Canadian Heritage Committee on May 10th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Is there anyone else who would like to respond? We have another minute left for a response.

[Dr. Philip Savage]

We'll save it for the written response.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

We'll move over to Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you very much.

We appreciate your testimony this morning. As a matter of fact, we're discussing or thinking that we may have to bring some of you back. Obviously you've touched on a number of different things of interest to our committee, but we haven't been able to go into the deeper depths of some of them.

Since we have Industry Canada officials here, could you give me a brief technical answer to a question? Obviously the CBC is looking to replace a lot of their current infrastructure as new technologies develop. Is there an opportunity, in your opinion, for CBC to partner with private enterprise in terms of investing in infrastructure, if the technology is out there, so that CBC isn't on the hook for the entire upgrade of the infrastructure? What inhibits it from working with private or other broadcasters to partner in that expenditure?

[Dr. Veena Rawat]

I think there are opportunities, but it's up to the CBC. They can start, as my colleague said, right from Internet structures to transmission equipment. The new technologies are making it more possible to share some of the transmission equipment, for example. So there are possibilities. But it's up to the CBC to see where the possibilities are and whether it will be cost-effective for them to really share the infrastructure.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Right, because I think we're concerned, to some degree, that the CBC not get bogged down on the infrastructure side, so they can do really well on the broadcast side. There are a number of things that have been brought up at the table. It was mentioned, even this morning, that CBC has to reach out to other public broadcasters within Canada, such as at the provincial and the municipal levels.

How might we be able to do that? There's a discussion of the necessity of meshing to ensure that people can customize what they want. I think it probably even ties back to the infrastructure side, where there might be partnering, but more so on the broadcasting side.

Does anyone have any opinions as to how we can work that into the mandate to ensure that CBC is taking advantage of other public broadcasters who are out there?

[Jacques Bensimon]

It's very simple. As I said, as an entry, when you have a budget like $80 million that goes into the production of programming at the NFB and none of those products find themselves on the prime time television of the CBC, you have a serious problem. How can the taxpayers of this country invest $80 million in an organization called the NFB when the products that are made by that organization don't find themselves going into the most important public broadcaster in this country? You have one problem there.

The second thing is that provincially, regarding the smaller broadcasters that exist across this country, the fact is that you're not familiar with Télé-Québec's product; or if you don't live in Ontario, are you familiar with TVOntario's product; or for that matter, if you don't live in B.C., the Knowledge Network? In my view, that's where the CBC has to take the leadership role that it should have as an important federator in bringing this together. You could start simply, as a broadcaster, by investing in some important product that you could broadcast on the national network.

Today the CBC is making its decisions based on revenues from publicity, and you people are going to have to make up your minds whether the CBC should be an organization that is financially dependent on revenues from publicity. From there on, the CBC should play the role of federator to reflect back on this country, not from its own editorial position as an institution but by federating players like the provincial players and the National Film Board, and working closely with an agency like Telethon Canada. That's what I was talking about, in reinvesting into the feature film industry.

For the time being, they think in silos. All those agencies think in silos. I think there are bridges simply on the broadcasting side that you could establish by your kind of guidance that could be helpful in getting them to talk to each other.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you.

I was talking about the issue of fragmentation and the issue of ensuring that a public broadcaster stands a chance in this increasingly fragmented industry. So I really appreciate the testimony that you brought forward. I think we're at the brink of thinking about this differently.

We have a long way to go in this review, but I think we're finally getting to the point where we're not hearing the same old, same old--that we just need to put more money into what we currently have and that would be the answer. Funding is probably an issue, but there's a whole lot other stuff, and each one of you have brought portions of that discussion forward. I think it will send us in a different direction, so I really appreciate your testimony this morning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Savage.

[Dr. Philip Savage]

I have one thing to add. I think you'll see that some countries are experimenting with this idea of combining private and public distribution, but doing so where there are public service obligations. We've talked a lot about film. With film in Canada, there is very little control over distribution. What is the percentage of Canadian screen time in our theatres? It's under 2%.

