New TV, radio stations providing diversity in age of media consolidation: Dalfen

Last month, Charles Dalfen made his first appearance before a Parliamentary committee as chair of the CRTC. Before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, which is studying the broadcasting system, he focused on foreign ownership and cross-media ownership. He noted that non-Canadians were prohibited from holding broadcast licences, and that while media cross-ownership had increased, there was still a diversity of voices with the licensing of numerous new television and radio stations as well as an explosion in information on the Internet. Below is an excerpt from his presentation. Foreign ownership …The commission is instructed under the Broadcasting Act to give effect to certain directions of the Governor-in-Council. One of the most important of these is the direction dealing with the ineligibility of non-Canadians to hold broadcasting licences...The direction spells out the criteria that applicants must satisfy in order to qualify as Canadian. In the case of a corporation, these include the following: a minimum of 80% of the issued and outstanding voting shares of a licensee corporation and 80% of its voting rights must be owned and controlled by Canadians; the chief executive officer and a minimum of 80% of the corporation’s directors must be Canadians who normally reside in Canada; and where the licensee is a subsidiary, 66 2/3% of the parent corporation’s issued and outstanding voting shares and voting rights must be owned by Canadians. where the foreign ownership of a parent corporation is over 20%, the parent corporation or its directors cannot influence the programming decisions of the licensee. Finally, and very importantly, the applicant must not be controlled by a non-Canadian. Cross media ownership …The CRTC’s mandate in this area stems from a number of sections of the broadcasting policy for Canada, set out in the Broadcasting Act. That policy declares that the programming provided by the Canadian broadcasting system should provide a reasonable opportunity for the public to be exposed to the expression of differing views on matters of public concern. It also provides that the Canadian broadcasting system should encourage the development of Canadian expression by providing information and analysis concerning Canada and other countries from a Canadian point of view. And it declares that the Canadian broadcasting system should serve to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada. …The commission addressed the issue of cross-media ownership in a number of decisions in the summer of 2001, concerning TVA, CTV and Global, the largest media ownership groups in French and English Canada. ...The commission, therefore, imposed a number of safeguards by condition of licence, including the following: Management of broadcast newsrooms must be kept separate from newspaper newsrooms, an independent neutral monitoring committee must be created to receive and handle complaints pertaining to the statement, (and) this committee must report annually to the commission on all complaints received and how they are dealt with. …The commission has recently received reports from two of these monitoring committees. In both cases, no complaints were received regarding the commission’s safeguards during the first year they were in effect. Conclusion Despite some increase in cross-media ownership, over the past decade, the commission has licensed numerous new TV and radio services across Canada. Canadians have many new media outlets available to them, and an increased number of distinct voices. There are also numerous foreign sources of news and information available by cable and satellite. And many more such sources are available to the almost 70% of Canadians with access to the Internet. At the same time, we must always be vigilant as citizens of a democracy, to ensure that we continue to have access to a diverse range of viewpoints, so that we can be fully informed on issues of public concern that affect us, and so that we can have an effect on how those issues are dealt with and resolved.

New TV, radio stations providing diversity in age of media consolidation: Dalfen

Broadcast | January 16, 2003

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