At what point do broadcasters stop being broadcasters?
At the IIC conference in Ottawa earlier today, Greg O’Brien of Cartt.ca reported that much money “can be diverted to content by switching off expensive OTA transmitters in favor of satellite.”
Most Canadians watch TV using a cable or satellite based broadcast distributor. Those distributors are often accessing the station using a satellite or fibre feed which raises the question in my mind: what is actually being broadcasted?
At what point does a broadcaster cease being a broadcaster? If there is no need for the radio frequencies for over-the-air transmission, then how do we distinguish between that TV station delivering content and say, a website delivering content? More and more of the set-top boxes are IP based, essentially acting as specialized personal computers many of which are Microsoft powered.
So, in many homes, the family entertainment room has already been transformed into a 40-60 inch computer monitor, connected to a specialized computer with a non-alphabetic infra-red keyboard (the remote control), which is connected to an IP based network. Instead of entering a “www” address, the user enters a shortcode, such as 16, in order to view content coming from another site.
Ignore the legacy model and I look at how my kids are buying entertainment. The set-top box driving the big screen TV is an old computer with Netflix; it could just have easily been Apple TV. Little stands in the way of what we currently think of as network programming being delivered over that same computer network.
Which begs the question: At what point does our home entertainment shift away from being regulated by the CRTC?
This question becomes important since it ultimately determines the amount of choice available to consumers. It has implications for consumption of domestic content and the Canadian production industry. Indeed, as consumers start to access programs directly, are local stations going to have a role beyond serving as a portal selling local advertising?
You’ve asked two different questions, Mark.
On the first, which asks at what point broadcasters stop being broadcasters: most broadcasting undertakings and, in particular, most programming undertakings, are today not broadcasters. The world has moved on. Specialty and pay services, which are not broadcasters, compose the majority of programming undertakings, themselves a subset of broadcasting undertakings. Parliament foresaw this when it drafted the current Broadcasting Act, which is not oriented towards over-the-air broadcasting in particular.
On the second, which asks at what point the CRTC stops regulating audiovisual media: the simple answer is that it doesn’t regulate exempt audiovisual media (including “home entertainment”, news programming, and other audiovisual media). You’ve argued that CRTC regulation of some audiovisual media wouldn’t meet policy goals, so it shouldn’t happen. That’s the test the CRTC is required to apply, too — they are not allowed to regulate any class of media where regulating wouldn’t materially contribute to achieving policy goals. Which is why they don’t regulate Internet media.