The Role For A Public Broadcaster In The 21st Century

This is the “individual” perspective of a network activist who for several years has run an NGO new media exchange site for a Francophonie that is far too bureaucratic and sclerotic in its governance as well as its democratic, academic and media structures.

Mr. Speaker,
Honourable Members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage,

First, I would like to thank you for your willingness to listen to the brief of a committed minority Francophone who wishes to publicly air his views on the role for the public broadcaster without going through an “interest group” or “spokesperson.” Some of you will recall that almost no Francophones spoke out at the CRTC Public Hearing (2006-72) held last summer to address the provision that “the Canadian broadcasting system should be readily adaptable to scientific and technological change,” or before the Official Languages Committee that spent last fall questioning people across the country on “community vitality.” Let us note here also that the mouthpiece for the Francophonie outside Quebec, i.e. the FCFA, did not make its view known at the CRTC Public Hearing, nor did it seek any input from the very population it is meant to represent.

Credentials
I will begin by presenting my credentials. I am a “non-Quebecer,” born in Quebec City but fully integrated into western Canada for the last 27 years. A tech worker in the private sector, I have never worked in French, and I married outside my culture. My two children, grown up and in their twenties, could be called Francophiles and “digital natives.” They do not listen to much radio, they download quite a lot, and they are hyperconnected: perfect examples of the new generation. As a big fan of public radio, I listen almost exclusively to SRC-CBC and absolutely never watch hertzian or cable television. Owing to my “tech” job, I am just as hyperconnected, but by virtue of my age, I am a “digital migrant.” I am an acknowledged critic of the SRC outside Quebec, even though I owe them for maintaining my sole daily linguistic connection after all these years in western Canada. My criticisms mainly concern the “new media,” a development that the regulatory body, the CRTC, has chosen not to regulate for the last several years. Every day I see how the public broadcaster does not maintain this linguistic and cultural lifeline for the ***next*** generation of digital natives.

Furthermore, for the past two years, I have been running a new, activist minority-Francophone media site called Le Canard Réincarné. It gets between 30 and 40 visitors a day, and participants can contribute content. The site has a newsblog, forums, headlines from various Francophone and Anglophone media, and a variety of other Francophone resources. Le Canard is currently the only alternative media in all of western Canada where views may be expressed on subjects that our official media does not cover. In the absence of regulations for the new media and the complete absence of minority competition, Le Canard has raised the bar for the SRC in the regions, and was the first to introduce Web 2, or online community services such as a community blog, a forum, podcast radio, an aggregation of Web feed formats (e.g., RSS), surveys and scheduled programs, all on a voluntary basis and at my own expense, with practically no support from the SRC or other culture-promoting agencies such as Canadian Heritage’s culture.ca or the Francophonie association. I have submitted a number of briefs on different forums to public agencies. This sustained commitment comprises my chief credentials.

A preliminary analysis of the minority situation
Our world in 2007 is fundamentally mediatized. Whether with our nearest and dearest or with clients, suppliers, partners, family members or members of our language/cultural group, governance groups or even official media (print or electronic), a large part of these relationships takes place in virtual time and space using various technologies: answering machines, wireless (texting/SMS), e-mail, the Web, e-newsletters, online communities, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, wikis, etc. The generation of “digital natives” (vs digital migrants) is more mediatized than ever, more interconnected, and more in control of everything that happens. And let’s not forget that these Web 2 media now involve participation, i.e. reading, speaking, writing, listening, posting and viewing! Yet today, the media serving the Francophone minority are particularly ossified on the French side, unless you decide to go with the majority Francophone media, i.e. Quebec and France, with which it is difficult to identify. Building or just maintaining a Francophone identity in such an environment is almost impossible.

What this means is that there is no next generation; I am talking about 18-to-30-year olds. I would really like to be able to steer my grown-up son or daughter to some interesting minority Francophone media, but there is nothing in western Canada. So I hope this has given you some perspective on the need for legal or federal services that will rarely be used, or even healthcare services. Without daily linguistic engagement, they would simply be a waste of time. Therefore, new, competitive media services that allow minority communities to engage in French on a daily basis are absolutely crucial!!!

