regulation protection now more than ever in a global streaming landscape.

11588 Section 3(1)(d) of the Broadcasting Act lays it out very clearly. We need “to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada” and to “encourage the development of Canadian expression...” Documentary is key to these objectives.

11589 To ensure that these important films do not disappear, DOC is advocating for mandated funding for future documentaries. This will allow us to continue to proudly carry Canadian stories across the country and around the world.

11590 Protecting documentaries is intimately linked to equity and to training. We have heard it again and again over the course of this hearing, for many creators, documentary is their first point of entry into the broadcast sector. This is especially true for creators who have been systemically excluded. Indigenous, Black, and racialized creators are well represented within the documentary sector and are half of DOC's membership.

11591 At the beginning of this proceeding, the Chair indicated that the Commission is seeking input on how our modernized framework can ensure support for diverse and accessible content. My answer is threefold, and they intersect. One, allocate 10 per cent of the base contribution to feature documentary films. Two, allocate funding to the ISO, the CISF, and the BSO. And three, mandate a 35 per cent spend on equity‑deserving communities. These actions are all key to our collective path forward.

11592 The final point I would like to make is that documentaries are not just content; they are ambassadors. Documentaries connect with Canadians where they are. These films inspire us to think beyond our own experience and are important to democracy. Documentaries tell Canadians in an intimate and relatable way that Bill C‑11 and a regulatory process to protect Canadian content is worth it. Thank you.

11593 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Thank you for your heartfelt submissions about human connection. We really appreciate DOC being here.

11594 THE SECRETARY: Thank you very much.

11595 I will now ask Forum for Research and Policy in Communications to come to the presentation table. We will just show your PowerPoint also at the same time, perfect. And when you are ready, you may begin.

Présentation

11596 MS. AUER: Thank you, Madam Secretary.

11597 My name is Monica Auer, and I am the executive director of the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications. FRPC is a not‑for‑profit corporation established in 2013 to undertake evidence‑based research and analysis of broadcasting and telecommunications issues. We do this through intensive data trolling and also national surveys.

11598 FRPC's written intervention, this intervention presentation, includes PowerPoint slides related to our written intervention at paragraphs 3, 13, 20, 21, 23 to 25, 29 to 30, 32, 39, 43, 70, and recommendations 3 and 4.

11599 As FRPC stands between you and the last four of 122 interveners in this proceeding, I really hope to be succinct. I will not be reading my slides. They're there to entertain you instead of having to look at me.

11600 Since the April 27th amendment of the Broadcasting Act, the Commission has been urged to move fast and, if not break things, at least bend them.

11601 While FRPC agrees with the need for speed, there are obvious risks in what might be a fundamental refit of existing CRTC policies. For example, while long‑term planning is core to most private corporations, administrative decision‑making is for the most part incremental or iterative, as Vice‑Chair Barin commented last week. So there is a risk that proposals for major but necessary change could be derailed just by using the technique described years ago in the British TV program, Yes, Minister: that is, by describing new ideas as complicated, expensive, or even controversial.

11602 One way to mitigate the risk of derailment is to set out clear, quantifiable, and quantified starting points and objectives, as the CRTC did in its 1987 renewal of CBC television licences. When the Commission reviewed its television policy in 1998 as well, it published 300 pages describing the hours of TV programs then being broadcast, audience data, TV ownership structures, financial performance, and different scenarios' hypothetical impact on the TV system. This facilitated evaluation.

11603 When the you reviewed the Local Programming Improvement Fund in 2012, you also published a four‑year analysis of its clear and positive impact on local TV news broadcast hours. We urge you to include such data in the decisions flowing from this proceeding and others to establish empirical starting points. Publishing data describing past trends, the quantifiable and quantified goals that the CRTC's changes are to achieve, and annual updates on progress will help to show that the Commission's decisions are neither hasty nor arbitrary, but based on this proceeding's record and objective evidence. It also coincides with 21st‑century standards for openness, transparency, and accountability.

11604 In 2021/2022, we noticed that the Commission commissioned 25 studies valued at $730,000, which involved data to support policy research. While we assume that much of this made its way into the CRTC's Monitoring Reports, it's unclear whether all of these studies were also published separately.

11605 FRPC very much hopes that as part of this regulatory refit, the CRTC will strengthen its current approach to the data it gathers and publishes for three reasons.

11606 First, much of Parliament's broadcasting policy focuses on programming. And this table is based on a number of other very colourful tables in our written remarks today, which I'll skip through because I couldn't fit them into the PowerPoint. Publishing analyses of the data the CRTC collects about the audio and audiovisual programming broadcast in Canada would enable Canadians as well as Parliament to understand how well the Act's broadcasting policy is actually being implemented.

11607 For example, when the CBC asked to renew its licences in 2019, FRPC used the CRTC's program logs to compare its TV stations' broadcast programming over a decade, discovering downward trends in original Canadian drama and news programming. The CRTC is far better equipped to undertake this work because, frankly, downloading individual program logs, each of which have between 20,000 and 30,000 lines of data is not for the faint‑hearted.

11608 Ideally, the CRTC will invite comment on the types and relevance of the information it collects and publishes each year. For example, the Commission has for decades published massive amounts of data describing broadcasters' financial performance and support for the broadcasting system. As a result, we can say that after the CRTC's 1999 Building on Success TV policy, Canadian programming expenditures rose five per cent while non‑Canadian programming expenditures grew by 48 per cent. The policy therefore coincided with a slight increase in Canadian programming expenditures.

11609 But data from a CRTC Access to Information request also show that Canadian broadcasters carried more repeats of Canadian programming and more first‑run foreign content. Such results suggest that the number of new program hours and new titles launched each year are also important and valid measures of the broadcast system's health, because it is the new that attracts audiences.

11610 The BBC, for example, reports its plans to broadcast specific hours of first‑run or original news and drama, and last year ‑‑ let's see if this is Sky ‑‑ announced plans to launch some 200 new drama programs outright. Today, though, the CRTC's log data cannot answer the very basic question of how many new series Canadians audio and audiovisual broadcasters actually launch each year.

11611 Our second point with respect to data is that we hope that the CRTC will gather data somewhat more coherently. Current CRTC regulations require TV programming services ‑‑ but not radio services ‑‑ to submit data about the news they broadcast in their program logs. Yet despite daily news about the risks of climate change, the TV logs do not show whether or when broadcasters transmit emergency alerts. No mechanism appears to exist for broadcasters to report the degree to which their revenues rely on data collected from individual audience members. It's unclear whether any broadcasters' expenditures include payments for programming produced using artificial intelligence.

11612 Evaluating the data gathered by the CRTC's annual return process is difficult, in fact, because the CRTC's five annual return forms are not available online. You cannot even review the blank forms to see what they're asking for. And of course, any talk of reporting requirements triggers regulatory burden discussions.

11613 While FRPC shares the concern about burden, the Commission's own data show that administrative expenses of Canadian broadcasters have been steadily decreasing as a percentage of their total expenses for 32 years. Today's broadcasters are also more technologically adept. In 2022, for example, Spotify told the US Securities and Exchange Commission about its complex IT systems and the significant volume of data it collects. FRPC hopes that any CRTC decisions reflecting regulatory burden concerns will include valid and reliable empirical data on this point.

11614 FRPC also urges the Commission to consider publishing more of its data in downloadable databases for longer periods of time, especially ownership and aggregated financial information now only available as PDFs. And the next three slides show the data that you actually have to input in order to understand what Bell ‑‑ just Bell ‑‑ is doing in terms of its programming services. Requiring those who want to analyze this information to enter the data by hand and to also track revisions is expensive, inefficient, and heightens the risk of unreliable data's shoring up inaccurate conclusions.

11615 Finally, FRPC urges the Commission to re‑evaluate its approach to data retention. You heard a depressing number of examples this week about the loss of Canadian broadcast programming history. This is also happening in broadcast regulation. In 2019, 15 years of TV logs describing programming broadcasts from 1999 to 2013 which were then posted on a CRTC FTP site vanished, apparently because the CRTC only retains such information for 10 years. Most people dispose of things they don't need or don't value. Considering the effort and the resources devoted to broadcasting in general, and the value today's corporations place on data, it is unclear why the CRTC itself is erasing Canada's audiovisual history through its log system.

11616 FRPC hopes that the CRTC will at least begin to warn the public about plans to destroy its files and data so that many more basements and garages can be filled with boxes, filing cabinets, and data sticks documenting progress towards implementing section 3 of the Act because, as this important proceeding shows and you're hearing of so many intervenors and parties very interested in the system, trends often last more than 10 years.

11617 In the end, the CRTC's legal mandate requires it to work towards the implementation of the many objectives in subsection 3(1), which is obviously an enormous task, if not an insurmountable one. But to have a meaningful impact you ‑‑ and Canadians ‑‑ must have data.

11618 There will be surprises and even crises along the way because there are many things we simply do not know that we do not even know and therefore cannot anticipate. The easiest and perhaps the only way for the CRTC to show that it is meeting its regulatory and supervisory responsibilities is to provide Canadians and Parliament with annual, coherent, comprehensive, valid, and reliable data describing a variety of characteristics of the programming broadcast to Canadians and characteristics about Canada's broadcasting system for as many years as possible.

11619 Thank you for your time and patience.

11620 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much to FRPC for being here this morning. Thank you for the quotes and the figures. We appreciate that. Given that you quoted Vice‑Chair Barin, I think it makes a lot of sense to turn things over to her to kick things off. Thank you.

11621 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Thank you very much Madam Chair.

11622 I stand by what I said. This is an iterative process, and data gathering and collection is an art. Ms. Auer, I share your love and appetite for data, and I do appreciate the recommendations that you've made and the gaps that you've identified for the Commission.

11623 What I'd like to do, given your in‑depth knowledge of the way data works, is to ask you some pointed questions that are related to the proposals that we have for an initial base contribution. And I'd like to start with your views on our approach to the threshold and what your views would be on whether we should be looking at a group‑based approach or an approach to take individual undertakings as for the purposes of the threshold. So given the complexities of collecting revenue data in large corporations that have multiple business lines, how would you ‑‑ what are your views? What do you suggest? How do you suggest the Commission approach the threshold?

11624 MS. AUER: As I recall, we began to hear about the concept of convergence and particularly convergence with broadcasting and telecommunications in the mid‑1990s.

11625 Large corporations collect data because it's their blood. They need to know for their owners and their shareholders just what they're doing and what revenues or expenses those activities incur. So I think larger corporations are well equipped to provide the Commission with data, and therefore, FRPC supports a group‑based ownership approach.

11626 Obviously, that won't be particularly effective if you are a company that has one service, in which case you may want to consider lowering the threshold somewhat if you consider that the entity's programming activities impact the broadcasting system. Because otherwise, under 9(4), of course, you could exempt it and would have to exempt it.

11627 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Thank you. So that was very clear.

11628 Now, parties to this proceeding have suggested that in addition to revenues, the Commission look at other criteria for the purposes of a threshold, things like subscriber revenues. And obviously, some of this data may not be standardized, comparable, et cetera. But given all of those issues, do you believe that there are other kinds of criteria that the Commission should be using in addition to the revenue threshold?

11629 MS. AUER: If the goal is really to ensure that broadcasting undertakings with the financial capability support Canada's broadcasting system, I think you're compelled to look at revenues. As you mentioned, there are concerns that revenue collection, or sorry, revenue reporting systems between large corporations may not be one‑to‑one comparable. But that's the role of the Commission's annual return process, to enable you to discern and to tease out the data necessary to ensure that you have comparable data.

11630 For example, I've noticed some companies report copyright as a broadcasting expense. Yes, it's an expense required for broadcasting. The issue is whether copyright is properly dealt with under the Copyright Act whereas broadcasting is dealt with under the Broadcasting Act.

11631 Does that answer your question?

11632 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Yes, well on the revenue side. But do you believe the Commission should be looking at other variables, like for example subscribers, to consider which undertakings should be subject to contributions?

11633 MS. AUER: Well, I suppose that the possibility exists that you could have undertakings with very little revenue or reported revenue with many, many, many subscribers. In that case, I think 9(4) would kick in again, and you would have to consider whether a particular broadcast undertaking's access to a very wide number of Canadian subscribers requires you to address yourself to its activities.

11634 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Okay, thank you.

11635 Okay, my next question relates to funds. And in your written intervention, you specifically mention the Broadcasting Participation Fund. Do you have any views on whether the base contributions are needed for other purposes and whether they should be directed elsewhere?

11636 MS. AUER: So you're not asking my views on the BPF; you're asking whether there are other funds?

11637 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Correct.

11638 MS. AUER: Okay. I'd like to say first, I have seriously ‑‑ I have huge difficulty with the word “contribution,” because what we're talking about is the cost of doing business in Canada. And to me, under the Income Tax Act, a contribution is usually something that goes from a donor to a donee. It's a gift. What we're talking about here is a requirement to ensure that broadcasters who are able to use our broadcasting system help to strengthen that system.

11639 Insofar as other programs are concerned, I have listened with interest to many of the other proposals. Frankly, FRPC would prefer to leave that to the Commission because we have not looked into the dozens of funds that are now available. We have not reviewed all of their annual reports to consider whether they are in fact delivering what you might call a bang for a buck.

11640 I referred in my presentation today to the concept of garages and filing cabinets filled with data. I should tell you that I, too, have those filing cabinets. And one, for three years, I stored them in my garden, and I was very happy that they just weren't damaged by rain and they weren't eaten by the squirrels and other animals around. So I, too, have those problems.

11641 But I can't help but think that since every corporation values data to the point that that is in fact the raison d'être for their existence, why we would not try to support something like the Canadian Broadcast Museum Foundation. And I'll mention for the record that the executive director of the CBMF is also a member of my board. But I have to say even if I didn't know Ms. Wilkinson and I didn't like Ms. Wilkinson, I would still and FRPC would still support the idea because we cannot erase our history.

11642 It's interesting that we have museums that show sculptures and two‑dimensional portraits, and we keep those, and we're worried, you know, we don't want to see the Mona Lisa spraypainted, nor do we want to see the Group of Seven lost. But yet we're willing to ‑‑ and I'm sorry, I'm terrible at names ‑‑ we don't want to lose old versions of Mr. Dressup or even Snow Job or The Littlest Hobo or name your particular favourite type of program, whether it's audio or audiovisual.

11643 So yes, I think there are other funds that you should consider. And in particular, we're here in 2013 [sic]. I started coming to these hearings 40 years ago, and I realized a few years ago that we're all walking through this history. So we see the TV tonight, and isn't it great, it's on. In 10 years, it won't be there. Will we have a record of what we're doing and what we've done? What are other people going to study in the future? I don't know. Once it's destroyed, it's gone.

