Broadcasters shouldn’t use COVID to change CanCon obligations: WGC

Whether or not there is a pandemic, large broadcasters want to do away with their Canadian content obligations, and they should not be allowed to use the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse to shift their obligations away from supporting Canadian creators, according to the Writers' Guild of Canada. In an intervention submitted to the CRTC's consultation on a request for regulatory relief in the form of "deemed compliance" from the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, the WGC -- which represents screenwriters across the broadcasting industry -- said that it "strongly opposed" the CAB proposal, calling it "overbroad, sweeping, and extreme." "In our decades of experience before the CRTC, the WGC has seen private, English-language broadcasters consistently argue that Canadian programming requirements represent an undue burden placed upon them, which should be reduced or eliminated, no matter the market or other circumstances at the time," the WGC wrote. The WGC also referenced remarks Corus Entertainment Inc. CEO Doug Murphy made at the Sep. 15 BMO Media & Telecom Conference, in which he said that the production slowdown stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns has created a crisis of meeting its CRTC-mandated Canadian programming expenditures (CPE), one that the company “is not going to waste.” "The cynical reading of this comment—that the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to reduce regulatory obligations that Corus and others have wanted to see reduced or eliminated anyway, under cover of a global public health crisis—is sadly not also a far-fetched one," the WGC wrote. The watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting -- which early in the pandemic called for the creation of an emergency media fund -- encouraged the regulator to instead target regulatory relief toward individual companies, rather than issuing a policy of deemed compliance across the sector. The CRTC should rather assess which broadcasters can afford to meet their obligations without compromising the provision of news and information services. "The situation surely varies from broadcaster to broadcaster, and we urge the Commission to make reasonable determinations based upon a given broadcaster’s actual financial situation," Friends wrote. "Some may be able to uphold existing obligations, while others may not." According to a submission from Rogers Communications Inc., the financial harm for the broadcast year "has already been felt." "It should not be further compounded," Rogers told the regulator, "by forcing broadcasters to make up for shortfalls they can ill afford during these difficult financial times let alone be forced to invest in programming that is non-core to their mandate." In July, the CAB had asked the regulator to introduce a policy of deemed compliance for broadcasting expenditure regulations -- given a broadcaster was acting within good faith. The organization said that the effects of the pandemic on revenues were so serious that “the alternative will be de facto sanction for virtually all private broadcasters, an onslaught of individual applications for relief that the commission will be unable to process in a timely manner, and unnecessary job losses and station closures.” In September the CRTC launched a consultation into the proposal, while expressing its preliminary view that a policy of deemed compliance may not ensure that the "viability of the Canadian broadcasting sector, insofar as it has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, is not further harmed as a result of the regulatory relief proposed." In its intervention, BCE Inc. wrote that deemed compliance would indeed ensure the health of the Canadian broadcasting sector. Deemed compliance "will allow us and other licensees to remain viable and not be further harmed, as would be the case if the Commission were to deny the CAB's application," Bell wrote, while pointing out that stations have been closed and staff have been laid off. "Hard decisions will continue to have to be made, absent regulatory relief. Station closures will affect coverage of local news, something that Canadians desire and something that we are very proud to provide to them," Bell wrote. Should the commission reject CAB's request for broad-based deemed compliance, Bell suggested the company be allowed to fulfill its Canadian programming expenditure (CPE) requirements over the next five years. "While this five-year extension takes us beyond our licence term – set to expire in August 2023 – anything less than five years will further exacerbate the situation we are in and create additional financial challenges," the company wrote. Should the CRTC reject the deemed compliance option, Rogers suggested it be allowed to redirect its underspend on programming of national interest (PNI) toward news programming, in order to meet the CRTC consultation stipulation that "current news and information programming and the service such programming provides to Canadians is maintained." "Rogers submits that a redirection of PNI underspend to news and information programming would not impact our ongoing slate of PNI programming given current production schedule realities but would have a material and immediate benefit to news budgets and programming," Rogers wrote. — Reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Broadcasters shouldn’t use COVID to change CanCon obligations: WGC

News | 10/21/2020 6:28 pm EDT

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