Big Netflix deal actually small change

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This article was published 30/09/2017 (2958 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s an old snippet of fisticuffs-averse folk wisdom that suggests “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

Federal Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly took that axiom a bit further on Thursday, into the territory of “If you aren’t even willing to take them on, acquiesce and make it look like you’re partners.”

Ms. Joly made a major announcement in Ottawa in which she outlined the Liberal government’s strategy for ushering Canada’s cultural industries fully into the digital age. The new blueprint addresses numerous topics of particularly Canadian interest, including the development of a creative export strategy, an increase in government support for the Canada Media Fund, and a reboot of the Copyright Board of Canada.

Also on the agenda are changes to the Broadcasting Act and Telecommunications Act, updates to such funding programs as the Canada Book Fund and Canada Music Fund, and a revamping of the CBC’s mandate.

But among the various maple-flavoured sprinkles in Ms. Joly’s soon-to-be-rebaked cultural-support casserole was a pair of curious concessions to digital-age entities of a decidedly non-Canadian nature.

The biggest headline-grabbing moment of Thursday’s announcement related to Ms. Joly’s trumpeting of an agreement with Netflix that will see the streaming-content giant invest a minimum of $500 million in the production and distribution of Canadian TV shows and movies over the next five years.

Half a billion dollars sounds like a lot of cash, but in the content-production business, it hardly amounts to walking-around money. Netflix is slated to spend nearly $16 billion on original programming in the next few years, including $6 billion this year alone. $100 million per year under the new “Netflix Canada” umbrella is a modest sum — and, it turns out, the much-ballyhooed spending commitment isn’t even new money, as Netflix had announced plans to spend roughly that much in Canada before Ms. Joly’s big-deal announcement.

By comparison, Bell Media and Rogers Media — very rarely portrayed as sympathetic figures in coverage of Canadian media — annually spend $900 million and $660 million, respectively, on Canadian content. And those companies pay taxes in Canada and are obligated to contribute to programming development funds, which Netflix does not.

On closer examination, it looks like Netflix convinced Ms. Joly to chill on any notions of levelling the playing field on which Canadian companies and international disrupters compete.

The other non-domestic entity that has a major presence in the culture blueprint is Facebook, which will establish a “digital news incubator” at Toronto’s Ryerson University, offering “start-up funding and mentorship” for experimental models in digital journalism. This must have been particularly galling for the publishers of Canada’s established newspapers and their online offshoots, which Ms. Joly dismissed as “industry models that are no longer viable.”

It’s hip and cool and forward-looking to bank on disrupters of traditional media as the future of information dissemination, but it’s also worth remembering that Facebook, which has remained immune to regulation during its global expansion, is under investigation for “experimental” forays into journalism that include distributing Russian-backed mischief that is thought to have subverted the U.S. electoral process.

As she looks to this country’s cultural future, Ms. Joly would be well-advised to consider who she’s enlisting to help set the standards that will define Canada’s place in the digital world.