Hi everyone I'm Ira Wagman at Carlton university great to be with you today for this panel which is entitled broadcast and digital media.
Thank you to everybody who is organizing the panel, thank you David for the technical support for this session, in just a minute
I will introduce, I'll start introducing the panelists for this session
In addition, what I'll be doing is I'll be acting as the moderator for the question and answer period so any of you who have
questions for any of the speakers feel free to enter them into the chat box and then I will kind of correlate them and organize them and then
relay them back to the speakers and of course if I do a really poor job of relaying that you're welcome to
to jump in and correct me, so Lowell Gasoi is next and the paper is entitled open media vernacular advocacy in Canadian media policy.
Hello everyone, thank you so much to Sarah and her whole team for putting this event together and for giving me a chance to speak to you for a little bit today.
In one of my very favorite television portrayals of idealized liberal politics, the West wing in the episode talking points
Our press Secretary Allison Janney's CJ Cregg here plays the role of our friend Dwayne Winseck
and attempts to lead reporters to a story on rapidly concentrated media ownership.
Amidst government inaction when she fails to get reporters to criticize, as she puts it there media mogul Robber Baron
bosses, Craig has maintenance staff physically remove a percentage of seats in the White House press briefing room.
To decry this paucity of voices in the news media.
that the West Wing writers foresaw dangerous levels of media amalgamation is certainly interesting, but what always thrilled me about this
storyline is not the relatively obvious policy critique, but rather the physicality the immediacy of Craig's intervention.
What makes Craig's example pertinent to us today is that she is
Attacking the very media machine that she's meant to serve a stance not unheard of in recent press secretaries, I want to suggest that Craig's
joiners and carpenters physically altering the press room seating is an example of vernacular advocacy.
And for the next few minutes I'd like to share with you how I understand this concept and then
deploy it to talk about the work of two real life advocacy organizations with just as much vigor and valor as the fictional Ms. Craig and that being our
friends at open media and the Quebec arts advocacy organization, the English language arts network or ELAN.
Well, Canadian cultural policy has always been informed by two fairly major issues, a landmass huge landmass with a small population and, of course, our proximity to the
cultural superpower, that is the US of A. We often turn to our own Harold Innis to explain the importance of infrastructure and channels of distribution and such.
but also for the importance of hearing our own voices amidst the thunder from down south.
Nationalistic and technological questions are vital but they can often crowd out meaningful questions
that are closer to the lived experiences of media makers and policymakers on the more local level.
They also don't really address the important questions around cultural policy and those lived experiences, particularly as they relate to questions of advocacy.
So what is a vernacular advocacy then, I see it as an extension of Bill Kirkpatrick's concept of vernacular media policy.
In his 2013 article Kirkpatrick makes a convincing argument about the locality and directionality of certain media policies.
He's concerned that relegating media policy to the rarefied air of multinational corporations and state level actors
will cause us to miss the study of ground level policy and the impact on our daily practices.
No TV before your homework is done, he reminds us it's just as much media policy as any CRTC ruling or CanCon regulation or Netflix tax.
Citing John Fisk and Michel Foucault, Kirkpatrick gives us a policy power that moves that circulates and points, rather than
simply boosting or suppressing certain political, economic potentials. CJ Craig removes the chairs, mom and dad hide the remote
both are bottom up policy actions that directly implicate the actors and their space and access to the process.
Des Freedman builds on this embodied sense of policy that Kirkpatrick suggests shifting from Foucault to Marx and warning of the dangers of a policy fetishism.
Ratifying the policy text abstracts it from the individual mystifying the process and leaving us with
as he states, very little connection to or involvement in the policy debates that structure our communicative environment.
If, as Freedman argues, policy is always trying to erase itself policy texts are trying to erase itself making those texts inaccessible through specialized language and enclosed spaces.
Perhaps an answer is to extend your understanding of those texts to include their embodiment in their presence.
Vernacular advocacy pays attention to this wider discursive notion of texts, making the process visible and perhaps even heard.
as Justin Eckstein argues sound as argumentation and advocacy, such as the roar of student protesters drowning out a speech by James Comey challenges the primacy of textual mediation.
Judith Butler in writing about assembly points to the power of the silent vigil of still bodies as a means to speak back to power.
More often than not, the concerns of scholars like Kirkpatrick and Freedman are sidelined in our push to align our language and our theorizations with that of the prominent
or dominant policy discourse, the written word, the prepared speech, the regulation, the legal ease and very often a mostly deterministic view of technology.
So we come to the question asked so succinctly by Audre Lorde, can the masters tools dismantle the masters house.
