Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this public hearing on Canadian television.
This is the first of three major hearings that the Commission will hold this fall. At the end of the month, we will hold a hearing to ensure that competition in the wholesale mobile wireless services market is sustainable. In November, we will review the regulatory framework for wholesale telecommunications services, which will include an assessment of the current state of fibre-to-the-home network deployment in Canada.
The thread that runs through these major proceedings is choice and sustainable competition. The Commission is updating its regulations with its eyes firmly fixed on the future. We are seeking to create the conditions that will enable Canadians to benefit from a world-class communication system for years to come. One in which they have access to innovative broadcasting content and wireless and Internet services, wherever they live in Canada.
Let’s Talk TV
In October 2013, the Commission launched Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians to learn what they had to say about their television system.
This conversation continues here today. It is symbolic that this hearing takes place mere steps from the confluence of the Gatineau, Rideau and Ottawa Rivers. Where the Algonquin First Nations gathered for trade and culture and diplomacy. Where early French explorers travelled. Where our Parliament sits today. Where nearly 35 million Canadians converge, through their national institutions, to talk and pave the course of their collective future.
Canadian television finds itself at a crossroads.
In 1946, the American movie producer and studio executive Daryl Zanuck predicted: “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
With apologies to Mr. Zanuck, television has proven to be an incredibly popular, enduring and resilient medium.
The average Canadian watches 28 hours of television each week to be informed and entertained. To discover what is happening in their neighbourhood and elsewhere; to be challenged by our storytellers. The regulations that underpin Canadian television have helped create a thriving industry that employs nearly 60,000 people. Television offers Canadian and non-Canadian services that cater to a wide variety of interests. And in recent years, broadcasters and television service providers have been exploring ways to make content available on mobile devices and over the Internet.
Despite this success, the regulatory model is not well set up to accommodate our modern realities: Canadians are watching television in different ways, using different technologies. In fact, we are seeing a decline in traditional television viewing among 18 to 34 year olds.
Companies like Google and Netflix are leading the way in providing innovative viewing options. We will have an opportunity to hear first-hand about their experiences and ask questions about their business models. Google will be appearing before the panel today and Netflix will be here next week.
While the current regulatory model was appropriate to achieve the objectives set out in the Broadcasting Act based on past technology and past viewing habits—it has grown into a complex and at times unwieldy framework. How Canadians interact with television has changed. Broadcasting has changed. It’s time the regulatory model also changed.
A new approach
When we began the Let’s Talk TV conversation last October, we had new ideas in mind. Ones that departed from the way the Commission has viewed television in the past. We wanted to shift our focus from rules to outcomes. From constraint to choice. From scheduled to on-demand. From channels to programs. From meeting quotas to embracing new opportunities. From domestic to global.
The new framework for television will be based on a principled approach. The outcome can be nothing less than a framework that accounts for today’s realities and that is flexible enough to accommodate future change. Rather than protect specific channels or broadcasters or a particular way of doing business, we must ensure that the television system meets the needs and interests of Canadians, both today and in the years ahead.
The framework will seek to ensure that Canadian television fosters choice and flexibility in selecting programs. That it encourages the creation of compelling content made by Canadians and accessible across multiple platforms. And that it empowers Canadians to make informed choices.
But its most important characteristic is that it will put Canadians first.
This is only right since Canadian television belongs to them. It is their system.
By now, I’m sure many of you will have seen the working document we released last month. It contains a list of the key issues that we are studying. We believe that we have enough information on the record to come to conclusions on many of these issues.
The panel will therefore focus on those that require further exploration, which are: maximizing choice and flexibility for Canadians; fostering the creation of compelling programs made by Canadians; fostering local programming; and setting the ground rules for fair and sustainable wholesale relationships, that is, the relationships between cable and satellite companies on the one hand, and television services on the other hand, whether or not they are independent or part of vertically integrated groups.
This proceeding will serve the same objective as the two other hearings this fall: ensuring Canadians have access to innovative content, wireless services and Internet services.
Public participation
Before we begin, I would like to thank all those who will be participating over the next two weeks by appearing before us.
Canadians who cannot be here with us can still participate by posting comments in real time on our online discussion forum at: www.crtc.gc.ca/talktv. We will be keeping an eye on your comments as the hearing progresses and look forward to your input. In a very real way, our hearing room is not just here in the National Capital Region, it stretches from coast to coast to coast.
I would also like to thank everyone who has participated in this important conversation so far. We received over 10,000 comments through the three phases of Let’s Talk TV, which shows that Canadians care about their television system and are invested in its future.
We would not be able to fulfill our legislative responsibilities without the views and participation of Canadians. All comments will be taken into consideration as we finalize the framework that will carry the television system into the future.
Procedure
Finally, I would also like to provide a few introductions.
The panel for this hearing consists of:
- Tom Pentefountas, Vice Chairman of Broadcasting
- Candice Molnar, Regional Commissioner for Manitoba and Saskatchewan
- Stephen Simpson, Regional Commissioner for British Columbia and the Yukon
- Yves Dupras, Regional Commissioner for Quebec
- and myself, Jean-Pierre Blais, Chairman of the CRTC. I will be presiding over this hearing.
The Commission team assisting us includes:
- Sheehan Carter, Rachelle Frenette and Donna Gill, the Co-Hearing Managers
- Joshua Dougherty and Jean-Sébastien Gagnon, Legal Counsel, and
- Jade Roy, the Hearing Secretary and Public Hearings Supervisor.
I would now invite the Hearing Secretary to explain the procedures we will be following. Madam Secretary…
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