Official Languages Committee on May 12th, 2009

[Konrad W. von Finckenstein]

It's up to you to determine that, not me.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Absolutely. And we're going to do it.

[Konrad W. von Finckenstein]

I was asked for a report. I prepared it and submitted it to the government, which made it public. Now you can draw your own conclusions.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Indeed, that's up to us. I want to know where it's gone. However, it hasn't gone very far. You've shouldered your responsibilities.

You also reported to the Commissioner of Official Languages.

[Konrad W. von Finckenstein]

No.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

You didn't talk to the Commissioner of Official Languages?

[Konrad W. von Finckenstein]

We talked to the Commissioner. You asked whether we had sent him a report. We had contact with him. We spoke to him. We are going to meet him. He appeared before you. We shared ideas.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

We have expectations of CTV.

Does Radio-Canada have any obligations?

[Konrad W. von Finckenstein]

Yes, Radio-Canada has obligations with regard to its programs. The problem is that the Olympic Games' coverage isn't part of a program. It's the responsibility of CTV, which bought the rights, which won the competition.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

They say it's not worth it if you can't agree with Radio-Canada.

[Konrad W. von Finckenstein]

I suggest you put all those questions to the CTV officials who will be appearing after me.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

That completes the first part of our meeting. I'd like to thank you, Mr. von Finckenstein, and the members of the CRTC.

We are going to suspend the sitting for a few minutes to enable us to welcome our witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

We'll continue the second part of our meeting on the study on broadcasting in French of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.

It is our pleasure to have the official broadcaster of the Olympic Games. I want to welcome Mr. Rick Brace, President, Revenue, Business Planning and Sports at CTV. I also welcome Mr. Goldstein, Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, and Mr. Frappier, who is French Chef de Mission and President and General Manager of RDS and RIS, a channel I'm increasingly discovering with my son, who very much appreciates your programs.

Without further ado, we'll begin with Mr. Brace's opening remarks.

[Rick Brace, President, Revenue, Business Planning and Sports, CTV Inc.]

Thank you. Mr. Frappier will follow me.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee and committee staff.

Thank you for the invitation to discuss with you the Olympic consortium's exciting plans for French-language broadcasting coverage of the 2010 Olympic Games.

My name is Rick Brace. I am the president of revenue business planning and sports for CTV Inc. I am pleased to be joined by Gerry Frappier, who is the French chef de mission for Canada's Olympic broadcasting media consortium, as well as the president of Le Réseau des Sports and Le Réseau Info-Sports. We are also joined on the panel today by David Goldstein, senior vice-president of regulatory affairs for CTVglobemedia.

To be the official broadcast partner of the 2010 Olympic Games in our own country is a source of tremendous pride for CTVglobemedia. Our guarantee is to provide the most hours of coverage across the most platforms and deliver the most comprehensive coverage ever witnessed. Our commitment is to tell the stories, create the heroes, and make Canada's athletes household names to Canadians, in both official languages.

To do this, we have brought together some of the finest television and radio broadcasters in Canada. While Rogers is our main broadcast partner for television and radio, we are also working with RDS, RIS, TQS, APTN, and Corus Radio.

As French chef de mission, Gerry is responsible for coordinating with our partners, and he shares our commitment to ensuring an unprecedented level of French-language coverage. We are achieving unprecedented coverage because, for the first time ever by a Canadian broadcaster, every single second of live events will be broadcast on one of our French-language television stations as it will be on our English-language television stations.

To be clear, this means that all 655 hours of live events in the 2010 Winter Games, including the opening and closing ceremonies, right through to the gold medal hockey game and beyond, will be broadcast in both official languages. Never before has this been accomplished.

Turning now to other broadcast platforms, we have granted Corus Radio, with 10 French-language radio stations in Quebec, exclusive access to all RDS and TQS content. This will allow them to broadcast live on-site reports and news updates from the Olympics, including live play-by-play of the women's and men's hockey, as well as access to television audio for simulcasts of gold medal events and interviews with our athletes. As well, all TQS and RDS coverage will be streamed live and will be available on demand on our broadband platform.

Our comprehensive broadcast plans mean that Canadians will be able to watch an unlimited number of hours of the games and choose what they want, when they want. In fact, there will be more opportunities for viewing than at any previous Olympics. Between television and broadband, there will be 4,500 hours of Olympic events accessible for Canadians to watch.

Gerry will continue.

