[Swprograms] Re: Fwd: [ODXA] Say goodbye to bad radio

[Daniel Say <say@xxxxxx>]

> Posted over at the ODXA group...
> Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA  USA
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Brian Smith <am740@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 13:57:32 -0500
> Subject: [ODXA] Say goodbye to bad radio
> To: Group/ODXA <odxa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> By Gary Dunford -- For the Toronto Sun
> 
> RADIO REVOLT? A pal got his nifty new XM Radio this week. Pure music feeds
> from the sky. He's not waiting for the CRTC to get off the dime. Have we
> been here before people? Buddy wants tunes. Now.
> 
> How long is the CRTC gonna sit on the satellite radio file? Hello?
> 
> Isn't the CRTC's dithering over which -- if any -- Canadian radio satellite
....

	And 

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   Will satellite kill the radio regulator?

   Imagine flicking on the radio tomorrow and finding hundreds of crystal
   clear stations, playing all your favourite music, sports, talk and
   news from around the world -- all without ads. Sound like a dream?
   Well, it could be reality in Canada soon if the fledgling U.S.
   satellite radio industry gets its way and is allowed to open shop
   north of the border.
   Admittedly, the new service would require listeners to buy a special
   receiver and pay nominal subscription fees. Still, Canadians are
   interested. "Look, selection up here is terrible," says Adam
   Barkovitz, a 25-year-old forestry consultant from northern Ontario.
   "I'm a slave to the CBC, and some country music station that plays
   all-day Shania. I'd sign up [for satellite radio] tomorrow. Anything
   for a little variety."
   Not everyone is so excited. Traditional private radio sees the
   satellite option as a serious threat to its revenue base, which is all
   about advertising. And many Canadian performers are opposed

