HERI Committee Report

BACKGROUND

Chapter 4
Fragmenting Audiences

After its review of several hundred submissions and the many hours of witness testimony that it gathered, the Committee notes that there is a distinct range of views about the state of the Canadian broadcasting system. Some witnesses believed that there has been a good deal of success, but that there are problems and issues to deal with. Others were more pessimistic, including some who believe that we have failed. Some were more matter-of-fact and offered reminders that any success in Canadian broadcasting hinges on finding a balance between cultural and economic objectives.

To help make sense of these different views, this chapter presents information about the various measures that are used to talk about radio listeners and television audiences. It discusses the concepts of prime time, types of programming and the availability of radio and television programs. Thereafter, it presents selected summary information on

available Canadian programming and Canadians' listening and viewing habits. This chapter also shows how uses of certain technological innovations over the last half century have reshaped our communications environment and, by extension, the leisure time activities of Canadians. Finally, it describes some of the ways in which the Internet revolution has precipitated significant and ongoing changes in media consumption behaviours and expectations.

The way people use the broadcasting system has changed substantially over the last 50 years. Following its introduction in the early 1950s, television quickly became popular and, as a result, altered the uses and importance of radio. The emergence of cable syste)ms in the 1970s increased significantly the number of channels that could be accessed and made possible the introduction of channels that specialize in particular topics. In the 1980s, videocassette machines made it possible to record television programming and view pre-recorded movies. During the 1990s the Internet became a workable system for people to listen to audio, watch streaming video or subscribe to electronic editions of newspapers that are updated several times a day.¹ Most recently, viewing by appointment has become easier than ever before with the introduction of the personal video recorder.

In the early days of radio or television a "broadcast" was a program transmitted at a specific time to an audience. If you did not tune in at the right time, you "missed" the show. Those who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s probably still think of broadcasting this way. But as seen by the review of technological innovations outlined in Chapter 3, notions of broadcasting have shifted from an emphasis on reaching a mass audience to providing the widest possible range and volume of programming content.

Although it is highly unlikely that anyone will offer an unlimited number of television services in the near future, it is important to remark on a number of important implications that are related to this capacity.

These changes, all of which were happening to some degree as the Committee carried out its study, have important consequences for the way the government organizes its efforts to promote the production, distribution and exhibition of Canadian programming.

The remainder of this section reviews what can be said about Canadian programs, their overall availability, how they are watched and the implications of existing trends.

Definitions of Listening and Viewing

To gauge the achievements of the Canadian broadcasting system it is important to distinguish between radio and television. It is also necessary to distinguish among the various categories of programming such as sports, news, children's and drama.²

The most common viewing statistics collected by the broadcasting industry are: penetration, coverage, reach, audience size, ratings, share, and average minute audience. These terms are defined by the industry as follows:

As seen above, there are several measures of audience for a broadcast, including: audience size, reach, share and average minute audience. Subsequent sections will provide some examples of audience data for English and French television. Before proceeding, however, it is important to point out that the broadcast industry's measurement methods for audience size differ from the way other activities tend to be reported. As Nielsen Media Research Canada notes:

... a "TV rating" is not the same as the common usage of the word "rating". Nielsen Media Research does not provide qualitative evaluations of how much a program is "liked" when we rate programs. The TV rating is only the simplest and most democratic measure of the audience: how many people watched. Programs which have larger audiences are, by definition, the successful ones. Ratings numbers which you may have seen are the average audience rating, or the percent tuned to a particular program during the average minute.⁸

A second difference can be illustrated by looking at the difference between overall citizen participation in an election and reported television audiences. Election turnout is normally reported as the percentage of people who voted based on the total number of eligible voters. However, when an audience share for a television show is reported, the baseline is not the total number of televisions that could have been turned on, but the percentage of people who were watching a show based on the total number of people who were watching television at that same time.

This interpretation of audience share has great utility for advertisers, but can be misleading if used to appraise the success of Canada's broadcasting policy. As the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA) recently explained: "traditional forms of audience measurement methodology serve the purposes of advertisers [and] are not necessarily an indication of the true audiences for Canadian programs."⁹ For this reason,

the CFTPA believes a new measure, based on the total number of Canadians who watched at least 30 minutes of a Canadian show during a full season of telecasts, should be used to appraise the "real impact" of Canadian programming. This proposed approach would be called "season reach."¹⁰ For example, a measure of "season reach" might be two or three times the traditional audience share numbers.

