Shaw came out swinging at the New Media hearings, charging that the concept of an internet content tax has been proposed by “self-interested” groups who have not produced any evidence that there is a shortage of Canadian content on the internet.
Jim Shaw proclaimed:
The internet is about the World Wide Web, not the Canadian Wide Web.
Other themes raised by Shaw in their presentation this afternoon included:
- Regulation did not build the internet; technology and consumers did.
- An internet tax would represent an unwarranted burden, including the administrative burden of registration and licensing.
- Shaw invested $700M last year in capital improvements and it plans to continue to do so, responding to customers. Shaw is introducing DOCSIS 3, with speeds up to 100Mbps later this year.
- Shaw needs the certainty of an unregulated internet if it is to continue its investments.
The CRTC rejected discussions of legal opinions submitted by Rogers and Shaw, telling the panels that it can leave that determination to the courts.
The chair summarized the perspective of supporters of the levy as trying to ensure that as eyeballs migrate from cable TV to new media distribution, that support for Canadian content development only comes from the BDUs and the other platforms provide no support. Shaw touched on the point that the quantum of support has not gone down, since it is an assessment on cable revenues, not cable viewers.
Shaw challenged the proposition that revenues will migrate from cable to internet. Jim Shaw said that people want to watch their sporting events on their high definition TVs, not on the internet. Shaw has not seen people giving up their cable in favour of new delivery platforms.
As such, would the proposed production levy on internet and mobile wireless revenues result in a windfall for the content production industry?