The CRTC started its new media hearing yesterday. It will consider whether the CRTC should regulate the Internet in some way – the thought being that it is just another form of broadcasting.
It's an important issue that will no doubt garner a lot of press. Michael Geist will provide detailed ongoing coverage. From his post yesterday:
Throughout the hearings, I’ll be teaming up with Carleton professor Ira Wagman to offer up a full summary of the day’s events as we’ll have students carefully taking notes on all the presentations and discussions.
There is, I think, some unfortunate imprecision in how these hearings have been presented in many news reports. The idea of the CRTC "regulating" the Internet as it does conventional broadcasting is about as likely (and makes as much sense) as "regulating" the weather. As I noted in my previous post on this subject, the policy concern is to ensure that high-quality Canadian content is available to viewers in all media. Given the particular characteristics of new media, this will likely require a different toolkit than the one used for conventional broadcasting.
I think that's right, Alex — after all, these hearings aren't just about the Internet.
The Internet will very soon be our \television\ As Canadians we should control our \broadcast\ abilities as we have sometimes been able to do with airwaves…I believe it's the \right thing to do\!!Since 1999 the Broadcasters have spent at a 10-1 dollar ratio more buying foreign product than developing CDN product…Soon, instead of Episodes on TV, it will be Webisodes on your Internet in your living room…We have to protect our culture, our stories, our point of view (which, I think, differs from the American pov)…Lately, the broadcasters have tried to satisfy the Canadian Content rule with repeats of cancelled CDN shows ( i.e. Blue Murder) and supposed Canadian content shows like Jeopardy !!We have great writers, directors, producers, actors and crew…and can produce shows that are as good as American product.Let's spend our money here in our country…It's the right thing to do !