FRPC wants CanCon visibility on search engines

As a rule, when Canadians search keywords on the internet, they should be presented with Canadian content related to those searches, argues the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications. “New communications legislation must require online programming services to ensure that their search engines make content produced by Canadians for Canadians easy to locate,” the Forum said in one of 56 recommendations it submitted to the government-appointed panel studying Canada’s communications laws. The suggestion is a digital age spin on traditional radio and TV rules that require broadcasters to have a portion of their schedule dedicated to Canadian content -- but for those players on the regulatory periphery. It seeks to address a now age-old question: How to bring foreign players into the system if they won’t be compelled to pay taxes or required to dedicate some of their programming to Canadian content? At the same time, it also represents one example of how foreign internet companies can “contribute” to the development of the Canadian broadcasting system, in light of a CRTC report that recommended the government mandate all players who benefit from the system to pitch in to help maintain it. “Search algorithms should offer audiences choice, and that choice should include Canadian content,” Monica Auer, executive director of the Forum said in an email. “Why would algorithms offered by services operating in Canada, to serve Canadian audiences, be designed to exclude Canadian choices?” The services must also show how they would abide by the new rule, the Forum said in another recommendation. If the government decides to move in that direction, and the CRTC still presides over broadcasting issues, then the government will want to “initiate a public process with the intent of setting out an enforcement policy” for the requirement, Auer said. The Forum is also recommending that cabinet, by order in council, establish a “CRTC Data Advisory Committee” made up of representatives from the CRTC, Statistics Canada, the provinces and territories, universities, and public interest organizations to develop, by the end of 2019, “a list of operational indicators to describe culture, social and economic aspects of Canada’s communications system.” Auer said that those measures would then be used to “quantify impact on living standards.” Part of that effort is to enable the CRTC “to gather key data from OTT services such as (but not limited to) Netflix. The authority to gather data, including about algorithms, will be key going forward.” The issue of the CRTC's ability to compel Netflix Inc. to hand over data led a showdown between company representatives and then-CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais back in 2013. Netflix is notoriously known to shield its viewership data from the public. However, it lowered its shield briefly when it recently announced on social media that at least some portion of its original movie “Bird Box” was watched by over 80 million households, according to news reports. But other public interest groups are not seeing Netflix in a competitive light. In its own submission, the Canadian Media Concentration Research Project (CMCRP) said Netflix has made a “significant contribution” to the “range of audiovisual choices available to Canadians, while others like Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. have been behind a “massive surge of investment” in TV and film production in the country. “Investment in production infrastructure and talent in Canadian cities is cultivated by such activities,” the submission said, noting that such investments have jumped from $5.8 billion in 2012 to $8.4 billion in 2016. CMCRP also said cord-cutting is “real but remains modest,” illustrated that using data suggesting total subscribers fell from 11.5 million in 2012 to 10.7 million last year. That argument is bolstered in a submission by Gregory Taylor from Canadian Spectrum Policy Research. He argued that the “end of broadcasting” arguments are exaggerated and “in fact the surprising resiliency of broadcasting...is one of the great media stories of the Netflix era,” citing data from CMCRP and the CRTC’s communications monitoring report. However, Taylor said the broadcasting sector has seen better days, and the slow decline in broadcasters’ revenues should motivate the government to wean the Canada Media Fund (CMF), which is partly government funded, away from a reliance on those revenues. Among other Forum recommendations is for Parliament to establish a “new, national, publicly owned content provider” for Canadian content that is free for everyone in Canada. The provider would be financed by a percentage of the money made by those players who benefit from the system. The submissions so far made public have also touched on some other sensitive areas: whether the internet should subsidize Canadian content, and vertical integration. On the first question, some submissions floated the need for urgency on the matter. Friends of Canadian Broadcasting said that if the CRTC requires “new powers to implement a broader-based equitable contribution framework involving all broadcasters,” then the government should “fast-track their enactment.” Part of that, Friends argues, is to “clearly identify the powers that the CRTC and the Government already have” with respect to the broadcasting “crisis.” But the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) said the two should be separate partly because, while content runs on the internet, it only makes up a “small portion” of what Canadians access. “Instead, broadcasting should be regulated separately and any new policy or legislative approaches should emphasize discoverability, amplification and recognition of Canadian content that is distributed via the internet.” On that, and addressing the second question, some parties came to suggest the end of vertical integration. “The CRTC should be explicitly empowered to separate elements of the content creation, content distribution and telecommunications access market segments under certain conditions,” read a submission from the internet advocacy group OpenMedia, which is asking the panel to consider recommending open wholesale access to networks, adopt a national broadband strategy, and don’t consider an internet tax to fund content. The FRPC and the Internet Society also argued that content ownership and its distribution should be decoupled. Telus Corp. also took issue with vertical integration in its submission, which asked for the CRTC to be able to "issue conditions of licence and make regulations generally which govern the wholesale relationship between programming services and content aggregators.” It argued that "given free rein, vertically integrated entities will continue to exploit their significant advantages of scale and integration to their benefit, and to the detriment of innovation and the interest of consumers." — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

FRPC wants CanCon visibility on search engines

Broadcast | January 21, 2019

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us

FRPC wants CanCon visibility on search engines

Broadcast | January 21, 2019

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Related Stories

Google $1B news initiative won’t stop new legislation, gov’t says

Gov’t to introduce web giant, CanCon, news legislation in fall: Guilbeault

Advertising market in ‘modest recovery’: Corus

BTLR recs could see U.S. tariff levies under USMCA: Geist

Reuse & Permissions

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us