Source : Toronto Star

At first glance, one might be tempted to conclude that the Report of the Task Force on Broadcasting Policy (dubbed the Caplan-Sauvageau report by the media) belongs to a long-gone era.

When we submitted the report in September 1986, giving rise to a long process that culminated in the adoption of the current Broadcasting Act, neither Newsworld nor the Reseau de l'information had come into being, much less the Internet or podcasting. Today, dozens of thematic channels, analogue and digital, are capturing a growing share of the television audience.

The media world that we described 20 years ago has changed dramatically. And yet that dusty document already contained the first signs of the major changes and debates that would follow.

A few years earlier, in 1981, the Royal Commission on Newspapers (the Kent Commission) had warned of the danger of concentrated newspaper ownership, which could threaten the diversity of information and opinion that are vital in a democracy.

But in the mid-1980s, no one could have predicted the successive waves of mergers that created the immense multimedia conglomerates and the extreme concentration we have today. Even if each of us can now have our own blog or website, the web is dominated by huge conglomerates. We proposed the development of a comprehensive policy and explicit guidelines on media ownership, which would replace the case-by-case analysis of transactions to which the CRTC is still partial. Twenty years later, no progress has been made in this area.

The two main engines of today's upheaval were already emerging in the mid-1980s. Changes in the cable industry, including the potential capacity to carry an apparent infinity of new channels, were harbingers of the multiplicity of media that technology has now made possible. The state's reduced role and complete trust in the market were already among the priorities of the government of the day and the concerns of those who created the task force.

The seers were excitedly announcing thematic media, targeted audiences, the era of narrowcasting and the death of mass media. We preferred to convey a moderate message. Things always change more slowly than the prophets predict. We would have to wait almost 20 years for audience fragmentation to become pronounced.

Today's new "gadgetry" is giving rise to the same enthusiasms as yesterday's. They will most likely cause even more upheaval, but it will take a clever person indeed to say when. Hasty entrepreneurs may lose a shirt or two.

The Conservative government of Stephen Harper is not the first to place its trust in the market above all. The mandate given to our task force specified that our recommendations to the minister of communication take into account the priorities of the Brian Mulroney government, including the need for fiscal restraint and increased reliance on private-sector initiatives.

Our recommendations, which nonetheless called for an important role for the state, did not seem to traumatize a government that still included a few progressive members and Red Tories. Today's Conservatives, however, have dropped the "progressive" part of their former party label, and public broadcasting and regulation no longer seem to be part and parcel of the political mood.

Plus ca change ... The questions we asked in 1986 are still current. How can we ensure that distant regions are as well served as urban centres, that the interests of minorities are not neglected, that cultural issues carry as much weight as economic issues, that our public broadcaster remains distinctive from the privateers - in short that our media system serves the common good and democracy?

The many study groups and commissions that have taken turns analyzing these problems have always thought we could not do so without giving a significant role to the state. Now, as some ask, are we witnessing changes that will cause us to break dramatically with the past?

We believe on the contrary that a degree of continuity is essential.

Gerald Caplan and Florian Sauvageau were co-chairs of the Task Force on Broadcasting Policy.

© Toronto Star