Source: Government of Canada
Dear Minister St-Onge,
Congrats on your recent appointment as Minister of Canadian Heritage. Bonne chance!
Tonight’s blog post is a blast from the past. See below for my first paid gig writing about television broadcasting back in 2010.
COMMENTARY: Dude, where will my TV be? Canada’s digital transition still going nowhere
cartt.ca
October 07, 2010
By Steven James May
THE HYPE ASSOCIATED WITH Canada’s looming digital television transition remains fixated on the benefits that digital over-the-air (OTA) television will purportedly provide Canadian television viewers. While the CRTC describes the switch to digital OTA television as offering the promise of higher quality sound and picture, interactivity, and the potential for HDTV, if the signals being broadcast fail to reach a television-viewing household, these technological advances are meaningless.
Such a scenario could be the case for many of the approximate 10% of the television-viewing public in Canada who rely on over-the-air signals for their television. This is not to say that no one will benefit from the digitization of television broadcast signals in Canada. In the last big spectrum auction in 2008, the Government of Canada raked in over $4 billion.
The concern however is whether Canada’s digital television transition, currently scheduled for August 31, 2011, will serve the collective interest of all Canadian citizens, particularly those in rural and remote areas of the country.
As part of its broader digitization of broadcasting and telecommunications across the country, the Government of Canada has seemingly directed the CRTC to shift from managing broadcasting as a “public service essential to the maintenance and enhancement of national identity and cultural sovereignty” (as it says in the Broadcasting Act, 1991) in favour of having it turn to “market forces to the maximum extent feasible and to regulate only where necessary.”
While such a shift can at first be viewed as a movement away from regulation, scholars including the likes of Vincent Mosco recognize that “eliminating government regulation is not deregulation but rather the expansion of market regulation”. Rather than relying on pure “market forces” to guide the future of over-the-air television broadcasting in Canada, the Government of Canada’s forced liberalization of the broadcast industry is indeed shaping how many rural and remote Canadian television viewers will be able to receive signals following the proposed switch-over date. By connecting citizenship to “communication rights,” says Mosco, the digital television transition can be seen as a possible “means to exclude people from the benefits of membership in a collective.”
As estimated in a study by Price Waterhouse Coopers prepared for the CRTC in 2009, 1.24 million Canadian households or 2.9 million Canadians, rely on OTA TV signals at least some of their television. It is currently unclear how many of these viewers will continue to receive over-the-air signals following the digital television transition, including those who dutifully invest in either a digital converter box or a new television set. Since the footprint of OTA digital television signals do not match those of analog, vast areas of the country could be without any over-the-air television signals following the digital transition.
Since Canadian broadcasters are only required by the CRTC to upgrade transmitters to digital in television markets of 300,000 viewers or more, it is unlikely that they will upgrade (at their own expense) transmitters in the remaining markets (although Shaw pledged to do so, albeit with tangible benefits money).
While the CRTC has announced that it will permit analog broadcasting to continue in certain areas of the country, allowing viewers in non-digital markets to continue receiving over-the-air television signals after the transition, it’s unclear which Canadian markets will qualify for such ongoing analog status. Furthermore, even if broadcasters are permitted to continue broadcasting in analog in certain markets after August 31, 2011, it is equally unclear whether broadcasters will maintain the required servicing and repair of their analog transmitters once they are fully immersed within a digital broadcast economy.
As for faith in a “hybrid system” of cable and satellite services to cater to those television viewers who will not be well-served by the digital OTA transition, this hybrid system too fails as a comprehensive fix. Cable television is simply not an option for those viewers who reside outside of areas serviced by cable companies. While satellite does appear to be an option for some viewers, the start-up cost of approximately $500 to get up and rolling with satellite TV (combined with ongoing subscription fees) makes satellite a comparatively expensive way to watch television.
In terms of watching television over the Internet, this is not a viable option for those Canadians whose access to the Internet is limited to a dial-up connection. Similarly, mobile TV service is contingent upon the existence of ubiquitous 3G/4G cellular (or ATSC Mobile TV) networks that are currently lacking in the country.
With less than 328 days remaining until Canada’s digital television transition, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages James Moore (the Minister in charge of the transition) would likely benefit from a quick glance at Australia’s DTV transition literacy platform.
When compared to Canada’s own DTV transition literacy site, the differences in the degree of sophistication and comprehensiveness are strikingly apparent.
More importantly, Minister Moore must work with Minister of Industry Tony Clement and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to consider, in good faith, investing a portion of spectrum auction revenues in the form of federal infrastructure funding. This funding could be directed at either, i) assisting Canadian broadcasters (public and private) in the Herculean task of converting more than eight hundred television transmitters across the country to digital, or ii) extending the country’s broadband Internet and/or cellular/Wi-Fi network penetration to include all television markets that stand to lose their over-the-air television signals.
If Minister Moore opts instead to stay the course and wait for market forces to provide such essential digital television infrastructure, he will be in for a rough awakening.
Steven James May is a documentary filmmaker and 2nd year PhD Student in Communication & Culture at Ryerson and York Universities in Toronto, Canada. Far from an analog curmudgeon, May’s research interests include the role that digital devices play in the formation of television-viewing socials (Latour, 2005). You can follow Steven on Twitter @stevenjmay and on his TV-focused blog, https://dudewhereismytv.wordpress.com.
Dude, Where's My TV? 