And former open media managing director Riley Yao suggests that we need the internet to save the internet and can we provide some insight into that process as a vernacular advocacy.
In a 2012 editorial for media development Yao writes, the more sites where democracy doesn't happen, the more undemocratic our society is.
Like Freedman, Yao offers a vision of a closed door policy process that is impenetrable to the uninitiated.
Open media's response has been to engage their supporters through online petitions, campaigns, a practice often derided as clicktivism.
Yao counters by insisting that their online actions have resulted in significant policy change.
And are a key component to other actions like the presence of open media's former CEO Steve Anderson at CRTC hearings and his sharing of intimate personal experiences
drawn through consultations that they performed, and we know that there are multiple sites then where policy is being developed challenged implemented.
It's not only specialized language that is effective, but representations of the lived experiences of individuals.
Testimonials are one way to challenge the language gap between everyday media consumers, advocates, and policymakers.
Open media provides an ideal example of this complex process, not only through their strategic deployment of hashtags and online campaigns and physical presence at hearings, but also through their corporate culture.
In a 2016 blog post explaining what open media is, Anderson and his colleague Alexa Pitoulis issue the traditional roles of think tank or consumer group or watchdog
seeking a new language something like a civic engagement platform, as Riyanka Singh has suggested, this idea of the platform in our digitalized world
can be reclaimed in it's more theatrical sense as a space for visibility and demonstration, in other words we might seek to reinvest the idea of the platform with its human presence.
Even the organizational structure of open media shifts toward the living and organic human. Anderson has expressed the organization's commitment to some of the tenants of
what organizational scholar Frédéric Laloux calls a Teal organization.
Teal structures are on the opposite end of a continuum with reactive and power centered red organizations traditional hierarchical power structures of ambers like the army or the government.
Orange multinationals that are hyper focused on competition beating the other guy and even Greens that push a kind of a family like culture.
The teals highlight a distributed self managed style that Laloux likens to living and evolving organism.
This kind of organic metaphor is an interesting one, considering open media success and perhaps it's a seemingly productive way to insert the human presence back into the advocacy process.
With limited time left, I want to touch on briefly another example, the Quebec English language arts network, which is an advocacy coalition of artists and cultural
workers that seek to advance the interests of minority anglophone cultural creators in Quebec. For ELAN, advocacy
is central to what they do and yet their former Executive Director Guy Rogers has shared with me that in some interviews
we did together that explaining this importance to their members can be daunting because the process is often invisible.
Guy tells me that advocacy is a form of mediation suggesting that there are codes present in the language of advocacy, the long of advocacy.
His challenge, relating these codes as activated as paron in the practices of artists demonstrating their legitimacy
for instance shared among networks of advocates crystallized into specific forms and texts, including cultural policies.
Being in the room with the culture kratz that developing an implement policies that that directly affect ELAN's
members is vital to translating those members needs and experiences into policy realities.
So Guy will often make specific trips to Ottawa to sign off on agreements and funding with heritage or Canada Council.
Like Anderson's presence at hearings with open media, Guy's presence is a human link between the texts and online consultations.
And the living breathing artists that depend on these policy outcomes to create the environment for stable and sustainable artistic careers.
ELAN has even suggested that the creation of a cultural center of excellence, where artists and
intermediaries might come together in one space to share capacities and languages to better their advocacy.
In the paroxysm of policy response to the pandemic I'm convinced that we must attend not only to describing the actions, texts, and procedures of policymakers, but
As Freedman argues in considering the questions policy is asking itself. When open media asks us whether it is right that we pay higher internet fees.
That's a worthy question, but just as important is how we will pursue that policy change using the masters tools to bring down the masters house
or through means more immediate and present. In seeking to highlight the contributions of Quebec's English language artists to the cultural
fabric of the province, we must also ask how and with whom policy can enhance those connections, if that is in fact a part of its function.
In terms of advocacy in the policy process, we need to look more closely at these immediate relationships, bring the process closer to our lives
fostering wider and more robust engagement with citizens and particularly the artists and producers who make the media being regulated.
CJ Craig reminds us that while symbols matter in cultural policy, embodiment and presence of policy on the ground is also vital.
Sometimes you just might need to work in the vernacular rearrange the chairs to realign our policy ideals.
Thanks, very much for your time, I look forward to your questions.
IRA WAGMAN: Thank you very much, yeah thank you very much, Lowell.
That was great, so next up will be
will be Daniel Keyes, and the paper is entitled The Canadian Media Fund and Google-YouTube's channel Encore+: Cancon's Archival Salvation or Digital Waste Bin.