What this also means is that, since all the dynamic Francophone classes use these new media technologies, and since everything on the French side is ossified as far as daily engagement is concerned, everybody has to turn to English. The dynamic classes, that is youth, entrepreneurs and professionals, and, I would add, the dissident, must all abandon their roots. I would like to remind you that that is exactly what happened at the end of the Soviet regime, when the same classes were exiled to the West at the cost of uprooted identities. And it was the Western media, to which the state could not limit access, that opened the way for them.

The least dynamic classes who make the least use of the new technologies will therefore be the ones with whom Francophones will have to communicate. We will get stilted, boring communications produced by a class that lives in an artificial bubble, an ossified and declining Francophonie that has consistently demonstrated to date that it is incapable of rejuvenation.

The public mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada in the 21st century
· Full recognition of minorities, going well beyond simple “regional” recognition, is required to “adequately account for and reflect Canada’s regional and linguistic diversity”; the new Web 2 media environment makes this situation all the more evident.
· From now on, there should be full recognition of an Internet culture expressed on Web 2 to contribute to the “flow and exchange of cultural expression” in all its “rich diversity.”
· A genuinely shared “national consciousness and identity” will be possible only if minority and majority communities are better understood and recognized; the minority community is a well-stirred blend of English and French, which is generally very poorly understood thanks to an entrenched linguistic rectitude; this lack of representation serves to disengage blended Francophones, who cannot identify.
· The services that would “be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means as resources become available for the purpose” should no longer be provided by an enshrined majority community that is lamentably reluctant to offer new media services for minority communities; full recognition of the two different situations would better illuminate the “way” in which the mandate is carried out.
· The governance structure of the CBC/Radio-Canada should duly recognize the linguistic minority situation and put an end to majority community control, including management by an exclusive majority community, i.e. staff, executives, ombudsman, regional panel, and the regulatory agency staff. The Web 2 has increased the need for responsibility, transparency and citizen commitment, along with what is traditionally known in broadcasting circles as an “audience”; public broadcaster services for the minority communities are plainly overdue and should be part of an action plan to cure a dysfunctional governance structure.
· Again, before “stronger partnerships” can be “forged between the CBC/Radio-Canada and private broadcasters” so it can “be better able to carry out its mandate,” it should be fully recognized that the minority communities do not generally benefit from the “private broadcasters” (the “market” being much too marginal); on the other hand, an NGO citizen-media Web 2 presence should be fully recognized, and this sector should be energetically promoted, not crushed, as is the case today, by a public broadcaster that cannot tolerate NGO competition, even though this goes against its objective to “raise the bar on Canadian cultural programming,” given the failure of the regulatory body to impose constraints.

Financial portraits of the CBC/Radio-Canada in the 21st century: Issues and challenges
· Here again, the minority communities must be fully recognized; today the “market” is generally perceived as in decline due to the awful assimilation statistics of its “audience”; however, Web 2 enables new groupings that are not necessarily geographical and could lead to new distribution channels that would reach more specialized market niches, hence of greater appeal to advertisers; the Francophone market that is living and assimilating in the major English Canadian urban centres (e.g., Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver) is an excellent illustration.
· Minority content must be substantially improved if it is to reach the Francophones that normally lose interest; Web statistics should be released and used as performance indicators to reach a hopefully “emergent” Web 2 market; the public broadcaster shares none of these data, and for no legitimate reason; it must become more accountable and transparent so that advertising revenues can be estimated.
· The public broadcaster should direct Web traffic to NGO sites targeting communities of interest that are not necessarily commercially viable but certainly fall under the “exchange of cultural expression” mandate.
· The challenges posed by coexisting NGO, public and private broadcasting sectors (ultimately) must be considered by a regulatory body that can stand up to interest groups seeking new market shares; the NGO sector is frail and must be protected from the public sector (as well as the private sector); funding for an NGO sector is a sensitive issue that must be considered in the subsequent development of new markets.
· The NGO broadcasting sector could initially contribute to the great void in content diversity and richness at the public broadcaster, if only the public broadcaster would end its untiring attempts to control content to the point of suppressing all generation; the NGO broadcasting sector is frail and cannot reach Francophones without the willing support of the better established and better funded public broadcaster.
· Incentive measures for content production (e.g., funding) should be based on the number of Web clicks generated, and public, private and NGO broadcasters should all get on board with this; the challenges faced by a regulatory body dealing with virtual time and space are immense; but the absence of a regulatory body would spell disaster for the NGO broadcasting sector, without the crucial support of the public broadcaster in minority settings.