11644 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Thank you, Ms. Auer. So this is my last question, and it relates to funding for public participation. So you did mention the Broadcasting Participation Fund. In your view, are there other ways that the Commission could fund public participation in our proceedings?

11645 MS. AUER: Could you give me a hint as to what you're thinking? Because I'm at a loss. I mean, funding in theory, I suppose, you could go to general revenues of the Government of Canada. But that's susceptible to the budgeting process.

11646 Frankly, as you know, FRPC and a number of other organizations filed a Part I application which you have mentioned that you're intending to consider early in 2024. So I don't know if I want to discuss that. I think it's in another proceeding ‑‑

11647 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: We can stay away from that one.

11648 MS. AUER: But I do want to say, for the record, that my impression when we're talking about all the different amounts here is that we're thinking sort of a condition of service approach, which to me is a type of condition of licence under the former Act. FRPC in particular would prefer that this be part of the regulatory framework, which is to say regulations. Because regulations are a little bit less mutable and they're not focused so much on individual broadcasters' circumstances as conditions of licence and conditions of service may be.

11649 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Well‑noted. Thank you very much for answering my questions, Ms. Auer. I'm going to turn back to the Chair now.

11650 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice‑Chair.

11651 Let's go over to Commissioner Levy.

11652 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Good morning. I'm sure that you have heard some of the intervenors talk about the split between funding for programming in English and French. And there's debate about whether it should be 60‑40 or should remain as it is. Do you have any views on that?

11653 MS. AUER: FRPC has not taken a written position on the allocation.

11654 I've heard three ways of doing it. The current 60‑40; 50–50 because there are two languages and two divided by, you know, then you have two bits, therefore 50–50; and I've also heard directly in proportion to population.

11655 I guess the real issue is that we want the systems to be entirely not so much comparable but ‑‑ I have to think here ‑‑ but of providing the same opportunities for programming, employment, and the other aspects of section 3(1). So that to me would support the notion that you would not want to go on a population basis because you need more money to do good programming. And we want it to be as equitable as possible.

11656 Where I think we have a gap is with the amount of programming that would then be devoted to Indigenous broadcasting and programming for Indigenous people and Indigenous services. I don't know if that's been discussed, because I've watched maybe 75 per cent of this hearing.

11657 COMMISSIONER LEVY: There have been suggestions that support for Indigenous programming to the Indigenous Screen Office, for instance, should be taken off of the top of any contributions, if you like, that come into the system as the result of an initial rate contribution. And then what remains would be split however between the English and French groups. Do you think that's one way to approach support for Indigenous content?

11658 MS. AUER: I think it's one way, and also provided you collect data before and after, you could find out if the policy is actually achieving its objectives. Because that is the problem we have had now for 50 years is that so little data is being published about the impact of very carefully designed and thought‑out policies of the Commission that we don't know which ones have worked most efficiently and effectively.

11659 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Those are all of my questions. Thank you very much. Turn it back to the Chair.

11660 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. So we would like to ask you if you have any concluding remarks. And we know there was a lot of information in your presentation. If there's something that we didn't cover in the discussion, if you would like to add that as well, that would be helpful. Thank you.

11661 MS. AUER: Thank you very much.

11662 FRPC would like to wish all of you and your colleagues happy holidays. That's it.

11663 THE CHAIRPERSON: Well, that's lovely. Thank you very much. Right back at you.

11664 THE SECRETARY: Thank you, we will take a 10‑minute break and be back at 10:00.

‑‑‑ Suspension à 9 h 50

‑‑‑ Reprise à 10 h 01

11665 THE SECRETARY: Welcome back. We will now hear the next participants, Ontario Association of Broadcasters and Byrnes Communications Inc.

11666 We will hear each presentation, which will then be followed by questions by the Commissioners to all participants. We’ll begin with the presentation by Ontario Association of Broadcasters.

11667 Please introduce yourself and your colleagues, and you may begin.

Présentation

11668 MR. PEARSON: Good morning, Madam Chair, members of Council. My name is Chris Pearson. I am the Vice‑President of the Ontario Association of Broadcasters, and then my other leadership position is I’m also the President of Acadia Broadcasting Corporation.

11669 The OAB is a volunteer organization of independent broadcasters who represent radio stations across Canada.

11670 I’d now like to introduce our volunteer panel.

11671 First I’ll start with Mr. Doug Bingley, who is the President of the OAB and also the President of the Central Ontario Broadcasting. Andrew Forsyth, Director of the OAB and an independent broadcasting consultant. Wendy Gray, Director at the OAB but also the Director of News for Vista Radio. Mathew Reisler, reporter for Bracebridge in Ontario, and is with Vista Radio. Roxanne Guérin, works in Valleyfield, Quebec. She’s the station manager and also an on‑air host and music director, so she does a little bit of everything. Tara Jean Stevens, morning show host, Durham Radio, Vancouver.

11672 Chester Pangan works for a multicultural station in Winnipeg, Manitoba and also does ‑‑ is also the production manager as well as morning host and does some sales, so again, multifaceted. And that’s with Evanov Communications.

11673 And then Ed Torres, Director of the OAB, President of Torres Media.

11674 I realize our presentation may have an unorthodox approach, but we feel it’s important for us to showcase the unique on‑air talent here who do radio best. I hope you will ask for their perspective by adding a few minutes to our presentation. We really feel it’s important that you hear it from the people that work the frontlines every day in radio and how important we are to the communities that we serve.

11675 I would now ask that we present a short video.

‑‑‑ Présentation vidéo

11676 MS. STEVENS: Commissioners, many groups have appeared before you for the last few weeks, all making a case for funding.

11677 So, why radio? Because radio benefits every single one of those groups.

11678 Canadians, whether racialized, Indigenous, Anglophone, Francophone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, we all listen to radio.

11679 And we have our differences, yes, but we have much more in common. Over 28 million Canadians listen to local radio. It is a key component of Canadian culture and the benefits provided by local radio meet the definition of programming of exceptional importance and we hope to discuss that with you during our time here today.

11680 For example, streaming provides none of those benefits, yet streamers syphon money from local radio, limiting our ability to serve the public.

11681 And then how about equitability? Regulations which do not apply to streamers are the definition of in‑equitability.

11682 And here’s an example of that, too. Streamers use algorithms to schedule their music. Radio programmers use algorithms to schedule our music, so it’s clear that regulations which impact musical content are regulations which impact radio’s algorithms. But meanwhile, they provide an enormous advantage to our competitors, our streamers, effectively taking money from local broadcasters and just giving it away meaning, in the absence of deregulation, the only solution to asymmetrical regulation is by requiring that streamers pay into a fund and that the proceeds from that fund will be used to make conventional broadcasters whole.

11683 But if little or no proceeds from streamers are used to support conventional broadcasters, then you have not provided equitability.

11684 And one more very important point, and this one’s right from the heart. Our industry employs thousands of Canadian content creators. We are the definition of Canadian content, Canadian talent. Some of them are here on our panel this morning, and I am so proud to pass over to them for more.

11685 Mathew.

11686 MR. REISLER: Thank you, T.J., and thank you, Commissioners, for having us today.

11687 Local radio and local news, for me, is not just a passion. Fanatically cheering for my favourite hockey team, the Ottawa Senators, that is my passion. Local news and radio, that is who I am as a human being. It is what defines me.

11688 Reporting for a small rural town in Ontario in the heart of cottage country means, as much as I would like to be sometimes, I am not able to be anonymous. One day a listener called in looking for “Mat the news guy” and that stuck as my nickname and, three years later, everyone in my community calls me “Mat the news guy” still.

11689 I am a part of that community and I am there to report on stories no matter how big or how small. I have reported on a week‑long boil water advisory in 2021 that the Town of Bracebridge dealt with. We were on the air 24/7 giving updates from the Mayor, from any other official that would be willing to come on.

11690 And smaller issues like the issue of the community rink downtown not being able to open for as often as it normally would because winter was just too warm and they could not make the ice, so a local business owner decided he would take the inside of his giant building, he would flood it and he created ice that anyone in the community could use for free when the community rink was not open.

11691 As I said, no matter how big or how small the issue, I will always be there to cover both sides of it with an unbiased perspective.

11692 I care deeply about my community and the community cares deeply about their local radio station. We are one of the few factual news sources left in our community that they can rely on to go to for local news.

11693 And as someone that is only five years into my radio and journalism career, losing my station that I currently work at in Bracebridge or any of the other stations represented here today means another opportunity lost for me to further a career that I love so much in an industry that already has dwindling opportunities.

11694 Thank you.

11695 And Roxanne, please share with us your perspective.

11696 MS. GUÉRIN: Thank you, Mathew.

11697 Commissioners, good morning. My name is Roxanne, and I’m the morning host and general manager of a great radio station in Valleyfield, Quebec. I feel so lucky to work in my hometown and to inform my community.

11698 On contribue à la création du contenu en français et à la diffusion de nouvelles en français pour notre belle communauté. Dans les petits marchés, les stations locales constituent une partie tellement importante de la culture québécoise, s'il n'y a pas de ces services de nouvelles, qui va informer notre communauté des enjeux qui les touchent directement?

11699 Il y a tellement d'influence anglophone au Québec. Alors, les médias locaux francophones sont aussi importants pour la culture québécoise. Les gens s'attachent à des personnalités radio comme nous. Ils nous reconnaissent, ils nous parlent, ils nous appellent, ils nous textent, et on s'attache aussi à eux, à leur histoire aussi. Les auditeurs deviennent des amis.

11700 We cannot lose it. This is why we must continue to provide quality content and we could do this with a significant fund.

11701 I’ll pass to Chester now.

11702 MR. PANGAN: Thank you very much, Roxanne.

11703 Good morning, everybody. I’m Chester Pangan, originally from the Philippines and started broadcasting there since I was 16. Yes, it’s legal there.

11704 When I moved to Winnipeg at 21 years old, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to continue being on radio because of our local multilingual station.

11705 Now, being at it now for 28 years, I would like to see the new generation of broadcasters coming from different parts of the world to get their chance as well.

11706 What I’m trying to get here is ‑‑ out of this is inclusion. With how diverse Canada is, there is still a lot of minorities whose languages should be on the air or existing programs, for example, our Chinese radio show where we have a big population of in Winnipeg but couldn’t find a host because of funding because the local producers just ran out of money.

11707 With ample funding to support local multilingual radio stations, we’re able to find local hosts for all of our languages as spoken there, so we’re able to find their own voice, play their music, talk about their communities, what’s happening in and around other home country without having to be out of pocket or on a community volunteer basis.

11708 Thank you.

11709 T.J., back to you.

11710 MS. STEVENS: Thank you, Chester.

11711 Commissioners, before I hand over to Chris, I did want to just share a little bit about my work as a morning show host.

11712 I work for DRI, Wave 98.3 in Vancouver, Vancouver’s coolest vibe, and I am a morning show host but I am also the producer, the showrunner, the editor, the news aggregator. I am 24 hours a day, well, my waking hours, anyway, show prepping. And that means making sure I know what’s happening in my own community, across the country and around the world.

11713 I get my news from Global News, Facebook, Twitter and I get it from the rink, what are the hockey moms talking about while my moms are playing. That is what is at the heart of what I do and if there’s one things besides a cheeky little fun that we could walk away with here today, it’s that you know people like me are also providing news to our communities. Maybe not top and bottom hour, although I do that, too. Sometimes it happens in between songs.

11714 And we are here during a time of crisis in independent radio. And something that struck me about that video that you guys saw here, and maybe it’s because I’m in the room here with you today, is that three of the incredibly talented broadcasters that you saw in that video have lost their jobs from layoffs since they recorded that. And that is why we are here today and asking for your support.

11715 Commissioners, we’re hearing about station closures and more programming layoffs every day. Our industry is experiencing dark times. We need your support, and we need it now.

11716 Chris.

11717 MR. PEARSON: Thank you, Tara Jean.

11718 We look forward to answering your questions this morning, and that’s the end of our presentation.

11719 THE SECRETARY: Thank you very much.

11720 We’ll now hear the presentation of Byrnes Communication. Please introduce yourself and you may begin.

Présentation

11721 MR. BYRNES: Thank you.

11722 Good morning, Commissioners and CRTC staff. I get that we’re the last group to present to you and we stand between you and your weekend, so we’ll try and be brief.

11723 My name is Chris Byrnes from Byrnes Communications, and I own and operate three FM radio stations in Ontario.

11724 To my left is Marcie Culbert, who’s our News Director and morning show host on 104.7 Heart FM in Woodstock. Behind Marcie is Dan Henry, our Program Director and morning show host of 104.7 Heart FM. Dan’s been with us since day one.

11725 Beside Dan is Geoff Waterfield from our Niagara Falls newsroom, and also part of our morning show on 105.1, The River, in Niagara Falls.

11726 Commissioners, I’ve worked in the radio industry for 45 years. I got my start as an announcer in Timaru, New Zealand at 3ZC in 1978.

11727 Over the years, I worked my way up through the programming ranks into management and became a part owner of a company that operated 18 FM radio stations, which we sold in 1997. That’s what brought me to Canada.

11728 Today I own and operate three FM radio stations in three Ontario markets, but we are struggling. Unregulated foreign streamers compete for our listeners. Foreign media giants steal our news stories and then sell digital advertising right in our market. Both groups directly compete with us for revenue, and our share of revenue continues to shrink.

11729 Canadian broadcasters have been telling the CRTC for some time that we need less regulation. We need the flexibility to operate in a modernized ecosystem that can adapt to a borderless digital world.

11730 Commissioners, radio in this country plays a lot more than just 35 percent Canadian content. All our staff in each of our radio stations are Canadian content creators, and I have brought three of them with me today so you can hear directly from some very talented Canadian talent.

11731 MS. CULBERT: Good morning. My name is Marcie Culbert, and I am the News Director and Morning Show Co‑host for Heart FM in Woodstock, Ontario. I have spent most of my career with Byrnes Communications, starting out as the Community Cruiser Reporter for Heart FM about a year and a half after getting my journalism diploma in 2014.

11732 I was born and raised in Oxford County. Growing up, we had four local newspapers, the Woodstock Sentinel Review, the Tillsonburg News, the Ingersoll Times, and the Norwich Gazette, which is where I actually did my high school co‑op and where I developed my passion for local news.