Hello my name is Daniel Keyes. I'd like to preface this talk by acknowledging I'm speaking in the Okanagan unceded territories of the Syilx people.
More work needs to be done then met. The focus of the talk is on encore plus asking whether it is a form of archival salvation for Canadian content or digital waste bin.
Amid Canada's 150 celebrations on November 7th 2017, the Canadian media fund, here after refered to as the CMF, launched Encore+ the YouTube channel.
Encore+ hosts lost Canadian television programs and film the CMF and telefilm originally funded. This talk evaluates Encore+
I'll briefly discuss Canadian audio visual archival history and shifts into audio visual media delivery in Canada as a way of situating Encore+.
The 1995 report by libraries and archives Canada titled fading away
Strategic plan options to ensure the protection of an access to audio visual
memory led to the creation of the AV trust as a consortium of stakeholders and nonprofits
or corporations to allow the protection and compatible access to Canadian audio visual heritage via quote a decentralized approach to preservation of these cultural resources.
Unfortunately, the AV trust federal funding was denied in 2008 by the Harper government, ending one archival dream for Canadian audio visual material.
In 2017, Kealy Wilkinson with the Canadian broadcast foundation pitched the use of the decommissioned NORAD
bunker as a repository for masters that appeared, as appears in 2021 to have not gained any traction.
For archivists in the 2010s with cloud computing a reality, the idea of archives as carceral repositories
Preserving original content with limited access to fragile documents is giving way to the idea of digital post custodial open archives. Archivist Laura Miller
announces in 2011 that libraries and archives Canada's quote monopoly as stewards of the national documentary heritage is over.
She proposes that archivists would no longer wait to acquire archives physically, in order to ensure that they were protected and available.
Instead archivists could maintain records control by providing advice and support to records creators and by overseeing management of agency records and archives.
This strategy to move away from the preservation of unique objects to record keeping seems to sidestep the issue that digitization brings up with the ever accelerated ephemerality.
digital platforms that today offer instant access to texts can vanish for a variety of reasons, copyright law that restricts access via
paywalls, software or hardware failure and or obsolescence and copyright holders who lose track of
digital or analog text as one media company swallows another media company unaware of the inventory of the old media
as is the case with many of Encore+'s rescue missions. Canadian media in 2021
reflects the changing landscape that is seen over the last decade shift as viewers continue to cut cords with cable subscribers.
The Canadian media escape favors the move to subscription video on demand, Google and YouTube ad revenue model introduces the notion that
non-subscription or free video can harness the revenue model, not unlike commercial broadcast television with pop up ads while gathering data on users.
So what is Encore+? Encore+ is a YouTube channel funded by CMF and partners like telefilm that showcases Canadian taxpayer funded audio visual content.
Due to copyright law and the tendency of broadcasters and film studios to lock and forget media content vaults after
its initial commercial broadcast or release much of Canadian commercial audiovisual heritage remains in.
After elaborate legal work on copyright agreements for rights holders Encore+ digitizes analog media content and uploads it to YouTube.
The digital transform transfer firm deluxe based in Toronto handles the transfer from analog to digital.
With the analog master tapes or reels remastered and a digital copy returned to the rights holder who are free to remove the content from Encore+ services
or earn revenue from ads that run with the content on Encore+. The preservation of the masters is beyond the remit
of Encore+ for archival purist concerned with maintaining the original in perpetuity, this approach is dangerous.
When the rights to audio visual content revert to the initial creator after 20 to 30 years
Encore+ staff locates the analog content and clears copyright commissions with the directors, the actors, the writers, and musician guilds.
To avoid directly competing with new television and films, Encore+ tends to avoid material produced after 2013, consequently
Encore+ viewers may find a sense of Canadian audio visual heritage as belonging to the late
1980s and early 1990s reflect a very white complexion with shows like Due South featured.
So what is the right holders experience like? Encore does not pay royalties but pays right holders based on a percentage of the ad revenue collected by YouTube.
Right holders earn the majority of the ad revenue with Encore+ and YouTube taking tiny percentages.
With some uploaded content, the ad revenue may be slight but in other cases it can be substantial and may even spark interest in rebooting an old property
or seeing the digital copy removed from Encore+ and relicensed. Some producers of old content chide at Encore+'s model, preferring the guaranteed up front
royalty model of regular broadcast. Abarca-Cantin, the director of Encore+ interviewed for this article
asserts that Encore+ returns quote content that Canadians have already paid for working with YouTube
the revenue that would normally flow to pirates on YouTube is diverted via Encore to the legal rights holders.
Question of authenticity and provenance is one that balanced against that of access
for Encore+ rights management is complex, for example, the feature film Lotus Eaters
From 1993 was very expensive and its because of one song in one scene, so that song is removed from the version posted on Encore+.