Seen in another light, one could also imagine the use of a measure called "episode reach." Such a measure would collect viewing data for the broadcast of a single episode and a set number of repeats of the same show (on the same, or on another channel). For example, a typical episode of Da Vinci's Inquest enjoys an audience of about 700,000. If one were to add the audience data for two repeats of the same episode, it is quite probable that the number of viewers would exceed 1.5 million. With this in mind, Chapters 5 and 19 make recommendations concerning the need to improve existing data collection and reporting methods for the Canadian broadcasting system.

It is also important to remember that there are differences between the way people use radio and television. Radio listening tends to be concentrated during the day, while in a car or at work, whereas television viewing tends to be done in the home. Audiences for television tend to be highest between 4:00 p.m. and midnight (i.e., after school or a workday), a period of which varying portions have been, or are referred to, as "prime time."

Radio

The situation that confronted the Aird Commission in the 1920s, when Canadians were justifiably concerned about the absence of Canadian radio programming, no longer exists. As figure 4.1 shows, there are 500 commercial radio stations¹¹ owned and operated by Canadians that produce and deliver thousands of hours of Canadian music and programming each year.¹²

Most radio stations are intensely local, covering local news, events and advertising local businesses. The exception to this is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's English- and French-language national radio services.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2001, Canadians listened to approximately 21.7 hours of radio each week. Figure 4.2 shows fall 2001 radio listening patterns by age and gender.

Additional statistics on Canadian radio listeners' preferences are presented in Chapter 8.

Television

Canadian television services are divided into different categories determined by the technical means they use to reach audiences and the types of programming they offer. This report will mostly talk about two types of broadcasters:

Conventional broadcasters usually offer a broad range of programs (e.g., local and national news, drama, game shows, sports), whereas specialty services tend to focus on a specific theme (e.g., sports, cartoons, news). CBC, CTV, Global, TVO/TFO, Citytv, A-Channel, Radio-Canada, TVA, TQS, TéléQuébec are the most well-known examples of English and French conventional broadcasters.

As for specialty services, there are two varieties: analog and digital. Analog specialty services have been available since 1984. Canada's English and French-language analog pay and specialty services are listed in figures 4.3 and 4.4.

As for pay services, figure 4.5 shows the English- and French-language channels to which Canadian may subscribe.

Canadians also receive a number of foreign services, most of which are American. Those American services that have been granted access to Canada's broadcasting market by the CRTC are listed in figure 4.6.

Apart from analog services are another 260 pay and specialty channels that were licenced for digital distribution in Canada by the CRTC in

2000. To date, nearly 60 of these have been launched and made available to subscribers via cable or satellite. These services are listed in figure 4.7.

Finally, there are four over-the-air multilingual ethnic television stations, operating from Toronto (OMNI 1 and OMNI 2), Montreal (CJNT) and Vancouver (MVBC). There are also five analog Canadian ethnic specialty services (available on a discretionary basis): Fairchild TV, Talentvision, SATV, Odyssey and Telelatino. Furthermore, in 2000, the Commission authorized more than 50 ethnic digital specialty and pay services in a variety of languages. To date, eight specialty and two pay services have been launched (see figure 4.7).

Programs Types

As noted above, conventional broadcasters tend to focus on general types of programming, whereas specialty channels have a much more specific focus. Not surprisingly, different channels attract different audiences. Thus, to understand what is being viewed, it is necessary to pay particular attention to the kinds of programs offered.

Audience interests have changed considerably since the early days of television. These changes have in turn led to changes in the definitions used for programs. This makes it very difficult to compare a given time period, such as 1963, with the situation in 1993 or 2003.

It is also important to note that the definitions used to describe programming categories were created by regulators and governments for administrative purposes. For example, the 1957 report of the Royal Commission on Broadcasting identified the following categories of television drama: serious, domestic, comedy, crime, western, action and science fiction, romantic, musical comedy and other. During the period that this committee was conducting its study of broadcasting, CBC Research was using five categories of drama: movies, action/adventure, situation comedies, reality programs and an other category that included miniseries and soap operas. The drama and comedy category used by the CRTC, which is presented in Chapter 5, has seven different types of programs, one of which includes puppet shows.

