‘Separate silo’ approach to regulation wrong-footed in Internet age: report

Adjusting the existing legislation governing the telecommunications and broadcasting industries and putting more power in the hands of the CRTC could help address issues in Canada’s concentrated TV industry, according to a new Canadian Media Concentration Research Project report. The June 17 draft report penned by Carleton University communications professor Dwayne Winseck focuses on net neutrality, or common carriage, and cultural policy within the digital age and “develops an analysis of the TV markets in Canada, with a particular focus on the structure of the market in terms of ownership and concentration,” with Winseck writing that he hopes to outline some, “hopefully, provocative ideas about where we might want to go next.” These ideas include getting rid of the section of the Telecommunications Act that defers to the Broadcasting Act when dealing (section 28) with undue preference, eliminating the provisions (section 4) in both acts that keep the “separate silos approach” to telecom and broadcasting, and introducing increased broadband subsidies to “somewhere between what Sweden spends ($5 per person per year) and what the CBC receives .” The report also calls for the CRTC to take over authority over spectrum from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, in order to “take advantage of the CRTC’s expertise in communications regulation,” as well as to reject proposals “to transfer jurisdiction to the Competition Bureau.” The suggestion is in direct contradiction to recent reports published by Canadian think tanks, which called for less power to be put in the hands of the CRTC and for there to be less focus on Canadian content. Specifically, the authors of the C.D. Howe Institute report recommended the CRTC defer to the Competition Bureau on any competition matters. Winseck said such proposals “are thinly veiled bids to stop the CRTC’s newfound willingness to address the toughest issues across the whole of the communications and TV landscape – e.g. concentration, integration and market power – dead in its track.” Proceeds from spectrum auctions should be used for “funding communications and cultural policy goals, from extending broadband access to all Canadians to helping citizens and creators produce the culture they want,” the report said, also advocating money for the Canadian Media Fund be allocated from general coffers instead of drawn from broadcast distribution unit (BDU) contributions. “The fact that the BDU-centric TV industry is the funder of the CMF as well as its administrator and beneficiary is also laced with potential conflicts of interests,” it said. Winseck — who leads the Carleton University-based Canada Media Concentration Project — also argued in support of some recent CRTC decisions and chairman Jean-Pierre Blais, who he said “speaks openly about consumers, the public interest and citizens.” “Nothing is likely to compound the under-development of TV in Canada more than the kinds of renewed cultural policy nationalism and ‘free market’ prescriptions that are being pushed by those who want the CRTC to stick with the BDU-centric model of TV indefinitely into the future,” the report said. — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglia at akarad@thewirereport.ca

‘Separate silo’ approach to regulation wrong-footed in Internet age: report

News | June 23, 2016

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‘Separate silo’ approach to regulation wrong-footed in Internet age: report

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