Ontario Wants Netflix, but not Shomi, to Produce CanCon

[jon]

Ontario wants the CRTC to ask Netflix to produce Cancon
As the CRTC explores the future of television in Canada, Ontario asks Canadian content rules be extended online.
By Ashley Csanady, Canada.com
September 9, 2014 7:35 PM

The Ontario government is eyeing Netflix as a source of more Canadian content.

And Google, or YouTube, or any “new media broadcasting activities,” according to the province’s submission Monday to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The broadcast regulator is exploring the future of TV north of 49, and it seems the province wants old Canadian content (Cancon) rules extended to the wild west of the internet.

“The CRTC should include new media broadcasting activities in calculating TV broadcaster Cancon financial obligations,” Kevin Finnerty, assistant deputy minister of tourism, culture and sport, said during the hearings Monday, according to a prepared copy of his remarks posted online by Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa.

The province wants the federal regulator to put the rules in place now that would “permit future Cancon financial obligation for foreign over-the-top providers.”

What does that mean in non-government English?

The Ontario Liberals want to require Netflix, or other foreign-based media sites like Amazon Prime or Hulu (should they ever offer their services to Canucks), to include a certain amount of Canadian content, or pay for it if they don’t. Those same rules already apply to many broadcast and cable rules — radio stations have to play a certain amount of Canadian-made music, HBO has HBO Canada to meet some of those obligations and big broadcasters run local news and create Canadian TV shows or offer community programming time.

Those rules create jobs.

Finnerty told the committee that 200,000 people work in Ontario’s entertainment and creation industry, generating $12 billion in GDP. Cancon requirements accounted for 50 per cent of Ontario’s television industry, or $1.2 billion.

So you can see why the province would want to pump Cancon — it’s done well for content creators thus far. Yet, a spokesperson in Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport Michael Coteau’s office seemed to walk back his own ministry bureaucrat’s appearance at the hearing in an email late Monday.

“The presentation today provided important elements for CRTC consideration as it undertakes its review. The government is not advocating for any CanCon changes, or that any specific regulations be imposed on new media TV, until more evidence is available,” he wrote in an email.

In another odd point, Geist notes: “The Ontario government wants the CRTC to impose Canadian content obligations on the foreign providers, though interestingly it recommends exempting Canadian online video providers.”

That means the new online-TV offering from Shaw and Rogers, Shomi, could be exempt, while Netflix would be required to pitch into Canadian productions to keep operating here or start offering more Cancon, or some combination of both.

CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais doesn’t sound like he will welcome the pitch.

“I’ll be very hesitant, personally, about taking old means of achieving public policy objectives and applying them to new realities,” he told the Huffington Post in an interview. “That is why I talk more about promotion. How do you encourage the Canadian content on these new platforms?”

What’s streamed online has often already appeared on TV and is then licensed by services like Netflix. Jason Kee with Google Canada told the hearing that providers already pay into Canadian content through the existing broadcast systems that produce much of the content they stream.

“Mandatory contributions would likely increase costs to consumers in the form of increased subscription fees and creators in form of diminished license fees or revenue share for them,” Kee said, according to a Toronto Star account of the hearing.

The CRTC hearings will run to September 19 and will tackle everything from pick-and-pay cable to a possible code-of-conduct for cable and satellite providers.

[Mike Cleaver]

The Canadian Rotten Television Commission has no business regulating the internet. Full Stop.

[jon]

I'm not sure the reasoning, but the federal government expanded the CRTC's responsibilities years ago when they added the word "Telecommunications" to their name.

I am sure there are still some in the federal government, whether inside the CRTC or elsewhere, who believe that broadcast signals and Internet traffic can be stopped at the border by Canada Customs inspectors, before being allowed into the country.