Canadian stories at risk in TV shift

Opinion

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This article was published 05/04/2024 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We will now not return to our regularly scheduled program.

Not now. And not, as the current trend line seems to suggest, ever.

A recently released study shows Canadians are, in ever-greater numbers, abandoning traditional forms of TV programming — meaning cable and satellite services — in favour of streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.

The trend, which is reflective of what is happening to consumer habits in other jurisdictions, could have a significant impact on the Canadian cultural sector’s ability to develop and produce homegrown TV content.

The bottom-line question, in the current cord-cutting context, remains the same as it has been whenever discussions of the viability of domestic TV production reheats: will Canadians care?

The study in question — the 2024 version of “The Battle for the Canadian Couch Potato,” released last month by the Convergence Research Group — assesses the manner in which consumers in this country access entertainment/information content. Traditional TV, delivered via broadcast, cable or satellite services, continues to decline in Canada, while so-called OTT (over the top) options — platforms available directly to customers via the internet — have seen their popularity increase.

According to the Couch Potato survey, 42 per cent of Canadians did not subscribe to a traditional TV service at the end of 2023; the research firm forecasts that by 2026 more than half the population will have shed its ties to traditional TV.

More than 80 per cent of Canadian households, meanwhile, subscribe to at least one streaming service.

The reason for the shift is fairly simple: these days, many of the most popular programs reside on streaming services rather than conventional TV networks. At this year’s Emmy Awards, the four leading streaming services — Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime and Disney+ — took home a total of 47 awards, while mainstream U.S. networks NBC, ABC, Fox and CBS combined for just 13 Emmy wins (specialty cable networks HBO and FX accounted for 31 and 16 trophies, respectively).

The migration of viewers away from traditional TV providers has prompted major players in Canada’s broadcast sector to urge the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to re-examine its policies regarding investment in domestic programming and ease the requirements for Canadian companies to invest in and/or create homegrown content.

At the same time Canada’s broadcast sector is seeking to contribute less to Canadian content creation, foreign-owned streaming services are resisting any regulatory changes that would require them to invest more in Canadian content. That creates a lose/lose situation for viewers hoping to see Canadian stories on their TV screens and for the domestic production community that aspires to tell them.

Absent a regulatory mandate to invest in Canadian content, this country’s media giants would undoubtedly hew toward their natural tendency to be carriers of U.S.-produced programming, rather than broadcasters of homegrown content. Simply put, it’s cheaper (and therefore more profitable) to secure the Canadian rights to an American network show than it is to invest in the development of domestically produced programming.

Relaxing the CRTC’s long-enforced regulatory requirements would, of course, reduce the chances of this country’s industry creating the next homegrown hit to follow in the footsteps of such genuine successes as Schitt’s Creek, Corner Gas, Trailer Park Boys or the various incarnations of Degrassi.

The shift toward streaming creates a delicate conundrum for the CRTC, as it seeks to arrive at a regulatory environment that supports Canada’s cultural industries while coming to grips with the reality that ordinary Canadians are more interested in watching what’s good, rather than in being spoon-fed what an arguably anachronistic bureaucratic entity decrees is good for them.