The end(s) of analogue: access to CBC/Radio-Canada Television Programming in an era of digital delivery

Steven James May

doi:10.32920/ryerson.14655750.v1

Abstract

This dissertation studies the political economy of public television access in Canada as manifest in the country’s 2011 digital television/télévision numérique transition. Specifically, this dissertation scrutinizes the provision of access to television programming offered by Canada’s national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada (CBC/Radio-Canada), and how CBC/Radio-Canada’s response to Canada’s 2011 digital television transition corresponds with its mandate under the Broadcasting Act to ensure that its programming is “made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose” (Canada, 1991). Drawing from research interviews conducted with disconnected analogue over-the-air (OTA) CBC/Radio-Canada television-viewing households and members of CBC/Radio-Canada Management involved with the public broadcaster’s response to Canada’s digital television transition deadline, this dissertation finds competing accounts of how public television delivery is linked to the provision of access to the public broadcaster’s television programming in the digital age. While interviewed members of CBC/Radio-Canada Management describe an inefficient analogue OTA public television delivery system that would be best superseded by more efficient modes of digital delivery, OTA CBC/Radio-Canada television-viewing households describe an analog OTA CBC/Radio-Canada television service that had been providing access to CBC/Radio Canada television programming and describe a digital disconnect following CBC/Radio Canada’s digital television transition. This dissertation questions the post-analogue public television delivery operations of CBC/Radio-Canada; mainly that public television delivery cost savings achieved as a result of CBC/Radio-Canada’s response to Canada’s digital television transition deadline have resulted in gaps in access to CBC/Radio-Canada television programming by some Canadian households as articulated through this dissertation’s Public Media Access Puzzle Sieve (Public M.A.P.S.) model. The Public M.A.P.S. model offers a means by which to both anticipate and assess levels of access to public media based on the model’s elements of access related to cost, availability, functionality, opportunities for à la carte service, and access to locally relevant feed(s). In the case of CBC/Radio-Canada, gaps in household access to the public broadcaster’s digital television programming as identified by the Public M.A.P.S. model help to underscore deficiencies in Canada’s post-analogue television system, the information communication technology (ICT) sector, and domestic spectrum management practices.

Highlights

Beyond the individual access predicament experienced by the former analogue OTA Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)/Radio-Canada television-viewing households interviewed for this dissertation, the Public Media Access Puzzle Sieve (Public M.A.P.S.) model developed through the analysis of the research interviews conducted for this dissertation provides insight into how notions of digital technology and digital television delivery efficiency relate more generally to access to public television programming in the digital age
This section contributes recommendations related to how CBC/Radio-Canada might enhance the provision of household access to its television programming by Canadian households in the digital age
The following recommendations collectively argue that the provision of access to CBC/Radio-Canada television programming by CBC/Radio-Canada in the digital age involves more than pointing households to a BDU provider and/or offering them a mobile device app

Summary

Chapter 1: Introduction

Analogue over-the-air television technology has been in decline for years. It is virtually obsolete. This chapter has identified the 2012 shutdown of CBC/Radio-Canada’s analogue OTA television service, prompted by the CRTC’s 2011 transition deadline and eventually executed by CBC/Radio-Canada as a means by which the public broadcaster hoped to realize operational cost-efficiencies, and presents an opportunity to study post-analogue utilization of publicly-owned spectrum and infrastructure in the name of enhancing citizen access to CBC/Radio-Canada television programming (as measured by this dissertation’s Public M.A.P.S. model). As noted by Marc Raboy (1990), comments made by CBC President Alphonse Ouimet at a 1961 Special Committee on Broadcasting reveal that the Corporation’s main concern was that its television programming would be included as part of the emerging mode of cable television delivery that it did not have any control over: In Ouimet’s testimony, the classical argument for public control of broadcasting – that the “air” was a natural monopoly in the public domain – was shifted for the first time Ouimet framed his argument in terms of “end effect” – the fact that whether the messages were sent out through the air or transmitted by means of wire they were received in people’s homes.

Chapter 3: Canada’s 2011 Digital Television Transition

Chapter 4: Literature Review

Chapter 5: Methodology

Chapter 6: Findings

Summary

Summary Chart

Chapter 7: Discussion

Chapter 8: Conclusion

Summary of key findings

Concluding recommendations

Concluding remarks

Findings