Encore+ does not note this change in it's gloss of the film
I suspect this sort of sonic reduction is exactly what would concerned preservationist who fear the mass destruction of the original master magnetic tapes of films
In the rush to digitize content will inevitably generate irretrievable losses.
Cantin Abarca's view is that audiences are still able to engage with the lost film with a slight modification that no way ruins the experience of the film.
So what is the users experience like? The average viewing time on YouTube hovers around two to
three minutes, Encore+ with this long form content has an average viewing time 16 minutes.
Encore+'s content promotes stickiness, YouTube social media affordances offer a different type of engagement
than offered by linear TV as users are able to comment on programs. Encore+ thrives not just as a place to watch
old Canadian content, but also as a place for viewers to engage with the content between themselves.
For example, the TV movie Deadly Friends, the life and death of Nancy Eaton has over 700 comments from users discussing mental health, violence, and criminal system.
Another example is the May 2023 watch party Encore+ offered with the actor Martha Henry revisiting her performance in the 1986 film Dancing in the Dark. Other achievements
include Encore+'s relaunch of the first Canadian film directed by a woman, Sylvia Spring's Madeleine Is
from 1969 or its playlist of the imaginative film and media arts festival that offers brilliant contemporary indigenous films.
60% of Encore+'s users are from outside of Canada demonstrating that hidden Canadian content can gain a new audience.
However, Encore+ is prone to quirky loss due to its archivist commodity structure, for example a student in my Canadian screens course was studying Deepa Mehta's Sam and Me
1991 film and saw it disappear from Encore+ on April fool's day when the contract between Encore+ and the directors Guild of Canada lapsed.
A few weeks later when the contract was signed this film and all other films in English governed by that agreement returned to Encore+.
Now it's time for my conclusions. Encore was five years in the making, for its launch in 2017, I've been wondering why the CMF in 2017 did not use the National Film Board's
video streaming platform but ended up with Google. In hindsight with concerns about Google YouTube's data mining, lack of user privacy, third party ads being used to influence voters
partnering with an American company that does not pay taxes in Canada and whose ad revenue model has contributed to gutting journalism in Canada
may appear as a marriage of unequal partners. Still I do not know if Encore+ with the NFB would have had the global success that Encore+ has generated.
So well, one might cynically see Encore+ as a bargain bin of cast off CanCon
where it's 144,000 subscribers are easily dwarfed by YouTube video game blogger and alt-right star PewDiePie's 110 million users
I sense there's a value in having this admittedly lumpy archives providing this content.
Encore+ justifies the CMF and Telefilm's mandate by demonstrating that CanCon can find an appreciative global audience.
Encore+ presents a living archives in terms of meaning making and engagement so while I chide against Encore+'s achievement
in regards to archival priorities like authenticity, preservation, and provenance, it provides living archives for lost CanCon.
Encore+ provides an alternative to the walled garden of streaming video on demand that I hope will prove
a stable place for CanCon audio visual heritage to reside and grow.
IRA WAGMAN: Okay, thank you, thank you very much. Thank you Daniel.
Okay, so next up, we have Taeyoung Kim and the paper is entitled Cultural politics of CanCon in SVOD markets, a case study of Netflix Canada.
Good afternoon from Vancouver my name is Taeyoung Kim I am a session instructor at Simon Fraser University. When I first submitted my
profile to the conference organizers I introduced myself as PhD candidate, but I defended my doctoral thesis two weeks ago, so
This is kind of my first time to introduce myself as PhD graduate.
I really appreciate the conference organizers Professor Sara Bannerman and Professor David Ogborn and Professor Tamara Shepherd and members of the organizing
team of this wonderful conference to let me introduce my work about culture politics of Canadian content in the Canadian SVOD market.
My research is based on, like aims at understanding the presence of Netflix Canada in the Canadian policy context in relation to Canadian content.
I used two research methods, one is document research on policy documents published by CBC
CRTC, and the Department of Canadian heritage, which covered about
issues over netflix.
Then I also conducted catalog analysis on Netflix Canada, as well as Crave the largest domestic SVOD service platform across the nation.
When it comes to understanding SVOD platforms, subscription video on demand
much of my analysis assume that understand SVOD as platform
which refers to building block which can be a product, a technology or a service that acts
as the foundation upon which other firms can develop complementary products technologies and services.
Along with over the tops, SVODs can be considered as platforms because they allow
content developers to systematically track and profile the activities and preferences of billions of users.
