Funny Picture

As Netflix penetrates the Canadian market, it's going to put a lot of pressure on Canadian broadcasters and cable companies. They want the CRTC to loosen up Cancon restrictions. There have also been calls to require Netflix to license Cancon. Jesse Brown is snide about this in the Globe and Mail.

Netflix looks like it will eat its way into the broadcast and cable markets until there's nothing left -- unless it is a vast Ponzi scheme, which is entirely possible. But if it's for real, and if Netflix isn't required to hit a Cancon target, then that's probably the end of the Canadian TV and film industry.

Of course you can't force individual Canadian viewers to download Cancon. But you can require that Netflix achieve a certain amount of Cancon viewership. Any company that streams video to individual users has, by definition, the ability to tell exactly who's watching what, when. And, having set a target of X unique viewers watching Y numbers of hours of Cancon, if Netflix isn't hitting its target, it can license more Cancon and promote it more. California forces automakers to make a certain percentage of non-polluting vehicles like electric cars; it's the price of selling cars in California. If the price of streaming TV to Canadian consumers is promoting SLINGS AND ARROWS and ONE WEEK, I don't think we're asking too much.