Shaw Communications Inc., the cable satellite and Internet service giant that bought the Global broadcast network last summer along with a slate of profitable specialty channels, was not part of the approach to the CRTC. However, the company has said in the past that it believes Netflix should be regulated, and Shaw’s senior vice-president of regulatory affairs Ken Stein said the company supports the move.
“They have to be part of the system,” Mr. Stein said in an interview. “We all have obligations ... in terms of local programming, in terms of Canadian content, in terms of contribution to things like the Canadian Media Fund. … We think action has to be taken sooner rather than later.”
The push to regulate new media services is not about keeping Netflix or other over-the-top players out of Canada, said Norm Bolen, the president and CEO of the Canadian Media Production Association, who helped to form the group. “It’s about ensuring that we continue to have a strong Canadian system that can finance Canadian content.” he said in an interview Thursday. “It’s one of the few issues that concerns every part of the sector, and is seen as a threat.”
Mr. Bolen has hired Alain Gourd to chair the group. Mr. Gourd is a private consultant but was formerly in charge of regulatory affairs at Bell the first time the company owned CTV (it sold down to a minority stake in 2005.)
“My [point of view] is that CRTC regulating Netflix would be offside our [government] directive to encourage more choice and competition,” Conservative candidate and former industry minister Tony Clement wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
Other media companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. However, on his own conference call, the chief executive officer of Corus Entertainment Inc., John Cassaday, sounded markedly less nervous about the threat Netflix poses to the industry.
“We do have a new competitor. We will have many more, I’m sure, in the future,” Mr. Cassaday said. “But it’s important, I think, to remember that video consumption is not a zero-sum game. We believe that there is virtually an insatiable appetite for consumers to consume more media on a multitude of platforms, and all of the data demonstrates that video consumption is, in fact, growing. So point number one, our belief is that New competitors will prove to be additive to the system as opposed to serving to carve up the pie.”
Mr. Cassaday also said he takes comfort in the long-term deals his company has with HBO and Showtime, which come with popular shows such as True Blood and Nurse Jackie. Both have resisted licensing their programs to Netflix – preferring to put their shows online in a closed site accessible only to consumers that subscribe to their TV service.
“[Time Warner chairman and CEO] Jeffrey Bewkes is pretty much on the same page as we are, and that is that he considers his value proposition to be about providing exclusive content to his [cable and satellite] partners … We believe that as an industry we can successfully meet the needs of a changing consumer with the TV Everywhere proposition, and Corus is all-in in making those digital rights available to our distribution partners to ensure that they can continue to compete effectively.”
