Canada’s production sector caught in ‘perfect storm’ says outgoing CBC boss Catherine Tait
Catherine Tait, the outgoing president and CEO of Canadian public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada, says the country’s production sector is in a “worrisome” position due to the fact the regulatory conversation has not kept pace with an industry in “high-speed transformation.”
Catherine Tait
Speaking with C21 as she prepares to hand the reins to Marie-Philippe Bouchard, Tait, who was a producer before taking the top job at the pubcaster, said the production sector is caught in a “perfect storm” of rising costs, inflation, fewer overall commissions and a lack of urgency to implement an updated regulatory framework.
For almost a decade, the domestic industry in Canada has been calling for new legislation and regulations to force international streaming services to contribute to the funding of local programming.
Those efforts have yielded legislative change with the passing of Bill C-11 (aka the Online Streaming Act) last year. However, the full implementation of the bill, which is being undertaken by TV regulator the Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), is taking longer than many in the local industry had hoped.
The CRTC earlier this year introduced a new rule requiring online streaming services to contribute 5% of their yearly revenues to supporting the country’s broadcasting system. The rule has been greeted by the local industry with little enthusiasm, and the trade group representing streamers including Netflix and Disney+ in Canada has launched a court challenge. An important consultation on the definition of Canadian content is also set to begin in the spring.
Tait said that while optimism was high when Bill C-11 was first passed into law in April 2023, the “kinetic energy and positive momentum” has been lost.
“I worry about the lengthiness of these processes. We are moving at high speed in our industry and the regulatory context is not keeping up,” she said.
Tait contrasted Canada with the UK market, where the BBC still commands a much bigger overall audience share than Netflix. That is not the case in Canada, where Netflix is widely thought to dwarf the CBC in terms of overall viewership, though comparisons are hard to come by.
“Canada has always been the canary in the coal mine, and that is why I’ve felt from the very outset that if we believe as Canadians that we want a domestically owned original content business, then we have to make that investment,” said Tait.
“And whether that investment involves requiring the foreign streamers to contribute – or, if that doesn’t work, finding other mechanisms, because, by the way, it may not – that doesn’t mean we give up the commitment to Canadian-owned production.”
Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government first began a review of the Broadcasting Act in 2018, the same year that Tait began her six-and-a-half-year tenure leading CBC/Radio-Canada.
Asked whether opportunities for independent producers had changed since then, Tait said the sector is in a “significantly worse situation” today. “It’s not because of one thing – it’s a perfect storm,” she said.
Declining viewership for private broadcasters such as Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, Rogers Sports & Media and TVA Groupe, as well as CBC/Radio-Canada, has meant reduced advertising revenue and, in turn, a decrease in the level of investment in independent production.
“The number of shows being commissioned around the country has dropped significantly [since 2018], so this is very worrisome,” she said.
“We used to have, when I was a producer, a very lively, vibrant [sector]. It was always competitive, but there was a lot of commissioning going on. There were a lot of drama and comedy series, and now it’s more like a handful.”
C21’s full exit interview with the outgoing CBC/Radio-Canada boss will be published later this week
