Foreign streamers wary of CRTC power under Online Streaming Act, CHPC told

Alphabet Inc.'s YouTube believes the provisions of Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, give too much power to the CRTC to regulate content, the company’s head of government affairs and public policy told MPs on Tuesday. “Some believe we want to avoid all regulation,” YouTube's head of Canada government affairs and public policy Jeanette Patell told the House of Commons Committee on Canadian Heritage. “This is not true.” She proposed a series of amendments that would clear up discrepancies in the bill. Section 4.2 of the legislation, which defines what content is subject to regulation, should only apply to full length commercial music, Patell stated. The commission should be strictly limited in what broadcasting rules it may apply to social media platforms. The bill as currently written gives the government effective control over all aspects of the Canadian experience on YouTube, she argued, saying that it is applying supply side measures to a demand technology. Patell said the firm wants to work with the government on their shared goals in the cultural sector. “We’ve seen first hand when barriers are removed and Canadians are given equal free access to an open platform and a global audience, they can take on the world. For Canadian creators YouTube is a level playing field on a world stage,” she noted. “It does not matter who you know or what you look like. Any Canadian with an idea and a smartphone can be a creator and find an audience on YouTube.” Her feelings were shared by Stéphane Cardin, director of Public Policy for Netflix Inc. He urged lawmakers not to impose current regulations on foreign streaming services. “This would not create a level playing field nor would it be fair or equitable,” he testified. “Unlike Canada's large private sector broadcasters, Netflix would not have the ability to meet its obligations through categories such as news or sports programming which represent the majority of their Canadian content spending.” The firm allows Canadian stories to reach an international audience, he explained. That is why Netflix has opened an office in Toronto and hired content executives who will engage with Canadian creators. Since 2017, the company has invested $3.5 billion in Canada. Wendy Noss, president of the Motion Picture Association-Canada, also spoke to the bill. Her group represents large American corporations like the Walt Disney Company and NBCUniversal. Disney previously testified about its concerns over C-11. Noss said her organization supported the bill in its form in the last Parliament, a piece of legislation that did not pass because of last September’s election. But she, too, was wary of some aspects of C-11. “This is a story of mutual opportunity and plenty of room to grow,” she remarked. The MPA-Canada supports modernization of broadcasting rules but said those regulations should only apply to streaming platforms that carry third-party content, such as Roku. Noss said that CanCon regulations should be updated. CanCon was very much on the mind of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Its international vice president and director of Canadian affairs is John Morgan Lewis, who told MPs foreign presales account for 15 per cent of film and television financing as opposed to 10 per cent from the Canadian Media Fund and only one per cent from Telefilm. “The current system wrongly relies on a few mandatory conditions like ownership or control plus a 10-point system in which films must score at least six to be considered Canadian,” he said. “Under the current system, the Handmaid’s Tale doesn’t qualify as Canadian.” He noted the series is based on a novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, who served as a consulting producer. It features Canada-centric plot lines, was filmed in Canada, employing hundreds of Canadians Under the ten-point regime, a Canadian director scores two points as does a Canadian screenwriter. Yet no points are awarded for having Canadians handle matters such as costume design or hairdressing. The United Kingdom employs a 35-point program, with 18 points needed to be considered British programming. The Netherlands uses a 210-point program, Lewis stated. Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and CEO of Quebecor Inc., noted that broadcasters and cable companies need licences from the CRTC in order to operate. Streaming services are under no such constraints. “Technology, the internet and globalization have made it possible to circumvent these licencing requirements in this new fundamentally and inescapable configuration into which foreign giants with enormous financial capacities have arrived,” he testified in French, according to simultaneous translation. “We say we must now remove our Canadian businesses from being subject to a plethora of heavy regulations and conditions that constantly stifle them and threaten their very sustainability.” Today in Quebec 71 per cent of the population subscribes to an online streaming service while only 66 per cent have cable, he noted, citing a study by Laval University. From 2010 to 2020, broadcasting revenues in Canada have fallen by $260 million, Péladeau added. Streaming is here to stay but platforms and ISPs must contribute, according to former Tragically Hip bassist Gord Sinclair, appearing as an individual witness. Streaming is a part of the ecosystem for music along with traditional broadcasting and live performances, he said. He pointed to the CanCon regulations as a boost for his former band. “We were beneficiaries of CanCon, a partnership between private broadcasters and government,” Sinclair stated. “This was not a hand out; for us it was a leg up.” He quoted the late rockabilly pioneer Ronnie Hawkins who said Canadian musicians had to work 10 times as hard to get one-tenth of the way of their American counterparts. Those streaming platforms are not neutral, according to the Canada Research Chair in Communication Policy and Governance at McMaster University. “There’s a common misconception that streaming platforms recommend what users want to see,” Sara Bannerman said. “Platforms show us what they want to show us. They show us what will keep us watching ads, purchasing advertised products, contributing data and subscribing.” The bias of algorithms predicts what will attract viewers to the platforms, she noted. This tends to favour programming that is widely popular rather than lesser-known content. –Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca

Foreign streamers wary of CRTC power under Online Streaming Act, CHPC told

Broadcast | June 2, 2022

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