CBC

Crossposted on Rhizomicon.

Just a short blog, as I’m on the road en-route from Toronto to San Francisco for ASA. So, I got into Iowa City around 9PM last night and I saw a tweet from CBC, linking to a story on the “mastermind” behind Pranknet, Tariq Malik. The Smoking Gun goes into great deal outing Pranknet {with media clips} and their nefarious activities and BoingBoing and Canoe.ca have a short articles on the matter.

Notes from North of 49ºN

I’ve been thinking more and more about the concept of nation, of late.  In summers past, the 4th. of July, Independence Day in the United States, meant being in northern California and perhaps heading to Point Reyes and seeing the tug-of-war between Bolinas and Stinson Beach.  The past three years, I have observed Canada Day, celebrating when Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Québec, and Ontario became a federation, a dominion with ties to the UK.  Two adjacent countries, which appear to have similarities, but have key differences.  Population is one differentiator. At confederation in 1867, the US population was around over 10 times that of Canada, 38,558,371 to 3,625,000 {1870}.  The twentieth century would see the rise of American dominance, not only in terms of economics, but also in terms of media and culture.

American culture is readily evident in Canada.  On television and in major cities like Toronto, with the prevalence of brands like Starbuck’s, McDonald’s, and Subway.  A quick scan of the TV listings shows how popular US television content is in anglophone Canada.  Canada is aware of this and requires broadcasters to show Canadian content {Can con}.  The CBC, the Canadian national public broadcaster, is a flagship network of the nation, where, through its mandate, the network’s goal is to be a cultural touchstone for the nation.  I’ve blogged about the future of the CBC television on this post:: Will Globalization Kill or Make the CBC Relevant Again?, which touches on how the CBC is struggling to remain viable and relevant in the shadow of big media players in the United States and fending off challengers within Canada.  Unlike the BBC, Britain’s national broadcaster, which is funded through household television licences, the CBC gets funding from the government, but also is subject to market forces through selling ad time, both sources being historically uneven.

The question I have is whether the role of a national broadcaster is even important.  I don’t see the United States as having the equivalent of the CBC, let alone the BBC.  PBS and NPR are, in my opinion, a loose confederation of programming, as opposed to a network with a strong identity, let alone an entity fostering a conceptualization of the United States as a culture or a nation.

The ideas of Arjun Appadurai and Benedict Anderson come to mind.  Appadurai speaks of globalization in terms of flows.  Flows of finance, ideologies, technologies, people and media, each with the suffix scapes.  Mediascapes have two components::

1. The flows of capacity to produce and disseminate electronic information
2. The images of the world created by these media

Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities discusses nation as an abstract entity, where meaning is shared within and the mass media address its citizens as a public.

Borders are often permeable under globalization and Canada has seen flows of media flood across its southern border, but what has this done to Canadians’ notion of nation?  Can Canadian content policy and the CBC help to reinforce the imagined community of Canada?  Does nation even matter?  Is Canada to Canadians “our home and disparate land,” as stated in today’s Vancouver Sun?  What about shared Canadian experiences such as Hinterland’s Who’s Who::

I think we need to remember that the context here is capitalism.  Media is flowing, media full of American meanings and ideals, as entertainment content to generate revenues.  In light of this onslaught, I think it is important for Canada to preserve its identity by creating content that increases Canadian cultural knowledge and awareness.  Why?  Without a national identity, i.e., an imagined community of Canada, meaning becomes increasingly derived from imagined communities of brands.  If our Diderot unities reduce to the constellation of brands we surround ourselves with, can we be citizens or are we just consumers?

I think nation does and should matter.  In Benedict Anderson’s words, nation::

“…is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the inequality of that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep. horizontal kinship.”–p.7

Song:: Dreamer – Jenn Grant {Halifax, NS}

Video Extra:: jPod clips of “Cowboy” aired on CBC, Winter 2008.

Twitterversion:: #Canada, national identity, & #Media. Globalization blurs borders, but does #nation matter? #Appadurai #BenedictAnderson http://url.ie/1xu6 @Prof_K

One of my students blogged about not being able to watch ABC’s Lost while studying abroad:

 “Interestingly enough, ABC was the first network to set up a deal with iTunes ‘to seek out alterative distribution venues for its show…’ I personally love that you can watch shows on online form ABC.com. Sometimes, I think its even better than watching it when it originally airs because the commercials are only 30 seconds and I can conveniently watch on Mac while I’m cozy in my bed. iTunes is also great though because when I was studying abroad in South Africa I had no television and ABC.com wouldn’t work outside the country, so I had to resort to buying shows online. I loved the fact that after I bought each show they were saved in my library and I could watch them whenever I liked, without any commercials.”

I’ve run into not being able to watch US content in Canada and was really frustrated when there was no legal way to watch shows like season 3 of The Venture Brothers, as they were being aired in the summer of 2008.  {There’s a possible workaround that I mention in my blog comment above.}  Canadian content in the US, such as the Trailer Park Boys (above) is a thornier problem, as one will need a Canadian web proxy for viewing.  Neither of these shows were available for purchase on iTunes when I was wanting to watch them.

I’m often asked, why is web content being geographically restricted?  A big issue has to do with intellectual property (IP) rights.  Here’s an exchange I saw on CBC about why the Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) and the Stanley Cup cannot be available online to overseas web surfers:

“O: I have to ask becuase I have a [l]ot of friends who live overseas…

Every time I talk to them they ask me why they can’t watch the Stanley Cup online

AL: One of our most common complaints, for sure.

O: Oh really?

