Canadian Heritage Committee on March 1st, 2007

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

Younger Canadians are there. In a sense it's oversimplifying, but it's almost as if you have two markets to deal with. If we want to keep building our cultural sovereignty and our support to culture, both from a creation and access perspective, it's key that we're where the younger and newer generations are.

It seems to me that it's not just the CBC, but all broadcasters aren't playing on that front at this point. There have been some suggestions that the act should be clarified to reinforce that. The CBC has a role to play there.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

It also seems that it's an opportune way, as well, in terms of cultural sovereignty. I don't know what it is, but I do know it serves the world. But in terms of Canadian content and speaking to Canadian issues....

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

Absolutely.

I don't know if you're familiar with the whole economic notion of the long tail, but the idea is that the Internet allows you to have catalogues available. Normally when you get out a movie or TV program all the hits are at the beginning and then it dwindles off. But the idea of the long tail is that because you can keep inventory available at low cost, you can keep doing sales over time. There's a tremendous opportunity for Canadian content in that long tail. In the long tail, from a calculus perspective, there's actually more room and more sales that are possible...more access to Canadians in that long tail than in that first hit. There are opportunities. It's cheaper distribution, and it's ubiquitous.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

I'm going to share my time with Ms. Fry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

You still have two minutes.

Ms. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thanks very much.

I just wanted to ask one question. I know you have partly dealt with Ms. Keeper, but if the CBC is going to be sustained with regard to audiences, not just with regard to funding, one needs to be creating a whole new generation of avid CBC supporters and watchers. That means appealing to that demographic of about 14 to 25. What percentage of CBC listeners and viewers fit into that demographic, and what are you doing to create programming that would actually get that demographic involved? Because I think that's key to sustainability for the CBC.

The second question, quickly, is what do you see the CBC's role is in being a newscaster? It really isn't the most popular newscaster. Do you think that's a problem, and what do you think you could do to increase its ratings?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

There are some questions there that are beyond my area of responsibility, certainly in terms of demographics. We'll do what we can to find that information for you, perhaps working with our colleagues at CBC-Radio Canada to break that down for you. They would be in the best position to explain how they have reached those new audiences.

I know they have; there are a few noted here. A number of people would agree with your point, that you have to, and it's not just CBC-Radio Canada that has to do it, it's all broadcasters, because they're all facing this generational divide. How to keep the new generation plugged in, connected, in touch with their Canadian content? They are doing it in different ways, but it's the people there.

Similarly, when you talk about the news and information, again that's a question that I'd suggest you ask the CBC rather than us. What I can tell you is that the current Broadcasting Act certainly sees it as key. I can tell you that our information, when we've done any consultations or discussions on this, people really see the CBC as a point de référence in terms of news and information. The cross-support they have with their all-news channel makes the quality of the news there.

But their very presence in the marketplace--and this is probably particularly true in the French-language Quebec marketplace, but not only there--has actually brought the standard up, even of the private sectors, because there is a healthy dialogue as we're trying to get audiences. Both the private networks and the public networks are striving to increase the quality of what they're broadcasting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Kotto.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning and welcome. I'm very pleased to see you again. Firstly, I wish to congratulate you for your very clear and well-written documents tabled with this committee.

Would it be possible to obtain a historical overview from the regions' information services? This is a topic that I would like to eventually bring up with the committee, so that we can assess the decline or improvement of services. We sometimes receive complaints from people living in remote areas, claiming that they wish to change services because they no longer feel represented in what is broadcast locally.

Would it be possible to carry out a comparative study of the respective performances of Société Radio-Canada and the CBC? Some critics would have us believe that in the world of public audiovisual broadcasting, the CBC is a lame duck in comparison with the Société Radio-Canada, which performs well year after year, in spite of the meagre resources that are allocated to it.

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

Thank you.

With respect to your first point, we will certainly try to find that information. Once again, we will see with our colleagues at Radio-Canada if they have the documents that we can then pass on to this committee.

To my knowledge, there has been no comparative study that shows that the CBC is in greater difficulty. It is certain that I have often heard people talk about the problem with CBC/SRC being centred on English-language television. However, it would be dangerous to single out this one factor as the whole explanation for the problem. The tiny fragment which is the francophone market, in a context of globalization, the cost of high definition and technological change are such that the market could, within 5 to 10 years—and this where the committee's mandate comes into play—face new challenges such as funding and content distribution.

I can answer your other questions, but I am not aware of the existence of a comparative study of the respective performance of the Société Radio-Canada and CBC.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Are there any statistics on this subject?

[Chantal Fortier, Director, Policy, Planning and Resourcing, Portfolio Affairs, Department of Canadian Heritage]

The annual report contains much data and performance indicators on this subject. We have a copy here and we can send you one as well. This report is available on Radio-Canada's website. The corporation collects a high volume of data on how different services provided perform, in both languages.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

All right.

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

However, this is a quantitative and not qualitative analysis.

[Chantal Fortier]

Quantitative.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

And non-qualitative. Very well. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you for coming before us again. I found this presentation a very good overview of some of the issues we're going to definitely be looking at.