11733 The Ingersoll Times and the Norwich Gazette have since closed down. The Tillsonburg News is now known as the Norfolk and Tillsonburg News, with its reporters now split between Norfolk County and Tillsonburg. The Woodstock Sentinel Review is still around, but it's now online only, based out of the London Free Press building, and it doesn't report local news stories nearly as often as it used to.

11734 So Heart FM is hands down the primary local news leader in Oxford County. For example, our local election coverage is unmatched. During elections, our small news team reaches out to every single candidate in the County so we can provide profile stories about them. And we also provide election night coverage so our listeners have access to those results as soon as possible.

11735 An example of a smaller story that is important to our local listeners was our breaking of the news that Norwich Township was introducing a flag policy bylaw that only allows for government flags to be flown on Township property.

11736 The people of Oxford County rely on us to provide the important information they need to know in a timely manner which is why we need your support.

11737 MR. HENRY: Good morning. My name is Dan Henry.

11738 I've worked in radio over 25 years and, as Chris mentioned, 17 of them in Woodstock.

11739 Local radio has impact, reflects community, engages, informs and does so with immediacy. In 2009, eight‑year‑old Tori Stafford from Woodstock went missing. The investigation and search for Tori lasted more than three months.

11740 During this gut‑wrenching time, there was a lot of community speculation. Many had targeted the family, specifically Tori’s mom, Tara. As a local station, we stuck to the facts and continued to profile the situation until the unfortunate truth was finally revealed. It would take another two years to convict the two culprits and Heart FM was in London when the verdict came down and we took it to air on the Friday evening of Mother’s Day weekend.

11741 Another great example of local radio in 2011, our weekend anchor was looking out the station’s front window and noticed a lot of smoke in the west end. Upon arriving at the fire, he discovered a 22‑unit apartment building engulfed in flames and the majority of it actually reduced to rubble. The video he took that morning went to the national media later in the day.

11742 Our entire team were called in to help get information on the air, and we later find out some 40 people would be displaced, many injured and two deaths occurred.

11743 If it was not for Heart FM, who would tell Woodstock and Oxford County these stories?

11744 Local news and information is critical to our listeners and the region.

11745 MR. WATERFIELD: Hello, everyone. My name is Geoff Waterfield, and I'm the morning co‑host on 105 The River in Niagara Falls, and the morning news anchor for The River and More FM, which are two radio stations in the same building. And let me say for my radio colleagues here who are used to speaking into a microphone in a booth by ourselves, it’s a little out of place speaking on front of you all, but we’re getting through this just fine.

11746 If it wasn't for a local radio station newsroom, and adequately staffed, which, of course, is a major theme that you’re hearing here, listeners would not hear about what's going on in their community. Many turn to social media. They grab their phone, but we all know the reliability of grabbing your phone and looking at social media.

11747 Also, the importance of including audio in a newscast helps us tell a stronger story.

11748 Now, a major recent story that everybody knows about, including the whole, was the closure of the Canada/U.S. border due to a car crashing into the Customs booth on the Rainbow Bridge American side of the border a couple of weeks ago, initially leading to international speculation of terrorism and explosives involved.

11749 I spent overtime in the newsroom making sure all platforms, both on air and website, were updated, monitoring police and accredited media outlets in the U.S. The importance of our radio stations was never greater that day, especially in the face of social media.

11750 In the Niagara region, last year there was a snowstorm that left a water treatment plan out of commission. Workers had a hard time getting to it and people were stranded at the Walmart. Only local radio could give people the information they needed aside from checking their phones and social media, but again I think I’ve made myself clear on my thoughts on that.

11751 Another story we recently covered was the Niagara region setting up speed cameras in a variety of cities in the Niagara region because there is the regional government and then there are individual city governments. Those speed cameras upset a lot of people due to the design of the cameras and how tickets were handed out. I used audio of a city councillor giving his opinion, which greatly added to the story.

11752 A newsroom needs people ‑‑ people to research the stories, find the audio, accurately present it, which can be a problem with the lack of people, and present it on air.

11753 Thank you.

11754 MR. BYRNES: In addition to news, we also help many nonprofit organizations in our community, an example being the Woodstock Hospital where we’ve run an annual Radio‑a‑Thon and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past 17 years. We support local musicians not only by playing their music, but we also conduct live in‑studio interviews, and we’ve run things like ‘Oxford’s Got Talent’.

11755 We are currently running our annual ‘Stuff the Bus’ promotion, where we gather and work with the community to gather a busload of toys and work with local community organizations to ensure that every child in need in our county gets a toy at Christmas. We are doing a coat drive in one of our markets. And the list goes on and on.

11756 Additionally, we provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in free airtime every year, further assisting organizations in our community. But if local radio stations close, many of these organizations will suffer.

11757 Commissioners, I cannot overstress how important it is that you act quickly to bring much needed regulatory and financial relief to our industry. You have watched local newspapers shutter their doors; you have seen AM Radio stations shut off their transmitters and return the licenses to the CRTC; and you have seen mass layoffs of staff in radio stations across the country.

11758 Radio is now often the only local media in many Canadian markets, and if we are forced out of business, who will provide the critical local information our listeners, businesses and governments rely on? If we are forced out of business, there will be no radio stations to play the 35 percent Canadian content, or the five percent emerging artists. Please do not let Canadian radio fail under your watch.

11759 Thank you so much for allowing us to present today, and we look forward to your questions.

11760 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much for being here, and we know that many of you have traveled to be here with us in Gatineau today. So, thank you for that. We feel that you could read the panel’s minds because we did want to ask that the panelists who are on the frontlines speak to us a little bit about what you’re seeing, and certainly you’ve done that very ably, some of it uplifting, some of it very troubling, but we thank you for sharing your personal experiences with us.

11761 I will turn things over to our Vice‑Chair for Telecommunications, Adam Scott, to kick things off. Thank you.

11762 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Good morning, everybody. It is a large group; I’m wondering, if you’re all here, who is running radio?

‑‑‑ Rires

11763 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: So, I would strongly encourage you to make the best use of our time. Don’t feel the need that everyone needs to answer every question; maybe pick a spokesperson or two, and we’ll try to cover a lot of ground.

11764 I wanted to start by asking, how many members of the Association of Broadcasters have online presence? And do your online activities generate any revenues? And should those revenues be captured in the regulatory framework?

11765 MR. PEARSON: I’ll ask Doug Bingley to answer that question.

11766 MR. BINGLEY: Virtually every one of our members has an online presence. In the case of my own organization, the local newspaper closed and we saw an opportunity, first to provide local news that was lacking, and secondly perhaps as a product extension that could help stabilize our financing. So, that’s very important.

11767 One of the challenges we face, frankly, is that we have a couple of new competitors in the marketplace that are online only, and they are funded by the Government of Canada. They are funded through the Local Journalism Initiative, and they are also funded through the Labour Journalism Fund. So, that’s a problem for us. I added two people to be able to cover this. My competitors virtually have half of their staff covered by the Government of Canada.

11768 So, when you talk about a level playing field, that is a real problem for us. Not only do I have to compete with streamers, I now have to compete with new entrants who are funded by the Government of Canada, and aside from community journalists, community radio, we are specifically excluded from that fund. Now, in terms of tracking that, I believe that when we do fill in the forms at year‑end, we do indicate revenue from other sources and specify that, so that information is available to you.

11769 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Okay. Would you say that fairly typical? Most of your people in similar shoes have similar outcomes?

11770 MR. BINGLEY: Absolutely. In one way or another, that’s the situation, yes.

11771 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Thank you.

11772 MR. PEARSON: I would echo that as well, and part of having those extra entities, I guess you would call them, compared to our traditional broadcasting, is it takes resources to make sure that those get updated and we keep track of them. So, you know, with smaller staffs, it stretches our resources even more, but they are a necessity of our industry right now, so.

11773 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Thank you. I’ll direct my second question to Mr. Byrnes first, but if the OAB wants to jump in as well.

11774 So, one of the fundamental questions we’re wrestling with is how to bring the streamers into the regulatory framework, and whether or not an initial contribution should be part of that. If there are incremental dollars coming in, is the public better off with those dollars offsetting the costs for radio, versus those incremental dollars flowing directly into funds targeted at production of Canadian content? So, can you kind of connect the dots between how support for radio leads to outcomes under the Act being met, and how that compares to money going into other funds?

11775 MR. BYRNES: Thank you for the question, Commissioner Scott. Firstly, I would say that Canadian radio has actually been paying money since 1919. We pay SOCAN fees, and so we’ve actually done all that heavy lifting for so long. You know, the streamers have frankly had a free ride up until this point, and we think that’s just unfair.

11776 You know, Canadian radio have actually made superstars out of so many Canadian artists, and we’ve been happy to do so. And we provide that discoverability not only across our airwaves, but across all our streaming as well. So, you know, listeners from around the world have been discovering Canadian music by listening to Canadian radio stations.

11777 So, to sum it up, I think that the critical thing here is that it’s time for the streamers to actually start and pay their share. And by funneling some of that money into the Canadian broadcasting system will actually ensure our financial viability. Our revenue has been eroded away by the foreign digital streaming and various other foreign digital services for a number of years. You know, in one of my markets, I’m down half a million dollars. That’s a significant amount of money, and it makes it challenging for me to operate a radio station where 35 percent of every dollar that comes in the door goes directly into programming.

11778 And so, if the Commission sees fit to force these streamers to actually pay money into a fund, it will actually enable me to go back and do something like return weekend news to my radio station. That was one of the things that I had to cut when our revenue plummeted. And so, you know, Marcie on my left got her start doing weekend news on our radio stations. It was a training ground, and we all know that weekend listening is often different than weekday listening. You know, on the weekends, we’re in our sweats and perhaps we listen to a different radio station. And so, when I had to give up doing weekend news, I have to tell you, it really ‑‑ it really hurt me. And so, I hope that answers your question.

11779 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: That was definitely helpful, yes.

11780 So, one of the things I don’t think I heard this morning in the opening remarks is, what’s the size of the fund that you think you need to meet the objectives you’re hoping to achieve?

11781 MR. PEARSON: I’m going to ask Doug to comment on that.

11782 MR. BINGLEY: Yeah. Two parts to that. You’ve heard various groups say this percent, that percent ‑‑ this percent goes here, this percent goes there ‑‑ but the real issue is, what’s needed, and why? So, perhaps, Wendy, you could address that briefly, and we’ll come to a number in a second.

11783 MS. GRAY: Good morning. We believe a fund should include both news and programming salaries. In today’s environment, content is not appointment‑tuning anymore. People don’t just listen to the six o’clock news as they do on television. And radio has this wonderful ability to spread information throughout the day. It’s a truly collaborative environment where news reporters gather information, they share it with on‑air hosts, they talk about it, and then the on‑air hosts continue it throughout the day, updating with the information from the newspeople.

11784 Second, this is an important component of public safety. We tell people when they need to leave their homes, shore up their homes, and stay off the roads. All of those important community aspects ‑‑ we cover. And it’s not just the newspeople that are covering it; it’s our show hosts as well, with the assistance of the news reporters.

11785 Third, by including all programming, we come up with a meaningful and effective amount to ensure stations have enough money to stay on the air. Some of the amounts we’ve heard work out to about $17,000 a station. And while that’s incredibly helpful, it’s not enough to be effective.

11786 MS. GUÉRIN: Commissioners, if I can add a point. As Wendy said, it’s fine to support news positions, but if the station doesn’t have enough money to stay in operation and to stay alive, there is no place to distribute the news.

11787 Donc, quand l’argent arrive dans une station plus petite ‑‑ je prends la mienne comme exemple à Valleyfield ‑‑ ça ne peut pas juste être un montant symbolique. Il faut que ça ait du sens pour être plus efficace, puis pour nous permettre de rester en vie.

11788 MS. GRAY: So, here’s how we justify a fund. We invest approximately $400 million into Canadian programming expenditures. We produce approximately 400 thousand hours of Canadian content. That includes news and support for our local communities. We provide employment for thousands of Canadians. We support musicians. We provide programming in both official languages and programming for multicultural groups. We provide support for local charities. If you look around at almost every radio station in Canada over the next two weeks, everyone is running a radio‑thon to help support organizations that support people in need, and this year, that’s incredibly important. Emergencies and emergency services ‑‑ we support them as well. We are listened to by 70 percent of Canadians; 28 million people depend on local radio.

11789 This will also help balance the asymmetrical regulation that we are dealing with. So, to summarize, our goals are: a fund that creates the support of local news and information; and funding that has to be enough to significantly improve station viability and partially offset the impact of asymmetrical regulation.

11790 So, here’s the math. Independent news salaries are approximately 182 million; 25 percent of that is 46 million, and if you add in non‑independent stations, that rises to 65 million. This amount supports local news and information. It also is enough to improve overall station viability, and it works out to about $90,000 per year per station, which is a significant amount if it will make the difference in our communities whether we keep our stations open or whether we don’t.

11791 Thank you.

11792 Doug, do you have anything to add?

11793 MR. BINGLEY: Yes. I think, you know, the real raison d'être for this hearing is, should streamers contribute, how much, and where does it go? And we realize you have some very difficult choices before you; there are so many things in the Broadcasting Act that have been put forward.

11794 And so, the first point I’d like to make is, if I were assessing this, I’d be saying, “Okay, what do the groups need; what do they really need?” and we’d come up with a total. “What is available from streamers?” Come up with a total. And then you say, “Well, there’s a difference between the two” ‑‑ presumably ‑‑ then you get into triage: “What’s the most urgent issue? What needs to be addressed first?”

11795 And then, finally, this is in response to a new Broadcasting Act, and Parliament has made known what they want to have come out as an outcome from the broadcasting system, and implicit in that is the need for funds, and frankly, I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s all up to the Commission. At the end of the day, I think if you identify a funding gap, when you recognize the fact that Heritage spends approximately a billion dollars a year supporting different funds and different individual organizations, if there is a small funding shortfall I think it’s incumbent upon the government to make the difference in that.

11796 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Thank you. So, I’m going to jump to my last question, in the interest of time, and it’s a bit of a broad one. The OAB submission uses the line that the media landscape has changed dramatically, which I think everyone would agree to, and that the solution is basically to subsidize local radio.

11797 How would you respond to folks who think that that sounds like maybe an old‑fashioned solution? Or can you convince us that local radio is actually transitioning to something modern and effective, as opposed to being stuck in the past? That dichotomy of, internet’s disrupted things/the solution is local radio ‑‑ I think some might see that as a bit disconnected. So, make the case that local radio is a modern, effective way of achieving the objectives of the Broadcasting Act in the internet age.

