Monthly Archives: February 2016

Heritage Committee on Local TV

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This morning I listened to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (#CHPC).  It was their first meeting on a study on ‘The Media and Local Communities’ which is also their first study.  I tuned in because it’s the first real meeting for this committee in this Parliament and I wanted to hear them interact with senior staff at Heritage and the CRTC (and then last minute additions from Industry – I mean Innovation, Science and Economic Development – and the Competition Bureau).  I’m not that interested in local tv but I’m glad I did tune in.

I was talking to my local MP, Julie Dabrusin, on the weekend since she sits on the Heritage Committee and I realized when I spoke to her about the local tv study that her interests in it were broader than my interpretation of the terms of reference of the study.  The minutes describe it as:

“… how Canadians, and especially local communities, are informed about local and regional experiences through news, broadcasting, digital and print media; the unintended consequences of news media concentration and the erosion of local news reporting and the impact of new media”

In listening to the meeting though I was struck by how wide ranging the questions were. Heritage started off by giving a very rapid ‘Canadian media policy 101’ talk with what sounded like (the feed was audio-only) a lot of slides.  A few of the MPs sounded overwhelmed.  It should be remembered that I believe Pierre Nantel (NDP) and Hedy Fry (Lib) are the only MPs there with previous experience on the committee.   So some of the questions continued on the 101 theme (‘how is Canadian media funded’ – I think I heard Helen Kennedy’s sigh before she started counting the ways) while others went off on to topics like diversity, funding for digital media, local news, newspaper consolidation, Broadcasting Act objectives, the Bell-Astral merger and the inability for anyone to make any money on digital platforms (that was a Conservative MP statement without any evidence).

The CRTC could not really say much because their local tv proceeding is outstanding and there are rules about not discussing a pending proceeding.  They did chat a bit about why LPIF wasn’t renewed, which honestly could have been the topic of a whole meeting as it had been a whole hearing.  They made a pitch that they are lowering barriers to innovation and encouraging broadcasters to evolve to multiplatform businesses, though without specifics.  Innovation, Science and Economic Development made some odd statements about how millennials don’t care about funding for digital media, just access and making money from their content.  Umm, just because you can make content for peanuts doesn’t mean you want to.   The Competition Bureau said they didn’t care about whether diversity of voices was impacted by consolidation, only if there was a negative economic impact.

There were some good questions but my favourites unfortunately were thrown in at the end when there wasn’t time for answers so we won’t hear them publicly.  Julie Dabrusin asked if the CRTC planned to update the 8 year old Diversity study (I swear I didn’t plant that question) and Hedy Fry asked who was in a position to regulate digital platforms for accuracy.  I suspect Scott Hutton of the CRTC was pretty happy there was no time to answer that last one!  The answers should be incorporated in their report so I’ll be looking for them.

Things could obviously change over the minimum 10 meetings that will be devoted to this study but based on today the Committee will be asking all sorts of questions about the media landscape and I’ll try to pay attention when I can.  It’s good to hear what the MPs are interested in and what topics they need help on (i.e. yes, there are businesses making money with content on digital platforms).

Prime Time in Ottawa 2016

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I live tweeted the annual CMPA conference, then Storified my tweets and those of others (twice – I lost the connection on the train and then my work – argh!!) and after thinking about it for a bit put it all into some context in a TV, Eh! post.

On a personal note, while not all the panels were interesting to me (everyone has different assessments based on their level of knowledge and interest), Prime Time is still a ‘must schmooze’ event for me.  I saw lots of people and had both fun and useful conversations.  I was reminded that more people read this blog than show up in the stats because some of you cut and paste posts and circulate them by email.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t but I apparently shouldn’t be discouraged if it just says 36 people read a post.  And I should blog more.  Promise.

 

Diverse Thoughts on a Train

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I don’t know about you, but I live in a diverse Canada.  My mother is Anglo-Indian.  My daughter is Chinese.  My sister-in-law and nieces are from Bangladesh.  My daughter’s friends cover a wide range of ethnicities including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Jamaica and China.  Her boyfriend is Vietnamese and Aboriginal.  I have friends who are Chinese, South Asian, Black, Filipino and yeah a whole pile of white ones.  This is my world.

So it is important to me that my Canadian media is diverse – my television, my websites, my videogames.  All of it to the extent that it makes sense for the story.  It should reflect the audience and not some long ago version of the audience.

Which is why I get cranky (cranky enough that I Facebook posted my annoyance and then on the train to Prime Time stewed about it until I started to write this post) when I read articles about the tv industry in the mainstream media which seems to think that it’s an all-white, mostly male, industry.

Bright, creative young people will not join mainstream media unless they see opportunities for themselves and that means seeing people ‘like them’ in positions both in front of and behind the camera.  They have other options – ask Lilly Singh or Jus Reign – and while I applaud them for pursuing their careers on YouTube I am concerned that not enough of them are trying to tell their stories in mainstream media.  Will my daughter and her diverse classmates at Centennial’s Broadcasting and Film program have careers in film and television or will they too find more opportunities on YouTube? Yes, I can hear Jason Kee (Google Canada) asking me what’s wrong with that but we can’t have truly reflective audiences only on one platform.

Content that reflects the audience can only happen when both employers hire diverse talent and when diverse talent pursue those careers.  So – how do we make that happen?  That’s our challenge.