Inside out
By Rebecca Schechter, President, Writers Guild of Canada
Another day, another intervention
And no, I don’t mean the kind where friends and family gather to stop someone from destroying their life with addictive substances or relationships (or both). I’m talking about the far less juicy kind of intervention. The legal kind. Since January 25, when Konrad von Finckenstein took the Chair at the CRTC, the WGC (and the rest of the industry) has been in intervention heaven–or hell, depending on your point of view.
Here’s a somewhat impressionistic review of the last eight months:
• We intervened in the hearing about CTV’s acquisition of CHUM. We supported CTV–with a few caveats. CRTC allowed CTV to buy
everything but the CITY-TV stations.
• We submitted a brief on an incredibly technical plan put forward by Only Imagine involving ad credits and CanCon production. We
supported it. Broadcasters and cable and satellite companies opposed it. CRTC denied the proposal.
• We opposed Jim Shaw’s bid to license USA Network in Canada and run it on his cable. CRTC agreed with us and said no.
• This one is especially annoying. A while back, Shaw asked CRTC if he could move one of his own stations, Encore 2, down the dial from pay to speciality. CRTC said no. Shaw did it anyway. This year he applied again and we intervened, saying if CRTC has already said no, he shouldn’t be able to apply again for the same thing. New CRTC ruling is still outstanding.
• Following Shaw and Quebecor’s hissy fit about the CTF last fall, CRTC set up a CTF Task Force to placate them. They interviewed stakeholders privately (so nobody had the chance to rebut anyone else’s arguments) and issued a report–which it turns out nobody likes very much.
• We met with Laurence Dunbar and Christian Leblanc, two regulatory lawyers hired by CRTC to advise them on what parts of the Broadcasting Act are worth keeping. We will be commenting on the report at future hearings.
• We intervened in the Diversity of Voices hearing concerning media consolidation. Set up in the wake of recent mergers, it may seem to some as the “closing the stable door after the horse has bolted” hearing. Others argue that it’s worth figuring out how to close the door just in case we can ever afford to buy another horse.
• We made a written submission supporting Rogers’ acquisition of CITY-TV. Rogers’ purchase was approved–with some of our amendments.
• We intervened on the Canwest/Alliance Atlantis/Goldman Sachs merger. Whoops. Goldman Sachs isn’t really part of the merger. It’s just the US investment bank putting up most of the capital. We’re opposing this one. We’ll find out what the CRTC says in a few months.
Are you still awake? If so, give thanks that WGC has Kelly Lynne Ashton, director of policy research, and Maureen Parker, our fearless executive director, to guide us through these apparently endless levels of intervention hell. Don’t get me wrong: WGC’s no stranger to CRTC hearings. In fact, we’ve been working up to broadcaster license renewal hearings for years. That’s when we ask the CRTC to re-impose expenditure requirements on Canadian drama. Oh. Wait. Those are coming up in 2008–just a few months from now.
We expect license renewals to be a tough sprint–one on which the future health of writers in this country depends. Trouble is, nobody was prepared to run a marathon first. We’re all carbo-loading. It’s going to be a long year.
