Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘crtc’

A Gazette reader has this to say about the widespread availability of porn on Canadian TV:

Evidently, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is less rigorous in regulating Canadian viewers’ access to porn (Gazette, Jan. 4., “Canada leads world in TV porn”) than in allowing Canadians the opportunity to pay for Fox or NBC’s 24-hour news channels. I am not particularly concerned with how the CRTC regulates pornography, but I cannot help but observe Canadian identity is deemed to be more symbiotic with pornography than American cable news availability.

One can only hope that the CRTC is properly vigilant in assuring porn actors and productions are Canadian and reflect our diverse, multi-cultural mosaic.

The CRTC’s recent decisions to deny broadcasting licenses to several US channels including HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax, TMN, Lifetime, Flix, Fox Sports, ESPN, Fox News, Nickelodeon, and WAM were taken on the premise that they would “compete with existing Canadian channels”, and presumably that would be bad:

Further, the Commission’s general policy with respect to such requests precludes the distribution of non-Canadian services that it determines to be either totally or partially competitive with existing Canadian specialty or pay services.

The Commission notes that, under its current policy, a range of foreign programming services is available for distribution in Canada. Moreover, a number of broadly-distributed Canadian programming services provide a wide variety of non-Canadian programming, including programming available within the services that CCTA requests be authorized for distribution.

[ . . . ]

Most significantly, the Commission is concerned that adoption of CCTA’s proposal would make it more difficult for Canadian services to obtain the Canadian rights to broadcast foreign productions. The loss of the revenues generated by such foreign programs could result in a decrease in the production and broadcast of Canadian programming.

So we can’t get HBO because CTV would lose money when it tried to broadcast episodes of the Sopranos that are three years old. But no worries: we can have all the porn we could possibly dream of! I guess there aren’t too many concerns about preserving Canadian culture and preventing American competition when hot naked chicks are involved. (So then why is Sex and the City still not permitted to air?)

Rachel Marsden has a good idea for the united Conservative Party’s campaign slogan for the next Federal election: “Vote Conservative, get HBO”.

Works for me.

Frankly, I think that would attract a LOT of votes. Here in big-brother-land, where the CRTC promotes endless “Canadian content” (read: crap) and allows licensing for Punjabi and Tamil stations and entertains applications from the likes of Al-Jazeera, it is illegal to get the latest episodes of the Sopranos or Six Feet Under. As well as a host of other programming, denied the right to air because of the horrible crime of being American.

I for one find it insulting that the government presumes to decide what’s “best” for us by denying us some of the most innovative, entertaining television to be created in recent history, but giving us all the Red Green we can watch. Whoopee.

News flash to the CRTC: We’re grownups. We don’t need you to set viewing guidelines for us. If we want our latest fix of Sex and the City, I don’t want to be told that it will rot my brain and that I should content myself with the latest Rita MacNeil special on CBC instead! That’s nightmare-inducing.

If you agree that the government should butt out and let us watch the programming we choose, then add your name to this online petition. Of course, it will accomplish absolutely nothing, but you’ll feel better. I know I did.

It’s a very Canadian thing to make jokes about Americans, and to put down the US with our superiority complex. But even though I’ve certainly been guilty of this myself, I’ve long maintained that a lot of it is really an inferiority complex in disguise.

Put simply, we’re jealous.

Most Canadians live within 50 miles of the US border, and yet we’re relegated to the status of outside observers. We’re practically more affected by US presidential elections than Canadian federal ones, but of course we’re not Americans and we have no vote or say.

We are directly influenced by American TV, but are forced to either illegally steal satellite signals or hear about the hottest new shows over the internet or from our American friends, cause the CRTC has decided we’re not cool enough for first-runs of the Sopranos and instead must watch endless reruns of Royal Canadian Air Farce on the CBC.

We are we get American commercials, and yet we can’t shop in US stores. Or, if we do decide to drive across the border to shop for the day, we have to pay the exchange rate, plus ridiculous amounts of duty at the border. All just to get access to the varieties in styles that aren’t available here because our market is a tenth the size of theirs.

We work similar jobs to our American counterparts, but we make less money and pay much more of it in taxes. And when we complain, we’re reminded we have socialized healthcare – which is great, don’t get me wrong – but it’s like we’re supposed to use this as an excuse for everything.

I’m a proud Canadian. I love being Canadian, and I don’t want to move to the US. I think there are a lot of things that are great about Canada, but sometimes I wonder why I feel like a second-class American with my nose pressed against the glass.

Some groups are pushing to get Al-Jazeera broadcast in Canada. The CJC and B’nai Brith Canada are incensed – rightly so. Far from being “just another viewpoint”, Al-Jazeera broadcasts blatantly antisemitic content on a daily basis under the guise of news:

CJC President Keith Landy, whose group closely monitors Al-Jazeera programming, said that some of the channel’s material might violate Canada’s hate-crimes legislation and federal broadcasting statutes, since it regularly engages in “blatant anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and the glorification of suicide bombers.”

“We certainly don’t want this to appear as a political attempt to prevent another view from being aired,” he said. “But by granting them a license, the kind of stories that they carry could contravene the Criminal Code.”

Arab groups in Canada have vowed to push for the channel’s inclusion on Canadian cable service, saying that “it would broaden the horizon of the Canadian public” with regards to the Middle East.

What, the CBC isn’t enough for them?