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op-ed

Canada’s $14 billion media industry is punChing above its weight in Marshall McLuhan’s global village, but the clock is ticking on our protectionist enclave.

Our walled gardens have enabled vertical integration that continues, contrary to global trends. The Harper government is countering by signaling openness to foreign ownership. This may come from the right motivation (more competition), but it ignores the need for restructuring. The walls are crumbling; 2013 was the first year in which Canadian television subscriptions declined.

The elephant in the room has a Netflix tattoo; as media moves online and on demand, Canadian content must evolve from a legislated national percentage to an international consumer choice. Canada has all the ingredients for star status in global media’s next act. Our emergent system just needs tuning.

Encourage entrepreneurialism: Bell, Rogers, Telus and Shaw have the scale to compete with foreign entrants, but it makes little sense today for internet and cable providers to be content creators. Their focus should be on developing next-generation infrastructure and services. In the U.S., provider-creator integration has become the exception (Comcast’s ownership of NBCUniversal) rather than the rule. The reasons are both quantitative (the tendency for providers to favour their own content), and qualitative (when focusing on more lucrative telecom services, content quality becomes a secondary concern).

More importantly, content creators need a more entrepreneurial mindset, one that treats productions as startups and pivots focus from fund administrators to consumers. And we’ll need to establish a more entrepreneurial playbook, one where all parties – producers, distributors, networks, government agencies and financiers – share financial and creative risks and rewards flexibly.

In a redefined Cancon, the minimum percentage of viewing schedule for Canadian productions could be replaced by a minimum percentage of Canadian business interest in network programming. If a Canadian helps finance a U.S. production, as Alliance Atlantis did with CSI, the points from that deal could accrue to that program’s Canadian broadcaster, making a production anywhere utilizing Canadian talent, services or financing in part Canadian.

Champion new business models: Rigid intellectual property rules have led to studios suing teenagers and spawned privacy and market-throttling measures such as the Copyright “Modernization” Act and the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. The EU has leveled the playing field with its net neutrality law and Canada could take it a step further. I propose a private/public task force to create a landmark set of IP licences

that go beyond Creative Commons licences – which support sharing but not commerce – to include a range of ownership options for content, across multiple platforms and viewing windows. The licences would incorporate three trends driving global media today:

Transpersonal: “In the electric age, we wear all mankind as our skin,” McLuhan said. This immediacy and intimacy holds real business potential. A range of pre-defined CC-like permissions for viewer interaction (such as monetized crowdsourcing and remixing) would help creators build audiences and revenues.

Transnational: Canada has 55 treaties and a strong legacy of international coproduction yielding high production values – and huge amounts of red tape. Baked into the new IP licenses could be simple formulas for defining the relationship between international soft monies (government incentives like Telefilm) and equity investment.

Transmedia: The new models could help film, television, gaming, print and online companies cross-pollinate and multiply revenue streams.

Focus public institutions: Media plays a vital role across all sectors. Digital Canada 150 shifted the centre of gravity from Canadian Heritage to the Industry portfolio, while retaining a cumbersome divide. In the U.K., the integrated Ministry for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries covers media oversight across a range of industries: we should replicate this model. Meanwhile, the CBC, NFB, and Telefilm/CMF should remain as vibrant non-commercial producers, distributors, incubators and angel investors.

Cut out the middleman: In this world of targeted media, speed is critical and gatekeepers inefficient. The voodoo of ratings services like BBM and Nielsen is being replaced by the comprehensive, real-time audience metrics that Netflix uses. By basing content decisions on sophisticated user data, network execs could spend less time guessing and more time curating, improving the odds for Canadian hits.

Reboot the brand: Until recently, our media was tasked with forging a national identity from a kind of invented nostalgia. Now we need a more commercial focus, not on Canadian stories, but on great stories told by Canadians, sold everywhere. Canada’s diversity is its true strength. Our identity doesn’t lie in our brief history, but in an emerging potential to redefine ourselves in a culture of tolerance – ironically making us truer to the American dream than today’s America. Canadian media should reflect this new identity, and proclaim it to the world.

The Elephant’s TattooRetuning Canadian media for an era of opportunity

B y S t e p h e n R o l o f f

Stephen Roloff is an award-winning producer, production designer, writer, entrepreneur and

strategic consultant in toronto and San francisco.