Catching Up on MediaPolicy – Canada v. California (the book not the movie) – Connected TV again – Paramount watch

April 6, 2024

When Pierre Poilievre was still thinking about the Conservative leadership, he put in a guest shift at the Commons Heritage Committee as part of the CPC’s filibuster of Bill C-10, the first iteration of the Liberals’ “Netflix bill.”

Poilievre claimed the bill was an elaborate Grit scheme to turn private Canadian broadcasting into government propaganda:

Before us is a bill that would allow government bureaucrats to rig technological algorithms in order to favour certain kinds of pro-government content online while discouraging content that government does not want us to see, in some cases taking that content off the Internet altogether.

He promised to “Kill Bill C-10.”

Almost two years later, Senator Paula Simons appeared on Michael Geist’s podcast and, after publicly championing the efforts of Canadian YouTubers to escape the gravitational force of regulation, she denounced the disinformation campaign against the bill, particularly the false accusations of “censorship.”

Soon the CRTC will hand down its ruling on a list of regulatory issues triggered by the Online Streaming Act, C-11.

When it comes, you may wish to refer to my forthcoming book, “Canada vs California: How Ottawa took on Netflix and the Streaming Giants.” It’s set for publication by Lorimer Books on May 1st.

The book looks backwards and forwards. It begins with the Mulroney Conservatives’ reboot of the Broadcasting Act for new distribution technologies, anticipating the Internet. Then it turns the page to tell the story of how the CRTC exempted online broadcasting for 20 years; how Netflix and the foreign streamers surged unregulated into the Canadian market; and how political parties of all stripes were content to let sleeping dogs lay.

Then the Liberals changed their minds and in November 2020 we got the Online Streaming Act, a memorable two-year Parliamentary scrap, and a culture war.

Now it’s law and, looking forward, the book lays out the big issues to expect in the months and years ahead.

It’s a good politics story, worth telling with enough policy context to help Canadians understand what all the fuss is about. 

You can pre-order in print or e-book from the Lorimer website or go directly to Indigo (it’s Canadian!), Apple, Amazon, or the “Shop Local” listing of Canadian bookstores. 

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Last week I posted about the unregulated status of “Connected TV.” That’s a reference to the expanding distribution technology of programming menus embedded in Smart TVs and plug-in sticks.

I got feedback from the post. One reader asked for a more fulsome explanation of why critics were objecting to the lack of regulation.

Anecdotally, the home page on Amazon Firestick is now my first portal to video programming (the link to Bell Fibe is a pain so I still switch to the cable set-top box for conventional television).

There are no Canadian apps on Firestick’s home page. You have to add them. Needless to say, Amazon initially picks the top five streaming apps and there are no Canadian apps. The prime real estate on the home page is reserved for the latest Amazon Prime feature or series. You can’t opt out of that.

There’s no question that programming menus on conventional aggregation websites, like Corus StackTV or Roku, will be regulated by the CRTC. How much, we will see in time.

But the new Online Streaming Act specifically contemplates the fair access and prominence of Canadian channels to the platforms of online distributors.

As another reader commented, the CRTC’s dismissal of Connected TV as “hardware” seems to pre-judge a significant regulatory issue without a hearing. The same reader pointed out that the British regulator Ofcom, now carrying out its own version of Bill C-11, includes Connected TV within its regulatory review:

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The hate speech provisions of the federal Online Harms Bill C-63 are a continuous talking point on social media.

The Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy recently offered commentary from a panel of experts. They delve deeper into the pros and cons of amending the Criminal Code and the federal Human Rights Act.

MediaPolicy has the report here.

If you have more time to invest, listen to Althea Raj’s excellent podcast on C-63. The first 45 minutes is a curation of critics’ commentary on the Bill. The last 25 minutes is the Justice Minister’s rebuttal.

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Still on the Paramount Global sweepstakes watch, the US media conglomerate may be bought by Skydance. That’s the film distribution company run by David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison (owner of Oracle Corporation, the Hawaiian island of Lanai and second richest person in America). Ellison the son would be buying from Shari Redstone, daughter of media titan the late Sumner Redstone.

There may be a TV series in this story, but perhaps it was already done.

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