CRTC reorganization aimed at greater efficiencies in converging world

The CRTC has created a converged broadcasting and telecommunications group under the leadership of Len Katz in a major reorganization aimed at streamlining its broadcasting operations and enabling it to better deal with emerging technologies. Three divisions or pods – under the control of an associate executive director of broadcasting, an associate executive director of telecommunications and an associate director of industry analysis, economics and technology – will report to Katz, who has been given the title of executive director of broadcasting and telecommunications. No one has yet been named to the associate executive director of broadcasting position, while Scott Hutton is the acting associate executive director of telecommunications. The former position apparently will be opened up to both internal and external candidates. Hutton is in charge of what is essentially the current telecom policy and operations group, while the unnamed associate director of broadcasting will head up the broadcasting policy and operations group as it was previously laid out, with certain changes. The third pod, or what CRTC chair Charles Dalfen calls the middle leg, is a new integrated branch that will be responsible for industry analysis, economics and technology on both sides. "It will serve both broadcasting and telecom," Dalfen told Canadian Communications Reports. "This central branch will be responsible for understanding the full corporations we regulate, and their strategies in media and telecom generally. It will also be responsible for keeping abreast of new technologies – both transmission and distribution technologies as they emerge and become increasingly digital and broadband-based, whether they are fixed or wireless. It will also be alert to the regulatory challenges of new media, such as the Internet and iPods, personal video recorders and all that, and what the implications of those new technologies and devices are for ongoing regulatory decision-making." CRTC vice-chair Michel Arpin told CCR last month that tackling new technologies was a priority for the commission (CCR, Nov. 29/05), and the creation of the integrated branch appears to be designed to facilitate that. "We want to be able to optimize our broadcasting and telecommunications activities and expertise to respond to…both technological changes and consequent changes in business strategies. In addition to technological changes, we have a lot of companies that we regulate that are increasingly operating on both sides of the house – Telus, Rogers, Shaw and so on," stated Dalfen. "So we have to continually be sensitive to that technological change and those shifts in corporate convergence to ensure that we continue to discharge our regulatory responsibilities and give effect to the objectives set out in the broadcasting and telecommunications acts." The reorganization brings relatively few changes on the telecom side, but broadcasting sees more tinkering in a bid to see some of the regulatory efficiencies that have already been achieved on the telecom side. Katz has overseen the telecom side for about a year, and has spearheaded a number of changes that have resulted in quicker decisions. A number of broadcasting functions, such as verifying Canadian certification, radio logging tape analysis, and the collecting of financial returns, have been transferred to a new branch under the secretary general away from both the telecom and broadcasting pods. The secretary general division is headed by Diane Rhéaume. "The broadcasting branch will thus be freed to do what it does 95% of the time, which is process licence renewals and amend applications, issue and run policy processes – such as high definition, digital migration and so on and so forth," noted Dalfen. "It will no longer be doing the enforcement, compliance, and monitoring kinds of activities that it has previously been doing." As well, Dalfen said that he has asked Tony Lacombe, director of broadcasting operations who reports to the yet-to-be-named associate executive director of broadcasting, to undertake the special project of further streamlining broadcasting in addition to his normal duties. "We have achieved it to a large extent in telecom and so now we have to do the same in broadcasting," stated Dalfen. "We need to continually be alert to the need to avoid regulatory lag, and be more responsive to the applications before us."Chris Peirce, MTS Allstream VP of regulatory and government

CRTC reorganization aimed at greater efficiencies in converging world

Broadcast | December 21, 2005

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