TV as if viewers mattered

“Two of Canada's largest television broadcasters set aside their fierce rivalry yesterday ... imploring the federal regulator to put consumers first ...”

“Cable and satellite carriers say consumer choice and market forces should dictate which channels are carried...”

“Rogers Communications Inc. has warned the CRTC that fee-for-carriage would inflate cable bills by as much as $10 a month, provoking a ‘consumer revolt’...”

“Shaw blasted the regulator for ‘continuing on a path of protectionism’ at the expense of consumers...”

“Independent broadcasters are urging the federal regulator to step up enforcement of existing rules governing cable and satellite companies ... to protect the programming interests of consumers...”

You get the picture. Preening and droning, droning and preening through three long weeks of hearings, a procession of suits -- cable, broadcast, plus a few from what are wittily referred to as the specialty channels -- took turns impressing upon the CRTC how they are all about consumers. Well of course. If there’s one group we know has a particular crush on consumers, it’s the cable industry. Unless it’s the broadcasters. Or, for that matter, the CRTC....

Even by the standards of the Canadian television industry, it was stomach-turning stuff. The routine never varies. Advertise your concern for the consumer interest. Boast of your unslakable thirst for competition. Mock your opponents as freeloaders and protectionists, sheltering from competition in the lee of the state. Then demand some regulatory preference of your own.

So the broadcasters, those “fierce rivals” who were “imploring” the regulator to “put consumers first,” were in fact there to ensure that nothing was done to open existing Canadian channels to competition from abroad, or even from each other. No change in “must-carry” rules, requiring the cable companies to distribute, and consumers to pay for, channels that nobody watches. No change in “genre protection,” granting each of the specialty channels its own absurd little monopoly -- one food channel, one dog channel, one Hitler channel -- for fear that somebody, somewhere might go out of business. No change in “simultaneous substitution,” a peculiar bit of legalized piracy alllowing Canadian broadcasters to bump an American signal off the air, substitute their own transmission of the same show in its place, and sell ads based on the combined audience -- a direct subsidy, in other words, for the display of American programming on Canadian networks.

And the cable and satellite carriers? The ones who were leading a “consumer revolt” against the broadcasters’ proposal to charge them for channels they now receive for free? That particular fit of consumerism lasted until about the next breath, when they vowed to pass on any fees that were imposed ... to consumers. For that matter, I don’t notice the cable companies leading the charge to dismantle foreign ownership restrictions, or to permit foreign-based satellites to offer their signals to Canadians (legally, that is -- thousands of Canadians are already doing so on the sly). The last time anyone tried -- remember the DirecTv “deathstar” fiasco? -- the industry practically demanded the government shoot it out of the sky. 

As you listen to this unending barrage of nonsense -- and the hearings were just the start: the CRTC has until the summer to come up with a new policy framework for the industry, with the inevitable appeals to cabinet to follow -- bear in mind three things. One, while everyone cites the need to support Canadian content, what they are invariably after is the profits from foreign content. The fees the broadcasters want are supposedly needed to pay for local news broadcasts. They are in fact the the residue from some unpleasant recent bidding wars for foreign programming.

Two, though everyone complains about the burdens imposed upon them by the regulator, nobody actually wants them removed -- since any burden can always be invoked in defense of a regulatory favour. You think broadcasters, rather than suffer under the yoke of Canadian content regulations -- but with all the subsidies that go with them -- would rather be free of both? You think the cable industry would take this deal: no must-carry provisions, in return for no protection from foreign deathstars? Not on your life.

And three, there really are no limits, whether of logic, consistency, or simple shame, on what these people will say to advance their cause. My favourite recent example is the CTV executive, writing in the Toronto Star, who was scandalized that cable and satellite providers should be allowed “to subsidize part of their business” by taking local signals and rebroadcasting them in other parts of the country without compensating local broadcasters. “It's hard to imagine any reasonable business model,” he write, “that would allow someone to confiscate your property with no compensation and resell it for a profit.” Could there be a better description of simultaneous substitution?

But hold on. Suppose we took this gaggle of special pleaders at their word. Suppose we were to design a television policy that really did put the consumer first -- a policy that treated viewers as if they were what television was for. In this world, broadcasters would succeed or fail depending on whether they put on programs that people wanted to watch, not how well they could bamboozle the regulator. Cable and satellite providers would carry only those channels that people were willing to pay for, and would charge only for those people willingly chose. New broadcasters and new carriers could enter the market at any time, whatever their nationality, based solely on their ability to compete for viewers and subscribers. And the cable and broadcast industries, rather than bawling to Auntie CRTC to settle their disputes, would work it out between themselves.

I know. Crazy talk. We return now to regularly scheduled whining.