Evidence of meeting #155 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
You will be looking at that without some form of government intervention. The production of Canadian content will definitely suffer. I think that's the conclusion of the report.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
One of the things I often hear from my constituents is about the profitability. I am close to an American border in my constituency, and they all give me information back about the cheaper rates in the U.S. It's cheaper in the U.S. with competition. Why is it so expensive here?
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I would venture to say they might be complaining more about what's not under my purview, since I'm the executive director of broadcasting—
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
—and issues with respect to telecom products—
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
—because if you look at the price of cable, it is cheaper in this country than in the U.S.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Okay. It was a good try.
When you talk about moving to the future, the ratings for major news that we had on major channels has dropped significantly in recent years. I can't remember the last time I watched a major line TV news show in this country; I don't. All the news I get is on my phone. Where is it going?
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I've highlighted on a number of occasions in my opening remarks the importance of news. Traditionally in our system, news has been delivered by the market. If you go back and look at a number of the studies over the years, that has not been an area of concern. But as we're moving forward, the CRTC certainly is getting more and more concerned about the delivery of news and information and how the broadcasting system contributes to our democracy and to informing Canadians and enlightening Canadians on that front.
There are various products in the media field that produce news and information with respect to broadcasting. The primary vehicles have been local over-the-air stations. The CTV brand networks and the Citytv brand networks and Global brand networks are the ones certainly that are suffering right now, so there is concern on that front.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
When you talk about news being important, people I know don't get it from there. They don't. I don't have a daily newspaper in my riding; I only have weeklies. That's the local news. It doesn't come from where you are. It doesn't come from there.
It's dead in a sense, because they're on Facebook and social media. When you say local news, the major—
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
But who is producing that news that then gets repurposed on the various platforms? What we have found in our various studies is that Canadians still value news. They still value local news. It's very important to them. Many of them do consume it on the traditional platforms, and what is somewhat concerning, certainly for our country and for local news such as you're mentioning in the local areas—in the big markets it may be a different issue—is that those units that produce local news are certainly under duress and there's great concern.
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
They're still there right now, but—
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
—much less than they used to be, right?
They are in only a few major markets now. They've pulled all local—
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Television stations were primarily in local markets and we haven't had the actual closure of that many local television stations, but they have certainly through the years been rationalizing their offers. The CRTC has been trying to address that for a number of years and we made a number of changes to our regulatory regime to ensure that what we have now is maintained.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
But are you following the consumer, or is that an artificial...?
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Our research, certainly for the Harnessing Change report, and even for our previous seminal work on Let's Talk TV, shows that one of the most important things for Canadians is that local news and information.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
That's not where the majority I know of are getting it from. They're getting it on social media. They're getting it on Facebook. They might not like the news, but that's where they've gone to get it. That's where most of the news my constituents quote is from.
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
When we do research and we do polling, they seem to value that news. I was looking at my feeds on the floods this morning, and they are from the traditional news platforms, which are being redistributed on Facebook or on other social media platforms. They do continue to contribute to the news-echo system but they are under duress.
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Well, the local news and information right now are certainly under duress. I don't think viewership has dropped that much. It's down slightly. But contrary to your assertion, our viewership—
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
I've seen the numbers for CTV and CBC over the last 30 years. There has been a huge drop.
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
If we compare the recent.... Certainly you also have to realize that now versus 30 years ago, there are more products in the broadcasting system.
Conservative