Commentary: It’s time to tame the Wild West of online broadcasting

The line between traditional television and new media is getting blurrier every day. Broadcasters, TV producers and Internet providers are all trying to figure out how to navigate this changing landscape. And now the CRTC is pondering whether to get into the act. As well it should. Watched The Sopranos on your cell phone lately? Streamed last week’s Coronation Street on your home computer? Or bought an episode of Corner Gas from iTunes? For a growing number of Canadians, the answer is yes.Until now, new media broadcasting has been a bit like the Wild West: a new frontier colonized without much in the way of government interference. But with more Canadians watching TV programming on their PCs and mobile phones, it’s fair to ask whether the CRTC needs to set some policy guidelines. In an effort to answer this question, the commission has announced plans for a hearing, and is soliciting public input.I would argue that the CRTC does, indeed, have role to play. The job of the commission is to ensure that broadcasting in this country reflects Canadian values and attitudes, and serves the needs of citizens.To this end, the CRTC should be introducing policy measures that will further the development of unique and original Canadian broadcasting content for the online world.When the commission last looked at new media back in 1999, it chose to exempt online broadcasting from regulation. (It issued a similar exemption last year for broadcasting via cell phones and other mobile devices.) Since there wasn’t enough broadcast content on the Web to have any impact on traditional TV and radio audiences, imposing strict rules seemed unnecessary.Nine years later, the picture looks different. More than half of all Canadians with Internet access downloaded videos last year; approximately one-quarter did so at least once a week. At the same time, online video is evolving rapidly toward long-form programming that replicates traditional TV offerings (minus the regulation that requires support for Canadian content).New media is broadcastingNew media have become, for all intents and purposes, part of the broadcasting system. So it makes sense for the CRTC to take a second look at that exemption.For the most part, Internet service providers (ISPs) would prefer to see this discussion stopped before it gets started. The Internet, they say, cannot and should not be regulated.Actually, the former is a myth. North American Internet providers, for example, can and do regulate the Internet by restricting certain traffic on their networks – mostly the bandwidth-devouring peer-to-peer file sharing done by BitTorrent users. Similarly, media companies that broadcast online protect their content rights by using “geo-blocking” software that limits downloading by consumers in other countries.Like any electronic communications medium, the Internet can be made subject to oversight. The question is how. Should the dictates of the marketplace alone determine how the medium is regulated – or should the greater public interest be a factor?In some ways, the Wild West approach we’ve adopted to date has been a healthy one. The new media sector in this country has flourished, in part, because government policy makers have allowed so much room for innovation. Changing course might be problematic. Canadians have been enthusiastic Internet adopters (nearly two-thirds of all households now have broadband access) and would almost certainly balk at any regulatory measure that restricts consumer access to online content.The need for limited interventionStill, there is a case to be made for some limited intervention, in the form of policies that would foster more Canadian new media programming.As the CRTC correctly notes, Canada currently lags behind many other Western countries when it comes to making original, high-quality, professionally produced broadcasting content available online.Sure, there’s plenty of homegrown Web video out there – if your idea of Canadian content is YouTube clips of hockey fights or frat boys playing the national anthem on their armpits. And yes, most of the country’s major broadcast players offer some Canadian programming for streaming or download.But there’s far more happening south of the border, where broadcasters have successfully developed original “webisodes,” “mobisodes” and video podcasts for hit programs like Battlestar Galactica, 24 and Lost, and have experimented boldly with Web series like Quarterlife.Why haven’t we kept pace? The answer, as it often does, comes down to money. Developing original content for new media – programming that can compete worldwide in a borderless online marketplace – is a costly proposition. In a comparatively small market like Canada, the dollars needed to fund high-quality factual and drama programming are always scarce. Just ask any producer in the traditional TV business.Over the years, broadcast policy makers have established a financial support system for made-in-Canada television programming. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the CRTC now consider creating a similar mechanism to encourage the creation of original Canadian content for new media broadcasting.Levying ISPs to fund new media contentPeter Grant, a Toronto communications lawyer and co-author of the insightful book Blockbusters and Trade Wars: Popular Culture in a Globalized World, has publicly floated the idea of a levy on Internet service providers, requiring them to put a modest fraction of their revenues (say, 2.5 percent) into Canadian programming produced specifically for the online and wireless worlds.A policy like this would need to be crafted carefully, with an eye to balancing the divergent interests of broadcasters, producers and ISPs. The CRTC would probably need to maintain a light hand, leaving online broadcasting exempt from most other forms of regulation, and would have to allow the market to determine the viability of projects supported by an ISP levy or public funds.Still, there is great potential – especially if the regulation also offered incentives for broadcasters to partner with ISPs on such projects. We could look forward to programming that takes advantage of the unique capabilities of the medium, that tells distinctly Canadian stories with worldwide appeal, that showcases the talents of Canadian content creators in the online realm, and that helps to drive traffic to Canadian Internet providers. Everyone would win.Contrary what some in the Web business would have us believe, developing public policy for online broadcasting is not the sort of loony leftish idea only Canadians would contemplate. From the U.S. to France, broadcast regulators are beginning to take seriously the need for intervention to advance the public interest.The Wild West nature of the Internet has, to some extent, facilitated growth and innovation in Canada’s new media sector. But it’s time to ask whether our approach ought to change. Smart, market-sensitive policies that privilege the creation of high-quality, original Canadian content could benefit consumers, producers, broadcasters and Internet providers alike. Even the Wild West didn’t stay wild forever.Bill Roberts is president and CEO of S-VOX

Commentary: It’s time to tame the Wild West of online broadcasting

Broadcast | July 14, 2008

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