A further difficulty is that categories may not accurately reflect what analysts might want or expect. This means that one must be very careful when making claims about what Canadians are watching, or about the overall health of the system. The best example of this is the CRTC's

decision to group drama and comedy in one category, an aggregation that makes it almost impossible to separate overall audiences for drama or comedy.

Prime Time and Scheduling

Since the earliest days of television, most viewing has taken place during the evening hours. This period is referred to as the "peak viewing period" or "prime time" and has been defined in many different ways over the past five decades. For example, the Board of Broadcast Governors (BBG) and later the CRTC required Canadian television stations to fill 55% of their broadcasting day with Canadian programs and 40% between 6.00 p.m. and midnight. Today, CRTC regulations emphasize the period between 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., because this is the time when television audiences are typically at their largest. While the period from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. is important, it is worth noting, however, that there are large audiences for television outside this "peak time." Figures 4.8 and 4.9 show the extent to which audiences for television vary during the 24-hour broadcast day used by Nielsen Media Research.

These figures show that large numbers of Canadians watch television throughout the broadcast day. On almost any day there are at least 2 million English-speaking Canadians, and more than 500,000 French-speaking Canadians watching television between 10:00 a.m. and midnight. Thus, while it is true that overall viewing peaks notably between 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., it can also be seen that more than 50% of television viewing for both English and French television takes place outside prime time.

The amount of television that Canadians watch also varies by day of the week. According to CRTC data, Monday, Thursday and Sunday are the most popular days with viewing at its highest on Thursday. Viewing also varies with the season. It is higher during the fall and winter and lower during the spring and summer. Major holidays also have an impact on television viewing.

A further complication to a full understanding of what is watched and when it is watched is ongoing changes in definitions of Canadian content. This topic is considered in detail in Chapter 5. Additional details are also presented in Appendix 8.

Because a large number or people watch television during "prime time" television networks schedule what they hope will be popular shows during peak viewing hours. Some shows are more successful than others, thus there is a constant effort to adjust the program schedule to take account of what the other networks are doing. If a show is extremely popular and attracts large audiences, other networks are reluctant to pit their shows against a known winner.

There are several reasons for this. First, a show usually takes some time to build an audience so a new show will not be helped if it is scheduled against very strong competition. Second, a television series is expensive and little is gained if a potentially successful show is scheduled in an inappropriate time slot or against a program that is already very successful. Third, simultaneous substitution (which is described in Chapter 8), by virtue of the revenues it can generate for Canadian broadcasters, can also affect scheduling decisions.

Decisions about scheduling are not easy to make. Given the fierce competition, it is easy to see why English-language Canadian networks prefer to have a range of options (e.g., a movie of the week, a miniseries, or a series) in their efforts to deal with the competitive pressures they face.

Strategies for dealing with these pressures vary. A program that was scheduled on a Thursday night might be moved to another time slot because the competitive pressure is less or because the network has acquired rights to a foreign program that has to be broadcast at the same time. Frequent schedule changes make it difficult to build an audience for a show. These pressures are not the same for sports, news, public affairs, and children's programming. They are, however, a constant reality for English-language Canadian drama.

Measuring Audiences

Two techniques are used to determine audience size and what people are watching. One method is a diary that is filled out by a person who has agreed to participate in an ongoing study of television viewing habits. Another technique uses a meter that is attached to a television set, which keeps track of when the television is on, what program is being watched and who is watching.

The diary system relies on the individual participating in the study to record when television viewing took place and what was watched. It is

frequently filled in at the end of the evening, the next day or even at the end of the week. It is also based on a 20-hour broadcast day (6:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.). The diary system probably underreports television usage. In particular, it likely underreports the use of specialty services, which people will often turn to for a few minutes to check something of interest, such as the weather or the headlines. The statistics prepared from diaries indicate that people watch television between 22 and 24 hours per week.