11798 MR. BYRNES: Thank you for the question. You know, if somebody sat you down today and said, “I’ve got this amazing new invention; it’s one hundred percent free to listen to, and it covers a large amount of geography,” you’d be kind of intrigued and interested in that, I think. Unfortunately for us, it was invented over a hundred years ago. And along have come all these other new shiny objects, but reality is that radio is still as relevant today ‑‑ in fact, you may argue even more so, in the situation of fake news and what’s actually happening on social media.

11799 You know, our journalists are often unfortunately put in dangerous situations because of what’s actually happening around us. We’re doing our best to report the news, and yet our journalists have often actually ‑‑ we’ve taken our logos off our vehicles and we’re not wearing station‑branded clothing anymore.

11800 And Marcie, you know, I think you have had experiences with similar situations. Do you want to talk about that for a moment?

11801 MS. CULBERT: The first situation that kind of comes to mind is when I referred to when Norwich Township was talking about introducing this flag policy bylaw. It stirred up a lot of ‑‑ I guess ‘controversy’ is the word I’m looking for ‑‑ in the Township, because there is on one end a very religious population that was very against the idea of Pride flags going up in town for Pride Month, while there was a local Pride community who obviously wanted them up. So, when they found out that this Township Council meeting was happening, it was by far one of the most attended Township Council meetings ever.

11802 And so, obviously, I wanted to make sure to cover it, but at the time we were very understaffed and I had to make the decision as to how to go about covering it. The other thing to keep in mind is, this is my hometown. Everyone here knows me, regardless if I wear the Heart FM logo or not.

11803 So, in order to cover this and to make sure to get the information out as soon as possible, I chose to cover it from a livestream from my very own bedroom. That way, I could get all the information, hear everything clearly, take notes, do all that, and I didn’t have to worry about what side of the room I’m sitting on because it doesn’t matter I believe; I am a journalist. I have to be completely unbiased and tell the story.

11804 And I was worried, just a matter of where in the room I’m sitting, I would get attacked. And I know for a fact that I am not the only journalist out there who has been in situations like this before.

11805 MR. REISLER: Yes, thank you Marcie. I faced a similar situation that when I covered an anti‑2SLGBTQ+I protest similar to what Marcie dealt with. I was fearful of being known. I was fearful of being seen. I covered myself up ‑‑ big jacket, big hat, pair of glasses that covered my entire face. Unfortunately, unlike Marcie, I did not have the ability to watch it from home. I had to be there; it was a story I had to cover.

11806 I went. I spoke to both sides. I got both sides of the coin ‑‑ the protesters, the counter‑protesters that were organized by the local Pride group ‑‑ because that is a story that matters to our community, and it was a story that no one other than myself or the other ‑‑ the few remaining local journalists in my community ‑‑ would cover. But our community of many people that listen to us ‑‑ they care. They need to hear that story. They want to know what is going on.

11807 Thank you.

11808 MR. BYRNES: So, just to wrap that up, I would respectfully suggest that it’s a little unfair to paint radio as old and undated. Radio is as relevant today as it’s ever been. You heard earlier the statistic of 78 percent of Canadians tune to local radio each and every week. And that’s an incredible, I think positive, number. There are lots of other organizations that would like to have a 78‑percent market share.

11809 So, I think our challenge is actually not a listening challenge; we’ve got lots of listeners. Our challenge is a financial challenge that these streamers and foreign digital players have been allowed to come into our markets and scoop out all sort of revenue without paying any taxes, without contributing to the Canadian cultural process in any way.

11810 And I’m so pleased to see the Canadian government and the CRTC actually stepping up to potentially do something about this. But the way you act and what actually has to happen is so critical ‑‑ it has to happen quickly ‑‑ that you can’t take two years to think about it, to get it just right, as some of the others have suggested. Because I have to tell you, two years from now, there will be a lot fewer radio stations in this country, and once they’re gone, you can’t get them back.

11811 So, we’re not in an old‑fashioned industry. We still have lots of listeners, and we’re still very impactful in our communities. But that takes resources in order to do it.

11812 I hope that answers your question.

11813 MR. BINGLEY: And if I may interject, Vice‑Chair Scott, I was asked this question from Heritage. They said, “So, you’re asking us to prop up an obsolete ‑‑ technologically obsolete industry?” And the fact is, we are making the transition to IP; 10 to 15 percent of our content is streamed now. That transition is going to continue. You’ve heard very well said from some of our people here that, regardless of technology, you have to gather the information, you have to present it to the public, and the public is still after that.

11814 You asked earlier about our transition to extending our news online in alphanumeric format. We do that. We use new technology such as having people text right into the on‑air control room, so in real time we can comment on that. Our sales departments have adapted to approach the marketplace differently, and my company does this, and Chris Pearson's as well. We set up small ad agencies and we're able to go to clients and bring them solutions which include things like search engine optimization in addition to radio advertising.

11815 So we're taking a lot of steps to modernize. We are adapting. We are changing. And we're not simply asking for a handout. We're asking for a hand up because as we're doing that, you know, it's like, you know, when you're up to your ears in alligators, the original objective is to drain the swamp. And we're up to our ears in alligators. So we're trying to do all these things while battling a loss of revenue in the short term and addressing that. And that's quite the challenge.

11816 MS. GUÉRIN: And if I can add something to it, we are still relevant. I teach at the local high school in Quebec, and I teach young people radio. And they are so passionate about radio at such a young age. So in a world of Spotify, Amazon, Netflix, and everything else that is on the market, I think we have a good generation that is coming to do radio, to work in radio stations in Canada. And it's really beautiful to see them so passionate already about radio. But sometimes I don't know what to say to them because we need that fund, and we need them to work with us. But for that, we need money to continue our mission. But there's still a younger generation that is super interested by this great media. Thank you.

11817 MR. WATERFIELD: Can I ‑‑ real quickly.

11818 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Yeah.

11819 MR. WATERFIELD: Adding to that relevance of radio now, with that, the border crossing, the closure of the Rainbow Bridge ‑‑ London, England, called me up and I did a live report on a London, England, talk radio station talking about that issue. So radio is still relevant, big time.

11820 MR. PANGAN: Another quick one, sir. I apologize.

11821 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: And then I'm cutting you all off.

‑‑‑ Rires

11822 MR. PANGAN: As a matter of fact, when the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau visited Winnipeg, we are the only radio station that he would visit, that he would go to. The one and only. Not even on TV, not even on streaming, not even on anything, online ‑‑ we are the only radio station, 92.7 CKJS. We're on there, and it's the only radio station he would go to, he would speak to, and he would be interviewed in. So thank you.

11823 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Great. Thanks. It's been wonderful to get those perspectives and examples, and delightful to have your radio voices in the room with us today.

11824 Madam Chair, I'll stop there.

11825 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thank you very much. And I know we've covered a lot of ground. I think it's very important, the messaging that you just got out as well. I mean, we hear you on the connection to your communities and the impact that you have on your communities. I think it's important what you've covered in terms of how you're evolving in this constantly disrupted universe that we're living in, so how you're continuing to evolve is helpful to get on the record.

11826 We would like to turn things back over to you for concluding thoughts. Thank you.

11827 MR. BINGLEY: Go ahead, Chris.

11828 MR. PEARSON: You'll just have to give me one second.

11829 MR. BINGLEY: I'm sorry, did you wish us to begin or Chris Byrnes?

11830 THE CHAIRPERSON: It's up to you.

11831 MR. BINGLEY: You go ahead, Chris.

11832 MR. BYRNES: Well, thank you again, Commissioners, for allowing us to speak to you today. it's not lost on us that this is the last day of the hearings. So Commissioners, I urge you to act quickly to get these funds flowing to radio stations as soon as possible. Do not make the same mistake that was made with newspapers, when money started flowing too late and 140 newspapers in Ontario closed.

11833 We need the CRTC to reduce regulation and allow a more flexible approach to enable us to meet the needs of our listeners and pivot as required. We need money to pay our staff, because our revenue is down 45 per cent or more. Doing so will mean we can retain staff. And if you like the OAB's suggestion of an additional fund that will provide incentives to radio stations to play Canadian music and emerging artists, that will help us greatly as well.

11834 Thank you again for allowing us to present to you today. Merry Christmas.

11835 MR. BINGLEY: Thanks, Chris, for that.

11836 Just before I have a couple of closing remarks I'd like to make, but I would like to point out one issue, and it's kind of a tale of two media. One is the newspaper industry, one is the radio industry. And similar to each other, they're both in crisis, newspaper a little bit in advance of us, but a real problem situation for them.

11837 And the government took a couple of different approaches. With newspaper, they addressed it directly. Let's get at it. Within a year of 45 local papers closing, they had a fund in place.

11838 They took the legislative approach through the Broadcasting Act when it came to radio. And radio has a similar problem. We have an important cultural industry in crisis. What are we going to do about that? And as part of the legislative approach, they came up with a Broadcasting Act that had to cover what's going to happen over the next 10 to 15 years. It had to include so many things. And they're all very important things. But it's important we don't lose sight of the core problem, which is broadcasting is in danger the same way as the news industry is, the print journalism. So I think that's an important point.

11839 In terms of closing remarks, I'd like to mention, on a personal note, this isn't the first time I've been in this room. I was here for the first time in 1986. I was considering applying for a radio licence. I came here to see what went on, and I decided I was going to apply for a licence. And I have to tell you I felt a little bit ridiculous at the time, an ordinary citizen applying for a licence. The general belief was only large corporations and well‑connected individuals could apply for a licence.

11840 But you did award me and my group a licence, and it's been a wonderful 35 years since then. I got to work with some very talented people, and I've impacted the community. It's been a wonderful thing. But equally important to that was one day I realized the system works. And that gave me real faith in the system. And it was wonderful.

11841 I do wonder, though, and sometimes lately, is the system working? We have a situation in this country where we have all these things you described all in danger. And the Government of Canada seems to be focused almost solely on traditional newspaper journalism, and they provide not one thin dime of support for radio. And we're the only creative industry that does not receive any support. And given the current situation, I think that the demise of local radio would represent an enormous failure of public policy. There's no other way to describe it. And I haven't seen much hope, frankly, from the government signalling they want to do something other than a general Broadcasting Act.

11842 But after the last few weeks, I have to say, I do have some hope. I've seen your comments. I've seen clearly today your attention and that you recognize the value of local radio. So I just want to say in closing that I thank you for your attention, for your incredible stamina for the last three weeks. And all I can say is I still believe in the system. Thank you very much.

11843 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you so much ‑‑ as do we. Thank you very much for being here, for sharing your personal experiences and stories with us. We really appreciate it.

11844 THE SECRETARY: Thank you. We will take a short break and be back at 11:05.

‑‑‑ Suspension à 10 h 57

‑‑‑ Reprise à 11 h 05

11845 THE SECRETARY: Welcome back. We'll now hear the next presenter. Please introduce yourself, and you may begin. Oh, sorry, please open your mic. Yes.

Présentation

11846 MR. McCULLOUGH: This one? Okay, there we go, awesome. Okay.

11847 Hello friends, my name is J.J. McCullough. I am a professional YouTuber from Vancouver. I make videos in my apartment where I tell stories about history and culture, with a focus on educating the world about Canada.

11848 Over the last two years, I have been a high‑profile critic of the former Bill C‑11 within the community of professional Canadian YouTubers. Now that C‑11 has become law, I am eager to speak to you today to ensure that the perspectives of my large, important, and ever‑growing community within the Canadian cultural economy are heard.

11849 A professional YouTuber is someone who uploads videos to a channel on YouTube.com on a regular basis and whose videos are popular enough to generate enough revenue to make a living. YouTube, as I'm sure you guys all know, puts ads in videos, and some of the revenue that those ads generate is shared with the people who make and upload the videos. Many YouTubers also make money by selling merchandise or doing live shows and things like that.

11850 YouTube has become the Internet's largest and most influential online video platform, which I'm sure you guys also already know, and Canadians have been extraordinarily successful on it. It's been said that Canadians may even be YouTube's most successful nationality per capita.

11851 My own channel has over 900,000 subscribers with videos that are usually watched by a minimum of about 100,000 people each. For the last few years, I have been making a comfortable six‑figure income doing this, which I would say is normal for a channel of my size.

11852 It's worth noting, however, that my channel isn't even that big. According to the website Social Blade, which keeps track of such things, I'm only Canada's 358th most popular YouTuber. There are over a thousand Canadians who have YouTube channels with over 100,000 subscribers. There are over a hundred Canadians with YouTube channels that have over 4 million subscribers.

11853 I have a lot of friends who are professional Canadian YouTubers, and I've met with countless others at various YouTuber gatherings across North America as well as their editors, assistants, and other employees. I am always impressed at what a diverse community we are in every sense of the word. Our opinions on the Online Streaming Act, however, tend to be pretty unified, however. One thing I really want to emphasize is that there is no widespread sense among Canadian YouTubers that ours is a community that is struggling or in need of government assistance.

11854 Success or failure on YouTube is not analogous to success or failure in traditional media realms like television, movies, recorded music, or radio. The barriers to entry are much lower, with the variables of popularity much more clearly democratic and meritocratic.

11855 I would like to talk about my friend Brogan as a case study. Brogan started his YouTube channel, which is called Art Chad, in 2021, to make videos about art and culture. Originally from Truro, Nova Scotia, he recently moved to Toronto in part to be around more Canadian YouTubers. Brogan works as a bartender and makes videos in his free time. His channel has been growing steadily and recently passed 40,000 subscribers. If trends continue, his YouTube ad revenue will be enough for him to do YouTube full time.

11856 Brogan makes videos in the living room of his small basement suite apartment with a simple camera and tripod. He edits them all himself, doing the graphics and sounds on his own computer. Brogan has benefited from being part of a large and supportive professional YouTuber community in Toronto. They give him feedback on his video ideas; they exchange editing tips; and they share knowledge about the life of a professional YouTuber. But Brogan is also the architect of his own success. Whether he succeeds or fails on YouTube will depend on whether he has the self‑discipline and time‑management skills necessary to produce videos at a regular pace, whether he has the creativity to make videos that are fun and engaging to watch, and whether he understands the public well enough to make content that they will actually want to watch.

11857 I believe professional YouTubers and other professional Internet content creators increasingly form the backbone of Canada's 21st‑century cultural economy. And by and large, we are doing well because we know what it takes to do well.

11858 In the context of the CRTC's current deliberations, the point I most want to emphasize is that the Online Streaming Act must not be implemented in a manner that would punish the success of professional online content creators in order to create financial subsidies for legacy media. Without putting too fine of a point on it, our material success should not be redistributed to artists, entertainers, and media corporations who have proven less adept at adjusting to the Internet age.

