C.D. Howe report

Source: Montreal Gazette

The rapid expansion of broadband-fuelled entertainment, whether online or across cable TV networks, has rendered the regulatory framework established to protect and foster Canadian content obsolete, a new report says.

"It is clear that new technologies will inevitably make key aspects of current regulatory policies ineffective," says the C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based think-tank.

The institute made six recommendations to the nation's broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission:

-Consumer viewing habits have changed over the past several years as the Internet has supplanted traditional media. New rules are needed.

-Mandated quotas on the amount of time and money dedicated by broadcasters, such as Canwest Global Communications Corp. and CTV Inc., and cable and satellite companies such as Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc., to Canadian content "will become increasingly ineffective as technological change advances."

-In place of the quota system, new funding measures and sources of revenue are needed to foster domestic content.

-RegulationofCanadianbroadcasting ownership will become increasingly impractical.

-Broadcasting distributors, such as cable and Internet providers, which have become gatekeepers to broadband and TV channels in recent years, should be subject to greater oversight to prevent abuses of market power.

-The report also called on Ottawa to convene a special task force to establish a roadmap for the regulator and affected industries to follow that ensures Canadian content is not marginalized by digital forces.

© Montreal Gazette