Source: Cartt.ca

GATINEAU – CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein on Monday continued to question recommendations that traditional broadcast regulations should be transferred to new media.

The chair referred to a "fundamental flaw" when addressing the suggestion by the watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting that existing exemption rules be terminated and replaced with regulation that would ensure a predominance of Canadian programming in new media.

"In light of the increasing presence of all forms of media on an equal footing in public consumption habits, we believe that it is reasonable to extend the same public policy and Broadcasting Act support for Canadian content in all media, including new media," Friends spokesperson Ian Morrison told the Commission.

While noting new media can reach global audiences and create virtual communities, von Finckenstein said there was currently no way of measuring how much Canadian content is out in cyberspace.

"If you can't measure it, how can you impose the rule of predominance of Canadian content?" asked the chair.

While admitting that Friends had no expertise in measurement, Morrison retorted new media needed strong Canadian content, an issue Friends wants the CRTC to address in parallel with other media platforms.

Morrison was clear though that the regulation should only be imposed on commercial content.

Pointing out that the Friends web site contains video and audio, CRTC commissioner Timothy Denton asked, "How would you feel if your web site was regulated under the Broadcasting Act?

Morrison responded that an exemption would likely be in order since the web site generates no revenue and would not be considered online programming that met the definition of broadcasting.

Regulating the world wide web would be impossible, GlassBox Television's co-CEOs Jeffrey Elliott and Raja Khanna told the CRTC panel, but they still see a place for the regulatory hand. Elliott suggested that regulation should only be applied to "walled garden" sites, or portals with tethered conditional access. This would include sites operated by cable companies that offer only their own subscribers access to online video on demand and other content. It would also encompass TV services to the mobile phone that is delivered as part of a larger TV offering.

GlassBox owns and operates digi-net Bite TV but is building into a cross-platform media company which makes much of its own original content.

Elliot also recommended that new media producers have increased access to special funding, and that any new money be administered through Telefilm Canada's New Media Fund, and not the Canadian Television Fund, because that is where the expertise is.

Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and many in the creative community also want the CRTC to require ISPs to pay a portion of their revenue into a new media fund, as Cartt.ca reported last week.

Then again, several broadcasters appearing before the CRTC on Monday said the tax isn't warranted.

APTN chief executive officer Jean LaRose stated there is no reason for the levy since the ISPs are just another pipe to the home. If these ISPs begin to produce and distribute their own content, then they will become part of broadcasting and should only then be subject to regulation, he contended.

"New media is important but it's still in evolution," LaRose added. Regulation at this infancy stage, he argued, could disrupt great entrepreneurial possibilities.

But both LaRose and Mark Prasuhn, chief of content at S-VOX, complained about the difficulty of smaller broadcasters being able to obtain the online rights to shows from independent producers.

APTN only streams its news online because it hasn't been able to generate the online ad dollars needed to pay the added costs that producers are asking for online broadcast, said LaRose.

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