Services offered by the CBC/Radio-Canada
· The challenge of “convergence” and Web 2 service offerings for minority communities must be addressed, and priorities must be set.
· A “broadcast” television service (hertzian or cable) is no longer necessary when the audience can access content in virtual time and select specific content, time being a limited resource. The service is no longer pertinent when the audience wants to engage with the media on specific subjects and exchange views with other interested parties; there is immense education potential for “common communities” drawn from formerly isolated minority Francophones who choose to network better. The attitude of the “broadcaster” or its programming director that strives to exercise complete control over the content and participants is outmoded and disengaging.
· An audible linguistic and cultural lifeline could be delivered by a hertzian radio service (for mobile users) and Internet radio, allowing a more active engagement with the media and between participants.
· The public broadcaster (and the regulatory body) should no longer get sidetracked by new platforms for access (e.g., wireless, iPOD) and distribution (e.g., satellite), especially on the pretext that this would help isolated minority Francophones; the Internet is *the* medium on which to focus, and the new platforms may be left in the more capable hands of private broadcasters and distributors; the entries of Sirius and HDTV demonstrate that powerful interest groups have been able to impose agenda that are incompatible with public good interests, with their limited budgets and resources; the public broadcaster should ensure universal Internet access, with highest priority given to “low-bandwidth” services, i.e. text for universal services (e.g., news), followed by audio and then audio-video; users will likely have to pay their Internet provider a fee for “bandwidth” consumption.
· Minority audiences must be re-engaged and more regional programming and content should be decided jointly with this audience so as to re-engage minority communities and give them opportunities to contribute content; this way, a “leader” becomes a “moderator,” with the primary function of putting information into context in order to engage the audience to actively participate in a blog-like undertaking; whereas “passive” participation leads to Francophone disengagement and assimilation in minority settings.
· The need for minority participation is equally urgent in the area of so-called community radio; lacking broadcasting resources and means, these radio stations are generally absent from minority communities; the challenges here for the regulatory body and the public broadcaster, which is still highly preoccupied with programming, are immense; minority audiences have to be re-engaged, and they should be determining this “programming”; a standardized, country-wide programming schedule that is exclusively determined and directed by people from a majority community can in no way “reflect the country’s regional diversity” that is found in minority communities.

The emergence of new media and the future of the CBC/Radio-Canada
· The “new media” are not really all that new, and given the importance of the media in our daily lives, the absence of regulations has greatly contributed to the practically zero Francophone presence on the Net outside Quebec. And as Francophones, particularly the next generation, continue to go with the flow, soon there will be no more need to question the role of the public broadcaster for minority communities; we might reasonably wonder if, at the end of the day, this is what the majority actually want, and vote for…
· Market deregulation is a dangerous ideology when there is no “market” and when the majorities have substantial resources to protect, whether the physical, wildlife, or even cultural/linguistic minorities with which they coexist; the emergence of new media in minority communities is an excellent illustration of the importance of an updated regulatory body that understands community needs as well as the potential contributions of public, private and NGO broadcasters.
· The CRTC must enact firm regulations for minority communities so that from now on the public broadcaster ceases to attack NGO broadcasters and instead promotes them, becomes more transparent and accountable, and bases its services on Web 2 structures rather than an extended bureaucracy that is out of touch with the populations it is meant to serve.
· Nevertheless, new CRTC regulations would in no way suffice when the public broadcaster must navigate a fundamental paradigm shift and overcome the serious stumbling block of effecting a substantial change in the mind-set of its staff, management, regulatory officials and even the employees’ union; certainly, there is the temptation to adopt a clear-cutting approach to such a challenge; but we must keep in mind the critical role of the public broadcaster for minority communities, i.e. as a “primary lifeline for linguistic and cultural survival” and the importance of updating to cope with the juggernaut of unfettered globalization; perhaps a better appreciation of this role would be equally healthy for the majority community.

As a final note, I ask you to reflect on all this, and I sincerely thank you for taking the time to listen to, read or click on this brief.

Note: "A Full Investigation o... available