11859 People talk about how the rise of the Internet has created winners and losers in Canada's cultural economy, but I would hope that the success of Canada's professional online content creator community would be understood as an inspiring story of self‑directed entrepreneurship, and not an example of how big tech platforms have robbed money or fame from others.

11860 Canada's professional YouTubers and other online content creators are thriving in spite of government being relatively oblivious to us. I would hope that the Act will be implemented in such a way as to maintain this status quo of benign neglect to the maximum extent. Thank you.

11861 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. And on behalf of the Panel, thank you for making the decision to participate in the proceedings and for being here with us, sharing your story, your friend Brogan's story. It's very helpful for us to have that perspective.

11862 I will turn things over to my colleague Commission Naidoo to ask some questions. Thank you.

11863 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Hi.

11864 MR. McCULLOUGH: Hi.

11865 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thanks so much for being here today. I know you came a long way from B.C. So and also I think you win the prize for the most interesting computer, so thank you for that.

11866 MR. McCULLOUGH: Oh, thank you. It's all my stickers.

11867 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: It's very visual.

11868 So I just wanted to ask you a few question. In your intervention, you mentioned the importance of recognizing the existence of professional video content creators as a specific class of persons, and thus the existence of their interests in the Canadian broadcasting system.

11869 MR. McCULLOUGH: Yes.

11870 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: But the Act actually applies to undertakings, which is basically to say services, and it doesn't apply to creators. So I wanted to just dive down a little bit and find out, in your approach, would you say that we should treat professional video content creators as undertakings?

11871 MR. McCULLOUGH: Well, I know that this is kind of the hot issue, which is like, well, what ‑‑ is content created by users sort of within this jurisdiction. And I talked a bit about that in my submission as well, that I feel like when we talk about sort of user‑created content, you know, creator content in general, I feel like there's a kind of a colloquial understanding of what that means, and then there's kind of an understanding of what people in my community understand that to mean, which is something very different.

11872 And that's why I was sort of saying that I think that there would be some use, even if that use is just to clarify that when we talk about creators, when we talk about for example like users who upload content to social media sites, which I think is like some of the language that's used in the Act and in the policy directive, I think it might be useful to clarify that if, in your perspective, if what I do does not fall under the definition of what it is to be engaged in a broadcast undertaking, then I think it might be worthwhile to just clarify that explicitly, to sort of say, that ...

11873 Because, for example, there is a line in the policy directive where it's describing, you know, this idea of that content creation of individual people is not under the jurisdiction, so on and so forth. And so there's a line that says:

11874     “social media elements of their services, which includes any content created and uploaded by everyday users (commonly known as user‑generated content).”

11875 So like that sort of language, for instance, like that, when somebody like me reads that, “uploaded by everyday users,” like am I an everyday user? I don't know. Like I'm a professional. Like this is my whole livelihood, right?

11876 So that kind of I think gets my community a little bit nervous because we sort of think like, well, some of this language ‑‑ and I said in my statement as well, you know, the kind of the colloquial conversations, we're not coming after your cat videos and that kind of thing, it creates the idea that, you know, there's a class of person that's sort of uploading frivolous content, and that is sort of rightly and everybody can agree that that should not be under the purview of the Act. But then if we think that there is this huge community of people that make a living, you know, through uploading content, who perhaps have employees who, you know, have tons and tons of subscribers and this sort of thing, I think that if ...

11877 I would not want to be, to answer your question, sorry, to just answer it directly, no, I do not think that we are engaged in broadcast undertakings. But I can see how someone might interpret some of the language in the Act as suggesting we are. So if we are understood not to be, I would like that to be very explicit by saying that that even includes people who are uploading content on a sort of professional basis, generating revenues from the content that they upload, which is also something that comes up in part of the Act as well that I would like to see addressed.

11878 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Well, thank you for that. So you're basically saying that the language needs to be clarified.

11879 MR. McCULLOUGH: It does.

11880 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: So I wanted to get your take, then. How would you define the difference between a professional video content creator versus social media creator?

11881 MR. McCULLOUGH: Well, I think that social media creator ‑‑ I don't know what that means. Right? Like it is, as again, like what we said, the quote that I just read you from the Act where it sort of says includes content uploaded by everyday users, and that's “commonly known as user‑generated content,” like that is a problematic definition.

11882 But then also there's another part of sort of the policy directive where it says a social media creator

11883     “means a person who creates programs that are primarily intended for online distribution as user‑uploaded programs through social media services.”

11884 So it's like these two sort of different parts seem to contradict, in my opinion. So you're talking about people that

11885     “create[...] programs that are primarily intended for online distribution as user‑uploaded programs through social media services”

11886 ‑‑ but then elsewhere in the policy directive, it sort of says

11887     “content created and uploaded by everyday users”

11888 ‑‑ which suggests that there's multiple classes of people that engage with social media services, if that makes sense. I'm sorry, I didn't completely ‑‑

11889 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: I think it does make sense. Yeah, I ‑‑

11890 MR. McCULLOUGH: Yeah, can you just state that again, though, because I want to make sure that I'm giving you a good answer to what ask. So you're talking about like the thing that I do as distinct from a social media user?

11891 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Creator.

11892 MR. McCULLOUGH: Creator. Yeah, so, there is part of the Online Streaming Act, section 4.2(1), that says that you guys are obligated to consider the extent to which a program uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service directly or indirectly generates revenue. And that part, section 4.2(1), has been a huge source of contention in my community because of that little qualifier at the end, which suggests that there this other sort of class of social media user, a social media user that uploads content to an online undertaking but then proceeds to directly or indirectly generate revenue, and that this is supposed to be something that you guys are supposed to, you know, “consider.” Right?

11893 So when we consider that sort of language coupled with this, the policy directive's acknowledgement that there exists something called an everyday user, and then that in turn viewed in the context of the existence of someone who's just a social media creator, right, like all of these sort of terms, they seem to conflict and be contradictory and be confusing and ambiguous. And I just think some clarity is needed there.

11894 And I know ‑‑ sorry to just add one other thing ‑‑ because I know that you guys have explicitly solicited feedback on what even is social media, right, which is this whole other sort of can of worms unto itself, right. You know, there are some people that would say that YouTube is not social media. There's plenty of people that would say it is. But then to kind of come up with a definition where, you know, YouTube and, you know, X and Facebook are in one category, but then something like Spotify, like is Spotify social media? It has like aspects of it, but not. So I do think that some closure into just what even social media is, is necessary as well.

11895 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Right, and so definitions of course are important, semantics are important. And I'm going to stick with that for a second, because I think it's ‑‑

11896 MR. McCULLOUGH: Yeah, yeah, I like it.

11897 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO:  ‑‑ part of what this is all about. So Meta, Google, and TikTok all support a very broad definition of social media service.

11898 MR. McCULLOUGH: Okay.

11899 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: And the reason that they do that is so that that definition can easily adapt to rapid technological developments and changes, right. TikTok also highlights that professional or commercial content, in their view, is very difficult to define. Google specifies that distinctions between amateur and professional content would involve very invasive data collection requirements and it would also involve developing new algorithms.

11900 So you've touched on a little bit of the language argument. And I'm wondering if you can comment on these positions by these big players.

11901 MR. McCULLOUGH: Yeah no, I mean I agree with them. Like broadly speaking, me and I think a lot of people within my community are kind of on the same side as a lot of the tech platforms as far as these kinds of conversations go, which is that we don't really want to see our content audited in any sort of invasive way, as you said, in which, you know, the CRTC or whoever is kind of going over our content with a sort of fine comb to determine, like, when we've crossed some arbitrary threshold into being, you know, professionals and then thus have to be regulated in a different sort of way.

11902 So you know, my inclination, and again, like the only reason why I bring up that the existence of a professional content creator is significant is primarily so we can be protected, not that we be regulated further. Right? So that's just the kind of point that I'm trying to get at.

11903 And I do think that, you know, this is an issue where I think the creator community, the professional creator community and some of the tech platforms that host our content, you know, we may disagree on a whole host of other things, but I think on this issue we're generally in sort of broad alignment.

11904 I didn't know that about that they favour a sort of broad definition of social media. That's interesting.

11905 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Sticking with definitions, Michael Geist, you've probably seen some of the stuff that he's said at the hearing and what he's written about. He is a law professor at the University of Ottawa. And he proposes, again, to very broadly define social media ‑‑ a social media service, to be clear ‑‑ as

11906     “platforms that predominantly consist of third‑party user contributions.”

11907 And in that view, a broad definition would ensure that user‑generated content would not be caught by regulation since, again a quote from him:

11908     “[r]egulation of user‑generated content would erect significant barriers to entry for Canadian content creators and artists [who] depend on user‑generated content platforms, most notably members of equity‑seeking groups.”

11909 So I'm wondering if you can offer your opinion on his position.

11910 MR. McCULLOUGH: Yeah it's ‑‑ I think that seems like a decent definition.

11911 I'll tell you what one of my concerns is, though, is that if we do create a different sort of category of online user‑uploaded content that is some way ‑‑ you know, I'm trying to think how to describe this, right. So it's like if you're like an amateur user or even like a professional amateur like me, I guess you could sort of say, but then we know that, for example, like CBC, CTV, they have YouTube channels as well, right, or you know Warner Brothers or whatever. Like big media corporations have, you know, social media accounts, and they upload videos and all this kind of stuff.

11912 And I think that a concern would be that if those people are in a different sort of category, if they're not considered like third‑party uploaded content, they're like in a kind of content that is in fact under CRTC jurisdiction in some way, that then that becomes the content that is then favoured in any sort of discoverability sort of mandate. Right?

11913 So like if the CRTC sort of brings about sort of rules that say, you know, YouTube or Spotify or whatever has to make, you know, good Canadian content more discoverable, more promoted and so forth, that the way that the regulations could be crafted could unintentionally sort of give a boost to the sort of the people that perhaps need it the least, which is the entrenched old guard media sort of entities that I sort of said in my statement I think that my community is very wary that, you know, our success will be punished in order to elevate the people that are already the most entrenched. Right?

11914 So what I'm trying to get at is that if we can agree that the cat videos are not under CRTC's jurisdiction, but then like the J.J. McCullough's of the world are also not under the jurisdiction, but we say that, like, well, CBC and CTV and Global, their content is. And we can also all agree that their content qualifies as, you know, Canadian enough to deserve promotion and so on and so forth because they've gone through the traditional CRTC, you know, loops and all that, I think there's a concern that then they would wind up benefiting the most from sort of the promotion discoverability sort of regime that would be brought about.

11915 So but I'm sensitive that this is a very difficult circle to square, you know.

11916 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Well, and that's why we're here ‑‑

11917 MR. McCULLOUGH: Yes, indeed, indeed.

11918 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO:  ‑‑ to have these discussions, right? And input really matters. So you mentioned discoverability.

11919 MR. McCULLOUGH: Yeah.

11920 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: In your intervention, you mentioned that professional YouTubers are concerned about the discoverability of video content produced by professional YouTubers because basically discoverability produces views, which of course generates income, which is, you know, what it's all about I guess for professional YouTubers.

11921 But YouTube and other similar services arguably have enough of a discoverability function built into their operations that many social media creators are arguing that there is just simply no need for regulatory intervention. So how do you respond to that?

11922 MR. McCULLOUGH: I think that that's true. I mean, think that, you know, it’s like I said before, like a platform like YouTube which I just have to speak to because it’s the one I know the best, it’s very market driven, it’s very public opinion driven, it's very taste driven, very preference driven. It’s very meritocratic and very democratic in that sense.

11923 You know, the sort of videos that you want to watch are the videos that pop up in your recommendation feed, and that’s based on a very sophisticated algorithm of understanding what you’re into.

11924 I mean, I know that the government might have a position that Canadians can’t sort of be trusted, their own tastes are perhaps not patriotic enough or whatever and that we need to be consuming more Canadian content, whether we think we want to or not, and I think that’s in part what’s sort of the discoverability sort of tweaks are designed to do. They’re designed to sort of emphasize that Canadians perhaps should be watching more Canadian content even if they’re not actively seeking it out on their own accord.

11925 I know that that’s a kind of ideological preference that maybe I don’t personally share, but I know that that is kind of the logic of the legislation.

11926 So I guess that ‑‑ you know, that’s, I suppose, a decision that you folks will have to make, right, is to what degree are we comfortable sort of disrupting the existing algorithmic system on a social media site YouTube that is very public focused. It’s very based around the tastes of the users and feeding the users the kind of content and the recommended content that they, themselves, want to see. To what extent are we comfortable sort of intervening into the system that I think the vast majority of users of certainly YouTube and I think most social media programs would sort of say works broadly well for their viewing experience, for their experience as consumers of content? And to what extent are we willing to disrupt that in the service of some sort of larger kind of patriotic good of the kind of content that we think they should be watching even if they perhaps don’t know that they do?

11927 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: And I want to talk a little bit about funding now.

11928 Last week we heard Digital First Canada, who indicated that the current funding bodies are insufficient and incapable, this is a quote, “of aiding digital creators in Canada”. They also mentioned the lack of resources for Digital First creators as a barrier to work on applications for funding, for example.

11929 So I’m wondering if you can comment on any other types of barriers faced specifically, in your view, by professional video content creators and/or social media creators and what are the needs and how can they be better ‑‑ how could they better contribute to the objectives of the Act with appropriate support? What do we need to do to support that?

11930 MR. McCULLOUGH: Well, you know, it's like I sort of said in my opening statement, you know. I feel like we know what we need and, frankly, I feel like most of what professional content creators need is just, you know, self‑discipline, work ethic, sort of entrepreneurial skills and this kind of thing, community support within sort of a peer group and that kind of thing.

11931 You know, the overhead is often very small, right, like to make professional content. You know, I film in my ‑‑ you know, even though I’m more successful than my buddy Brogan, we have, in some ways, a very similar sort of setup. You know, I just film in my living room, he films in his living room. Maybe I have a slightly better camera than he does. I have one kid in Ottawa that helps me edit and, you know, he has nobody. But you know, the overhead is pretty minimal.

11932 And I think that mostly when I talk to content creators, it very rarely comes up, the idea that we don’t have access to government funding. You know, we just heard from the radio folks and the documentary folks before them, right, where they feel like they’re working in this very overhead‑heavy sort of industry where the funding just isn’t available and that they’re having a hard time making ends meet and, you know, sort of collapse and failure is just around the corner.

