A new opportunity for Canadian talent
A Montreal Gazette Editorial
June 20, 2005
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=5d59e39d-5b72-4642-90dd-2391ef98035a
Picture driving along a Canadian highway, late at night, desperately
hunting for something to listen to, to stay awake if nothing else. There's
a weak signal from the U.S. with a sportscast, a strong signal from a
boring easy-listening station, and the publicly funded CBC is fading in and
out.
Radio in Canada is too often characterized by a lack of listening choice. A
medium that more than any other offers an intimate listening experience has
been in danger of losing its hold over Canadians.
Satellite radio promises to change all of that. Satellite is the new
frontier of radio broadcasting. It offers an astonishing array of choice in
music, news, sports, weather and commentary in full-spectrum digital
clarity. For $12.95 a month or less, subscribers will have access to
musical play lists, for example, that are 2.5 million songs deep. There are
music channels that specialize in unsigned bands, jam bands, bluegrass,
folk, Nashville, honkytonk, hybrid and alternative subspecies of various
niches.
Last week, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
approved licences for two satellite-based applicants: Canadian Satellite
Radio, in conjunction with Washington-based XM Satellite Radio, and Sirius
Canada, a consortium of local broadcaster Standard Radio and CBC, in
conjunction with New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio. As a condition of
licence, the two satellite systems must offer at least eight
Canadian-produced channels containing a minimum of 85 per cent domestic
content.
The CRTC also approved a third application for a land-based pay-radio
system, CHUM Subscription Radio Canada, proposed by Toronto-based CHUM and
Montreal's Astral Media. The CHUM-Astral partnership would offer 50
Canadian channels, including at least 20 per cent in French.
From a nationalist perspective, the history of broadcasting in Canada can
be seen as a decades-long struggle to make the radio and television
industries reflect the country in which they operate.
The first government watchdog over the content of the airwaves was created
in the 1920s when powerful U.S. radio stations threatened to take over
Canada's airwaves. In the 1960s and 1970s when the advent of cable
distribution made physically possible the wholesale takeover of Canadian
television by American broadcasters, the regulatory agency stepped in to
require that a set portion of the content be Canadian. To date, this seems
to work well enough.
Satellite radio might set Canada free of such worries. It has been heralded
by independent Canadian music creators who have complained for years about
being shut out by commercial radio's record-company-dominated formats.
"Satellite radio technology has the potential to finally give independent
artists from across the country the stage they need to pursue their music
careers," said Gregg Terrence, president of Indie Pool Inc. which
represents more than 20,000 independent recording artists in Canada.
This sounds much less like a threat to Canadian content than an opportunity
for it to flourish. It might not need the protective boundaries set up by
the CRTC, but it is unlikely they will do any harm to the cause of
fostering local talent.
=================================================
George Antunes Voice (713) 743-3923
Associate Professor Fax (713) 743-3927
Political Science Internet: antunes at uh dot edu
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-3011
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