Current Priorities
Introduction
Many of the WGC’s current policy priorities ultimately relate to the impacts of the Internet and the digital revolution. Digital technologies have introduced new tools and platforms for creators, distributors, broadcasters, and consumers. These represent both opportunities for Canadian content creation as well as challenges to established business models. While the digital revolution has changed — and is changing — much in the media landscape, other things remain unaffected. Canada is still a small national market, and a linguistic and geographical neighbour to the largest media producer in the world. High-quality productions, particularly drama, are still expensive and risky enterprises. Talent still requires opportunities to flourish, and talented people still need a way to earn a living if they are to continue to create in this country. For all these reasons, Canadian cultural policies like CRTC broadcast regulation, copyright law, production funding, tax credits, and stable support for the CBC remain as relevant today as ever.
Implementing the Online Streaming Act
Broadcasting regulation has been a crucially important part of Canadian cultural policy for decades. Regulation under the Broadcasting Act currently includes spending requirements for private broadcasters on Canadian programming, in particular for “programs of national interest” (PNI), the CRTC category that includes drama, comedy, much children’s programming and animation, and long-form documentary — i.e. the main genres that WGC members work in — and on which Bell, Corus, and Rogers have spent nearly $175 million annually of late. Broadcasting regulation also obliges “broadcasting distribution undertakings” (BDUs), the cable and satellite TV providers, to contribute to production funds like the CMF. BDUs currently contribute over $185 million annually to the CMF under these regulations. These two regulatory components — spending on PNI, and BDU contributions to the CMF — combine to provide roughly $360 million annually to the creation of Canadian programming. This is a very significant part of our industry, and it wouldn’t exist to nearly the same degree, if at all, without the Broadcasting Act.
As Canadian content viewing moves from the traditional broadcasting system to Internet-based streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and AppleTV+, the suite of regulatory tools like PNI and BDU contributions have not moved with it, since Internet broadcasters have been exempted from regulation, and telecommunications providers are outside the scope of the Broadcasting Act.
Finally, after more than a decade of seismic changes in our ecosystem, and following three major consultation processes and reports – Creative Canada (2017), Harnessing Change (2018), and the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel (2020), all of which the WGC provided extensive comments to – Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, was passed into law in April 2023. This essential legislation updates the Broadcasting Act and provides the CRTC with the tools it needs to regulate online broadcasters.
The WGC has long supported the core objectives of this important legislation, and we now look forward to participating in the CRTC's consultation process to implement the Act by creating a new regulatory framework for broadcasting in the digital age.
Importance of Canadian talent
With a growing focus on international financing and distribution has come increased pressure to make “globally competitive” Canadian content, which to some means engaging international talent to appeal to that market. While international financing represents an opportunity to the Canadian industry, the WGC believes that it cannot be pursued at the expense of Canadian creative talent. A film or television show is Canadian because of the artists who make it, and the screenwriter is among the most important creative force in the medium — we believe the most important, particularly in television, as a writer’s medium in which the showrunner sets the creative course of the series.
Canada cannot build a globally competitive creative industry by jettisoning its creative talent. Canadian content is both an economic and a cultural imperative, and we can't lose sight of the latter in our quest for international dollars, lest we relegate ourselves to being a virtual service provider to the rest of the world’s stories and creators. The result would be a renewed exodus of our talent to Hollywood and elsewhere, where they will contribute to the cultures and economies of other countries, likely never to return.
Artificial intelligence
With the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, an apparent milestone was reached in the development of artificial intelligence (A.I.) to generate content. This and other generative A.I. tools are now capable of creating text, visual, and audiovisual content to a standard that seems strikingly close to that of human creators.
While the ultimate uses and impacts of generative A.I. remain unclear, the potential of this technology could be incredibly significant, deeply affecting Canadian screenwriters and other creators in terms of their economic wellbeing, their role as commentator and social critic, and their human dignity as artists.
The WGC is following the development of these issues closely, and will advocate for maintaining the primacy of human creators in every applicable sphere, including with respect to copyright and cultural funding programs.
The changing nature of development and its impact on writers
In years past, much television development was done with the financial support of broadcasters, who entered into development partnerships with creators and producers early on, and funded multiple stages of development. Increasingly, however, broadcasters and streamers are looking for more and more of that work to be done up front, before they will commit any money to the project. This has put increased pressure on screenwriters to work for free, and frustrated development funding models that may have been designed in an earlier era. At the same time, Canadian broadcasters seem increasingly uninterested in developing great Canadian stories. The WGC has closely followed these trends, and has worked with policymakers to find solutions. In particular, the WGC worked closely with government and the CMF to help create the Early Stage Development Program. With this program now suspended by the CMF, the WGC will continue to work with funders and our members to find new ways to support screenwriters in development.
Support for the CBC
It's no secret that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is facing significant challenges. Its Parliamentary appropriation has declined by close to 40% in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1990-91, in an era when production costs have increased significantly. Its per-capita funding is amongst the lowest in the developed world, yet it must provide services in two official languages and across the second largest country by landmass on the planet. More recently, a softening advertising market has also hurt the CBC. This has affected all over-the-air broadcasters, but large, private broadcast groups like Bell Media and Corus Entertainment can better weather the storm by relying on their specialty channels which also receive subscription revenues. The CBC does not have that option. Clearly, we have not been treating our national public broadcaster well, and this is showing in successive lay-offs and shifting programming strategies.
At a time when the digital revolution is threatening to undermine some sources of funding for Canadian content, a public broadcaster is ever more relevant.