We’d better get to keep Rita MacNeil
CRTC review makes activists nervous
BY Jesse McLean
When new CRTC chair, Konrad von Finckenstein, delivered a speech to the B.C. Association of Broadcasters in May, dropping phrases such as “self-regulation” and “creative market forces,” media activists got nervous.
“We have a government that is very keen on less regulation,” von Finckenstein told those gathered. “And that has directed us to accept market forces as the default and regulation as the exception.” He went on to disqualify broadcast from that statement, because of its cultural importance, but indicated that a comprehensive review of CRTC regulations is underway.
The results of the review are due in August, but it’s already clear the Cancon protector wants out of the regulation business.
A week after von Finckenstein’s address, the CRTC announced its intention to phase out limits on TV advertising. Starting in September the limit will go from 12 to 14 minutes per hour during primetime, with plans to abandon controls all together by 2009—a move critics see as another nail in the Canadian cultural coffin.
“The mantra of ‘let the market prevail’ has hurt this society before,” says Peter Murdoch of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union. “Money currently used to support Canadian programming will be sucked out to support big American shows."
