The CRTC new media hearings, with their far-fetched funding idea to promote Canadian content online, appear to be going bust. Ok, perhaps it is not over until it is over, but we have passed the middle mark and things are not looking too progressive. The initial stage of these hearings started three weeks ago with submissions from various interest groups. The CRTC heard arguments from groups including The Canadian Independent Record Production Association, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and The Independent Media Arts Alliance. The CRTC also accepted submissions from ISPs who are in fact, up to bat this week, offering their side of the commentary. In sum, I think University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist described it best as ‘a huge disappointment with submissions short on specifics, long on rhetoric, and filled with inconsistencies’ (www.michaelgeist.ca).

Canadian content on the Internet? Is this Canadian content that is intended to develop self-identity among Canadians from Halifax to Victoria, or intended to entertain web-surfers from Hong Kong to the Vatican? The CRTC, from the outset is taking a flawed approach with its overly-generalized and divided definitions of ‘broadcast’ versus ‘ telecom’. These traditional understandings of ‘media’ are no longer viable. Many of the interest groups seem to be taking outdated perspectives and offering similarly redundant solutions. Overall, it seems the various parties involved would first need to realize where they stand in light of contemporary media discourse, and after that agree on (or learn) a common vernacular by which discussion may be facilitated.

As these hearings sputter to an end, it leaves me thinking not of the Canadian content that will potentially never be produced, but of the vast and expensive lobbying and discussion-making industry that absorbs so much of the value that already could have been rolled into producing that content. As is often the case, the cost of the process tends to squander the resources that could be directly applied to achieve the results that the process is said to be fostering – maybe not money so well spent? While the New Media Hearings seem to be an expensive flop, hopefully at least we can salvage the conclusion that government regulation in the area of online content, is a bad idea.

After ten years of refraining from involvement, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has turned its sights again on the Internet – not just to regulate data traffic, but arguably to regulate the creation of online content itself.

Having decided on a ‘hands-off’ approach at governing content on the information highway back in 1999, the CRTC currently is holding hearings on the question of whether a fund should be set up to develop Canadian content online – paid for through a levy on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that surely will be passed along to consumers and business users.

Controversy at the hearings will center on the question of whether the CRTC should be stepping in and playing an influential and regulatory role within the new media/Internet sector.  Insofar as large pockets of the Internet have remained untouched by government intrusions in the past, the nature and character of Internet content has developed into something different than that of traditional media.  The expressed concerns of independent producers and artist groups such as the Alliance of Canadian Cinema Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) or the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) are compelling in their depiction of Canadian content being washed away in a flood of potentiality for non-Canadian content, yet, while considering the reality of these worries, one must take account of the value in keeping the Internet as an organic medium, free from restrictions that want to make it conform to traditional notions of cultural and commercial value.

Perhaps ISPs should stop whining and get used to the responsibilities they have as the bulk-providers of new media content?  I think the issue is more complex.  The CRTC’s move to levy a charge on ISPs to fund a program to develop Canadian content online mirrors the CRTC’s Canadian content efforts regarding traditional broadcasting and merely recognizes the significance of the Internet on our culture.  I am all for the funding of Canadian artists and producers, but the notion of Internet content regulation seems to me essentially idealistic, whimsical, and in fact, quite fantastic.  Not to mention unattractive, because it is dampening innovation.

On Tuesday, Alain Pineau, the national director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts made the claim that ‘broadcasting is broadcasting whatever the distribution platform.’  I disagree, not only on the basis that this generalizing notion is a slap in the face to many of the great media theorists of the last century, but also, and more practically, it disregards the unique character of the Internet and its nearly limitless potential.  One must be very careful to see the big picture here.