Recently, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that it is considering a change to the scope of the upcoming television broadcast license hearings scheduled for April 2009.

Under the current Broadcasting Act, 1991, the CRTC can grant broadcast licenses for up to 7 years. There is also an option to grant licenses for shorter periods of time, but this is usually done in cases where there are compliancy issues.

However, there is now concern that the CRTC might reverse course and grant only temporary, one to two-year licenses – and no, this has nothing to do with compliance issues.

Instead, these shorter license periods are rumoured to be considered as a solution to the tough economic conditions facing Canadian broadcasters. In fact, given the recent financial troubles at Canwest, combined with cutbacks at CTV and City, there seems to be growing evidence that the CRTC needs to look at broadcasting on a short-term basis, as opposed to a longer-term, 7 year plan.

Now, this isn’t the first time the CRTC has dealt with the issue of the financial status of broadcasters. As recent as October 2008, the CRTC released another policy whereby it denied local broadcasters the right to charge carriers a fee to broadcast their signal. In essence, it would have provided a new source of revenue for broadcasters feeling the pinch from decreased viewership and lower ad revenue.

At the time, it appeared as though the CRTC wasn’t overly concerned about the economic health of local broadcasters – but it appears as though their sentiments are changing.

Now, it looks like the CRTC is suddenly concerned about broadcasting and the economic challenges it faces – most notably problems that stem from decreased viewers and ad revenue and increased online competition.

And that’s why there is all this talk about the possibilities emerging from the April 2009 license hearings – which by the way will be heavily scrutinized by a number of groups, from acting guilds, to media watchdogs, to corporate shareholders and owners.

Now, I have no problem with the CRTC examining the financial health of local broadcasters – after all, they provide an essential service, both in terms of education and entertainment.

However, what concerns me about this potential change in scope is that it might be just the thing that provides broadcasters with the chance to eliminate the much-maligned Canadian Content (CanCon) rules – and as a result, create a broadcasting system filled to the brim with foreign programming.

Under the CanCon rules, broadcasters must demonstrate that over the course of a year, 60% of their content aired during 6am to 12am is Canadian – during the coveted 6pm to 12am slot, the requirement is 50% CanCon.

Of course, with all laws, there are loopholes that broadcasters take advantage of – for example, Canadian dramas shown between 7pm and 11pm are eligible for an additional 25-50% of credit. And yes, news programmes do count towards the 50% requirement.

And so, because of the CanCon backlash, I fear that the CRTC may grant short-term licenses that relax the CanCon rules, which would allow broadcasters to show other, often American, programming that can provide higher ad revenues.

But this creates a problem – what do CanCon producers do? Should they just sit idly by and wait for the license to expire and hope that the CRTC applies the CanCon rules again?

In all honesty, how likely is it that once the rules are relaxed, they will be implemented again at full strength?

And as someone who enjoys a number of Canadian programmes, this worries me. And no, I don’t claim that all CanCon is good – but there have been some great series produced, including Ready or Not, Degrassi, and Flashpoint.

But without CanCon rules, we begin a perilous trip towards the land of no CanCon – a land of foreign programming that doesn’t showcase the strength of Canadian programming.

I don’t know about you, but that’s a land that I for one would rather not travel to!

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Tags: broadcast, broadcasting, canadian radio-television and telecommunications commission, cancon, crtc, television

This entry was posted on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.