{"id":46771,"date":"2019-02-03T03:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-02-03T08:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=46771"},"modified":"2019-02-02T10:34:26","modified_gmt":"2019-02-02T15:34:26","slug":"the-cbc-netflix-and-the-questionable-role-of-mandatory-cancon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/02\/03\/the-cbc-netflix-and-the-questionable-role-of-mandatory-cancon\/","title":{"rendered":"The CBC, Netflix, and the questionable role of mandatory “CanCon”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Selley<\/a> explains why the CBC’s own shows are appearing on Netflix and how this undermines the raison d’\u00eatre<\/em> for government-funded CBC television:<\/p>\n

To the vast majority of Canadians, including those who support the CBC, the idea that Netflix represents any kind of threat \u2014 and should thus be taxed or forced to carry minimum amounts of Canadian content or otherwise regulated, as various groups urge \u2014 will just seem irretrievably bizarre. Whether or not it\u2019s a good idea, CanCon only works in a restricted market where channels broadcast specific things at specific times. Back in the day you might just find yourself bored enough to watch or listen to something you didn\u2019t really want to, and it might just be Canadian.<\/p>\n

No one watches anything on Netflix that they don\u2019t want to \u2014 no one single, anyway \u2014 so there\u2019s no earthly reason to put stuff there if people don\u2019t want it. The irony, though, is that there\u2019s a ton of Canadian content on Netflix, precisely because people want to watch it. And as University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist explained in a blog post on Friday, Netflix makes it very easy to find: Not only are there direct links to Canadian TV shows and films, but it algorithmically detects a user\u2019s preference for CanCon and recommends other titles.<\/p>\n

Goodness, just look at all the Canuck shows: Baroness Von Sketch Show<\/em>, Workin\u2019 Moms<\/em>, Mr. D<\/em>, Kim\u2019s Convenience<\/em>, Schitt\u2019s Creek<\/em>, Intelligence<\/em> \u2026 hang on a tic, those are all CBC shows! How did those imperialist Silicon Valley pigdogs get their filthy hands on it? Because as more and more Canadians cut the cord, Netflix is a perfectly logical place for CBC and the production companies it works with to showcase their work \u2014 not just to Canada but to the world. In short, there doesn\u2019t seem to be any problem or threat here at all, to anyone \u2014 just success, and the opportunity for more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We cut the cord about six months ago, and haven’t missed broadcast TV in the slightest (so I hear … I wasn’t watching much TV even before then). I watch Minnesota Vikings games on DAZN and The Grand Tour<\/em> on Amazon Prime, and that’s just about all my screen time (YouTube and other online video sources more than compensate).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Selley explains why the CBC’s own shows are appearing on Netflix and how this undermines the raison d’\u00eatre for government-funded CBC television: To the vast majority of Canadians, including those who support the CBC, the idea that Netflix represents any kind of threat \u2014 and should thus be taxed or forced to carry minimum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,84,28],"tags":[416,58,661,793,101],"class_list":["post-46771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-government","category-media","tag-cbc","tag-internet","tag-regulation","tag-subsidies","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-can","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46772,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46771\/revisions\/46772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}