Angry in the Great White North

Canada's private broadcasters, CanWest and CTVglobemedia, are hurting badly.  In the case of CanWest, there has been significant progress in coming to agreements with the banks and bondholders, but another deadline is coming up in mid-April.

But as I wrote before, the CRTC can help CanWest succeed by indicating that the rules are going to change.  The rules as they stand today treat the private broadcasters and their advertiser clients as a cash source, with the CRTC's job to take money from them and hand it over to independent producers.  The producers make Canadian content that the broadcasters are obligated to air.  But that material remains the property of the producer, which begs the question what the money was spent on.

It's no wonder that advertisers are abandoning the broadcasters.

But the CRTC has not suggested that anything is going to change.  That does not send the right signal to the people that the broadcasters are trying hard to convince to not pull the plug.

The news now is that the government is going to bypass the CRTC and change things for the better:

The Harper government is considering help for Canada's troubled private TV broadcasters, including the possibility of looser regulations and tax changes.

Heritage Minister James Moore said Wednesday that the federal cabinet is aware of the threat to local news content should more local stations close.

And he confirmed that the government is looking specifically at how to assist CanWest Global Communications, which is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

"We're mindful of that and we're thinking about whether or not there's anything the government can do, but I can't be any more specific than that right now," Moore said.

He hinted the help could come in the form of looser regulations and changes to the tax system, which would also help other private networks.

But will this happen in time?

Several high-placed industry and government sources say discussions at the highest levels of government have intensified as CanWest's April 7 deadline to satisfy creditor demands draws nearer.

It'll be interesting to see if the Liberals or the NDP would hold up help for the private broadcasters, if that help is in the form of less regulation instead of more.

Of course, as far as I'm concerned, less regulation is a good thing.  The CRTC has messed things up badly.  Time for the government to pull away from the overregulation.  If I was an investor in a position to help CanWest out, and looking for an excuse to justify taking that chance, I think my nerves would be soothed by this sort of news.

Especially if the changes are permanent.

And what of the CRTC?

The Commons Heritage committee has struck a sub-committee to look at the issue of the broadcasting industry, and has summoned CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein to appear next week. Industry watchers expect von Finckenstein will be pressed to explain why fee for carriage is such a bad idea.

Von Finckenstein has publicly recognized that the conventional TV "model is broken" in an age when more and more viewers are watching specialty channels and Internet broadcasts, and with an economic crisis swallowing up advertisers. He has asked the industry to submit their views on how the regulatory regime should be changed going forward.

Submit their views?  Again?

More meetings.  More hearings.  More delays.

It is far past the time for the government to step in and make changes.  Permanent changes.

Let the CRTC manage frequency allocation and such.  Let broadcasters own what they make and be empowered to demand payment based on fair market value.  Let Canadians decide what they want to see.

I look forward to some permanent changes to the broken model.  Not just for the broadcasters but for the CRTC too.

Bonus: Introducing a level of deregulation and limiting the influence of the CRTC would help the television industry in these difficult economic times, but in a distinctly conservative way.