CRTC told to wake up!

Post items here [radio related or otherwise] that you have run across on the net that might be of interest to others

CRTC told to wake up!

Postby OpenMike » Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:45 am

Unions to Verner: Reign in the CRTC

by: Patricia Bailey Oct 30, 2007

MONTREAL -- It's time for Josée Verner to wake up and force the CRTC to protect Canadian content. That's the message 18 of Canada's largest cultural unions and associations, most of which hail from Quebec, sent the new minister of Canadian Heritage at a press conference this week in Montreal.

The group -- which includes film, TV and music lobby groups such as the Union des artistes, the AQTIS, the APFTQ and ACTRA -- says cultural stakeholders in Quebec are worried about the apparent deregulation agenda of the CRTC and its head Konrad von Finckenstein. It is calling on Verner, who took over for Bev Oda in August, to put pressure on the CRTC to enforce its cultural and social regulations, and those of the Broadcasting Act, more rigorously. It also wants the feds to be more involved in the Internet.

ACTRA president Richard Hardacre joined the chorus with a public plea to Verner at Sunday's televised Quebec music industry awards show, the ADISQ gala. His message to Verner, who was in the audience, was delivered in French to resounding applause. Over 1.7 million Quebecers tuned in.

"It was a cry from the heart," Hardacre tells Playback Daily. "We want the minister to pay attention. There is a change happening at the CRTC, it's been happening for a while. It's driven by commercial interests. It has nothing to do with the Broadcasting Act's objectives."

He says the CRTC has been on the deregulation road since it decided in 1999 not to monitor the Internet. "The CRTC has basically decided not to regulate something that represents the biggest innovation in terms of content delivery in recent years," says the ACTRA president. "It's instead putting all its energy into facilitating media convergence. It should be creating regulations to protect culture within this new context [of media convergence.]"

Vincent Léduc, president of the Quebec producers' association, the APFTQ, is also concerned about the direction the CRTC is taking. "It's mainly independent producers who produce Canadian content. It's not that we want to be mired with unnecessary regulation. But we need to protect culture," he says.


The coalition also fears that the CRTC is going to blend its telecommunications and broadcasting regulations and, in the process, eliminate the Broadcasting Act's social and cultural objectives, according to Anne-Marie Des Roches, spokeswoman for Quebec's largest actors' union, the UDA.

"Von Finckenstein's discourse is very ambiguous. It's not clear. We hear him talk about the need to protect culture. But when he talks about telecommunications it's all about deregulation and free market. Culture cannot be regulated by market forces," she says.
Von Finckenstein has said publicly that federal legislators should look at merging laws regulating the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors, given that technology is rapidly bringing the two together.

"If the laws for the two sectors are merged. Broadcasting will loose," says Des Roches.

The federal regulator held public hearings this week in B.C. on a number of broadcasting applications, and next month will begin hearings into the purchase of Alliance Atlantis by CanWest Global and its U.S. partner Goldman Sachs, a move that, if approved, could rewrite the rules of foreign ownership in Canada. It is also due to issue a decision on the future of the Canadian Television Fund in December.
Geo Custer - "There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the 7th Cavalry"
User avatar
OpenMike
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed Jul 04, 2007 5:17 pm

Re: CRTC told to wake up!

Postby Glen Livingstone » Wed Oct 31, 2007 8:20 am

OpenMike wrote:He says the CRTC has been on the deregulation road since it decided in 1999 not to monitor the Internet.



Yes, by all means, let's get the CRTC to start monitoring the internet.

Holy Crap!
User avatar
Glen Livingstone
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 948
Joined: Sun May 07, 2006 8:12 pm

Postby Cliff Bashly Kinkade » Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:47 am

HUH? 1999 signaled the move towards deregulation?

A few downsized and re-assigned might disagree with that date. Not to mention that by 1999 playlists were already shrinking, content was disappearing, and formats were blurring.

And the Internets had nuthin' to do with that.
nudeswithviews.com / where right is never wrong
Cliff Bashly Kinkade
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 954
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 11:54 am


Return to Rip 'N' Read ... aka Cut 'N' Paste

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 76 guests