“Me Media” will enhance, but not displace, mass media: O’Farrell

Canadian Association of Broadcasters president and CEO Glenn O’Farrell addressed the Vancouver Board of Trade on November 2. Playing on the theme of this year’s CAB annual conference – "New Realities, New Rules" – O’Farrell told the audience that regulators need to recognize that Canada’s broadcasting landscape has been fundamentally altered by competing platforms. The following is an excerpt from his speech. I’ve spoken about the ew realities where unregulated new players are entering the market on their terms while incumbents – private broadcasters – continue to be governed by rules and regulations that were designed for yesterday’s world. Simply put, we need new rules to address the new realities. We are a regulated industry – with responsibilities and obligations that were based on assumptions that have been fundamentally and irreversibly altered. We know that the rule-makers and regulators in Ottawa are aware of the changing realities. Stacks of facts and figures have been submitted in regulatory proceedings that are yet to be concluded. The question yet to be answered can be stated in relatively simple terms: will the new rules recognize that broadcasters are now competing for eyeballs and advertisers with a parallel universe that lives on the Internet? …Imagine this: One morning you suddenly have to run your business against a growing field of new competitors who have fixed costs that are 30% to 50% less than your’s because your competitors are not required to comply with government regulation? No, this is not some exaggerated fantasy – these are the new realities facing broadcasters today. And quite clearly, the asymmetry is unsustainable. So that’s what the private broadcasting industry is here in Vancouver to talk about – the challenges but also the opportunities. A big part of the discussion will focus on how the industry is aggressively developing new initiatives with the new technologies - building the cross-walks from mass media to "Me Media." Across Canada and right here in British Columbia, broadcasters are aggressively embracing the opportunities offered by new technology. Radio stations like CHUM’s CHQM FM now offer free daily "best of podcasts" for each of their local shows. And they also do full podcasts of every BC Lions and Vancouver Canucks game. And if you missed your favourite show on Corus’s CKNW, you can just download it from their website any time and catch it later. In fact, many radio stations offer you the opportunity to stream their content onto the device of your choice. ...There are some who may suggest that as new technology enters our lives, it replaces or displaces the old. But that is not always the case. In fact, it seldom is. Radio did not displace newspapers. Television did not displace radio. And the Internet will not displace broadcasting. "Me Media" will not displace mass media. Think of all the people who are voting for TV with their dollars as they buy expensive new High Definition plasma and LCD units to watch their favourite TV programs. ...The people who buy iPods and BlackBerries for themselves and their kids are also buying flat screen TVs. Private broadcasters will seize every opportunity and continue to build a growing presence on the "Me Media" platforms that new technologies make possible. We are going to compete on every platform, on every device invented or yet to be invented.

“Me Media” will enhance, but not displace, mass media: O’Farrell

Broadcast | November 7, 2006

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