Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members.
My name is Richard Hardacre. I'm a professional actor. I'm the elected president of ACTRA. Also speaking for ACTRA today is one of our proudest members, our award-winning member and actor, Wendy Crewson.
We're here as the voice of ACTRA's 21,000 members who live and work in every corner of this country. Our members are English-speaking artists whose performances cross all delivery platforms: film, television, sound recordings, radio, and digital media. ACTRA also speaks on behalf of the AF of M, representing 17,000 professional musicians in Canada.
We thank you for holding these important meetings and for giving our members a chance to be heard.
We've been following these hearings and, frankly, we're a bit alarmed by what we've seen and heard. Canada's private conventional broadcasters have come in here and declared that the system is broken and that it's a state of crisis. They've threatened to shut down local stations unless we all meet their demands for deregulation and fee-for-carriage. We've watched broadcasters and big cable companies taking out national, full-page, expensive advertisements to buy and sell TV stations for the price of a cup of coffee and a donut.
You may think we have many reasons to be pessimistic about our industry, but we're not. Certainly, ACTRA is concerned, as are all Canadians, with reports of layoffs, programming cuts, and the shutting down of local TV stations. A healthy, vital broadcasting system is critical to the social, the cultural, and the economic fabric of our country.
According to the Conference Board of Canada, our cultural industries contribute $85 billion to Canada's economy--7.5% of the gross domestic product. The film and television industry is a big share of that, generating more than 131,000 jobs in 2008. And every dollar that is invested in our industry generates a return of $10 in economic activity. We must protect and preserve Canadian broadcasting to do that. We may need to make adjustments, but we do not need the mass deregulation that broadcasters are calling for.
We appeared before the CRTC last Friday. We made an unusual request. We urged the CRTC to do nothing with respect to Canadian priority programming regulations for now, to maintain the status quo by issuing one-year licences to the private conventional broadcasters with the condition that they spend the same amount on Canadian drama this coming year as they did in the renewal year. We urged the commission, as we urge you, not to buy into the panicked cries and threats from private broadcasters.
It is our belief that the conventional television system is not en crise. It is facing the same challenges as any industry in transition confronting a global recession. While the days of double-digit growth in conventional advertising revenues may be gone, conventional broadcasting will not disappear tomorrow. Canadians will still want to tune in to their local news and event drama. YouTube is not going to replace CTV or NBC as a means of mass advertising any time soon.
In 2008 private conventional television broadcasters in Canada made a profit on their operations. While it was low by historical standards, they still made a profit. Specialty channels continue to make record revenues: $2.9 billion last year. The health of the specialty channels gives weight to the idea that you need to take a look at the industry as a whole. Don't forget that CTVglobemedia, Canwest, and Rogers own the majority of these specialty channels. CTV owns 32 and Canwest 21 of them.
If broadcasters are having difficulty with the downturn, it's the result of some of their own bad business decisions. Unfortunately, here and at the CRTC, private broadcasters have pointed the finger at everyone but themselves: the CRTC and its regulations; the Internet; the recession; the cost of U.S. programming; the cost of Canadian programming; digital transmission; cable conglomerates; and independent producers. They even point their finger at you, the government.
What about their gross overspending on U.S. programming? They bid up the price of U.S. programs, sometimes buying a series not because they want to air it, but to stop their competitor from getting it. English-language private conventional broadcasters spent 61% more on foreign programming than on Canadian programming: $778 million last year versus $453 million. That's a lot of money and a lot of jobs being shipped right out of this country.
Then there are the billions they spent acquiring new broadcasting properties. To do what? To go into fantastic amounts of debt? To become, what, media moguls? Their reckless business decisions meant that, even after years and years of often record-breaking profits, when the advertising market softened, they had no flexibility to adapt and to ride out the temporary downturn.
The broadcasters believe they have a right to profit and to profit without limit. That's fair. They're businesses. But with broadcasting licences comes responsibility to the people, to the public. We, the public, grant broadcasters the right to profit in exchange for contributing to our cultural identity by covering and airing Canadian stories, real and fictional.
And we want you to be convinced that it's your job to ensure that these corporations give back to the public.