Before I begin my prepared statement, I'd like to apologize on behalf of Yves Séguin, who is not joining me here today. He would have presented to you the consumer side of things. Having said that, I'd like to tell you that I am a child of deaf parents, and as such, have grown up in the deaf community and am very involved in the deaf culture. I will do my very best to address any questions around the consumers, being very close to them.
My name is Beverley Milligan. I'm the executive director of Media Access Canada or MAC, a not-for-profit organization with a mandate to execute a business plan to achieve 100% accessibility by 2020.
MAC is leading the Access 2020 Coalition that is supported by every major accessibility organization in Canada, including the Canadian Hearing Society, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, to mention a few.
Access 2020 Coalition represents an ever-growing group of individuals and organizations that support Media Access Canada's mandate of achieving 100% accessible content on all distribution platforms in a decade.
The tools to achieve accessibility have existed for years. Captions write out TV's audio content while described video narrates important visual elements to answer the “What's happening now?” question that blind Canadians must otherwise ask families and friends. While the technology is available, achieving 100% accessibility will require a fundamental commitment on the part of the CRTC.
MAC and Access 2020 have been the leaders of the 1% for 100% tangible benefits campaign to fund the necessary business model for 100% accessibility. So far the funding is not being made available, but we do anxiously anticipate a CRTC decision in the coming weeks. In the recent CRTC decision concerning Shaw's acquisition of Canwest, the CRTC accepted Shaw's proposal to spend $38 million of tangible benefits to ensure 100,000 households would not lose over-the-air analog signals in 2011. Shaw got approval to spend 21% of the tangible benefits it proposed to ensure that several hundred thousand Canadians would not lose access to Canwest stations in the analog to digital transition, but there was never any discussion of reaching the millions of Canadians for whom Canadian TV programming has never been accessible and is still not.
How could it be justified to spend $38 million to maintain access to the broadcasting system for a few hundred thousand households and yet provide nothing for the more than 4.3 million Canadians who have never had access?
The CRTC should be clear and open about its funding priorities during the coming transition. While we do not begrudge any Canadian access to the Canadian broadcasting system, we would still like to understand the framework through which the commission and others will allocate resources to minimize disruption. It's our understanding to date that no funding has been committed, certainly none that reaches Canadians with disabilities.
The transition to digital television threatens to make the situation even worse for millions of Canadians who rely on captioning and description. As of August 31 of this year, Canadians with tube televisions will no longer be able to receive over-the-air television signals unless they purchase a new digital television set, subscribe to a BDU, or acquire an analog-to-digital box from an electronics store. I note these boxes are in short supply, a situation that could result in price hikes during the transition period.
In the United States, where the transition to digital took place in 2009, it was estimated that one-third of the households with these older televisions had at least one family member who relied on captions. The number in Canada is likely to be similar, so a substantial proportion of the households affected by the transition to digital will be those who rely on captioning or description.
Imagine a deaf senior citizen living alone on a fixed income who turns on her television September 1, only to receive no signal. She may believe the television is broken and will have to somehow discover what has actually happened. With no opportunity to plan and budget, how will this senior navigate through the very real challenges she and others with disabilities face from what to us might seem no more than a minor inconvenience?
In the United States, a coupon system was used to assist in the transition, with the cost of the digital box covered by coupons provided by the government. Further, an in-depth educational program targeting community service and consumer organizations was developed, funded, and implemented. None of this exists for the Canadian transition. Funds should be made available to help the many Canadians who will face a financial outlay as a result of the transition.
Some provision should be made to ease the economic impact, as disabled Canadians will now be obliged to subscribe to either cable or satellite. These subscriptions should be available free or at a heavily discounted rate for two reasons: first, all Canadians should have at least minimum access to Canadian broadcasting at no cost; and, second, given the broadcasting system is not 100% accessible, Canadians with disabilities should not have to pay the full cost of something they cannot use. For example, only four hours of a 126-hour broadcast week is described, which is equivalent to less than 3% access.
The move to digital broadcasting will also make it more complicated to activate captioning and description in the digital box hand unit itself. Even if someone has the necessary equipment, they may well find it virtually impossible to get it to work without outside assistance. It can take as many as 27 clicks to activate captioning on the digital handset.