They represent, not only represent the digitalization of the media industries, the rise of SVOD
imply and accompany with the fundamental shifts in production, distribution, and consumption of media content.
In regard to understand SVOD as platforms, one thing that I wanted to mention is that SVOD as well as SVOD market
are subject to preexisting power dynamics as platforms which are outcomes of preexisting technological development inherited by structural asymmetries.
in other words
The current situation, the current infrastructure of SVOD market and the players in the market
The entire structure is overall benefited by preexisting dynamics of the media industries in general
which means that several US based media conglomerates and technological capital
are still enjoying their advantages in the SVOD market.
When it comes to streaming wars between companies in the Canadian market SVOD companies in the Canadian market
we can easily observe that there's a strong presence of US based SVOD platforms in the Canadian market, so
According to a recent statistics as of 2019, Netflix has more than 16.5 million subscribers across the nation.
Followed by Amazon prime video which has 6.5 million subscribers, followed by Disney+ and Apple TV+
and others, so they garnered more than $1.57 billion dollars in revenue in 2019.
In contrast, the largest domestic SVOD provider Crave which is owned by Bell media only has 2.8 million subscribers across the nation and made
$292.5 million dollars in the same period, followed by SportsNet Now owned by Rogers with 0.5 million subscribers.
With the revenue of $172.7 million dollars, so in total all the domestic players earned
just barely more than $5 million dollars for their revenue in 2019 so pretty much one third of the revenue compared to their American competitors.
So we can simply figure out that there is a structural asymmetry exist in the SVOD
market, Canadian SVOD market between US based SVOD platforms and Canadian counterparts.
Based on analysis on policy document relevant to issues of Netflix
we can say that there is a tendency that the Canadian authority want to or are willing to
interpret Netflix and SVOD platforms as a means of promoting Canadian content.
In addition to that
the rise of SVOD and SVOD players are generally considered as general goods in a number of trade agreements and legal issues.
Rather than media or cultural products, this means that they are exempted from some protectionist measure that the Canadian Federal Government has imposed to
media industries.
they're also exempted from regulations of CRTC and other regulatory bodies in contrast to Canadian broadcasters such as the quota of Canadian content antitrust
regulation on bundles and etc, and as we all know from the controversies over imposing Netflix tax in 2018 to 2020
they are not paying taxes to
Canadian Government
in contrast to Canadian broadcasters and film distributors, but still there is a tendency that the Canadian Government
is expecting that SVOD platforms are means of promoting Canadian content worldwide.
However
Based on my analysis on catalogues of Netflix Canada, as well as Crave.
We can see that there's like, Canadian content is still highly marginalized when it comes to being distributed by those SVOD platforms.
Among more than 5,700 films and television series that are distributed by Netflix
only 29 television series and 73 films are labeled as Canadians.
Such a situation is not much different from Crave even if it's a domestic
company because they are only like serving 26 television series and films that are labeled
as Canadians, so the vast majority of content that both SVOD platforms are serving the population across the nation
there's not much, like there is not much presence for Canadian content.
Meanwhile CBC Gem, which is mandate to promote and protect Canadian content, the platform itself is highly marginalized position in the
market, so their presence and their strength to protect and promote Canadian content in the SVOD market is not much strong.
So what we can find is that not only US based SVODs but also Canadian SVODs favor US products.
Definitely this also imply that such a distribution and such an asymmetry
existing in the distribution of Canadian content and foreign content including of course most of them are American.
That means to audiences as well.
So among the top 20 most in demand streaming content, including Disney+'s Mandalorian, Netflix's the Witcher
and Apple TV+'s The Morning Show, all of them are US media products that's kind of one of the top rankings that Canadian audiences want.
Meanwhile, the highest ranked Canadian content that SVOD subscribers desired or expected was Anne with an E, a CBC series.
So while many of them, someone may argue that many of them, including Stranger Things, the Handmaid's Tail
or the Umbrella Academy were partially filmed in Canada, especially in Toronto and Vancouver.
And of course we can assume that they got some kind of a benefit from the provincial government or from the Federal Government.
By following the rule of like a Canadian content or like a promoting some kind of Canadian media industries, but we do
not expect them, or we do not generally consider them as Canadians that's kind of the thing that we heard from
presentations from Monday.
Right so
distributors are important here's the thing, we often study that distributors are important because they have the right to choose which content to be delivered
to their audiences. I believe that such an old theory that used to be like explained to television or like newspapers.
The news was that the news cable channels, that applies to SVOD services as well, their choices of distributing US
content and not choosing Canadian content worsen the marginalized situation of the Canadian content in the market.
Unlike television which has some kind of minimum quota
to promote Canadian content pretty much the same as Canadian radios.