I was particularly interested in the issue of accountability in governance structure, because you mentioned that as a key issue, and I definitely agree. I'm looking to see if you've looked into other public broadcasters on the role that they have in terms of their set-up for their governance structure. It seems to me one of the problems we've had with CBC is that with the governance structure of our board and the choosing of the chair, it remains as a child of patronage, and it does not seem to be the similar situation in other public broadcasters, where they've separated that and they have a head-hunting process to ensure that there's a level of independence and accountability in terms of the governance structure.

Have you, in your department, looked at the other models?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

Yes, we have. On the appointment of the chair, obviously in Japan, with NHK, which is the largest public broadcaster, they have a different way of doing it, so we've looked a bit at that.

The one we've concentrated the most on has been the BBC model, for a number of reasons. First, the Canadian model is largely based on the BBC model of the mid-twentieth century, so there are some similarities there. Second, from a public administration perspective, it's the model that's most similar to ours. I guess we could provide you an overview of the charter process in the U.K., which has been very open, with a lot of information on the web. We could maybe gather that information for the chair or through the committee to explain in descriptive terms--

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Yes. I would definitely like it if you could put together some stuff for our committee to look at, because I think governance structure is something we need to look at.

Secondly, I want to follow up on this very interesting discussion of the “long tail”. I think we'll probably have to go for a beer to do that, as opposed to the three minutes I'm being allotted by our very strict chair.

I was listening to CBC the other day while driving across northern Ontario, and we had a letter on CBC from a woman in Korea. She listens to the news at home now. She keeps in touch through the Internet, and it made me realize again the role of the new platforms in reaching out.

I want to ask you about the LaPierre report of 2005, which was the charter for the online cultural citizen. It had nothing to do with CBC per se, and it's not going to be too specific on LaPierre, not to worry, but what LaPierre was talking about was really the need for Canada to look forward in developing an online cultural presence in the 21st century so that we are in the forefront of new media as it's happening. He had made the recommendation of setting up an agency with a similar budget to the CBC to ensure that kind of presence, and perhaps because of that request I haven't heard of his report again from anybody in government.

I'm wondering about how useful it would be to have the CBC assume some of those roles in terms of ensuring market platforms for film, for music, so that people around the world can go on to a site and get access, as you suggest in the “long tail”, to Canadian products in a downloadable fashion that they can pay for. And since CBC already has a strong online presence and since it already has an international audience, has the heritage department looked at ways of perhaps even a one-time increase to the CBC to allow the creation of some kind of online platform system?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

No to the specific question you've asked, but certainly not no to the general trend.

We're tackling this across magazines, books, and audio-visual, in terms of the challenge of emerging technologies and how we get there. Our objectives in the department and across the culture portfolio are to support the creation of culture, which we have good mechanisms for, and also the access. This is where the new platform is played, on the access front.

It's quite interesting, though, that we have a number of institutions that can also play a role in this. We have the National Film Board that has a wonderful collection and is working on that. Yes, we have the CBC and their archives, and we have programs with Canadian culture online, where we partner with other departments and other agencies, including the CBC, to help them digitalize their content, whether it's for the virtual museum or other tools. So we are there, trying to support this.

Is it just for the CBC? There are other collections available. Library and Archives Canada is doing a lot in this realm as well.

We have noted with a lot of interest what the BBC has done. It has put a great deal of its digital information online in Britain. The philosophy behind it is that since the Britons have paid for it through their licence fees, it's a form of collective wealth.

Those are interesting ways of getting Canadian content distributed through new platforms. We have a piece on that particular aspect that we can maybe share with you with respect to the BBC, but we have a lot of institutions that could play a role in this, not just CBC and Radio-Canada.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming.

It has been said that the CBC is the mirror in which Canadians view themselves. If that is in fact the essence of CBC's role, in my mind the challenge is to try to determine what that face looks like. In a country as diverse as Canada, that's a real challenge.

I did notice that on page 13 you just briefly referenced that by asking the question, “How should the success of a public broadcaster be assessed? By market share? By the quality of its programming? By whether Canadians are satisfied by the services it provides?” You can ask Canadians across the country. Some feel the CBC is too progressive. Some say it shouldn't be as progressive. Others will say there's not enough variety in the content. Some feel it should be totally privatized. If you ask my wife, she's a big fan of CBC radio, of Eric Friesen, Howard Dyck, and the like. That's her source of classical music programming.

My question to you is how we currently assess what the face that we see in that mirror looks like. What do you see happening in the future? Do you expect that this mandate review will look into that issue? Is there a more effective way of determining what that face looks like?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

As a manager in the public service, what gets measured is what gets done, so I'm always focusing on the results story.

Some of that is occurring now in different venues. The CBC assesses itself in its annual reports on how they think Canadians view them themselves. That's a self-awareness, a self-assessment of that.

As well, the fact that we have a periodic appointment every six, seven, or eight years with the CRTC is another opportunity for that to occur. Of course, parliamentary studies such as this are another one, and we've seen that there have been a few in the recent past.

So they're there, but they may not be as systematic as they could otherwise be, and as clear. They're based on the mandate as it exists now.

My point would be that as you do the study, you will hear lots of views. Everybody has an opinion, and that's healthy and good. But it's important not just to say what the mandate ought to be, but how we'll measure whether they are meeting that mandate for Canadians.

There are tools now. The Auditor General, in her comments, suggested that maybe we could do a better job in measuring results. Certainly that's based on the current mandate. As you move forward and look at what the future holds, you'll have to come up with a whole list of indicators of success in terms of reaching the goal.