[Gerry Frappier, French Chef de Mission, President and General Manager, Réseau des Sports (RDS) and Réseau Info-Sports (RIS), Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium]

We are aware of the Committee's concern that a small percentage of Canadians will not be able to view the Games. Let me assure you that since winning the broadcast rights for the games in 2006, we have been committed to pursuing widespread distribution and greater accessibility of the French-language networks. Here's what we have achieved so far.

We have approached all cable and satellite companies outside Quebec, both large and small, to offer them the signals of TQS, RDS and RIS so that they can in turn provide access to these signals free-of-charge to their customers that currently do not subscribe to these channels.

We estimate that the six largest distributors reach 93% of the cable and satellite homes outside Quebec. And all six have indicated a willingness to participate in our freeview.

The remaining 7% are served by 200 small and medium-sized distributors, and approximately half are represented by the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance. CCSA has agreed to canvass its members in respect of our freeview offer.

Telecom distributors represent almost half of the 7%, and we are pleased to say that we have received positive feedback from these distributors.

The remaining independent distributors, which number about 100 and represent less than 1% of the cable and satellite homes outside Quebec, have all received written freeview offers. And we have followed up our letters with phone calls. But to put these distributors into perspective, most are very small and include such entities as motels.

As well, we approached the Vancouver Hotel Association who has assisted us in ensuring universal access of our French-language services.

The French-language stations that will carry the Olympic Games are currently viewed by approximately 96% of Francophones in Canada. And this percentage will increase with the support of our distribution partners that accept our freeview offer.

We fully recognize that the success of our freeview offer relies on the participation of our distribution partners, and we welcome your support to encourage all distributors to participate to the fullest extent possible.

Finally, this "free-view" period will occur throughout the entire month of February and not just for the duration of the games. This will allow viewers to participate in the lead-up and conclusion of the games, extending the Olympic movement beyond just a 17-day sporting event.

As the Committee is likely aware, a substantial number of Canada's Winter Olympic athletes come from Quebec. And as Rick noted at the beginning of our presentation, we are dedicated to telling their stories, creating the heroes and making all of our athletes' household names to all Canadians. We are well on the way to achieving this.

First, we have assembled a French production team of over 200 of the top broadcast professionals solely dedicated to produce the highest standard of quality. These individuals will be present at all competition venues doing stand-alone production at each site and with complete editorial independence.

Second, an on-air talent roster is second to none and includes many of the biggest names past and present in the French sporting world. These include Alexandre Despatie, Jean-Luc Brassard, Richard Garneau, Pierre Houde and Gaétan Boucher among others. These individuals will add a unique level of analysis and story-telling from an athlete's perspective.

Third, we have created and staffed a separate French-language bureau in Vancouver; it has been operational since January, providing regular news and updates.

Fourth, we have begun many unique pre-Olympic programming initiatives which are already airing on our French-language broadcast partners. This includes a weekly show on RDS called Vers Vancouver 2010 which showcases our athletes and to which, Nathalie Lambert, four-time Olympic speed-skater and the athletes' chef de mission, is a regular contributor to this program.

Fifth, we will have coverage from the "French Quarter" which will be constructed on Granville Island, where many provinces and countries representing La Francophonie will be present. In this manner, not only will we be covering the Olympic Games but the "Cultural Olympics" as well.

As you can tell from our presentation, CTV is committed to ensuring the best coverage—both in quality and quantity—for Francophones throughout Canada. We have drawn guidance in this process through our pro-active outreach to several Francophone associations with whom we have consulted on our Olympic coverage plans. You've heard from one of these organizations, La Fondation Canadienne pour le dialogue des cultures, ably represented by Guy Matte. As well, we're in constant communication with Jacques Gauthier from VANOC who also appeared before you.

We share in their views expressed to you that the level of mutual collaboration has been very strong and productive. We have kept them informed of our on-going development plans and they have signalled their support, satisfaction and confidence.

[Rick Brace]

Thank you, Gerry,

In conclusion, CTV recognizes that Canada's hosting of the Olympics represents a tremendous opportunity to showcase Canada's linguistic duality to the world. We've not treated this occasion lightly. We believe we've shown this in our broadcast coverage plans, which we've described to you here today.

We thank you for the opportunity to appear today and we welcome your questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Brace.

Just before starting, Mr. Frappier, you mentioned that you were going to offer the Olympic Games broadcast signal to some 300 independent distributors. If that was the will of the committee members, would it be possible to provide us with a list of those cable distributors so that we too can encourage them to accept your offer?