There is not enough regulatory protectionist measure to promote and protect Canadian content.
So, unlike the expectation of policy authorities or promotion of several governmental bodies that
Expecting Netflix and SVOD platforms to be some kind of future distribution like
mean of promoting Canadian content. They do not function as distributor to serve the interest of Canadian media.
Lack of protectionist measures on SVOD platforms unlike television and film.
That often give US based SVOD platforms some kind of free pass just penetrating into the Canadian audiences.
This worsened the marginalized position of Canadian films and TV because
more users and more population is trying to use SVOD rather than traditional television or they're going to films
going to theaters, they're watching Netflix, they're subscribing Crave, they're subscribing Amazon Prime but
those kind of, based on my findings from catalog analysis it doesn't seem that Canadian content is well promoted and preserved in those SVOD platforms.
Yeah so if you have any questions of course Q and A session is available, but if you have further questions, please do not hesitate
to send me an email to my email. All right thanks for watching and listening my presentation, bye.
IRA WAGMAN: Thank you, thank you very much for a great presentation and also thank you, congratulations
on defending your PhD so two, a great presentation and great news, congratulations on both.
Okay we'll keep the good times going here next up
we have Geneva Nam and the paper is entitled digital streaming and new media, the future of Canadian broadcast.
Hello, and thank you for inviting me to speak at the ComCult policy conference at McMaster university, my name is Geneva and I was
a student at Simon Fraser university, but due to the pandemic the conference was postponed and I have since completed my studies.
My research analyzes the shift in Canadian viewership from traditional cable systems to digital streaming services.
I analyze data provided by the CRTC's study harnessing change, the future of programming distribution.
In their analysis the CRTC identified key data that marked a steep decline in cable package purchases
draining this viewership are the new media platforms and private digital streaming sites that are available over the internet.
The vast majority of which are not domestic Canadian companies.
Now, with the context of digital streaming trends in mind
can Canada navigate a neutral streaming environment while still upholding its Canadian content goals.
Canadian broadcasting policy has maintained its support in favor of Canadian content and are able to control viewership.
Through licensing renewals and evaluations, part one of the study analyzes internet use
trends, there is no digital streaming without infrastructural networks in place to facilitate the downloads and so for
this section, there was a definite emphasis on those who have and have not and the differences between the French and English.
So firstly for French and English groups there are distinct differences between rural or remote communities
which may or may not have access to broadband speeds available to those in urban markets, this is emphasized in market insight one.
According to the research by the CRTC, the true driving force behind this rise of broadband internet in this country is
demand for real time entertainment and particularly video, which accounts for two thirds of the capacity of fixed networks and one third of the capacity of mobile networks.
So without access to higher speeds in rural areas, there is a clear digital divide for those outside
medium to large city centers. This is important for reference to third language communities as well as
those referenced during our first panel on day one, where it was emphasized that even regions just outside
of Ottawa were suffering from poor quality digital connections to internet systems.
Part two of the study notes the difference between audience viewership and emphasizes the added benefit of personalization.
Claims that technology has changed the nature of viewership are accurate in this sense in particular
there is a large shift from schedule to on demand viewership. Moreover, this is coupled with increase diversity in programs available.
The inconclusive evidence
as shown here, as shown in the study
argue that whether online viewing represents a shift or is part of an overall increase in viewing across all platforms, it is clear that traditional TV viewing is in decline.
As noted by the increasingly
Increasingly large portion of online TV as marked in blue.
Part three assesses the importance of public funding, government funding acts as a promoter of programming
diversity were other institutions and foreign broadcasters may not have similar interests. CanCon
CanCon requirements have always been a strong component of Canadian broadcasting and the study indicates
public funding makes possible the production of content that wouldn't be made otherwise and helps stabilize production levels relative to fluctuations in the market.
It has become a less prominent component over time as industry revenues have grown, but this is still significant as indicated in figure 22
market insight 11.
Programming in this landscape is ripe in competition.
And this diagram introduces the idea of programming available by a single company, but for an entire world market.
This poses a problem for Canadian broadcasters both private and public that they have been shielded from the past competition.
Canadian best practices follow CRTC mandates for Canadian content programming and this has shaped consumer expectations
however, digital platforms such as Netflix have challenged domestic broadcasting companies, as this company
has shown by its world access
That it has made strides in investing in diversity and using data to keep users interested in content on the platform.
The global reach of Netflix has led to licensing deals that access the depth and breadth the world's creators.
The CRTC argues that it may be difficult for domestic services to replicate the content, budgets, and global reach of pure play
digital services, so this would also reference Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ as examples of online streaming services.
