Addition by subtraction: can national new media association benefit from the departure of the CFTPA?

While the withdrawal of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA) as a member of the Canadian Interactive Alliance/l'Alliance interactive canadienne (CIAIC) may seem like a damaging blow to the credibility of the fledgling national new media industry association, members of both groups may actually benefit from the separation. "It's always a struggle to try and bridge across all the different issues in the traditional media and new media and how they affect each other," says Ian Kelso, president of the CIAIC board as well as the provincial new media association Interactive Ontario. "It may be actually a good thing for both of our organizations to have a tighter focus on what our constituent members' priorities are." When the CFTPA announced on Tuesday that it was leaving the CIAIC, and that its VP of feature film and new technology Marc Séguin was simultaneously stepping down from the CIAIC board, it cited the CIAIC's "broad diversity of interests indirectly representedthrough the current provincial association members, coupled with the lack of a focused and explicit mandate," as its reason. It was also upset with a recent amendment to the CIAIC's bylaws that limited full voting membership to "not-for-profit trade associations that have a majority of members that are creators or enablers of interactive media content or services.""We decided that it's probably best just for the time being, until the CIAIC maybe shapes out more, that we just do our own thing," says Séguin. "I think they do have issues relating to their mandate and their specific goals.... We're disappointed with the way the organization has been evolving."As a founding member of the original national new media alliance, which eventually became the CIAIC about a year and a half ago, the CFTPA's disappointment runs deep, and its decision to leave the association was easy. But Séguin says the CFTPA can better represent its own constituents because of the focused nature of its membership - content producers only. But as an association of associations, the CIAIC by extension represents everyone from content producers to telcos. " going to be very, very limited in scope of areas it can be effective in," says Séguin. "You know the old expression ‘if you try to please everybody, you please nobody?' I think this is one of the biggest problems or challenges that the CIAIC is going to face." This challenge is most apparent in the regulatory world where it can be difficult to represent the interests of a broad membership when trying to influence policy direction. The CIAIC need look no further than the Canadian Association of Broadcasters as an example of an industry association that on occasion can't comment on policy issues because of the conflicting interests of its members. "I think naturally it's a challenge, but there's a lot of opportunities and challenges that are common across the board right now, especially at this point in our industry," says Kelso. "There's a whole deck of issues that we definitely can agree upon and work together on."While Kelso admits the minutia of regulation and policy can cause difficulty in consensus building, he points to the three priorities the CIAIC laid out at its annual general meeting in August - financing, trade and talent - as areas that it can be strongly committed to. "As an organization it's definitely growing and increasing in the kind of value that we're able to provide back to the members," he says.Although neither the CFTPA nor the CIAIC is pleased with the separation, both acknowledge that it could be part of the growing pains of a new organization trying to find its feet. "I think the positive takeaway is potentially that we can each focus on our own priorities, and get a better handle on what our members collectively want to be working with," says Kelso. "And we're very hopeful that the CFTPA and the CIAIC will be able to work together on issues of convergence where we have a common interest."The CFTPA seems to somewhat feel the same way. "They've still got to work out a bunch of stuff, that's understandable," says Séguin. "When it suits the CFTPA to work in close collaboration with Interactive Ontario or any other provincial association, we will do so."

Addition by subtraction: can national new media association benefit from the departure of the CFTPA?

News | 11/14/2007 9:19 pm EST

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