[Gerry Frappier]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you.

So we'll now begin the round of questions with Ms. Zarac.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Good morning. Thank you for your presentation, and congratulations. What we're hearing is really comforting. Television access before and during the Olympic Games was one of the committee's concerns. Congratulations on those actions.

You also mentioned that you already had an office in place with a staff that speaks French. Congratulations. We heard that there were committees that had just met, in April, whereas the Olympic Games will be held in February. Congratulations on all these actions.

We also heard earlier that the broadcast of the Olympic Games is highly profitable. I understand that there should be this will to present the Olympic Games to the largest possible audience, in French and English.

The problem stems from the fact that we don't know who is responsible. Who is responsible for ensuring that the games are broadcast everywhere, to all citizens, francophone and anglophone? Earlier we heard that Mr. Frappier somewhat has that responsibility. We also heard that the CRTC, the government, also has that responsibility. Who can ensure that all Canadian citizens will be able to watch the Olympic Games? Who really has that power?

[Rick Brace]

I'll make a couple of comments on what you said.

I think Canadians have a responsibility. I think we have to work on this together. It's not any one person individually. You heard from Chairman von Finckenstein, who said that the CRTC doesn't, in and of itself, have the ability to mandate this. So really, it's how we pull together.

I can tell you that when we got the rights--and we were very proud to get them--a couple of years ago, our first piece of business was to approach SRC and say, “All right, how can we distribute this on the broadest possible basis?”

We determined that the way it would have to work.... What's really important in the Olympic Games is that the exclusivity of rights have to remain with one organization, particularly the control of the advertising industry. You can't have a number of people on the street selling it. So there is a commercial aspect to this. But there's also a social responsibility that we acknowledge.

So we approached them and said what we'd like to do is mirror exactly what we did with the Montreal Canadiens. With the Montreal Canadiens, when RDS won those rights several years back and they weren't going to be available on conventional television, we went to SRC and said, “We will provide you the signal, we'll provide you our production, we'll control the commercials, but you will have the ability to put them on conventional television, on your airwaves.” And they agreed. At the end of the day it worked beautifully well. There wasn't an issue. It was accepted by the public. In fact, we were pleased with the experiment.

So there is a precedent for this.

What we did with the Olympics was to go back and ask exactly the same thing--if they would be willing to take our signal. We need to control the advertising inventory and we also need to control the production. You can't have different people producing at the Olympics. It's too big an event. It has to be coordinated. And that is where it really became a problem, because their position had changed since the time of the Montreal Canadiens. What they said was that they have to control their advertising industry. They have to control production. They want to be on-site. Basically, they wanted to be a rights holder, so to speak, without having actually purchased the rights or won the rights. That's where it really halted. We tried as recently as the end of February of this year. I think those are the two letters that the CRTC chairman talked about today.

The last communication we had with SRC at that point was that, first of all, they would still want to produce their own production, but they would cherry-pick events. They wouldn't do every event, they'd just do certain events, and they would also be able to sell the commercial inventory. That, for us, as I hope I've explained, is not something that is possible.

That is really when we decided.... We've tried three times now to come to an agreement. They didn't see our point of view, and we respect their point of view. If that's the way they feel, that's their right. But unfortunately, it doesn't leave us with the best solution to the problem.

What it leaves us with is what we're doing now. It leaves us with dealing with the cable companies for free views and making sure that we get expanded coverage on other services, like APTN. We're grateful to them for coming onboard with eight hours of Olympics a day, by the way, in the French language. And there are other things that we've put into place. All of these are helpful and they get us to the percentages that have been discussed, and they hopefully get us to where we need to be as best we can. But it's not the best solution.

At the end of the day, however, what I really want to make clear--and I made this clear to the Senate committee yesterday--is that universality is not possible. Even today, as others have pointed out here, not everyone can receive television. That's in English or in French. So it's not 100% of the population. It will always be something less. Whether it's 99%, 98%, it's in that range. That's where we are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Ms. Zarac.

Mr. Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, gentlemen. The CRTC outlined three important factors in the context of an activity as imposing as the Olympic Games, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. One of the three factors is reflecting the minority communities in the programming. You know that there is a cultural component to the games.

Mr. Brace, I would like to ask you whether you are familiar with the Brayons du Canada? Does that mean anything to you? That means nothing to you. Are you familiar with the Fransaskois? That means nothing to you. Are you familiar with the Franco-Ténois?

[Rick Brace]

Oh, did you say franco-Saskatchewan?