The people meter has the advantage that it tracks every program that someone watches as soon as the television is turned on and covers a 24-hour broadcast day. It also records each time the channel is changed. Some analysts therefore consider it to be a more accurate measure of the way people watch television. Statistics based on the people meter suggest that Canadians, on average, watch between 24 and 26 hours of television per week.

This estimate is higher than the diary method for at least two reasons. First, the people meter captures television viewing that might be forgotten by a diary user trying to recall what was watched several hours or days after the fact. Second, the people meter probably overestimates the amount of television watched, given that some people turn the television on but are not necessarily watching.¹³

For these reasons, it is likely that the actual amount of television watched by Canadians is more than that measured by the diary method and less than that measured by the people meter. In Canada, the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (BBM) uses the diary method and Nielsen Media Research uses the people meter. Figure 4.10 shows BBM and Nielsen's television tuning data for the period 1995-2001.

Both systems involve representative samples of households that have agreed to participate in the measurement process. Statements about audience share require one to add all of the results from those who participate (either using the diary or the meter) to generate an estimate of what is going on in the country at large. There are, however, limits to what can be said about audience shares. Some groups of people, for example, francophones outside of Quebec and Northern and Aboriginal audiences, are generally not included as part of the survey population for studies of television or radio usage. This means very little can be said, or is known, about these groups' viewing and listening habits. A second problem has to do with the sheer number of channels that people can watch and the year-long period that they can be watching.

These problems are handled in a number of ways. Researchers at CBC English television, for example, use a six-week sample (42 days: 6 Mondays, 6 Tuesdays and so on) to develop an overview of the broadcast year. Radio-Canada uses BBM data, and the CRTC uses a combination of both systems. Other researchers (e.g., Statistics Canada) use a summary of diary results for the fall viewing season to draw conclusions about the broadcast year.

All of these techniques have their strengths and weaknesses. Needless to say, they are used by different organizations for different purposes and the results cannot be easily compared. "Sweeps week," for example, is a period when American television networks are trying to obtain the highest audience shares possible by scheduling either their best shows or a series of specials to attract large audiences. The networks do this to convince advertisers that the network has a large audience of the type of people that advertisers are trying to reach. Since advertising rates are higher for larger audiences, sweeps week is an important element in the marketing strategy of a television network, but a problem for a Canadian broadcaster trying to maximize audiences to Canadian programming. This is why Canada's English-language broadcasters tend to avoid scheduling new Canadian programs during periods that coincide with sweeps week. Thus, while sweeps week is understandable from an economic standpoint, it is important to remember that it is not representative of the overall performance of Canadian programming on Canada's English-language networks.

Taken as a whole, it can be seen why these various considerations created problems for the Committee in its efforts to assess the state of the Canadian broadcasting system. Indeed, every group that appeared before the Committee used the available statistics to support a particular argument. This means that great effort was required to appraise the validity of claims made by witnesses.

It is worth noting, however, that technological advances should significantly improve existing measurement systems. BBM, for example, has recently introduced the "portable people meter," a pager-sized device that is carried by a representative panel of television viewers. This device, "automatically detects inaudible codes that broadcasters embed in the audio portion of their programming."¹⁴ This type of metering system is being introduced in television markets across Canada and will eventually replace existing measurement systems. Since this device is portable and demands less attention than the diary system, it is expected that it will

provide more accurate measurements of people's use of all types of electronic media including radio and television, no matter where they might be.

In summary, depending on the measurement technique, it is estimated that Canadians watch somewhere between 22 and 26 hours of television per week, an average that has remained relatively constant over the past 35 years.¹⁵ Since almost all Canadian households have a television, the potential audience for television at any point during a 24-hour period is approximately 31 million people divided into about 12.3 million households.¹⁶ At the peak viewing time, however (i.e., between 7:00 and 11:00 p.m.), about eight million households have the television turned on (i.e., about 65%), and around two million households are watching Canadian programming (i.e., about 15%).¹⁷

The next few sections describe the types of programming available, and the audience share for these different types of programs. It then provides detail on changes in audience shares for French and English-language Canadian drama.

Available Services

In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of services available. In the mid-1950s few Canadian households had access to more than three or four channels. This number increased steadily during the 1960s and 1970s and has skyrocketed since the mid-1980s, to such an extent that upwards of 375 channels are now available from some Canadian distributors.

