A group representing major foreign streaming companies told a hearing held by Canada’s broadcasting regulator on Friday that those companies shouldn’t be expected to fulfil the same responsibilities as traditional broadcasters when it comes to Canadian content.

The Motion Picture Association-Canada, which represents large streamers like Netflix, Paramount, Disney and Amazon, said the regulator should be flexible in modernizing its definition of Canadian content.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is holding a two-week public hearing on a new definition of Canadian content that began Wednesday. The proceeding is part of its work to implement the Online Streaming Act — and it is bringing tensions between traditional players and large foreign streamers out in the open.

      • enkers@sh.itjust.works
        13·
        20 hours ago

        Every tenth episode you have to watch Letterkenny.

        But honestly, it says in the article:

        Earlier Friday, Canadian media company Corus urged the CRTC to require traditional broadcasters and online players to pay the same amount into the Canadian content system. The broadcaster, which owns Global TV, said both should contribute 20 per cent of their revenue toward Canadian content.

        Currently, large English-language broadcasters must contribute 30 per cent of revenues to Canadian programming, and the CRTC last year ordered streaming services to pay five per cent of their annual Canadian revenues to a fund devoted to producing Canadian content.

        The foreign streaming services are fighting that rule in court and Netflix, Paramount and Apple pulled out of the CRTC hearing earlier this week.

        • Penny7@lemmy.ca
          1·
          16 hours ago

          Considering how popular Schitt’s Creek is among the people I know in America, Schitt’s Creek could also be another option, hehe.

      • Penny7@lemmy.ca
        2·
        16 hours ago

        For every $1B (CAD) of revenue FROM CANADIAN SUBSCRIBERS ONLY they currently are supposed to allocate $50M (CAD) - that’s that 5% that enkers shared from the article.

        The revenue numbers I saw for 2024 had Canada and America lumped together as one region, and that was $17.17B (assuming USD here), overall revenue $39B (USD?). America always has higher revenue numbers than Canada so let’s say $5B (CAD) came from Canadians then they’d need to allocate $250M (CAD) to their content creation.

        In 2024 Netflix spent $16B (USD?) on creating content…I’d say that $250M (CAD) is doable. Hell, $500M (CAD) is doable if Canadians contributed $10B (CAD) to their coffers. ($500M (CAD) is almost $360M (USD) at today’s exchange rate…)

        I don’t know about Paramount or Apple’s numbers, but 5% of what CANADIANS give to any of them is more than doable.