The Future of Online Broadcasting

Although short, this article has huge implications for the future of online broadcasting and what we, as advertisers may be faced with. Up until now the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has taken a hands off approach to the newer types of media distributions that are now being widely used. In short the CRTC governs all broadcasting laws including; Advertising Standards Canada, which administers regulations based on codes of practices. They have been strictly regulating television and radio, as is their history. The CRTC was simply not regulating Internet and mobile devices and how companies were distributing and broadcasting media content. They announced this week that they want to re-examine this policy while noting “Canadians are spending more time accessing high-quality content over the Internet and mobile devices”.

Since, up until now, there has been very little regulation on what is put up on the Internet or sent through mobile telecommunication devices but with these new talks everything could suddenly change. The CRTC tries to ensure a delicate balance, in the public interest, between the cultural, social, and economic goals of the legislations on broadcasting and telecommunications. It is there to make sure that Canadian media serves a public interest. When there is more regulation upon the Internet and mobile channels it suddenly limits what advertisers and clients can put up. What shows are broadcast and what the content of the ads can be will suddenly be limited. Up until now there has been relatively little say from the CRTC which means almost anything goes with more regulation clients and advertisers will be more limited. There is a silver lining to this however; with more CRTC control prices could become more affordable for mobile and Internet advertising as the CRTC does help regulate prices.

The CRTC will allow interested parties to submit their comments by December 5th with public hearings on the matter beginning February 17th. This will be a story that will be very interesting to follow the development of going forward.