CRTC aims to lever new technologies toward goals of Broadcasting Act: Dalfen

CRTC chair Charles Dalfen says the commission is relevant and has a role to play in ensuring the presence of Canadian content and the reflection of the ethnic makeup of Canada on TV screens, even with the evolution of new technologies. "Ultimately, it isn’t about technology surprisingly enough," he said during a session at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) conference in Winnipeg on November 7. "We don’t regulate technology." The CRTC’s goal, he said, is to lever new technologies such as podcasting or Internet broadcasting to achieve the values set out in the Broadcasting Act. "There may be a morphing of institutions over time and history, but so long as those values are prominent… have our own voices in a multichannel universe, we’re going to have to come up with new ways of ensuring that that gets done in a way that is helpful to participants in the industry and to the Canadian public," he added. Dalfen said Canada has been able to maintain its Canadian content goals in past years and can continue to do so. "Canada has, over a century or more, reacted to new technologies, whether it be radio, television, cable TV or satellite, not by throwing up its hands and not by ultimately worrying too much, but by trying to resolve these technologies for those interests," he noted. "If the CRTC didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it." He said he wasn’t bothered by the "magnitude of the task," and brushed aside questions about the criticism the CRTC has faced for some of its decisions, such as its licensing of foreign subscription satellite radio services, which many cultural groups argue weren’t saddled with enough Cancon requirements (CCR, Sept. 9/05). "My colleagues and I take criticism as going with the territory. We are in some areas where feelings run high in the broadcasting system and you are going to hear from them," he noted, adding that the industry players are encouraged to resolve the issues amongst themselves. Many broadcasters are pushing for looser Canadian content quotas in the wake of the subscription satellite radio decisions, but Dalfen doesn’t appear to necessarily be open to deregulation in that area. "I don’t see moving toward a more free-market economic model of regulation," he said. "But I could be wrong."

CRTC aims to lever new technologies toward goals of Broadcasting Act: Dalfen

News | November 18, 2005

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