Canadian arts groups are asking the country's broadcast regulator to impose greater regulations of content on the Internet to protect the future of Canadian programming.
Members of Canada's arts community have begun appearing before the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in Gatineau, Que., where the regulator is conducting hearings to review its current hands-off approach to new media content.
These arts groups argue that Canadian content rules that govern traditional broadcast media should apply to Internet broadcasts, as well.
"Broadcasting is broadcasting regardless the distribution platform," Alain Pineau, national director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, told the hearing on Tuesday.
Speaking to CTV's Canada AM early Tuesday, actor and comedian Colin Mochrie said that Canadian broadcasters spend upwards of $800 million on foreign programming, which eventually finds its way online.
Mochrie said that because it is so common for people to watch television shows on the Internet or on personal media gadgets such as iPods, new media should be regulated to ensure that Canadian content has a place online.
"With no regulation on the Internet, there's a big fear that all Canadian content will be buried by foreign content," Mochrie said.
He added that the performers would like to see a levy charged to Internet providers that would fund the production of Canadian programs -- a position that both ACTRA and the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) have endorsed.
Experts say that such a levy would likely be passed on to consumers, which would lead to a price hike for Internet service.
Despite such criticisms, ACTRA and the DGC have asked the CRTC to create a fund to finance Canadian productions that are destined for the web. They say the fund should be paid for by Internet and wireless providers to the tune of $100 million annually.
The CRTC regulates conventional radio and television broadcasters to ensure they abide by Canadian content regulations.
In 1999, the CRTC decided not to step in and enforce such rules on the Internet. In 2007, it also exempted broadcasts that are sent to cellphones or other mobile devices from the rules.
Broadcasting content is becoming more prominent online, as the websites of conventional television broadcasters, including CTV, offer newscasts, television shows and other programming for free.
Critics say that it would be extremely difficult to gauge precisely how much Canadian content is available online, as well as on cellphones and other portable devices.
It's a difficult task, said Canadian Cable Systems Alliance representative Harris Boyd, because "there isn't anybody actually managing the content other than the customers who decide what they are going to access, from when and where."
"The bottom line is they are trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist," he added.
It is also unclear if broadcast rules can be applied to Internet content because not everyone agrees that what appears online can be called a broadcast.
"In the Broadcast Act, a program is any combination of images and text that inform, enlighten, entertain, and if it reaches people using broadcast apparatus, it's a broadcast," said Mochrie. "And that sounds like the Internet to me."
Carleton University journalism professor Ira Wagman said that concerns about Internet regulation stem from the fact that broadcasting online is still a relatively new phenomenon.
"So a lot of this is about a kind of anxiety within the industry itself about not knowing what's going on and trying to chart the future for the ways in which Canadians use the Internet and the activities of broadcasters in new media."
With files from The Canadian Press
