FROM THE DESK of Alain Pineau:Midsummer CCA Update (Part Three)

CCA Bul­letin 32/06

August 10, 2006

Satel­lite radio rides again — CCA files CRTC inter­ven­tion against Bell Video Group

On July 25 the CCA filed an inter­ven­tion against Bell Video Group’s appli­ca­tion to the CRTC to get autho­riza­tion to dis­trib­ute, at its dis­cre­tion, either or both of the licensed Satel­lite sub­scrip­tion ser­vices. This appli­ca­tion, which is sim­i­lar to the one made a few months ago by Rogers Cable and against which the CCA inter­vened, has been fol­lowed even more recently by another one from Telus. CCA’s objec­tion to Bell’s appli­ca­tion has been co-signed or sup­ported by a num­ber of orga­ni­za­tions: ADISQ, the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Musi­cians (Canada), La Guilde des musi­ciens et musi­ci­ennes du Québec, the Toronto Musi­cians’ Asso­ci­a­tion, Our Pub­lic Air­waves, the Cana­dian League of Com­posers, the Cana­dian Music Cen­tre and Talon Books Ltd.

The CCA inter­vened against Bell on the grounds that, if granted, such appli­ca­tions would bring about unfair com­pe­ti­tion against the two estab­lished Cana­dian pay audio ser­vices, Galaxie (CBC) and Max Trax (Corus). Through a domino effect with other cable and satel­lite deliv­ery sys­tems, this would most likely lead to their being replaced by the nom­i­nally Cana­dian satel­lite radio ser­vices, where Cana­dian artists are mostly con­fined to only a very small num­ber of channels.

Requested under the pre­text of increas­ing con­sumer choice, the result of grant­ing the Bell and Rogers appli­ca­tion would be just the oppo­site. Cana­dian pay audio ser­vices, whose car­riage is equally optional, would be at best mar­gin­al­ized or dropped entirely in favour of cheaper US chan­nels, with­out con­sid­er­a­tion for Cana­dian con­tent. The Bell appli­ca­tion, like the Rogers one before and the Telus one after, delib­er­ately glosses over the fact that con­sumers can­not “choose” some­thing that is not avail­able on the menu.

The CCA has invited other orga­ni­za­tions to sup­port its request that the CRTC sub­mit all such appli­ca­tions to a pub­lic hear­ing to deal with the fun­da­men­tal issues they raise con­cern­ing Cana­dian con­tent regulations.

Notable busi­ness aris­ing from the June 10–11 CCA Board meeting

As men­tioned in CCA Bul­letin 31/06, one of the major out­puts of the CCA Board meet­ing held in Ottawa on June 10–11 was the for­mal adop­tion of the CCA Pol­icy and Advo­cacy Pri­or­i­ties for the fore­see­able future. Here are other high­lights of the meeting:

1. The CCA Board launches a review of its Mem­ber­ship and its Gov­er­nance structures

The Board voted to strike two ad-hoc sub-committees whose work has already begun over the summer.

The first, a sub-committee on mem­ber­ship, was cre­ated in order to exam­ine exist­ing CCA mem­ber­ship cat­e­gories and fee struc­tures and to rec­om­mend new approaches and fee struc­tures to the CCA Board at its next meet­ing, cur­rently sched­uled for mid-September. The mem­ber­ship sub-committee is chaired by Gov­er­nor Lori Bax­ter and com­prises CCA Vice Pres­i­dent Karl Siegler, as well as Gov­er­nors Rose Bel­losillo and Tim Bor­lase, with the sup­port of the Sec­re­tariat via the National Direc­tor Alain Pineau.

The Gov­er­nance Review Com­mit­tee is man­dated to review the gov­er­nance struc­ture of the CCA and, after five years, make a thor­ough assess­ment of the changes brought about in 2001. The man­date of the com­mit­tee is broad: to review the Board struc­ture per se, the Board Com­mit­tees and their man­dates, the Board selec­tion process, as well as issues related to Board mem­ber per­for­mance and the rela­tion­ship between the National Direc­tor and the Board. The gov­er­nance com­mit­tee is chaired by CCA Sec­re­tary Peter Hyde and includes Pres­i­dent Robert Spick­ler, past Pres­i­dent Denise Roy and Gov­er­nors Peter Gard­ner and Susan Wal­lace. As chair of the Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee, Rose Bel­losillo will sit as an observer. The com­mit­tee will con­sult with var­i­ous CCA mem­bers through­out its exten­sive eval­u­a­tion process.

2. Appoint­ment of CCA Treasurer

Peter Gard­ner has been re-appointed as CCA Board Trea­surer for a period of two years.

3. Appoint­ment of Philip Szporer as CCA Governor

Last, the Board accepted the nom­i­na­tion of Philip Szporer as new mem­ber to the Board, as rec­om­mended by the CCA’s Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee. Mr. Szporer joins the Board fur­ther to the res­ig­na­tion of Mr. Nor­mand Chouinard ear­lier this year. The CCA thanks Mr. Chouinard for his ser­vice to the CCA and is pleased to wel­come Mr. Szporer to the organization.

Philip Szporer is a free­lance writer, broad­caster, film­maker and inter­na­tional lec­turer based in Mon­treal . Mr. Szporer is Scholar in Res­i­dence at the Jacob’s Pil­low Dance Fes­ti­val and was awarded a Pew Fel­low­ship for the National Dance/Media Project at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia (Los Ange­les). He is also a lec­turer in Dance Tra­di­tions at Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­sity . He has worked exten­sively (1983-present) for CBC –Radio in the arts, music and pub­lic affairs divi­sions, and was Cana­dian cor­re­spon­dent for PRI’s The World (1996–2002). Amongst other media projects, he co-directed and pro­duced, with film­maker Mar­lene Mil­lar, a seven-part doc­u­men­tary series on emerg­ing Cana­dian chore­o­g­ra­phers, Moments in Motion/Au fil du mou­ve­ment, as well as the doc­u­men­tary Rais­ing The Bar: The Fresh Voices Project.