This is a very significant change. As Mr. Michael Helm, Director General, Telecommunications Policy Branch, Industry Canada, explained to the Committee:

I used to work in broadcasting within government. [Channel availability and choice] was an ongoing concern. Frequently, from remote areas all over the country we received complaints and concerns. People who lived in Toronto and Ottawa and Montreal and Vancouver had such a richness of broadcasting, of television channels available; why couldn't government do a better job of seeing that people in remote areas had as well? This went on for years — I'm sure you can remember — and it was a very real concern.

I haven't heard a concern or a complaint like that in four or five years — none, zero — because satellite technology, essentially, solved the problem. You can now live on the remotest farm in the remotest part of the country and get a range of television and radio services at about the same price — a comparable price — to someone in the downtown area of the biggest city.¹⁸

The fact that these services are generally available, however, does not mean that all households — whether rural or urban — can equally afford the same level of service.

As the availability of television services has increased over the last 10 years so too has the overall number of hours of Canadian content available to watch. Furthermore, the availability of Canadian programming versus foreign options has over the past decade narrowed somewhat for English television and remained stable for French television. figures 4.11 and 4.12 present these data for 1992-93 and 2000-01.

These data reveal that between 1992-93 and 2000-01, the all day supply of Canadian programming increased to nearly half (46%) of available English-language programs and remained stable at about two-thirds (67%) of available French-language programming.

Viewing Share

In the early years of television, audience shares that exceeded 40 or 50% were commonplace. Figures 4.13 and 4.14 show the extent to which audience share has fragmented over the past 30 years. In 1969, for example, the CBC (including affiliates, when carrying CBC programming) enjoyed a 35% audience share, while CTV was garnering 25%. That same year, Radio-Canada was averaging 40% of all French viewers and TVA was enjoying a share of nearly 50%. In 2001-02, the CBC was down to just 7.6% of the English-speaking viewing audience and CTV was down to 11%. Similarly, Radio-Canada was down to 17.6% and TVA was being viewed by about one-third of the French-speaking audience.

By contrast, the overall audience share for pay and specialty services has enjoyed dramatic increases in recent times. For example, between 1989-90 and 2001-02, the audience share for English-language pay and specialty services increased from 12.6% to 46.9%, while in the French-language market it increased from 9.4% to 29.2%.

Figure 4.15 shows audience share broken down in greater detail for fall 1993 and fall 2001. This figure reveals that Canadian-owned services dominate the Canadian television market, with about a 66% audience share in Canada (excluding Quebec), and a 90% share in Quebec.

Another interesting way to look at audience share is to break it down by ownership group. As several witnesses told the Committee, broadcasting in Canada in recent years has been characterized by an effort by conventional broadcasters to reassemble the fragments; that is, to regain lost audience share by acquiring pay and specialty channels. In doing so, even if viewers are not all watching the same programs, they are at least watching channels operated by the same ownership group.

For the CBC this particular turn of events has been particularly trying. While many private ownership groups have in recent years been granted new pay and specialty service licences, the CRTC has consistently denied new licence requests to the CBC, with the exception of two news channels (Newsworld and RDI), and some recently licenced digital services (Country Canada, The Documentary Channel and ARTV). A recommendation that addresses future CBC licence requests is made in Chapter 19.

Figure 4.16 shows the most recent combined viewing share data for Canada's major ownership groups. As can be seen, in fall 2000 and fall 2001, CTV/Bell Globemedia, Global TV and CHUM Ltd. enjoyed 18%, 15% and 7% combined viewing shares, respectively (excluding Quebec). Meanwhile, the CBC had a 7.3% audience share in fall 2001. In the province of Quebec, by far the most dominant ownership group in 2001 was Quebecor with an audience share of about 30%, while Radio-Canada was second at 18.3%.

Yet another way to understand viewing habits is to look at the types of programs Canadians watch. Figure 4.17 gives some sense of what Canadian programming English-speaking Canadians watch in an average week.