   by Jhenifer Pabillano, Darryl Korell & Tim Walker

   Will the CRTC be willing -- or able -- to protect Canadian content if
   satellite radio comes north?
   Or has the regulator become a relic in the face of new technologies?
   because they are worried they will lose valuable airtime to Americans.
   But the group that many believe stands to lose most from the
   introduction of satellite radio has no on-air presence. It's a widely
   influential bureaucratic regulator in Ottawa called the Canadian
   Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which is
   responsible for broadcasting and telecommunications in this country.
   Over the next few months, the CRTC will decide the fate of satellite
   radio. And how it proceeds will be watched closely, not only because
   its ruling will affect what we are able to listen to, but also because
   it promises to shed light on the future relevance of the 34-year-old
   regulator. At stake in this decision is whether the CRTC will
   effectively declare itself obsolete.
   "If there were ever an issue that could rip the heart out of the
   regulator," notes Globe and Mail columnist Eric Reguly in October,
   "this is it."
   The issue promises to test the regulator's commitment to maintaining
   Canadian content rules in the new media environment because the two
   best satellite radio prospects are American-backed deals. The key
   players, two U.S.-based companies, Sirius and XM, have suggested that
   they pay a tax instead of abiding by Canadian content rules.
   While the CRTC has been effective in the past at holding the line on
   Canadian content and protecting Canada's "cultural sovereignty," many
   see the CRTC as an old-fashioned organization struggling to adapt to
   the new media environment of digitized information, deregulation and
   global capital. The last revision to the Broadcast Act was 13 years
   ago, leaving the commission with outdated tools to deal with the
   changing media landscape. Even CRTC chairperson Charles Dalfen admits
   that "today's rapid developments. . . [are] making our role even more
   challenging."
   A proud history
   The CRTC was created under the 1968 Broadcasting Act to license and
   regulate all television and radio in Canada - the only significant
   forms of broadcast media at that time. The regulator's job is to carry
   out the Act's provisions, which required broadcasters to be primarily
   Canadian-owned, play sufficient Canadian content and provide quality
   programming that is available across the country.
   At first, the CRTC forced all broadcasters to be 80-per-cent
   Canadian-owned and pressured them to reflect Canadian life on their
   broadcasts. Indeed, beginning in 1971, the CRTC imposed strict quotas
   on Canadian content. The policies helped to ward off powerful U.S.
   cultural influences and develop home-grown icons, such as Rush and
   Bryan Adams.
   But during the 1980s, the CRTC made major changes in response to the
   era's market-friendly political climate. By 1990, the CRTC officially
   endorsed the creation of a self-regulating body for the broadcast
   industry -- called the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) --
   to share its responsibilities. The commission shifted more of its
   duties to self-regulation.
   "The old CRTC would say `we shall regulate it'," explained then-CRTC
   chairperson Françoise Bertrand in a 1997 speech. "The new Commission
   will say `regulate if necessary, but where appropriate, we would
   prefer to let industry self-regulate under supervision.'"
   This shift has led some to question the CRTC's ability, or
   willingness, to play an active role in content regulation. "We
   absolutely have to review [The CRTC's] regulation," says University of
   Laval professor and CRTC expert Florian Sauvageau. "We have to keep
   the same values. But, are the tools still the right tools for the job?
   I'm not sure."
   The case of media concentration
   Media concentration may be a good example of how the CRTC has become a
   less effective regulator. The issue of media concentration once again
   became a voluble Canadian concern in 2001. That year, three major
   media mergers swept the industry.
   The deals involved BCE acquiring CTV, the largest private television
   network in Canada and the largest national newspaper, the Globe and
   Mail; broadcaster CanWest Global purchasing the Southam chain of local
   Canadian daily newspapers; and tabloid newspaper giant Quebecor
   picking up cable company Videotron and French television channel TVA.
   The mergers raised issues for the Canadian public. The issue of media
   concentration has long been a sore spot for Canadians, spawning two
   government commissions in 1970 and 1981. The biggest fear then and now
   was that the large conglomerates might threaten the diversity of media
   content and jobs. Unfortunately, the issue that spurred this latest
   round of concentration - convergence - or the new ability of media
   outlets to promote and create news across platforms because of digital
   technologies was untested. During a CRTC inquiry, even BCE head Jean
   Monty said, "I see this very much as an evolutionary process [...] we
   don't really know how this will end. The issue for us is not to say we
   know today what the end game will be, but how we position ourselves
   for the evolution."
   Since the CRTC doesn't handle issues of media competition, its only
   power to regulate these mergers and the concerns raised by convergence
   occurred through the television licence renewal process. The CRTC
   renewed all of the companies' TV licences, but placed five conditions
   on each of them. These mandated clear separation of print and
   broadcast editorial structures, and required each company to establish
   an independent monitoring committee to deal with public complaints
   about media concentration.
   "The Commission's view is that concentration of ownership, including
   cross-media ownership, is not in and of itself a concern provided that
   there continues to be an effective degree of diversity of programming
   sources to ensure that the objectives of the Broadcasting Act are
   met," explained Maria de Rosa, a communications officer who described
   the CRTC decision in a report for the federal Department of Heritage.
   Whether you agree or not with its decisions in these cases, the main
   issue outstanding is the fact that the regulator didn't regulate all
   its own recommendations. In fact, two years later, during the Senate
   committee investigation into the state of Canadian news media, CRTC
   chairperson Charles Dalfen explained that no one was checking whether
   the companies were complying with the five measures. He explained the
   system was not designed for that.
   "[W]e are not the RCMP," he told the committee in a September 2003
