Brexit. Trump. Terrorism.
As major markets around the world face significant challenges, Rogers President and CEO Guy Laurence puts global issues into context and highlights the opportunity for Canada on the world stage.
That was the promotional pitch for today’s luncheon address at The Canadian Club.
Not the usual theme for a communications sector CEO. As it turns out, the address turned toward opportunities for Canada as we revisit our national cultural policy.
Having lived and worked in the media business in England during the “Cool Britannia” era, he reflected on how the UK had a brand, initially based on its cultural icons (Spice Girls, Oasis, Alexander McQueen, Kate Moss, David Beckham, Naomi Campbell, Hugh Grant, etc.). “All of them international superstars and unmistakably British.”
He then turned to list a number of current Canadian successes:
- In music:
- Last winter seven of the top ten songs on the Billboard 100 were Canadian.
- The most streamed album of 2015 was Beauty Behind the Madness, by The Weeknd.
- In video:
- The Ontario film production industry delivered $1.5 billion to the provincial economy with 55 movies were filmed here last year.
- Vancouver had a record year with 353 film and TV shows.
- In publishing:
- Two Canadian authors, Madeline Thien and David Szalay, are among the 6 nominees for this year’s Man Booker prize.
- In gaming:
- Over 20,000 people now work in Canada’s gaming industry, making it the third largest in the world.
- There are now about 470 studios operating in the country, and 85% of them are Canadian owned.
Canada has more than a million jobs in the cultural sector with a quarter of them tied to film and TV production. Rogers says it creates and funds $580 million in Canadian content which makes it one of the more substantial stakeholders in the country.
Some commentators have said stakeholders are uniformly after more money: “The industry, on the other hand, seems content to use the consultation to seek more public funding, suggesting that the technologies may have changed, but using the policy process to lobby for more tax dollars remains the same.”
Rogers’ CEO was clear in countering that point: “there is enough money in the system already. We don’t need more funds– we need to consolidate the alphabet soup of funds so we can reduce complexity and administrative costs.”
His view is that funding should be platform neutral:
We’re asking for content to be funded on a platform neutral basis… for content to be created for all distribution platforms, whether it’s a TV screen, a movie screen, or a smartphone screen. Consumers are going digital. Rogers is going digital. Canada needs to go digital.
Content should end up anywhere and everywhere it makes sense.
And he closed with an upbeat message, stressing the importance of the cultural policy consultation:
Whilst the rest of the world deals with its challenges, there’s never been a better time for Canada to define its standing on the world stage.
And this will mean more jobs, more tourism and more export dollars.
Sometimes, it doesn’t take government money. It needs leadership.