With the Telecom Policy Review panel now having suggested a formal “Broadcast Policy Review”, it may be only a matter of time before Heritage Canada takes on such a project. How does June 14 sound for an announcement?
Not that the TPR Panel should get any particular credit for this. A source of ours hears that Heritage officials are apparently not very happy about the “gratuitous” comments from the Panel on point. The reality is that with a former CRTC Commissioner / Broadcast Exec as Minister of Canadian Heritage (Bev Oda) and a former CRTC Broadcast Executive Director as the Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for broadcasting (Jean-Pierre Blais), Heritage Canada has all the motivation it needs to start flexing its muscle on the what, when and how of the CRTC’s future direction in Broadcasting. The real help from the TPR comes in its suggested “get out of the way” approach to telecom.
A broadcasting colleague of ours suggests that “getting in the way” is exactly what Canadian Heritage and the CRTC need to do if the Canadian Broadcasting Act is to have any future.
Bev Oda broke the ice to broadcast executives at the Banff TV Fest last year. Gone was the traditional CBC and CRTC bashing; instead, the language was “stable long term funding” and “efficiency”. Watch for a triumphant return of Minister Oda to Banff in mid-June this year, perhaps announcing ways to bridge the historic conflict between Industry and Heritage.
We suspect that Heritage Minister Oda would like Industry Minister Bernier’s Quebec support for her program and, in any event, we suspect that this PMO will not tolerate the kind of public disagreements typical of former Heritage and Industry Ministers.
There is a nice possible one-two punch being set up here. Minister Bernier announces his response to the TPR at the Canadian Telecom Summit on June 13 and on the following day, will Minister Oda announce a Broadcast Policy Review during her speech at Banff?