How about we talk to the people we’re supposed to be representing instead?
Interesting initiative from the CRTC this morning.
After two weeks of entertaining the hopes and dreams of government-made Billionaires and realizing that those who want to “Save Local TV” won’t guarantee that any of the money they get will actually go toward doing that while those who seek to “Stop The TV Tax” are only too happy to keep collecting it from their customers; the Commissioners found they were no more enlightened than they had been going into the recent TV hearings.
So now they want to know what you think.
Scott Hutton, Executive Director of Broadcasting for the Commission, explains here…
Wow! Let’s find out what the Audience wants! What a concept!
For some, (including me) this may smack of another cynical attempt to pretend interest in input when decisions or compromises are already made. But as my multiple divorces prove, I can be wrong sometimes too. So maybe this is worth our participation.
Throughout the hearings, I was repeatedly struck by how diligently Commissioners parsed the submissions they heard, extracting fibre evidence so unnoticeable from each proposal that they would have made Gil Grissom proud. And then, after exhibiting that due diligence, they would ask questions proving they didn’t have even the first clue as to how the industry they regulate operates.
Nor, though repeatedly asking for new ideas, were they able to grasp them when they arrived.
How many groups copied them on the Nordicity report that indicates Canadian TV shows make money? Five? Six? And maybe it’s just me, but weren’t they copied on it a year ago as well? And yet, no matter how often it plopped on their desks, they still didn’t seem to be able to get their heads around what was on its pages.
They also felt the Writers Guild of Canada’s proposal for funding Primetime programming was “very complicated”, while insisting the world they’ve created of “Must carries”, “second tiers” and an endless list of acronyms that mean completely different things to different parts of the industry is crystal clear.
However, from the opening moments, it was evident Commission Chair Konrad von Finckenstein had heard Heritage Minister James Moore’s Summer admonition that the impact on consumers needed to be foremost. And then came the admission that the 1999 ruling that gutted drama production was “wrong” and even a frustrated final day rant by Commissioner Timothy Denton asking why he couldn’t just turn on his TV and see Canadian shows that offered him some “entertainment”.
So maybe we are finally getting somewhere and maybe this is our opportunity to get a little further.
You can access the CRTC’s Online Consultation here. Your views can be communicated until Midnight December 21, 2009.
Please take the time to kick in your thoughts. It might actually mean you’ll finally get the kind of Canadian TV you deserve.