The CRTC recognizes by the very existence of their social policies that some Canadians and certainly Canadians with disabilities require alternative ways to access content. Without captioning or description, they are among the most isolated and hardest-to-reach groups in Canada. Because the broadcasting system is not fully accessible, it will not be adequate to inform Canadians with disabilities about the transition to digital television. The broadcasting system itself will not be adequate to inform Canadians about the transition to digital television. We need to devise alternative ways of reaching out to Canadians with disabilities to ensure they are prepared for the coming changes. Without a concerted and coordinated effort in advance of the digital transition, this already marginalized group of 4.3 million Canadians will face still greater isolation.
Considering the scope of the problem and the fact that the transition has been planned for years, it is a matter of concern that no efforts have been made to prepare for this. In September 2010 a group of 40 concerned organizations, academics, and researchers, including Media Access Canada and the Access 2020 Coalition sent a letter to the Prime Minister asking for a national campaign to educate the public and, in particular, to reach out to disabled Canadians. No real response was ever received.
It's vital that the government take a leading role in the effort to inform and educate Canadians, especially disabled Canadians, about the coming transition. To leave the job to individual broadcasters largely owned by BDUs makes no sense, as their commercial interests would lead them to maximize subscriptions without regard for the financial situation of the individual concerned. A publicly funded educational program should be initiated as soon as possible and should operate in cooperation with community groups, senior centres, and disability organizations. We need a community-based education strategy to inform and prepare--but it won't be easy. In addition to the limited access in broadcasting, Canadians with disabilities also have limited access to the Internet. This means a broadcaster or BDU that is relying on their website to inform people and organizations about the transition will have little or no impact on Canadians with disabilities.
MAC works closely with disability organizations across Canada who are well positioned to help in the design and implementation of a strategy to reach disabled Canadians and support them in the planned transition, but we cannot ask yet again for the not-for-profit and charitable organizations to volunteer their services or finance a communication plan that is squarely the responsibility of Heritage Canada and the CRTC.
While we look forward to being part of the solution, we look to the government for leadership and financial commitment to this important issue.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this process. I look forward to your questions.
:
My name is Cathy Edwards. I'm the spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations. CACTUS represents the views of Canadians who believe that participation in the broadcasting system by ordinary Canadians is fundamental to our democracy.
CACTUS and approximately 20 other organizations wrote to the Prime Minister in September asking for a coordinated government education campaign in advance of the digital transition. Signatories include Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, the Canadian Conference of the Arts, the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Media Guild, OpenMedia, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, the Documentary Organization of Canada, and academics from York, Ryerson, McMaster, and Concordia. Today's presentation has been informed by these and other groups.
I listened to Monday's meeting and congratulate you on the pertinent questions you all raised. Most concerned the number of Canadians who will be affected by the digital transition either because they may have to invest in new TVs or converters, in areas where signals are being upgraded to digital, or they may lose free OTA service altogether. A few queried the nature of the public education campaign to inform Canadians about the changes.
The first part of my presentation addresses these topics, since our take on some of them is different from what you heard from the CRTC. Second, while continuity of service is a major issue because so many Canadians rely on TV for information and entertainment, the CRTC presentation touched on other issues that we believe will actually have more impact on Canadian communications and media diversity in the long term.
Regarding the number of Canadians who may be affected by changes in TV service on August 31, Madame Lavallée touched on the key issue when she cited research by the Canadian Media Research Consortium. The majority of those who rely on free OTA service—and as a single mother, I'm one—are those who cannot afford cable or satellite and are least able to afford new TVs and digital converters. These include the elderly, immigrants, the handicapped, and Canadians in rural areas with fewer economic opportunities. For example, 90% of the residents of some first nations communities rely on free OTA TV.
