Earlier this year, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission launched a consultation into the policy implications of increasingly popular Internet-based video services such as Netflix. The consultation was the CRTC’s response to broadcaster and cultural groups including Bell Media, Astral Media, ACTRA, the Canadian Media Production Association, and SOCAN, who formed the Online Broadcasting Working Group to urge it to step up to the regulatory plate.
While many feared the CRTC would jump at the chance for new Internet regulation, last week it surprised observers by rightly concluding that its consultation generated plenty of rhetoric about the dangers of an unregulated over-the-top video services market, but no evidence of real harm.
Given the lack of evidence and the absence of entry barriers for Canadian companies to establish their own competitive offerings, the CRTC decided to open a “watching brief” with the promise to revisit the issue in another fact-finding exercise next year.