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Good day, I m Jan Pachul from
Toronto. I am honored to be able to share my thoughts with you on
Broadcast regulation and community television. You may have read
about me, I'm the guy that has been fighting the CRTC for years,
over a low power community television station in Toronto called
Star Ray TV.
The conclusion I have come to
after years of involvement with the CRTC, is, that the CRTC must
be disbanded. We cannot call ourselves a democracy when we have
an unaccountable body like the CRTC micro-managing broadcasting
and access to the airwaves. Freedom of speech should include
equal access to broadcasting frequencies for everyone, not just
for rich corporate insiders.
A broadcasting system where 5
corporations own a majority of broadcasting properties nationwide
is the result of the CRTC's biased policies in favour of a
handful of industry elites. The CRTC has faithfully followed the
theory of regulatory capture. In brief, this theory describes
various phases a regulatory body goes through until the body is
"captured" by the industries its' suppose to regulate.
In the CRTC's case this regulatory capture is evidenced by the
CRTC's overwhelming bias against new entrants in broadcasting.
In the my case the majority
commissioners fabricated reasons to turn down my application when
industry heavyweights objected. Yes, they came up with reasons
right out of thin air. I have extensive documentation that the
same thing has happened to other new broadcasters trying to get
access to the public's airwaves. To this day I have not been able
to hold the CRTC accountable for their misrepresentations and
misdeeds. Currently the CRTC has issued a mandatory order
commanding me to cease and desist carrying on a broadcast
undertaking at Toronto, or anywhere else in Canada.
The CRTC Commissioners are
either incompetent or corrupt or both. Only one commissioner has
any kind of broadcasting experience, the majority are lawyers or
consultants yet these people are making value judgements on what
stations and programming Canadians will watch. What
qualifications does a lawyer have in broadcast management, sales,
or television programming? Lawyers and consultants are the
professions that are in the best position to profit from the
insider information and connections obtained as CRTC
commissioners. Most large broadcasters have staff lawyers to
manage regulatory affairs with the CRTC, many of these lawyers
are former CRTC employees. Why isn't an artist a CRTC
commissioner? A couch potato that watches 40 hours of TV a week
would be more qualified and preferable as a CRTC commissioner
than a lawyer.
What accountability does the
CRTC have? How do you remove a commissioner that is corrupt or
incompetent? A CRTC decision to issue, amend or renew a license
is not subject to judicial review, although the applicant can
appeal to the governor-in-council. There are no appeals if you
are denied a licence, the CRTC's decision is final. You could be
denied a licence forever. In my case the CRTC won't even accept
an application from me while they are studying low power
broadcasting, a study that has been going on for almost 2 years.
The public needs direct accountability from whatever body is
regulating broadcasting. The Broadcasting Act needs a clear
procedure to remove Commissioners that are not serving the public
interest. Commissioners could be elected by region, at least they
could be voted out if they don't serve the public.
Why is the CRTC dictating
programming formats and protecting existing formats from
competition? A station should be able to broadcast any material
it likes if it meets minimum Canadian content requirements and is
not breaking any laws. Broadcasting should be as competitive as
any other industry. With a guaranteed licence to print money,
station owners now have no incentive to excel. Excellence flows
from competition. The Broadcasting industry needs some new
players, so what if some dinosaurs go bankrupt. The most gifted
and creative should be rewarded not the most hostile and
aggressive.
Canada does have the talent to
compete with the US in broadcasting, if the talented are given a
chance. We hear about the great Canadian brain drain, it's true,
gifted, talented Canadians are forced out of this country to earn
a living and achieve recognition while the mediocre remain.
Personally I now have an attractive opportunity to manage an
existing US low power station and leave all my CRTC troubles
behind. Every day I see talented creative Canadians frustrated by
the fact they have no outlet for their art on their airwaves.
How would I reverse the damage
caused by the CRTC?
I'd start by a moratorium on
licences for the top ten owners of broadcast properties in
Canada. No new licenses for existing players, although they could
buy and sell their existing properties with no corporation
controlling more than 10% of the licences. Give preference to
local ownership of stations, a out of town owner should only be
considered if there are no local applicants. Encourage
cooperation by new entrants into broadcasting in a given
geographical area. The spectrum space that one analog channel now
occupies can support 4 digital channels.
Enforce one station per owner
per market with no exceptions. Anyone that owns a station in a
market should be disqualified from applying for any more licenses
in that market. A recent CRTC call for applications for
television licenses in southern Ontario had mostly applicants
that had existing stations in those markets, these applicants
should automatically be disqualified from tendering an
application.
Simplify licence applications. A
great barrier to new entrants is the license application process
itself. Corporations now routinely spend one hundred thousand to
one million dollars just on the application alone with no
guarantee of ever receiving a license. The money wasted on CRTC
applications is enough to put a low power community station on
the air. A low power television application in the US is only two
pages long. The programming content should be the public's and
the station's business, not the CRTC's.
Most new applicants can't raise
money unless they have a license in hand. For broadcasting
applications do not require any financial information or
projections, the only requirement should be that the applicant
gets the station on the air within a year. Do not accept any
interventions from existing broadcasters whining about the
financial effects of new stations, if they can't compete they
should go bankrupt like any other business in a free society. New
broadcasters should be able to challenge licenses during renewals
with competing applications, no automatic renewals allowed.
The job of the regulator should
be reduced to spectrum management and enforcing technical
standards, something Industry Canada Spectrum Management is
already doing. Another task for the regulator would be the area
of competition law something Industry Canada also is doing
through the Competition Tribunal. This corrupt, wasteful, useless
bureaucratic exercise called the CRTC must stop. Freedom of
speech blooms when public gains control of the airwaves.
It's time to recognize the CRTC
as a failure. Unemploy all those lawyers, lobbyists, and
consultants, get the CRTC out of the way. Let the broadcast
system reflect the great diversity of Canada. Allow Canadians the
tools to become competitive with the United States in
broadcasting. Have Americans watch Canadian produced programming.
Reward creativity and talent, give somebody new a chance to be a
broadcaster.
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