So let's not be naive. The public broadcaster has felt that it has an obligation to retain some control over getting its material out widely, including through analog transmission, because that's where people are still getting their radio and they're listening. I know that as they've moved towards terrestrial digital radio, which has been a bit of a flop, quite frankly, they did explore the model of almost always—and I was involved in some of these licence applications—working together to do the multiplexer so that the actual transmitter was broadcasting CHUM as well as the CBC and others.

But it has to be a model where the transmission network, whether it's over-the-air transmission or any other type of network, is on the basis of certain public service goals. Otherwise, the control will shift away and we'll have 2% of screen time on computer screens as well as in our movie theatres.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

I'm going to allow one short question and one short answer on the next round for Mr. Scarpaleggia, because we have only about seven minutes.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

My question is to Ms. Oreskovich. You mentioned that you see the CBC as a good, credible source of news. How do other young people on campus feel about the CBC? Do they see it that way as well? Do they tune in to the CBC fairly frequently, or do they find the CBC's Canadian content in general too provincial?

[Christina Oreskovich]

I'll be honest. I haven't had specific conversations with my fellow students about the CBC. However, just from the tone of conversations in class and stuff like that--I know in a couple of Philip's classes the CBC would always get brought up--it seems as though they're more interested in the news, obviously, and shows like The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulous. That is definitely applicable to my age demographic. I've noticed that the CBC is playing a lot of American movies lately. It has The Simpsons and Arrested Development on it. A lot of my fellow students will watch those, so it's not even necessarily Canadian content that they're watching.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

I don't use the term “provincial” in a pejorative sense. I think the content is great, but sometimes you get a sense from people that they're not that interested in Canadian content and they want to hook up with CNN or what have you. That is the spirit of my question. Thank you very much for your answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Abbott, a very short question and a very short answer, please.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Carrying on with Ms. Oreskovich, I'm curious about the medium that the students would be accessing to watch CBC. Would they be sitting down in front of a television set in their dorm or at their home, or are they watching it on an iPod? What is the current point of access for students?

Secondly, in your judgment, if you could project two or three years ahead, what would the point of contact be for the students with the CBC, either audio or visual?

[Christina Oreskovich]

I definitely think that the web would be the best way to reach students just because, as I said, YouTube is huge. With a show such as The Hour, you can watch it on YouTube. It's broken down into little snippets, but you could watch little parts. You can watch a program like that. The Internet probably reaches students the best, absolutely.

As I said, I'm heavily engaged with cbc.ca myself, and if I could look two or three years down the road, I think the CBC needs to take advantage of new media to reach people, whether it's through advertising or just promoting of the CBC and the different programs it offers and different artists that it tries to give exposure to or through Facebook. As I said, I don't know how they can harness the new media, but they have to do it in such a way to get themselves out there. That's what I think would be the best idea.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We're very tight here. We do have another committee starting afterwards.

For a very short question and a very short answer, we have Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you.

There was a decision made in the last 10 or so years to move toward independent production as opposed to in-house. That's a course we've taken because we're in a competitive market.

The question we're having to look at is this. We have a number of challenged agencies delivering some great products, some mediocre products, some absolute flops. Given the current competition between broadcasters, how is it possible that we could start to bring together, say, National Film Board, Telefilm, and Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund to be actually part of a cohesive, holistic view of taking such great product and making it successful, using the CBC as a national broadcaster? Is that possible in the milieu that we're in?

[Jacques Bensimon]

It is possible. I'll just give you an example. During my five-year tenure at the NFB, I moved from 7% co-production to 43% by the time I left. This is over five years. It is doable, and it's possible.

The BBC has made a commitment that is very simple. From now on, rather than having in-house production, they have decided that one-third will be done in-house, one-third will be done in the independent milieu, and one-third will be fought between the in-house and the outside people. That's the way they've established the rules of the game.

I think it is feasible and conceivable to gather all your questions around the new platform universe, because if you look at Telefilm, which came to see you, which has a strategic plan around cell phones; if you look at the NFB and what they're investing in new technology; if you look at what CBC is investing--if you pull at least all those elements dealing with the new platform together and force them to react and act with one another, you might have the beginning of your answer on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

I appreciate the presence of our witnesses today. Thank you very much for coming.

Thanks for the questions; thanks for the answers.

The meeting is adjourned.