First of all, we're not in any way against the channels that cable offer if they want to continue to offer them and people value the service offered by them. We just feel that maybe it would be more transparent for them to go back to the CRTC and apply for the kind of licence they want, which is more similar to a local private broadcaster, to be honest.
In the example you just gave, when you said your local cable provider reflects the community with the news program and that they changed format and there was an outcry, what you're talking about is a top-down model of programming where it's the cable company that's deciding what to produce. Again, there's nothing wrong with that; that's what private broadcasters do. They try to produce programming that people want to watch.
But that wasn't the original purpose of those channels. The Broadcasting Act is quite clear that there are supposed to be public, private, and community sectors. The money--the 2% of cable revenues that are currently collected--was meant to enable communities to make their own productions. That was the only window in the broadcasting system that was supposed to be open to the ordinary person.
So there's no reason that a completely open access channel, which is what those funds were originally for, couldn't coexist with a cable channel. We have no issue with that. If people in your community like that service, there's no reason they couldn't continue to enjoy it.
Most people in Canada now don't know that they have that right, because it's been about a dozen years since we've seen really active and robust community access television in Canada. For most of them it wouldn't even occur to them to go down to the cable operator and say, “Hey, I'd like to do a program”, because they just haven't seen that on the airwaves for so long, except in little pockets in Canada, as I mentioned. So we think there's enough space in the system for all these models.
The other problem with the cable model, though, is this. As the person who's currently spending dollars collected from cable subscribers to give them local reflection, as you say..., As I mentioned, because they've gone to an all-professional model, they've tended to pay for that. They've consolidated their resources in big centres, where all their staff do the production, which as we know is much more expensive than doing it with volunteers, and then they pipe that programming back out to the regions.
I don't know what the percentage is in your community particularly, but there used to be 30 independent different services in New Brunswick alone. Because of zone-based licensing--that is, the CRTC has allowed cable companies to consolidate what used to be quite small licence areas where there used to be one studio in each small area--they've allowed them to consolidate. So there now are only six studios in all of New Brunswick instead of thirty, and those studios contribute to one province-wide service.
Aside from the issue of whether it's professionally produced or really volunteer produced, it's just been consolidated. So we're seeing the same kind of loss of real local reflection in the cable community channel sector as we have in the public and private sectors, where studios have been shut in small communities.
Aside from addressing people's needs for access and skills training in digital and new media, our proposal also addresses the huge reduction in local programming we've had across the country.
You know, when I used to work, I was the volunteer coordinator at Shaw Cable in Calgary—