A bit of Media 2.x progress for Canada. Unlikely to be offered in the 720p HD format that ABC.com provides, but definitely a step in the right direction.
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A bit of Media 2.x progress for Canada. Unlikely to be offered in the 720p HD format that ABC.com provides, but definitely a step in the right direction.
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB; ?) has submitted an interesting brief with respect to radio broadcasting to the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (?).
[See http://www.cab-acr.ca/english/research/08/sub_apr1808.pdf for the brief]
At issue is the question of whether copies that are made of music for the express and singular purpose of facilitating the broadcast of such music should be subject to additional royalty fees beyond those already paid for the right to broadcast the music. When broadcasting from a CD, no such claims exist. If broadcasting from a digital copy that has been made of the same track, claims are made that additional fees are due. This thinking is flawed. The digital intermediary (to borrow a term from film) has no additional real value and generates no additional revenue -- no additional payment should be due.
I've been worried for a while about this specific case, and the repercussions it has for Media 3.0. A fundamental premise of Media 3.0 is that value is derived from delivery of content and that appropriate payments should be made that reflect the benefit derived from the delivery of that content. To facilitate the world of Media 3.0, and fully exploit the potential that future technologies have to offer, it is essential that the reproduction of content that is done for the sole purpose of facilitating the delivery of said content be exempt from pile-on charges.
Optimal and cost-effective delivery of content in a non-broadcast world requires the deployment of content to multiple points (network nodes) in multiple formats for subsequent distribution. Value is only realized by the distributor when actual distribution takes place. The creation of distribution copies cause no incremental costs to the content owners and creators. Imposing fees on all of the copies required to facilitate this delivery in the most efficient manner is punitive, will stifle innovation, and will ultimately undermine the viability of those distributors who are encumbered by such fees. In a global marketplace, realistic distribution payment regimes will reward those who benefit from them, while unrealistic or misguided fees will put those subject to them out of business.
It's not unreasonable to assume that Canadian content distributors (broadcast and otherwise) are the ones most likely to promote Canadian talent. Putting these distributors at a competitive disadvantage relative to their global counterparts does a disservice to Canadian talent and is damaging to the entire Canadian media value chain.
In the long run, being flexible and realistic gives the potential for a lot more 'earned' revenue; being rigid and unrealistic will just further harm an already-damaged industry.
In today's Playback Daily (http://www.playbackonline.ca/articles/daily/20080416/tvwars.html; paid subscription required), Etan Vlessing writes that Paul Kemp, president of Stornoway Productions is "keen that Canadians beyond viewers of Stornaway Communications' digital specialty iChannel... see [TV Wars: Media Money and the Battle for Canada's Airwaves,] his behind-the-scenes look at the firece battle for supremeacy betweeen BDUs and broadcasters currently playing out at the CRTC hearings".
To that end, he's offering it "really cheap" to any other broadcaster but doesn't expect that any will take him up on it... underscoring, as Etan Vlessing points out, the problems he's discussing in the documentary.
"It's important to get the message over to Canadians", he says. Hmmm.... I wonder, Paul, if you've heard of this new thing called the Internet? If you want to reach the masses with your message about a dysfunctional broadcasting system, why don't you try doing so by distributing your content outside of that troubled system?
"If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change" -- Giuseppe di Lampedusa
The broadcasters and other participants at the CRTC BDU hearings who are fighting to preserve the status quo had best heed Giuseppe di Lampedusa's words. And we're not talking little things here. Major reforms are required to make the system viable -- not just for today but in the future.
The days when TV as we know it will exist as a stand-alone entity are numbered. Radical changes are required to adapt the medium to be a part of a larger media ecosystem -- the world of Media 3.0. Let's hope the CRTC looks far enough toward the horizon to see this, even if many of those who are intervening at the on-going hearings aren't. If the commission and the industry don't adequately prepare for the iminent future, but rather forge ahead with a tweaked version of the status quo beiliving that that will take them where they need to be, they may find, as Gertrude Stein said, that "when you get there, there isn't any there there".
If nothing else, at the very least, the industry and the commission should follow the advice of the inimitable Yogi Beara: "when you come to a fork in the road, take it".
In his opening remarks for the BDU (Broadcast Distribution Undertaking: i.e. cable, satellite operators,etc.) hearings, CRTC (?) chair Konrad von Finckenstein (?) reiterated the five key issues for this review:
The first four issue all involve tweaking the existing (traditional) system and, while there's much I could say about these issues, they really have little to do with the changing face of television.
It's the last issue -- "Should BDUs have access to advertising revenues from on-demand services or from local avails?" -- that I'll discuss here.
First of all, there really are two issues here: the use of local avails, and advertising within on-demand services (specifically, cable/telco-IPTV VOD services and, perhaps, DTH pseudo-VOD services). The use of local avails is, like issues 1 through 4, a matter of tweaking the current system and, likewise, is not relevant to the new landscape of TV 3.0.
What is of interest from a TV 3.0 perspective is BDU VOD. The question framed by the commission, though, is, I think, too limiting. Whether the BDUs have access to ad revenue for VOD services isn't really the main issue. It's more fundamental than that -- the CRTC currently restricts advertising on VOD services in such a way that there's little incentive for BDUs or anyone else (networks, content producers or advertisers) to embrace (or invest in) this technology. And that's a big problem because VOD has the potential to revitalize a flagging technology (traditional TV). And it's only as an on-demand technology that traditional TV has a future in the world of TV 3.0.
The question shouldn't be targeted specifically at whether BDUs can monetize VOD offerings via advertising, the question should be whether the commission should relax the rules on VOD advertising that, today, are so restrictive that VOD is going nowhere.
In order to compete with the onslaught of alternative delivery channels for TV content, we need access to robust VOD offerings in Canada. To me, implementing well-conceived advertising policies that foster the growth of VOD in Canada is the single most important thing the CRTC can do as a result of these hearings -- and failure to do so would be the single most flawed decision they could make.
At the end of the day (or at the end of three weeks of hearings) the future of TV doesn't depend on tweaks here and there that slightly alter the status quo... the future depends on radically altering the TV model such that it can remain competitive with other content delivery options. ONLY conventional TV operates on a linear programming model. Every alternative delivery option is primarilly based on on-demand content.
A myopic focus on the status quo (modified or otherwise) that doesn't address the need for a sustainable on-demand element will have viewers changing channels indeed -- and increasingly not coming back.