Many such rural areas also lack broadband Internet, and many of these groups—the elderly, the handicapped, and immigrants—are less likely to obtain information from other sources like the Internet, as Bev mentioned. While it is true that Shaw has been asked to provide free satellite equipment and a selection of local channels to its direct-to-home customers as a result of its purchase of Canwest, free access lasts only until the end of Shaw's next DTH licence term. Within its service area in western Canada, when Shaw renews its DTH licence, it can charge whatever it sees fit. We therefore view this arrangement as a gateway to move low-income Canadians who previously relied on free OTA TV onto paid services. We note that while a similar satellite solution was offered in Bell's initial tangible benefits package for its purchase of CTV, that offer has since been taken off the table, as has Bell's offer to upgrade CTV transmitters to digital outside the mandatory markets.
We also note that the numbers cited by the CRTC of Canadians who will lose free OTA service on August 31 include only those who will lose service initially. As Mr. Angus noted on Monday, analog broadcasting is unlikely to continue forever. The CBC has said that within three years, the satellite network that supplies its analog transmitters will be decommissioned. The CBC will be unavailable over the air outside the 31 mandatory markets. For example, by 2013 there will be no Radio-Canada available over the air east of Rimouski and no CBC in Newfoundland outside St. John's.
We suspect that similar decommissioning will be pursued by other broadcasters, so free OTA TV in rural areas is likely to suffer a slow death over many years, affecting many more Canadians than current figures suggest. As Mr. Angus also said on Monday, even in areas where residents continue to have some OTA TV there will, indeed, be a hodgepodge.
In Mr. Del Mastro's riding of Peterborough, CTV will be available on digital while the CBC will continue in analog. To switch between them, residents will have to first turn off their digital converters, using its remote control, and then use the TV remote to tune in the CBC. If you buy a digital converter with no pass-through function, it'll be even more cumbersome. You'll have to unplug your antennae from the back of the converter and then plug it into your TV each time, but how will residents of Peterborough know this with no coordination among the education campaigns of individual broadcasters?
Appendix C summarizes how each of your ridings will be affected. The clerk has assured me you'll get copies of those appendices afterwards.
Ms. Crombie is correct that the CRTC has reversed its original recommendation that the government undertake a coordinated national consumer education and awareness program. We have backed the CRTC's original recommendation at every opportunity.
Recently, as an intervenor to the Bell-CTV ownership transfer, we and several other public interest groups recommended that $10 million of the roughly $200 million that will be spent on tangible public benefits be directed toward a national education campaign to fund a national call centre, an expanded and more user-friendly heritage website, and neutral PSAs to air on TV to drive viewers to the website and call centre.
The problem with an industry-led approach, as Bev mentioned, is that while independently owned broadcasters would have a vested interest in their viewers finding their signal post-transition, the BDUs that own Canada's private broadcasters have the reverse interest: to push Canadians onto cable, satellite, and telco services.
A colleague recently received a call from a near neighbour of Ms. Crombie and Mr. Chong, in Oakville, who was dissatisfied with how much he pays for Cogeco. When he phoned to cancel his subscription, he was told that after August 31 he would no longer be able to receive OTA TV. My colleague was able to tell him that thanks to the digital transition and his proximity to the U.S., he would receive more and better-quality signals free over the air than ever before, so he bought an antenna.
With regard to Mr. Armstrong's query about how vertical integration affects the digital transition, vertical integration is one of the main reasons a neutral, government-led information campaign is crucial.
Appendix D is a screen capture for the website of the independent authority that is overseeing France's transition. You can enter your postal code and find out exactly what is happening in your neighbourhood. All of this information is known in Canada and could be made available equally simply.
On the underfunded heritage website that we have, Canadians are advised to call their local broadcasters. In my case, there were 15 separate links. There's also nothing to warn you that outside the mandatory markets, you will almost certainly find yourself in a complicated hodgepodge. Compared with France's, our hybrid analog-digital solution and our enormous geography will generate much more confusion.
Our first recommendation is to renew our call that a coordinated national education campaign be undertaken as soon as possible under the leadership of the CRTC and by a working group that includes a range of industry and civil stakeholders.
I'd like to turn now to the more fundamental issue: that we as a country may fail to leverage the full digital dividend.
We've recommended that complete and user-friendly information be made available to individual Canadians as viewers, but it is perhaps even more important that comprehensive information be made available to civil planning authorities.