11933 I think that a lot of professional content creators just don’t see themselves in that sort of analogous position, and so I think it is true that, obviously, a lot of the sort of funding regime that exists to subsidize cultural industries in Canada are not available to professional online content creators, but I also just kind of think in my own experience that that doesn’t seem like something that’s very front of mind concern for most of us.

11934 You know, we know what it takes to succeed and you can often succeed, again, with remarkably low overhead costs just because you’re just ‑‑ you know, you’re fundamentally sitting in front of a camera. You know, you don’t require a ton ‑‑ huge expensive recording studios and radio broadcast towers and licence fees and all this kind of stuff, right.

11935 So I think it’s true, but I would think that my personal opinion is that that’s perhaps a little bit of a distraction. You know, I think that ‑‑ well, I mean, I don’t want to get too much into my own personal preferences for it, but all I can sort of say is that I think that when you talk to professional online content creators and you ask them, you know, “What’s holding you back?”, it’s ‑‑ I don’t think it’s very often a funding issue. I think it’s more just like a time issue, you know, and their ability to ‑‑ actually, this is a very important point I want to emphasize is that one of the biggest things holding, I think, professional content creators back is an inability to understand what the public wants, you know.

11936 It’s a very public‑facing profession. You’re trying to make videos that people will watch. You know, how many times we spend all this time thinking like, oh, I’ve got to make the best thumbnail, the best title, you know, is it engaging within the first 30 seconds, are people going to keep wanting to watch. So like those are the kind of things that are front of mind, not our access to some funding streams.

11937 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: All right. Well, thank you very much. Those are all of my questions and I’m going to turn it back to the Chair.

11938 I know that other Panel members may have questions as well. Thank you.

11939 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I think we're very much enjoying this discussion.

11940 I’m going to go over to Commissioner Levy. Thank you.

11941 MR. McCULLOUGH: Awesome.

11942 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Thank you for being here. I hope that you take comfort in the fact that just as we do not regulate actors and writers and journalists, we are not particularly interested in regulating YouTube creators, either.

11943 So that to one side, where do you see your profession, if you like? How do you see your future? How do you see iterating and growing and using the medium to either do bigger things or transitioning into something that is more of a mass media provider?

11944 MR. McCULLOUGH: Well, I mean, the interesting thing is that I think that when ‑‑ a lot of times I meet with sort of professional online content creators, YouTubers and that, and sometimes they’re given opportunities to work in television or to work in sort of conventional legacy media or even make movies and things like that. And a lot of times they turn it down because what we have going for us now is pretty good.

11945 You know, our audiences are huge. Our reach is enormous. It’s global as well as being national. And so like you can do almost anything that you can do in conventional media online and on a lot of these online sort of social media platforms like YouTube.

11946 You can make amazing documentaries, you know. You can make news coverage. You can make, you know, all sorts of music. You can do it all, really.

11947 The platform is ‑‑ like I said, is, I think, the kind of the cornerstone of a 21st century Canadian cultural economic space, Canadian cultural economy, and so my personally ‑‑ like I don’t have bigger dreams than YouTube, I must say. That might be sort of surprising to hear, perhaps, and I think a lot of YouTubers don’t, really.

11948 I think that where they see the platform is ‑‑ like YouTube is a remarkable platform. Like I can just upload a video and it’s there. It’s easily shareable. People can see it all over the world. It can be as big budget or low budget as I want it to be. So I mean, my thing is that as long as YouTube is continuing to thrive as a corporation, as long as it’s still able to provide the resources to people like me to host the videos, I’m doing pretty well.

11949 And that’s why, you know, even though what you said is, I think, technically true, that you guys are not in the business of regulating creators, the way in which you regulate the platform does trickle down and have consequences, particularly as it relates to things like discoverability and stuff.

11950 If you’re going down the line of sort of saying that we want to promote the discoverability of certain types of creators over others, then that does have consequences for me and that is a sort of de facto regulatory consequence for the kind of content that I make. And I suppose when I sort of think of the long‑term future of myself and others, it is really sort of the cloud of ambiguity regarding future regulation that is, I think, the source of a lot of stress and worry for how any of us are going to be able to continue to pursue our dreams.

11951 COMMISSIONER LEVY: You heard the earlier intervenors from legacy radio who are doing their best, it seems, to access the advantages that the digital world provides but are still, you know, struggling mightily because of the impact that the online streamers have had on the entire ecosystem.

11952 What would your suggestions be to legacy media to overcome some of their difficulties?

11953 MR. McCULLOUGH: It's really difficult, isn't it, you know, because ‑‑ and I don't want to be too ideological or political about this, but you know, do we ‑‑ are we entitled to succeed in our chosen field, right? Like are we entitled to have success in any sort of profession that we choose to pursue?

11954 I would argue my own personal preference is that sometimes no. If I open a bakery and my bakery fails, you know, am I entitled to be successful as a baker? You know, if I open a bakery in a terrible community where there’s no interest in the baked goods I have to offer, you know, who has failed in that position? Have I failed? Has society failed me? Has the government failed me? I don’t know.

11955 These are ultimately sort of like philosophical ideological questions that have to be answered.

11956 You know, I think that when a lot of Canadians, particularly the younger Canadians, hear about radio stations failing, they think, “Well, that’s just how it goes”. You know, industry ‑‑ technology marches on and there’s always winners and losers.

11957 And I think that there is concern, as I said in my opening statement, at the idea that at a time when there’s a huge thriving sort of forward‑looking modern youthful wing of the Canadian cultural economy and cultural space in the form of online content creators who are often very entrepreneurial, very self‑directed, people that have started from very little and have become very successful, in some cases some of the biggest celebrities in the entire world simply by starting out making content or music or videos in their bedrooms or parents’ basement or whatever. The idea that those people are perhaps in some way like a problem that now needs to be solved in order to sort of subsidize people that, you know, god bless them are sort of clinging to perhaps a dream of success in a medium that there just isn’t market or public demand for any more.

11958 So you know, that’s ‑‑

11959 COMMISSIONER LEVY: But there's also responsibilities that go with those things.

11960 You don’t have to worry about public alerting. You don’t have to worry about weather reports that ‑‑ or forest fires and warning people to get out of their homes and things like that.

11961 You don’t have the obligation to try to find emerging artists and getting them their first leg up. All of those artists that ‑‑ Canadian artists that you see that are doing so well on YouTube, they don’t go immediately from that, necessarily, to worldwide stardom without the assistance and the grateful and acknowledged, sort of the honour that we have to expose Canadian content, especially emerging Canadian content makers, to the world. And that comes from the legacy broadcasters.

11962 And so you know, I take the entrepreneurial approach as, you know, obviously extremely successful and very advantageous, but I still believe that you have an awful lot to offer to legacy media and I would ‑‑ I’m looking for notions for how you might work together to the advantage of everybody and cover off some of these very important public policy issues.

11963 You don’t have to worry about reflecting equity‑seeking groups. You don’t have to do any of that, but they do. And I wonder how you might work together.

11964 MR. McCULLOUGH: I mean, it's a fair question, you know. I do sort of find ‑‑ I don’t know. I guess I just always sort of like wonder what is the public’s role, what is the consumer’s role, the consumer of media. How do they fit into this equation as well?

11965 You know, oftentimes when media is not commercially successful, the justification is made that they possess a kind of like moral worth that should not be sort of discarded or discounted. And I think that you can make that case very easily. You can say things like, you know, the ‑‑ sort of the humble radio station or whoever is making news of a higher quality than anything that can be found online, and perhaps that’s the case. But then the public’s role in this has to be factored in as well.

11966 And if you’re making the highest quality content in the world and if it’s, you know, heavily subsidized by the state or whatever, but if that content is not being consumed by the public, then what public good is really being served, right.

11967 To me, that starts to cross the line into which the subsidy is existing for the benefit of the creator, not the benefit of the public, and so that’s just kind of a sense that I just want to make very clear because that’s definitely how I come at these kinds of things.

11968 I think very deeply about the public. I think very deeply about the public interest. I try to make content, you know ‑‑ and not all YouTubers can perhaps say this, but I try to make content that is uplifting and that is socially useful and valuable. I try to make content that’s educational and informative and helps broaden awareness of this country, both domestically and around the world, but you know, the problem is I think that there are a lot of creators who come at this ‑‑ and you know, perhaps for the best intentions, but they don’t have a clear sense of how their good intentions and their kind of moral sense of the project that they’re undertaking ‑‑ they don’t have a clear sense of how the public factors into that.

11969 You know, it’s like if I do the best content that I can possibly do on my radio station or in my newspaper or whatever, you know, that’s all well and good in the sense of giving you a sense of validation and pride in your work and perhaps the government will reward you for it in various ways, but again, it’s like if the public’s not consuming that content, then I just think that we’re suffering like a severe disconnect between the sort of mandate that organizations like the CRTC have and the sort of policy solutions that are being offered in the pursuit of that mandate, if that makes any sense.

11970 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Well, I don't think that we're trying to feed people’s feelings of self‑entitlement.

11971 MR. McCULLOUGH: Not entitlement, but I think like, you know, a lot of people come to these sorts of things and they have a very sort of righteous sense of the good that they’re doing, right. And perhaps they are doing good, but I’m saying that like we have to have a public ‑‑ like there has to be some sort of metric in which we can evaluate whether the public agrees with that assessment of the moral good that they’re doing, whether that’s a moral good in the sense of like, you know, our content is more educational and more credible or our content is more, you know, patriotic and like serving sort of the Canadian cultural interest, right.

11972 Those are things that people can conceptualize their work as doing, but again, I do think the public has to have some role in being able to like agree or disagree with those assessments.

11973 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Well, your business is, of course, front and centre with that because you live or die by what the public ‑‑

11974 MR. McCULLOUGH: Absolutely.

11975 COMMISSIONER LEVY:  ‑‑ wants, and so I fully appreciate where you’re coming from, but ‑‑ and also the fact that yours is a place of incredible innovation and I think that’s certainly worth sharing more broadly.

11976 I think it was Steve Jobs who said people don’t know what they need until you give it to them, and yours is a space where that happens in spades, so congratulations.

11977 Thank you very much for appearing.

11978 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. Thank you very much.

11979 I will turn things over to Vice‑Chair Barin.

11980 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Thank you.

11981 Welcome, Mr. McCullough. This is a very interesting conversation, and you mentioned consumers, so I want to talk to you about business models because we’re very familiar with the traditional model for legacy media and in that model you monetize eyeballs, right.

11982 And we have standard measurement tools that can validate that if you have X amount of eyeballs, you’re going to generate X amount advertising and then that advertising goes directly to the broadcaster.

11983 And so the YouTuber business model is slightly different, and we had Google before us and they said, “Well, this is ‑‑ providing access to this business model is a huge advantage for Canadians and this is our contribution to the system”. But then we had some legacy broadcasters before us who said, “Well, if we look at the business model today and we air a program and we get a certain amount of viewership, we can see that there’s a direct relationship between the viewership and the revenue that we’re generating”. But on our YouTube feeds, we don’t understand because we had CHCH who said we can have a million viewers and then we get a cheque from YouTube and there doesn’t seem to be that much of a correlation. And I think what they were expressing was that that particular business model was not as transparent and that they did not see the link between the viewership and the revenue that they were getting from YouTube.

11984 So I’m asking you because you are clearly successful in this space. It is allowing you to earn your living by reaching viewers directly.

11985 Do you have the same concerns or is it just that particular example that’s probably an outlier?

11986 MR. McCULLOUGH: Yeah. I mean, it ultimately, from what ‑‑ if I understand what you’re asking correctly, like I think that the answer is that it comes down a lot just to the particular advertisers that you’re getting on any given piece of content that you’re posting online. And I can’t speak to how it works in television or any other traditional medium because that’s not what I know.

11987 But you know, for example, in the YouTube world, it is conventional wisdom that, say, if you make a channel of economics or like financial planning and stuff that you’ll generally make much higher revenues than if you’re making a channel based on cooking or something. And that’s just because the advertisers would rather advertise on a financial advice channel which they know will be watched by people that have money, right, as opposed to, you know, a channel that has a more broader, you know, less financially ‑‑ you know.

11988 So like it’s the same way. That’s like a Super Bowl ad pulls in bigger revenues for the broadcaster than, you know, an ad on just an ordinary football game. Part of that is that, you know, the audience is bigger, but also part of it is sort of like, you know, the assessments that the advertisers make about the sort of people watching the Super Bowl, right.

11989 And so I mean, again, like I can’t speak to ‑‑ I assume that this must still be the case in television. You know, if you watch late‑night TV, you get a different sort of advertisement than if you’re watching primetime, right.

11990 So that, to me, doesn’t seem like, you know, a super revealing argument about anything in particular. I think that in all industries you kind of understand that, yeah, it’s not a one‑to‑one. You know, you don’t get a dollar for every eyeball that you have or $100 or whatever. It does vary a lot on the nature of the advertiser.

11991 And that’s, yeah, something that I struggle with. I’ve ‑‑ you know, because I make videos on a pretty broad range of topics and sometimes a video that seems like it was a big hit, it got, you know, tons and tons of views, generated less revenue than a video that perhaps got fewer views ‑‑ or sorry. Did I say that right?

11992 Yeah. A video that might have been viewed less might have somehow made more money than a video that got viewed a ton. And again, it just kind of comes down to like, well, what was that video about, you know, what kind of advertisers were advertising on it.

11993 And also, I should also note that, you know, YouTubers also sometimes contract their own advertisers independently of Google and I think that’s something that should be noted as well, is that we’re not entirely dependent on Google’s advertising model. A successful online content creator can contract independently with their own advertisers, too, and that’s a huge part of the revenue‑generating model in addition to even other things like selling merchandise and doing shows and stuff like that.

11994 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: This is very helpful. Thank you.

11995 Back to the Chair.

11996 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

11997 Let’s go to Vice‑Chair Scott.

11998 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Thanks very much. This has been great.

11999 Following up on kind of the business model discussion, I’m always intrigued by market dynamics and how that can shift between the creator of the content, the platform over which it’s carried, how do you feel about the current dynamics as a creator?

12000 Are you worried about platforms being a gatekeeper and changes in their business models that could cut you off? Do you feel that your content is strong enough that you can take it where you can find an audience? What are those dynamics and are there vulnerabilities there for Canadian creators?

12001 MR. McCULLOUGH: I wouldn't say that there's vulnerabilities for Canadians in particular. As a nationalist ‑‑ as a sort of national group, I don’t think there’s any reason to think that that is at all a sort of consideration.