These online services have taught domestic players important lessons about the need for more effective approaches to user interface, discoverability, algorithms, and data collection.
The arguments by Dwayne Winseck in challenging the existing netscapes of power, in this case the power in the Canadian
context has been propped up by the media conglomerate's single enclosed CanCon system.
And moving into the next part, part five of the insights discuss content on its own.
Accessing content via platforms like YouTube allows users to be both the creator and the consumer.
However, this study notes that long form video productions still favorite large markets, such as the US, since successful content comes from the US.
Markets can be sold in Canada at a fraction of what it actually costs to make a television program.
It incents Canadian media companies to inquire and acquire foreign content and
discourages the risk associated with creating original content that would cost multiple times more to finance and produce.
In this section, the most staggering insight is the public policy is sustaining
domestic production in virtually all genres so as indicated below in figure 44
the current levels of Canadian content would not be sustainable, without public support and
though the diagram is only screenshot and for the English language, you can see that the majority of
genres are non profitable.
In response to these points offered by the CRTC's study is the question what has been done to address these issues.
The common theme throughout these market insights is choice from establishing personable schedules, personable pricing, and content online there are options, curated and non curated.
The CRTC has failed to create the media environment that supports an effective mode of content as consumption.
Specifically, it does not address over the top and other internet based platforms where viewership is rapidly increasing.
The results indicate that while the CRTC navigates the shifting new media landscape, the lagging initiative to regulate streaming platforms is only one step of the issue.
Solutions need to meet a three point dynamic system of coverage before it can effectively provide any form of equity through the act.
So number one would be to establish a networked infrastructure, number two establish business controls that effectively manage foreign and domestic streaming sites.
And would establish a set of business best practices or content oversight to ensure it meets Canadian broadcasting standards.
As well as incentives for digital streaming site investment in Canadian media industry careers, so this comes at a whole different level of investing in the actual production side of the content.
And third, channel financial profits back into Canadian content creators on these new platforms and a very large
portion has already been discussed through the example of Netflix for 500 million as an investment to the Canadian media fund.
Of course, the big debate surrounding Bill C-10 is how these three points can be identified, realized, and most importantly, funded.
As the figure 44 identified, there are no genres in the Canadian market that are self sustainable without the aid of public funding.
Commitments made by Netflix to invest, as mentioned previously in Canadian content and the industry have set the stage for future platforms to shape the relationship between digital streaming services
and Canadian broadcasting policymakers, the implications of this research extend beyond the exhibited applications promised investment in the Canadian media Fund and other supporting bodies are a start.
But the CRTC offers conclusions that promote equity in an existing unregulated system that is, in essence, unequal.
Concerns regarding freedom of speech and the lack of public consultation on implemented changes echo the dissatisfaction
not only with the lack of initiative to accurately depict the shifting media environment, but also the lack of protections in place to guard
the Canadian voice,. This does not begin to cover the voices of the First Nations indigenous Métis, as well as the ethnic media bodies.
So the future of Canadian broadcast, this title is strong but it's purposeful. The future of Canadian broadcast is wide open.
The data indicates consultation is necessary in order to have revisions reflect Canadian interests on screen
off screen and behind the scenes, without parameters enforcing equity in digital streaming platform
enforcing equity in digital streaming platforms is unattainable.
But without parameters enforcing equity in digital streaming platforms, this is unattainable.
Canadian innovation can be inspired and fueled and the last policy recommendation by the study seeks to develop
new and adaptable innovative approaches to engage new players, in doing so the CRTC recommends
A focus on the production and promotion of reflective information and or entertaining high quality content by Canadians that is discoverable by Canadians and the rest of the world.
So the challenge here is not simply just to create a media scape that allows Canadians, to have access
to choice and equitable voice, but also to establish one that is self sustaining profitably and
not simply just a copy cat reiteration of what Netflix has been able to produce on the world stage. Thank you.
IRA WAGMAN: Thank you very much, thank you very much Geneva.
So we have by my clock about 10 minutes for questions or comments from you the audience.
I guess this is one, this is just something that I noticed.
Maybe across all of the papers so I'll kind of leave it to you, to the panelists to jump in but in some ways one of the things that really stood out to me and each of these talks was
Was the presence of I guess what I'm calling very loosely kind of minor gestures, series of minor gestures, the placement of
you know of the transmitter, tweaks to the definition of you know of what is multicultural.
You know, showing up in Lowell's presentation to you know, to hand off, to sign documents appearing in catalogs.
