Cancon must keep pace with HDTV demand: Dalfen

CRTC chair Charles Dalfen presented the opening keynote, excerpts of which appear below, at this year’s Prime Time, the Canadian Film and Television Production Association’s annual event. In it, he urged Canadian producers to produce more content in high-definition broadcast formats. As I looked over the program for this conference one thing that struck me was that the world of film and television is becoming both bigger and smaller than it’s ever been, all at the same time. …Of course there’s also something slightly unsettling here. We see that a major shift is underway in television, but none of us knows what the world is going to look like after the dust settles. Having said that, it’s easy enough to predict the general trend over the short to medium term. Broadcasters will face the challenge of increasingly fragmented markets. Content providers will have to tailor their product to the characteristics of multiple platforms while navigating uncharted territory related to broadcasting rights. Audiences will become increasingly fickle, as viewing options proliferate. …Broadcasters also turn to independents to help them meet the CRTC’s requirement to air eight hours per week of priority programming. And independent producers figure in broadcasters’ plans when they seek to benefit from the drama incentives program that awards additional advertising minutes in return for more broadcasting hours of original English-language Canadian drama, more spending on it, and more viewing to it. ...All of this is to say that we are mindful of the importance of independent Canadian production to achieving the goals of the Broadcasting Act. Our actions have reflected that, while also recognizing that independent production is one element of a larger system. …One area at the top of my mind – and yours too, I have no doubt – is high definition programming. An issue that preoccupies us is the widening gap between the demand for HD programming in Canada and the supply of it. The demand is certainly there. HD TV sets are becoming increasingly common in Canadian homes. Data from one major manufacturer show that sales revenue in Canada of their HD sets went from virtually nil in late 2003 to more than one-quarter of total revenue from sales of all TV sets over 30 inches by the end of last year. But while a rapidly increasing number of Canadians own HD TVs, most of the programming that they can watch in HD is produced in the US. The situation we all want to avoid is one where Canadians opt out of Canadian content if the HD programs they want to see are coming from somewhere else. At the end of the day, there’s no arguing with the preferences of viewers. Broadcasters and the production industry in Canada have an opportunity now to seize the moment by providing high-quality, competitive HD programming. We want Canadians to have a great selection of Canadian viewing choices in HD, and so we’re interested to learn more about your strategy for filling the gap between supply and demand for HD. …Independent production is a source of home-grown creativity, technical excellence and storytelling that is critical to upholding a distinctly Canadian broadcasting system. We are counting on your entrepreneurial spirit to deal with the challenges of new technology in television and to seize the opportunities that technology presents.

Cancon must keep pace with HDTV demand: Dalfen

Broadcast | February 24, 2006

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