12002 I mean, people within the creator ‑‑ professional creator community on YouTube and elsewhere, they do stress a lot about algorithms, right. Like the algorithm is this like mysterious god that rules the world and, you know, YouTube is always sort of dicking with it in various ways and like you never quite know ‑‑ you know, like people ‑‑ whenever people have a video that doesn’t succeed, they always say, “Oh, it’s the algorithm”, right, like YouTube has like this secret sauce behind the scenes and that determines whether your video, you know, succeeds or fails.

12003 And there has been like a kind of movement for algorithm transparency and that, you know. And this becomes sort of part of a larger kind of social media conversation that has been in the culture more broadly, particularly when it relates to like young people, you know, what kind of content are these corporations feeding our people.

12004 You know, I said earlier that what they tell us is that the kind of content that you’re recommended is the kind of content that you’re interested in, and I think the abundance of evidence suggests that is, indeed, the case. But there is some sort of stuff going on behind the scenes in which it is not always clear what kind of videos are getting promoted and which ones are being sort of, if not necessarily openly suppressed, but at least kind of like downplayed in people’s recommendation tabs and so forth.

12005 So I mean, like that definitely seems like one of the biggest kind of concerns with the business of YouTube and, you know, I’m sure this is the case with the business of Spotify and TikTok and, you know, X, and Instagram, and all of this kind of stuff; right? I think in the majority of cases ‑‑ I don’t want to overstate this ‑‑ I think in the majority of the cases, the algorithms work well at recommending the type of content that people are interested in consuming, you know, to Canadians and to any user, but I do think that there are cases in which there are still mysteries of this. And, you know, the corporations guard it pretty jealously. They sort of say that, “This is our success; this is part of our business model,” and they’re not necessarily interested in opening it up to the public and I guess that’s their right. But I would say that those kind of concerns are pretty small in the grand scheme of things.

12006 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Great. Thanks very much.

12007 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thank you very much. So, just perhaps before we turn it back over to you, I know that you had raised some questions around sort of what’s covered, and I do want to say, I want to go back to our registration ‑‑

12008 MR. McCULLOUGH: Yeah.

12009 THE CHAIRPERSON:  ‑‑ decision and be very clear; this is straight from our decision:

12010     “For the sake of clarity, users that upload content on social media platforms are not subject to the Broadcasting Act and therefore will not need to register.”

12011 There is no distinction there between sort of, you know, casual or everyday users and professional users. I know you referred to the policy direction. I know you’ve raised other issues around ‑‑

12012 MR. McCULLOUGH: Yes.

12013 THE CHAIRPERSON:  ‑‑ the impact of regulating broadcasting undertakes and the potential impact there...

12014 MR. McCULLOUGH: But also ‑‑ also the business that the Commission is explicitly told to consider, whether or not those ‑‑ user‑generated content generates revenue. Like, that to me is a significant qualifier, as I said, that has been a source of some concern.

12015 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. Okay, so thank you for that. We will turn it back over to you for any sort of concluding thoughts.

12016 MR. McCULLOUGH: Okay. I honestly didn’t really sort of anticipate concluding thoughts, I’m sorry to say, but one thing that I guess I just ‑‑ you know, this has been an interesting experience for me. You know, I’m just some guy. I’m not part of, like, a lobby group or an organization. I’ve spoken with some YouTube folks on occasion but, like, I’m not their agent; I’m not speaking on behalf of YouTube. I speak only for myself and my ability to hopefully reflect the kind of consensus opinion that I feel like I have absorbed through my own activism on this legislation.

12017 You know, when I walk around in Vancouver or elsewhere, people often recognize me on the street from my YouTube channel, and increasingly all they want to talk about is this. Like, I am known now as, like, ‘the Bill C‑11 guy’. So, this is, like, a Bill that is of extraordinary interest to the public, and I feel like sometimes I worry that the public’s perspective on some of this stuff is not being heard sufficiently.

12018 I think that processes like this are very valuable and very important, but I do worry, to the extent that they sometimes seem to be dominated a bit by special interests, by people who know how to navigate this system. You know, I probably could have put more effort into learning how to navigate this system. I was a little bit overwhelmed by it, personally, you know, and I’m a busy guy with my YouTube channel and all this other kind of stuff, and travelling around, and all that.

12019 But I just hope that, when you guys are considering how you’re going to bring this legislation into the fore, that you do consider the public interest and to what degree the public’s perspective on some of this stuff is heard or not heard. And as well, the perspectives of folks like myself and the community that I’m sort of grandly hoping in some small way to represent ‑‑ you know, the sort of the class of smalltime social media online content entrepreneurs ‑‑ because, like I said, I just really view us, whether we’re streamers or YouTubers, TikTokers, artists on Spotify or SoundCloud or whatever ‑‑ like, we are really the growing force that is defining, I think, the Canadian cultural economy in the twenty‑first century.

12020 And I think, even though we’re new, we’re not particularly organized, and we perhaps don’t know how to navigate a lot of these kind of complex bureaucratic structures, I think that our perspective is very much worth hearing. And I hope to continue to participate in this process however I can, but I also hope that other voices like myself are heard, and if they’re not being heard, I hope that people are taking the action to solicit their comment.

12021 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you for that. We couldn’t agree more. Your voice is a very important one. We hope that you continue to engage in future processes, and as well as other social media creators or online creators, however you refer to them. Thank you for the very substantial conversation today.

12022 MR. McCULLOUGH: Thank you so much. It was great.

12023 THE SECRETARY: Thank you. We will now connect via Zoom to the last presenter, UFC.

12024 Can you hear me?

12025 MR. LAYTON: I can, yes, thank you.

12026 THE SECRETARY: Perfect. Thank you very much for being here. You can introduce yourself, and you may begin.

12027 MR. LAYTON: Good morning, Madam Chair, Vice‑Chairs, and Commissioners. My name is Adam Layton and I am the Vice President of International Content for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, better known as UFC.

Présentation

12028 MR. LAYTON: Thank you for giving UFC the opportunity today to present its views on the CRTC’s proposed modernized contribution framework, and specifically the proposed initial base contribution requirement.

12029 Unlike almost every other online undertaking that has presented at this hearing, UFC is not primarily a broadcaster. At its core, UFC is an event organizer, live event producer, and promoter. In fact, it is the world’s largest promoter of mixed martial arts events, having hosted 600 events since its inception in 1993.

12030 UFC has proudly had a consistent presence in Canada, having hosted 32 events across 11 different cities in eight different provinces since 2008.

12031 In 2013, UFC entered the video streaming industry with the launch of its platform, Fight Pass, a subscription‑based video streaming service that offers live and on‑demand access to UFC events. The main draws of Fight Pass are its expansive library of past UFC events that are available to subscribers on demand, as well as live content from UFC and other combat sports organizations. Many subscribers join Fight Pass to have instant access to every fight in UFC history, with new fights being uploaded to the platform within weeks of their live broadcast. Fight Pass’s event catalogue is complemented by its library of original mixed martial arts programming. That includes behind‑the‑scenes promotional content and commentary about UFC and its athletes.

12032 In this way, Fight Pass differs significantly from typical on‑demand streaming platforms in at least two important ways: first, the scope of its content. Most video streamers offer a broad range of television shows and movies across many genres. But Fight Pass intentionally focuses exclusively on UFC events, original programming about those events, and other related mixed martial arts content.

12033 Second, its general business purpose. Most video streamers seek to compete in the general market for streaming services. Fight Pass exists primarily as a promotional and distribution platform for UFC’s main event promotion business. To put it simply, Fight Pass is not a Netflix, it is not an Amazon, and it is not an Apple TV. The business models of those platforms, and their competitive positioning, are fundamentally different from UFC and Fight Pass.

12034 Fight Pass does not compete with general Canadian broadcasters, traditional or online, for programming, content distribution, or consumers. For that reason, UFC offers a unique perspective on behalf of niche, limited‑purpose streaming services. UFC hopes its submissions today highlight that the diversity of global streaming services is not limited to diversity in size, revenue, or ownership. It extends to diversity in content and fundamental business purposes.

12035 The CRTC has acknowledged that flexibility and adaptability ‑‑ the two guiding principles of the new modernized contribution framework ‑‑ require streaming services to be treated differently based on their size, revenue, and ownership. The Commission has proposed a revenue‑based exemption to the contribution framework for these reasons. However, the Commission should consider building on these guiding principles and factor into the framework other differences in programming and business models.

12036 There are fundamental differences between standalone streaming services and niche, limited‑scope streaming services like UFC’s Fight Pass ‑‑ differences that go way beyond how many subscribers they have or how much revenue they earn. While Fight Pass and general streaming services both broadcast video content online, that is where the similarities between them end. In fact, they have so little in common that it would be counterintuitive to treat them the same way.

12037 For that reason, UFC proposes that the CRTC create a fifth class of exemption from the contribution framework, including the initial base contribution requirement. It should exempt online undertakings that, due to the inherent nature of the content that they offer, do not compete with Canadian broadcasting services. That exemption would recognize that the broadcasting policy outlined in the Broadcasting Act was not created with the unique limitations of niche, non‑competitive streaming services in mind.

12038 Most of Canada’s broadcasting policy goals rely on one of two presumptions: one, that broadcasting undertakings that operate in Canada compete equally in the Canadian market; and two, that all broadcasting undertakings have substantial control over the types of programming they offer. Neither of those presumptions is true in the case of a niche service like Fight Pass.

12039 Because Fight Pass exists primarily as a promotional and distribution arm of UFC’s larger business, it does not compete with general streaming services in the Canadian market. It also has significantly less control over its programming decisions than general streaming services have.

12040 Fight Pass cannot just change those fundamental aspects of its business model to cater to the proposed contribution framework. Fight Pass’s programming content is inextricably tied to the characteristics of its MMA events and related MMA content. If UFC’s fighters and commentators do not already satisfy the CRTC’s content requirements, it is not as though Fight Pass can simply adjust its programming to meet those requirements. The adjustments would have to be made by the larger UFC organization, and that would require significant and impractical changes to the core business strategies and structural elements that govern how UFC ‑‑ which is not a broadcaster ‑‑ organizes its events and selects its featured athletes.

12041 Requiring a niche, limited‑purpose streaming service like Fight Pass to adhere to the terms of the contribution framework would not only be contrary to the goals of Canada’s broadcasting policy; in many ways, it would be essentially impossible, in the practical context of how those streaming services operate. If subject to the contribution framework, those streaming services may face no other choice than to cease operating in Canada entirely.

12042 For those same reasons, subjecting niche undertakings with limited programming mandates to an initial base contribution requirement would be inequitable. It would require niche undertakings to contribute to industry funds from which they do not derive any benefit. At least in theory, broader online streaming services may benefit directly from funds like the CMF. For example, some of the Canadian programming funded by the CMF may be produced or later distributed by the same streaming services who are being asked to contribute. In that way, the bargain is fair: to benefit from Canadian production funding, you should contribute to it.

12043 However, that bargain does not extend to niche undertakings that offer a limited scope of programming. A streaming service like Fight Pass, because of the inherent nature of its mandate, will likely never be able to rely on funds like the CMF to support its production efforts, and will likely never be able to distribute CMF‑funded content. Requiring niche undertakings to contribute to industry funds, despite deriving no benefits from those funds, will further burden undertakings that already face unique challenges in operating successful streaming services that cater to niche audiences. The result could well be that these types of services choose not to operate in Canada. That would deprive Canadian audiences of a diverse and eclectic range of offerings in the market.

12044 To conclude, niche undertakings that intentionally offer a limited scope of programming, like Fight Pass, occupy a unique space in the Canadian market. Those undertakings cannot be compared to general global streaming services, and they do not fall within the scope of Canada’s updated broadcasting policy. In accordance with the CRTC’s emphasis on flexibility and adaptability, the applicability of the contribution framework should recognize the inherent differences between different types of streaming services.

12045 In UFC’s view, the most efficient and fairest way to do that is to create an additional category of exemption from the contribution framework, including the initial base contribution requirement, for online undertakings that, due to the inherent nature of the content that they offer, do not compete with Canadian broadcasting services.

12046 If the CRTC decides not to proceed with that exemption category, there are other ways to address the unique position of niche streaming services. For example, the CRTC might consider raising the 10‑million‑dollar threshold for the revenue‑based exemption, either generally or as applied specifically to niche, non‑competitive streaming services.

12047 Regardless of which route the CRTC chooses, I hope that UFC’s submissions today have given a voice to the unique perspective of niche, limited‑purpose streaming services. A modernized contribution framework that acknowledges the diversity of streaming services ‑‑ not just based on size and revenue, but also based on content and business model ‑‑ will be significantly more flexible, more adaptable, and ultimately more supportive of a thriving market that embraces a wide range of unique offerings for Canadians.

12048 Thank you for the opportunity to speak today, and I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

12049 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much to UFC for participating in the proceeding. I know that our Vice‑Chair for Broadcasting would like to unpack a little bit of what you just presented, so I will turn things over to Vice‑Chair Barin. Thank you.

12050 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome, Mr. Layton. I have a long history of being familiar with your product ‑‑ way before your Fight Pass service. As you know, UFC content has been available in Canada via pay‑per‑view for a long time, and Canadians have consumed this product for a long time.

12051 And so, my first question is a more general one, because you do claim in your submissions that the UFC’s broadcasting activities do not have a material impact on the Canadian broadcasting system. So, I just want to understand what you mean by “material impact”.

12052 MR. LAYTON: Yes, certainly. So, I think the Fight Pass streaming service does not compete with the major general streaming services that are out there ‑‑ the ones that I mentioned in my submission, of Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV, et cetera ‑‑ because we do not compete for the same programming, the same content distribution, the same consumers. We are a single‑genre niche streaming service, whereas those are general market streaming services, and those services obviously compete for general viewership and have a wide range of content that they offer, whether it’s comedy, drama, horror, food, travel, et cetera. Ours is very limited to an MMA audience that is interested in that content.

12053 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Okay, thank you. So, in Canada, we have licensed Canadian broadcasting services, some of which are thematic in the fight area, and they have traditional linear channels, and some of them also offer that content online. So, I want to understand, when you’re proposing a fifth class of exemption that doesn’t compete with Canadian services, how exactly are you defining ‘competition’, and what do you mean by ‑‑ like, how is the Commission going to put guardrails around this niche non‑competitive concept?