For example, best practices is a theme that came up in Geneva's talk so you know across all these different talks what we have are a series of like you know we tend to talk about policy making
as you know in the kind of grand scale large, large commissions, large reports, major things so on and so forth, and yet the carrying out
of you know of the kind of life of policy happens through a series of kind of minor gestures, so I guess what I'm wondering is maybe
if you have some thoughts about that, about what your different papers say about the way we think about the scale of policymaking.
So I'll leave it to you to jump in.
LOWELL GASOI: Yeah maybe I can, I'll say a word or two about that. I really appreciated, Steven in particular, the presence of your presentation.
And I think for me that's
You know Ira you kind of talk about these minor gestures, I think more in terms of just the kind of
momentariness that the timeliness the immediacy of these
sort of policy interactions.
And I think there's
You know, just keep trying to sort of come to terms with this, but there's something about time, there's something about
A sort of sweeping scale of time that we tend to sort of think about.
And we tend to ignore the sort of
momentary interjections, the moments and I've just been reading some, going back over Stuart Hall yet again for the 90 millionth time
to think about sort of those moments of the production circulation consumption scale.
And I think that same kind of momentary intervention is something that we seem to be lacking in policy discussions so anyway that's sort of my thought on it.
Steven it was more about space, but I think there's something in there about time as well right when do they turn them off what does that mean for people right.
IRA WAGMAN: Yeah for sure, what about you Sherry or Taeyoung or Geneva or Daniel, Steven.
STEVEN JAMES MAY: Oh well thanks Lowell for the feedback and Ira yeah I like your idea of these minor gestures.
And I think
in terms of the TVO
STEVEN JAMES MAY: misfire let's say, it did result in
STEVEN JAMES MAY: the expression of access concerns that maybe otherwise
wouldn't have been articulated in a CRTC intervention and so I think Geneva mentioned
Bill C-10 and of course it's been in the news sort of the only kind of non pandemic news of late really and
I think all of the talks today do sort of point to
Important areas that I think the regulators and the MPs that are looking at the broadcasting act, they'd be very wise to look at the archive of this panel because
these are the sort of items that maybe aren't coming to the surface now in terms of concerns for the continued funding of Canadian programming, cultural programming.
With the decline of cable and satellite delivery, the rise of streaming
I think
the examples that have been given today really help to inform
you know, the best step forward and
you know incumbent broadcasters.
What is the bargain that they're striking with citizens in terms of use of spectrum and preferred protections, how can we maybe enhance
the current sort of setup for broadcasters as opposed to trying to regulate audio visual social media.
IRA WAGMAN: Yeah, that's an excellent that's an excellent point Steven for sure, yeah Geneva go ahead.
GENEVA NAM: So thank you everybody for inviting me to have a chance to share my thoughts, I also want to thank all the other presenters
for really amazing talks, very, very interested in everything you guys have to say, so thank you for that.
In terms of your question Ira, I think that to a great extent the minor, the small gestures that were mentioned
it's because we are holding the CRTC accountable to a 1991 broadcasting act and having to take apart these minor details and words
to advise us on how well we are seeing ourselves reflected in our content, in our video on demand, or our cable, or our streaming and the problem that I'm
noticing, is that the content that Taeyoung had brought up, the lack of visibility of even Canadian content on our own domestic streaming platforms
is a great example of how we need more than smaller gestures to achieve some regulation at
even the smallest level to strengthen the type of Canadian content that we have had seen reflected in our broadcasting system on radio and on television, cable.
That being said, there are people who are against having more Canadian content because that would
reduce the amount of choice, it would increase the amount of oversight in our streaming platforms which right now we don't see.
So that would be something that would have to be negotiated but, as I mentioned in my presentation, the consultations aren't there.
And I think that's important where we would require public consultation to actually see what Canadians want in their democratically elected CRTC
overviews of the Bill C-10.
Yeah just small gestures but we need large gestures too.
IRA WAGMAN: Oh yeah no for sure, and I think the, I mean I think the point
I think you're absolutely right and I mean I certainly wasn't suggesting that the small gestures are not important gestures for sure.
But just that you know that in all of these cases, you know, like once you get past
the big ideas, then it's down to the, you know, it's down to those things like what are the best practices, what are the appropriate tools to use, you know what are the types of
you know, levels of access that are expected so yeah I think you're absolutely right, that there is such a tension between small, minor and major actions that I think your answer really nicely
outlines. Any final thoughts as we are kind of running up against the end here.
I'm sensing that might be the sign that zoom fatigue has fit in, has set in, so let me take the opportunity to thank you.
To thank all of you for coming and to thank all of the presenters for for excellent talks.
Thank you David for technical support and wishing you all a great rest of your day and a happy and a healthy couple weeks and months ahead.