   hearing. "It is a complaint driven mechanism in two ways. One, there
   is that [independent monitoring] committee is being publicized. The
   other way is that they [the public] can come directly to us, they do
   not have to go to the committee."
   Using the public as a watchdog, however, has not been the most
   effective strategy. While CTV spent $1-million annually to advertise
   its in-house independent monitoring committee, it received just a
   handful of complaints that were barely related to concentration. The
   company's board disbanded the monitoring committee in 2003, and handed
   its duties over to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC), an
   industry body that deals with public content, complaints and
   administers broadcasting standards. (The CBSC also acts as the
   independent monitoring committee for Global, at the request of Global
   immediately following its licence renewal.)
   Ron Cohen, National Chair of the CBSC, says it has yet to receive a
   public complaint about media concentration. He also admits it has no
   formal strategy in place to handle such complaint at this time. Cohen
   explained the CBSC is currently waiting for the CRTC to approve a set
   of industry-wide standards it wrote on cross-media ownership, which
   includes a process for handling complaints. The CBSC declined to
   release the contents of their proposed standards, while the CRTC has
   acknowledged it is currently reviewing them.
   Whatever the future may hold, the current absence of complaints
   prompts two key questions. Has the public been silent because people
   believe concentration has not affected content? Or has the system for
   filing complaints degraded to the point where even a concerned citizen
   would not know where to turn?
   Another possibility is that the specific consequences of media
   concentration are not easily recognized by the public and that the
   public watchdog approach chosen by the CRTC was never likely to elicit
   much response. BC media lawyer Jon Festinger, a former CTV executive
   and former member of the Bell Globemedia monitoring committee,
   believes the main effects of limited ownership are practical economic
   pressures on news gathering, which are seen first and best understood
   by those working in newsrooms.
   Quebecor took a different approach: Its committee was not set up for
   public criticism, but rather for complaints from within their
   newsrooms.
   "You cannot confuse the role of the monitoring committee with that of
   Radio-Canada's ombudsman," explained Luc Lavoie, Quebecor executive
   vice-president, to the Senate committee in October 2003. "The
   committee was not struck to look into complaints about the quality or
   content of information. This committee was created to monitor the
   independence of news gathering operations."
   In any case, it is clear that the CRTC's system for monitoring the
   effects of media concentration and convergence is not as effective as
   it could be. It passed on responsibility for the public complaints
   processes to the broadcast industry, and failed to ensure the system's
   maintenance and accessibility.
   What the future holds
   Fast forward to the present and enter satellite radio. The situation
   is important because it poses challenges many see as typical of what's
   to come for the regulator. The details show that the CRTC is currently
   considering digital radio licence applications from three groups: CHUM
   Ltd., Canadian Satellite Radio Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.
   CHUM -- whose bid is based on a digital, land-based transmitter that
   would roll out service in stages and only to large cities -- is the
   lone Canadian candidate.
   The other two bids, spearheaded by US companies Sirius and XM
   Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (the actual satellite owners), are in
   many ways more appealing. For example, they offer a broader range of
   content available anywhere in Canada. The problem is that despite
   domestic partnerships, they fail to meet Canadian ownership
   requirements and do not plan to offer the CRTC's requisite Canadian
   content levels.
   This puts the CRTC is in a difficult position with a compelling case.
   If it grants a licence only to CHUM, it would avoid issues of Canadian
   content and ownership but provide an inferior service reaching only 75
   per cent of Canadians. Yet, if it chooses to license either or both of
   the US-based bidders, the CRTC could render obsolete the very rules it
   was created to uphold.
   XM and Sirius recognize this dilemma and to compensate for not meeting
   Canadian content rules (CanCon) they have offered to pay a tax (an
   amount equivalent to 3.5 and 5 per cent of their respective
   subscription fees) that would go towards fostering the development of
   Canadian talent.
   Ian Morrison, spokesperson for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting which
   supports CHUM's bid, argues that this would set a dangerous precedent
   in the Canadian broadcasting industry whereby other licensees could
   seek the same privilege.
   Furthermore, Morrison argues that "to compensate for the damage they
   [would] inflict on the Canadian market," U.S. applicants should be
   required to pay considerably more than they are offering. He suggests:
   "35-53 per cent of previous year gross revenue . . . in addition to
   these broadcasters' exhibition requirements."
   Amounts aside, the CanCon tax approach to protecting Canada's
   "cultural sovereignty" should be looked at carefully says Catherine
   Murray, an associate professor in the Simon Fraser University's School
   of Communication, who was a member of the B.C. regional board of the
   Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. "We are probably coming to the
   limits of traditional CanCon. . . [But] we also want financial
   contributions for Canadian production [from foreign broadcasters]."
   Might the CRTC start allowing companies to buy their way out of its
   precious CanCon rules? It's too early to tell. However, the CRTC has
   to act. The Canadian public wants satellite radio. (A recent poll by
   Decima Research Inc. found that 33 per cent of adult Canadians
   informed about satellite radio said they would be very interested or
   somewhat interested in subscribing.)
   If the CRTC is to successfully resolve this difficult issue in the
   interest of the Canadian public, it will have to be creative, adapt
   and rethink its traditional methods. This may well become a theme in
   its future.

   Jhenifer Pabillano, Darryl Korell and Tim Walker are first-year
   students at the School of Journalism.

School of Journalism University of B.C.  6388 Crescent Road
Vancouver, BC Tel (604) 822-6688 [13]journal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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