More than 100 remote communities that have never had CBC, Global, or CTV repeaters offer residents over-the-air rebroadcasting services for as little as $40 per household per year. These municipalities negotiate their own deals with satellite providers to bring in remote channels, they raise their own transmission towers, and they then can offer whatever other local services they wish, such as a community channel, free wireless Internet, cellphone service, mobile TV, and other new applications yet to be imagined—and all for less than a tenth of the price of satellite service.
The advantage of digital transmitters is their capacity for signal compression. In the old days, communities had to buy one box for each channel. Today they can buy just one for a fraction of the cost and can multiplex TV and other services together, so our second recommendation is that any national education campaign about the digital transition must inform remote and rural planning authorities about their options—about the new horizons that should be opening up to them, rather than closing. We urge each of you to demand this information for your ridings.
We fear that as broadcasters quietly decommission analog transmitters and towers over the coming years, this infrastructure will be lost to rural communities forever. Conversely, informed communities that step up to the plate to maintain their transmission infrastructures will have a stake in the new digital economy.
As well, it's not just rural Canadians who are losing out. While the digital dividend in other countries will result in more over-the-air TV channels and competition, here in Canada the transition is poised to do the reverse. The CRTC on Monday said that many digital channels can fit into the spectrum formerly occupied by one analog channel. While that is true in theory, Industry Canada has allotted each existing Canadian broadcaster a full six megahertz digital channel. This is the same bandwidth each used to have for analog TV—a “whole channel”, as we understand it on the dial—and it's in order to broadcast in high definition.
HD doesn't require the full six megahertz. Appendix F in the document you'll get is Canwest's presentation from Spectrum 20/20 in Ottawa last year, which shows that it intends to use only two-thirds of its six megahertz allotment for HD.
In effect broadcasters, who are collectively owned by fewer and fewer BDUs, are being given scarce real estate to squat on, rather than offering it for competition and new service by under-represented sectors such as our own. Add to this the fact that channels 52 to 69, once available for TV, are being slated for a spectrum auction, and it may soon be even more difficult for new broadcasters to get on air, especially in major population centres near the U.S. border.
Other countries have not pursued this approach. Appendix G presents a recent TV guide from L.A., in which as many as a dozen standard definition channels are multiplexed together, enabling all kinds of new content. Appendix H is a reprint of an article about the digital transition in Kenya, where many more free OTA services will soon be available, with more space for local and regional production in standard definition. In Canada, therefore, the emphasis on HD appears to be crowding out diversity.
Third, we recommend to the CRTC that all OTA services share their six-megahertz digital channel allotments in tight urban markets or with other services belonging to the same owner.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses for coming today.
Over the past I think I have demonstrated that I don't always agree with the CRTC. In fact, especially if we go back to the issue of fee for carriage or value for signal, I made it pretty clear that I was very disappointed with the position they were taking. I thought it would lead to gouging of Canadians.
We saw a court decision earlier in the week, which I think potentially opens the door to that and which I'd be very disappointed to see. I think Canadians are, frankly, tired of being nickeled and dimed, and a decision in that regard to go in that direction would provoke the type of furor that Canadians have responded with on a number of fronts, so I hope we don't go there.
However, on this decision, I actually think the CRTC is doing a pretty good job. They do have breakdowns by regions, by ridings, of the number of homes they believe could potentially be affected and of which broadcasters and which towers are currently broadcasting in any given area. They do have pretty good data on that. I thought they had broken some new ground with Shaw on the purchase of Global, and I would expect we will see a similar deal made with the Bell purchase of CTV.
Of course I understand you said it's time-limited, and nothing says they will renew this deal, but I would expect that the CRTC, which held them to this standard in the first place, is likely to continue to hold them to this standard when they come for licensing renewal. I don't think too many BDUs will tell you that the CRTC is their buddy. They might not dislike the CRTC, but they are very concerned when they go before the CRTC that the regulator certainly does tend to come down on them.
I'm just curious. If we look at what Shaw did when it purchased Global, which was to extend free satellite dishes and signal and installation to anyone who could have their signal disrupted, and we anticipate that a similar deal is most likely to occur with Bell—which came before the committee and extended the offer of a program they call “freesat” a couple years ago—and if that is extended and continually re-extended, where is the problem?