AL: Sure. Our agreement with the NHL is for Canada only. NBC and Versus wouldn’t like it if someone in Boise was watching an HNIC broadcast online, eating into their customer base. Ditto for someone in Sweden (although I don’t know who’s broadcasting competitively there).

I understand the frust[r]ation, though. We’re sending this online to a population that can watch it on main net and in HD.. why give them online? But it’s the way of the future and our numbers were, I’d say, solid for a first-time, and for games that were played in the evening (not online’s prime time by any means).”

The Balkanized Web

So, if you’re in Sweden & want to watch HNIC, you’re out of luck, despite the fact that you{and hundreds of others} watching in Sweden may have effect on revenues, since there’s nobody broadcasting it.

The contractual obligations are keeping the web content geographically bound, despite the web being decentralized and global.   The marketing limitations are keeping content from being legitimately purchased on iTunes {and sites like it} or through pay-per-view/video-on-demand via the web or cable/satellite means.  Geographic restrictions are frustrating audiences, leaving revenues on the table, and limiting the building of global audiences.

It’s clear that broadcasters are keenly interested in revenue streams, but still don’t get it, in many respects.  This Globe & Mail article really shows a lack of creativity in terms of addressing the “what should be online?” question.

“Even in the U.S., where NBC and Fox launched Hulu.com to showcase their programs online, the ad revenue generated from that business is still a mere fraction of network TV revenues, Mr. Eiley said.

In Canada last year, online advertising revenue from TV shows was about 1.6 per cent of total TV advertising revenue. The trend is troubling for broadcasters, since audiences are increasingly demanding online programming. Mr. Eiley said the networks are left with unattractive options for online content – either pack more commercials into Internet shows or charge for content.”

There are several issues going on.  Content as IP is being treated as an asset that must generate revenues, but what about trying to get more people interested in that asset in order to foster future revenue streams.  The networks aren’t always being creative about using Web 2.0 to help build buzz and audience.  They should be trying to leverage Web 2.0 to build audience, but how can you really do this when so much of what is being produced and aired is pure, mind-numbing kife.  

Over the holidays, I saw CBC really hyping Being Erica {see trailer below}, which {to me}, when I saw it in February was like watching a slightly less neurotic Ally McBeal being inserted in a sort of Coen Brothers-esque time-traveling world of suspended quirky disbelief.  Sort of.  The network used a prequel blog and Facebook, making it seem like they were really pushing to not just get the word out, but to get people hooked on the idea of Erica, because they know her.  Plus, even if you couldn’t watch the shows on CBC online, you could purchase episodes of the entire season on iTunes {above}.  

The ratings are so-so for Canada, high 500Ks down to 511K, and it looks like it will get another season, albeit with fewer episodes.  This type of support is a luxury that wasn’t afforded to Douglas Coupland’s jPod.  Not that I’m bitter, CBC.  Not at all.

1. What are your thoughts on TV content on the web?
2. What are some creative ways to use Web 2.0 to deal with IP issues and revenues?

I spend holidays in Ontario, Canada and listen to CBC every so often.  I heard this episode of Spark with an interview with Clay Shirky (NYU).  They discuss concepts from his book, Here Comes Everybody, including “cognitive surplus,” where the Internet is taking advantage of people’s unstructured thinking time.  Where is this time coming from?  Aren’t our lives overbooked with no spare time.  Barry Wellman and other found that the rise of the Internet was hand in glove with less TV viewing.  

One of the issues about TV is that’s it’s passive.  It’s a passive consumption experience, while the Internet in Web 2.0 can have the potential to be participatory, involving producing content, sharing content, and viewing content.

They also discuss how Web 2.0 is adding value in ways that would not be undertaken by market forces.  No firm or organization would undertake creating a tagged image repository such as Flickr with its 1B images, but enabling the crowd to do so is a big idea.  The question is how the limits of the freemium model in commercial possibilities.

• Will the crowd help firms/organizations see the path to cash?  (Revenues)

I think there’s also an interesting discussion on intellectual property sharing.  Will mass amateurization become commonplace?  Yes.  New opportunities will transform our relationship with innovations and intellectual property, as open source will open doors and close others.  

While not discussed on Spark, independent researchers can even engage in medical research, as evidenced by a physician hacking into his daughter’s DNA.   Many nations have an eye on the biotech prize, as this has huge implications for the cost of health care and on pharmaceutical innovations, how will open source affect biotech?

• Will the scale and scope of China (given their take on open source) blast apart our current notions of property rights and capitalizing on intellectual property rights?

Much of these discussions go back to the idea of data.  23andme is allowing users to get a DNA report.  You need not identify yourself, but they will be able to use and sell the aggregate data.  

I think we’re in new territory here with innovations, open source, and globalization.  I think it’s unclear what the “rules” are and we need to be aware for signs that the market is not working.  After all, value was created by Flickr, but it was the “wisdom” of the crowd that played a huge role in enabling it.

Finally, I thought there were good points on the notion of ethics and Web 2.0.  I’m not a technological utopian and I feel that technology transforms culture and often amplifies what is going on already.  Did MySpace spontaneously “create” pedophiles?  (Or did a brainchild for a NBC ratings grab create the illusion of an epidemic?)  Did MySpace create  real dangers for the youth?  The research points to ‘no’ on both counts, but the question remains:

• How will culture manifest itself online with norms, sanctions, and rules of conduct?

I liked Shirky’s quote that ethicists are like ambulance chasers.  Not to slam ethicists, but I think it’s extremely difficult to create prescriptions or a normative mode for an evolving social context.