Source : Globe & Mail

Submissions on all aspects of programming will be welcome at fall hearings

by Graham Fraser

The future of Canadian television will be up for grabs next fall.

Starting on Sept. 23, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will be listening to submissions that will try to answer a series  of sweeping questions about every aspect of Canadian programming.

This will include: looking for answers on how to produce better Canadian programs and how to get private stations to show them in prime time; how to make programs that can be exported and how to get Canadians to watch them.

"This is the most important hearing for Canadian television in a decade,"  said Ian Morrison of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

The CRTC said that it would be examining the key characteristics of the domestic and global environment, how to encourage alliances in order to get high-quality programs, the best approach to regulating what it called "multi-station ownership groups and networks" in terms of Canadian content, the importance of Canadian content in every area of television, the relationship between private broadcasters and the CBC, and the linguistic duality of Canada.

Michael McCabe, president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, immediately responded by saying that the focus of the hearings should be what he called "the financing gap" which was brought to public attention by the recent problems with the Canada Television and Cable Production Fund.

"We must use these hearings to address how we can best bridge the financing gap and figure out where the resources are going to come from to finance Canadian programming that viewers will want to watch," McCabe said.

The last major review of CRTC television policies came in the mid- 1980s, and since then, the TV industry has been transformed by new channels, consolidation of ownership and the dramatic growth of Canadian television production.

This has occurred because of a number of factors.

The CBC's decision to shift to a virtually all-Canadian prime time schedule and the explosion in specialty channels have both had an impact, as has the creation of the Canada Television and Cable Production Fund, which has made funds available to independent television producers.

The difficulties, however, in the rapid growth became clear when Telefilm Canada failed to produce the necessary approvals in time for one of the funding deadlines, temporarily jeopardizing some of the major television productions planned for next fall.

And, with the growth of specialty channels, viewership for traditional television networks has dropped. In addition, the CRTC is wondering what the impact of the transition to digital television will be on Canadian content.

The deadline for submission of briefs is June 30.

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