Television in the New Broadcasting Environment: Public Policy Lessons from the Canadian Experience

Abstract

The new distribution technologies are fostering a new television broadcasting environment with more channels and less regulation. Many nations are concerned that the expansion of viewer choice, and with it the availability of foreign programmes (often US), will inevitably marginalize domestic production. Are there public policy measures that can help maintain a healthy domestic programme production industry in this new environment? In this paper we consider the public policy lessons that can be gleaned from the Canadian experience. This experience is uniquely relevant because geographic proximity and other factors have long exposed Canadian producers to substantial US competition. We find that in such an environment regulation is ineffective in inducing indigenous programming, but that a programme production fund, similar to that operated by Telefilm Canada, can be successful.