12054 MR. LAYTON: Thank you for the question. I think there should be a qualitative process that is done voluntarily by application, where an entity can lobby or apply, and explain why they believe they are a limited streaming service. And so, what they could do ‑‑ there are many ways and forms that this could take, but a couple of examples could be: listing what type of content that they offer and what percentage of the content on that platform is directed towards that particular genre; if they are owned or operated or partnered with broadcasters, the submission could talk about why the entity itself believes that it is not a mass‑market streaming service; and finally, they could submit the marketing materials that would show how the streaming service sees itself in the marketplace and who its competitors are. So, is it trying to steal viewership from major television channels and networks? Is it trying to steal viewership from and compete with major streaming services? Or is it very limited in its nature and who it targets, and who it is after in terms of consumers and subscribers?

12055 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Okay, and you’re proposing that the Commission put in place that kind of process in order to evaluate case‑by‑case whether a service fits into this exemption category, based on its niche and whether its schedule is competitive with another service?

12056 MR. LAYTON: Correct. Yes, I think if an entity wanted to apply for this fifth exemption that we’re proposing, they would have to fill out such forms. Again, happy to work with the Commission on what that may include, based on some of the examples, but I think a holistic, qualitative measure that doesn’t just take in quantitative elements would be appropriate for this undertaking.

12057 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Okay. Can I ask what your definition of ‘niche’ is? And I say this because in the past, the Commission has issued broadcasting licences based on this niche concept, and there are many ways to look at it. You could look at it from a perspective of a specific demographic target. It could be from a genre of programming, which I heard you mention. It could be a particular theme. So, I’m wondering what you think the Commission should be looking at when you say that it would be a niche service.

12058 MR. LAYTON: Thank you for that. Yes, there’s certainly a variety of ways one could look at it. I think in terms of the way that our operation looks at it is based on the content that it’s producing and that it’s putting out, and the percentage of that content which is devoted to a particular genre that is not necessarily a mass‑market genre in terms of general news, general entertainment, comedy, food, travel, et cetera, but more limited in nature to a specific audience that may be interested in that specific content.

12059 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Okay, great. Now, I have a couple more questions that are more specific to the objectives of this proceeding, which are to look at initial base contributions and potentially a revenue threshold for which online undertakings should contribute, based on that threshold.

12060 Now, you mentioned the 10 million, which was something that we put out for comment, but I’d like to ask you the question, what do you think is the appropriate threshold that the Commission should consider for revenue?

12061 MR. LAYTON: Thank you for that. So, we don’t hold a strong position on what that number should be, but we do think that the 10‑million‑dollar threshold, though it sounds like a large number, could actually be pretty niche, and so I can walk you through a quick sort of example of how that would work. So, most streaming services today charge roughly 15 to 20 dollars per month. So, let’s just take 200 dollars for the year, for simple math. To get to 10 million dollars in annual revenue, one would only need 50,000 subscribers, and 50,000 subscribers in the population of Canada is less that 0.1 percent. So, I would argue that something that appeals and has subscribers for something that is only 0.1 percent of the overall population is pretty niche in nature, and therefore we would ask the Commission to consider a higher threshold. And we would be happy to sort of chat with you and discuss what those numbers could be, but we don’t have a firm position on that today.

12062 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Okay. Well, if you did have a proposal to give us today, that’s great. If not, you can certainly file it as part of this proceeding once the hearings are over.

12063 Okay. So, I have one last question, and that is to comment on the proposal that some of the broadcasters have put before us that if the Commission sets an initial base contribution level, that it should be at 20 percent of annual broadcasting revenues for audiovisual programming services, and 5 percent for broadcasting distribution undertakings. Can I get your views on that?

12064 MR. LAYTON: I don’t think we have strong views on that particular threshold and those numbers.

12065 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON BARIN: Okay. That’s it for my questions, Mr. Layton. I want to thank you for appearing before us, and I’m going to pass it back to the Chair.

12066 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice‑Chair. Let’s go to Commissioner Levy.

12067 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Hello. You are not the only intervenor who has made the argument that if you can’t profit from a fund, you shouldn’t have to contribute to it. We’ve also heard from other intervenors who argue that, of course, very often the whole reason for regulation is to require someone to do something they wouldn’t ordinarily do or they don’t benefit from, but which supports pretty well‑accepted public policy issues or the system as a whole. So how would you respond to that viewpoint?

12068 MR. LAYTON: Yes, I understand that; however, I think that those that benefit from those funds should therefore contribute to it. In Flight Pass' case, it is such a unique and niche operation, that the types of content that's currently being produced and likely would be produced in the future would not be something that we would benefit from and therefore our position on why we should perhaps not contribute to that fund. Hypothetically, there could be a documentary made about an athlete who is from Canada, but I think that would be a one‑off and sort of in practical reality that is not the types of content that is being made. And therefore, we hold our position in terms of our contribution and why those who are not benefiting from that system should not necessarily contribute to that system.

12069 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Thank you.

12070 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Let's go to our vice‑chair for Telecommunications, Adam Scott.

12071 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Good afternoon. I have a more general question about sports media that I'm hoping you're comfortable answering. And it's really about the relationship between top‑tier sports leagues, their over‑the‑top services, conventional broadcasters, and broadcast distribution undertakings. Because historically, access to sports has been a pretty key feature of selling cable subscriptions. What's going on in the market today? Are we heading towards an inevitable transition to leagues providing over‑the‑top services direct to consumer and cutting out the kind of the broadcasting infrastructure? What's the dynamic there? Where are we going to end up, and what's that going to mean for the players that are affected?

12072 MR. LAYTON: Well, thank you for the question. I think there's a lot there.

12073 In general, there is a large demand for live sports, and therefore it is driving a lot of broadcast viewership. But there is also driving viewership online, on YouTube, through OTT platforms, as you mentioned. I think there is certainly a role for broadcasters in today's society in terms of linear broadcasters as well as BDUs that offer pay‑per‑view for select sports.

12074 However, I don't have a strong position on where we think the world is going. I think more and more streaming services in sports leagues will consider going direct to consumer fully OTT with our products. Others will do a mix where some is on broadcast, perhaps some on pay‑per‑view, perhaps some behind the pay wall. And you know, certainly, that has effects for how broadcasters view sports in terms of the packages they want to offer to consumers. But I think there is such a strong demand for live sports content that those broadcasters will continue to purchase that type of content, and then sports leagues will decide what is the best distribution strategy for them.

12075 VICE‑CHAIRPERSON SCOTT: Thank you very much.

12076 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. So we would like to turn things back over to UFC for any concluding remarks. Thank you.

12077 MR. LAYTON: Thank you, and congratulations on making it to the end of the hearings of this phase one. I know it's been a long process.

12078 I want to wish to conclude by reiterating the theme that I think that UFC's submissions today have made clear. The diversity of streaming services that operate in Canada goes beyond diversity based on size and revenue. Streaming services can also differ significantly in the types of content they offer, the audiences they target, the business models they adopt, and the positions that they occupy in Canada's overall broadcasting landscape.

12079 For the CRTC to truly embrace its guiding principles of flexibility and adaptability, it should recognize that those differences have a significant impact on which undertakings can materially contribute to Canada's broadcasting policy and are best equipped to make those contributions through the CRTC's proposed modernized contribution framework.

12080 A streaming service that offers highly specialized content that does not compete with the content catalogues of other broadcasters in the Canadian market cannot and should not be expected to satisfy the requirements of the contribution framework in the same way that a large general streaming service with a wide range of content offering can.

12081 UFC urges the CRTC not to try to fit a square peg into a round hole. Canada's broadcasting policy and the CRTC's proposed contribution framework were both designed and based on presumptions and justifications that do not apply to niche undertakings that do not compete with Canadian broadcasting services.

12082 Instead of ignoring or downplaying the significant differences between the general and niche online undertakings, the fairest and most efficient solution is to create a category of exemption from the contribution framework for those niche undertakings. That will ensure that the contribution framework only applies to undertakings that can meaningfully contribute to Canada's broadcasting policy as required by the Broadcasting Act.

12083 On behalf of the UFC, thank you for the opportunity to present today.

12084 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Thank you for your participation, and thank you for ending the hearing with us.

12085 MR. LAYTON: Thank you.

12086 THE SECRETARY: Thank you. Before we finish I would just like to announce that during the hearing the Panel received two requests from intervenors to file new evidence and add the new information on the public record submitted at the time of their appearance. The Panel had taken these requests under advisement.

12087 I'm announcing that the Panel approved the request submitted by Racial Equity Media Collective and RNC Media Inc. This information is added to the public record of the Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2023‑138. Thank you.

12088 Legal Counsel?

12089 MS. LAUZON: Thank you.

12090 For the record, as mentioned throughout the hearing, Commission staff will be sending specific requests for information to some intervenors. It has been decided to merge the undertakings to those RFIs. Therefore, as we are announcing that anything that has been identified as pertinent information or as an undertaking will be made part of the RFI process.

12091 You may disregard the December 15 date previously announced for undertakings.

12092 The RFIs will be sent in upcoming weeks. Response to these RFIs will be due in early 2024. The exact date will be indicated in the letters.

12093 As for the date for the final written submissions, it will be announced at a later date. Thank you.

12094 Pour les fins du dossier public, tel que mentionné au cours de l'audience, le personnel du Conseil enverra des demandes d'information spécifiques à certains intervenants. Il a été décidé de combiner les engagements à ces demandes d'information. De ce fait, nous annonçons que tout ce qui a été identifié comme complément d'information ou comme engagement au cours de l'audience sera intégré dans le processus des demandes d'information.

12095 Nous vous invitons donc à ne pas tenir compte de la date du 15 décembre précédemment annoncée pour les engagements.

12096 Les demandes d'information seront envoyées dans les prochaines semaines. Les réponses à ces demandes d'information seront dues au début de l'année 2024. La date exacte sera indiquée dans les lettres.

12097 Pour la date de la période des observations finales écrites, elle sera annoncée à une date ultérieure. Merci.

12098 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Merci beaucoup.

12099 So three weeks ‑‑ it sounds like a very long time. I think it's gone by very quickly.

12100 Before officially bringing this hearing to a close, on behalf of our Panel, on behalf of CRTC staff, we would just like to thank everyone who has been involved in the proceeding. We know how much time and effort is required to participate in a hearing, so we're very appreciative of everyone who came before us, shared your perspectives, your personal experiences, and your stories.

12101 You've helped us better understand some of the trade‑offs that come with making difficult choices to achieve results in the public interest and to address some of the pressing issues in Canada's broadcasting system.

12102 Our focus over the past three weeks, as everyone knows who's been watching, has been on some initial changes that we are looking to implement which are sort of like the pre‑credit scene of a movie. We've been looking at how best to ensure any potential initial base contributions go towards supporting Canadian and Indigenous artists, producers, and creators and the important content that they create. Obviously, this is a starting point, and there are a lot more discussions to come.

12103 When we opened this hearing, I mentioned that the changes needed to implement the modernized Broadcasting Act are complex. There's many interconnected issues to be addressed, and they cannot all be addressed at once. So that's why we have been taking the phased approach that we've been taking, because we know, like the scenes of a movie, they are not always shot in order, but when they all come together at the end, the finished product tells a great story.

12104 After hearing from 122 groups and individuals over the past three weeks, I think it's fair to say that some common themes have emerged. And perhaps I could summarize at a high level and touch on three of those themes.

12105 The first was that there was a message of urgency. So we heard from many participants that there are needs that must be addressed quickly.

12106 We also heard that all elements of the broadcasting system should work together to support the objectives of the Broadcasting Act, although obviously there were some differing views on the who, the how, and the when. Certain sectors ‑‑ like local news broadcasters, community radio stations, and equity‑seeking groups, to name a few ‑‑ have said that they're struggling in the current system. And obviously, they play an important role in serving our communities. We heard the real impact that a lack of funds can have on their ability to meet the needs of Canadians.

12107 Un autre point de vue que nous avons entendu concerne le soutien d'un cadre de financement pour relever les défis auxquels nos industries nationales sont confrontées, en particulier celles qui ont rencontré des obstacles à leur pleine participation au système de radiodiffusion canadien. Cela rend notre objectif d'avancer rapidement encore plus pressant, surtout lorsque le paysage évolue à un rythme aussi rapide.

12108 Deuxièmement, les participants ont fait preuve d'optimisme. Ce que nous avons entendu directement, c'est qu'on a des histoires canadiennes et autochtones à raconter. Nos histoires sont captivantes, pertinentes, et reflètent la diversité de la population canadienne. Ces histoires doivent être racontées, et les créateurs au Canada doivent avoir accès à un cadre de financement et de soutien solide pour y parvenir. Il est frappant de constater que tous les acteurs, y compris les services nationaux et les services de diffusion continue étrangers, se sont engagés dans un dialogue constructif sur la valeur de la création de contenus canadiens et autochtones diversifiés.

12109 Bien qu'il y ait eu des points de vue différents sur la question en vue de déterminer s'il devait y avoir des contributions de base, et, dans l'affirmative, quel en serait le montant et à qui elles seraient destinées, nous avons tous été frappés par la richesse, l'esprit constructif, et la vision d'avenir de la discussion.

12110 Cela m'amène au troisième thème, c'est‑à‑dire l'incidence de ce processus. Un certain nombre de participants nous ont dit que la décision que nous prendrons aura une incidence bien réelle sur les générations futures de radiodiffuseurs, d'artistes, de producteurs et de Canadiens. Il est important que nous nous efforcions d'atteindre les objectifs de la Loi sur la radiodiffusion et que nous veillons à ce que le public canadien continue d'avoir accès à un contenu canadien et autochtone riche et captivant dans les années à venir.

12111 So obviously, these are just a few of the perspectives that we've heard over the past few weeks. And not to worry: unlike some dramas, we won't leave things on a cliffhanger.

12112 Contributing to Canada's broadcasting system is complex. And we know at the CRTC that people are excited. We echo that excitement for the future of Canadian programming, content, and talent. We acknowledge that this is a long process.

12113 So with that, let me briefly touch on next steps. As mentioned by our legal counsel just now, we will be sending letters to ask additional questions to certain parties. We encourage everyone to monitor the public record for filed responses. You will have the opportunity to comment on this additional information in the final written submission phase.

12114 The Panel will also consider whether any additional process is necessary, and if so, we will advise the parties.

12115 Let me just end by thanking everyone again. Thank you all for being here, some every day. Thank you for taking the time to submit an intervention and for participating in the process. And a big thank you to everyone who helped ensure a smooth public hearing, including the stenographers, the interpreters, Commission staff, and technicians who helped make this all possible. It's no small feat to hold a public hearing, let alone one of this size and this length. So thank you.

12116 I will now bring this public hearing on contributions to support Canadian and Indigenous content to a close. Bonne fin de semaine. Merci.

‑‑‑ L'audience se termine à 12 h 26

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Benjamin Lafrance
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