As can be seen, in 2001, Canada's English-language private broadcasters (between 6:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m.) attracted nearly 65% of all viewing of Canadian news programming and about 26% of all viewing of Canadian drama and comedy programming. In contrast, during this same period, the CBC attracted 42.2% of all viewing of Canadian sports, whereas the private conventional broadcasters garnered just 10.8% of the viewing audience. Overall, 46.1% of all viewing of Canadian programming was to private conventional networks, about one-third was to pay and specialty services, while 20.7% was to the CBC in 2001.

Figure 4.18 shows the same viewing data for French television in 2001. These data reveal slightly different viewing preferences for French-language audiences to Canadian-made programming.

Overall, 28.6% of all viewing of French-language Canadian programming in 2001 was to Radio-Canada, 58.1% was to the private conventional networks, and just 13.4% was to pay and specialty services (between 6:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m.). With respect to drama and comedy, Radio-Canada performed well, generating 41% of all viewing, while the private networks attracted 45.6% of all viewing of this genre. As for sports, the divide was far less than that seen for English-language broadcasters. Radio-Canada was still the most popular sports broadcaster in Canada, attracting 35.8% of all Frenchlanguage viewing of sports shows. Meanwhile, 64.4% of all viewing of Canadian news was to the private conventional broadcasters and 21.8% was to Radio-Canada.

What is being watched?

While the bulk of what people watch consists of news, sports and drama, it is important to note that viewing habits vary considerably. Some people may watch only sports and news, while others are interested in gardening and the weather. The Committee was told on several occasions that most people watch 6 or 7 channels despite having dozens, if not more than 300, from which to choose. The problem for today's broadcaster, however, is that very few people select the same six or seven channels.

What is watched changes over time. Comedy shows such as Wayne and Schuster in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were very popular, and inspired subsequent efforts such as Second City Television, The Royal Canadian Air Farce, The Kids in the Hall and This Hour has 22 Minutes.

Successful dramas have included The Beachcombers and a string of programs that derive their story line from Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. Recent successful programs have included Random Passage, Trudeau, and the CBC's Canadian history series, which was a success in both languages. Figure 4.19 shows the top 40 television series and specials broadcast on Canada's three English-language conventional networks, CBC, CTV and Global, between 1 October 2001 and 14 April 2002.

As can be seen, Canadians (outside Quebec) watch a great deal of American programming. They also watch a great deal of Canadian sports. Indeed, Hockey Night in Canada, which is one of only two Canadian series listed in figure 4.19, has been a perennial favourite since the earliest days of Canadian radio and television (see inset).

Overall, just 16 of the top 40 series and specials in 2001-02 were Canadian, and only 1 of these 16 shows was a regularly scheduled series. Seen another way, 12 of the 14 television series (86%) were American, whereas 15 of the top 26 specials (58%) were Canadian. These data highlight two challenges Canada's English-language broadcasters face: the popularity of American programming and the high cost of making programs that can be broadcast regularly (i.e., 22-26 episodes) over an entire television season. Indeed, the imbalance between the number of popular English Canadian television series and specials to a large extent reflects the fact that it is expensive to produce an entire series as opposed to one or two shows, such as a miniseries or a special event. Subsequent chapters in this report will have more to say about these points.

By contrast, French-language television shows over the years have included: Pays et merveilles (1953-61), Point de Mire (1957-59), two popular information shows of the 1950s, and a host of game shows, miniseries and the ever popular téléromans. These include: La famille Plouffe, Lance et compte, Les Filles de Caleb, La Petite Vie, and Virginie. The long line of success with French-language programming in Canada is quite remarkable.

Moreover, as figure 4.20 shows, even in this era of increased audience fragmentation, Quebec's French-language viewers overwhelmingly prefer Canadian-made television shows.

This figure demonstrates the extraordinary extent to which Canadian specials and series dominate French-language television in Quebec. Apart from TVA's, Spécial bloopers, all of these shows are Canadian content. Furthermore, the audience numbers for many of these shows exceed the audiences enjoyed by most English-language Canadian programs listed in figure 4.19. This is particularly remarkable when one considers that the French-language market is just one-third the size of the English-language market.

These comparisons, however, do not readily show some of the significant increases in the viewing of English-language programming for certain types of Canadian programming. To understand these improvements, it is necessary to examine both the availability of programs and changes in what is watched. These issues are discussed below.

English and French Audiences

An important point to stress in any discussion of Canadian television viewing habits is the difference between English and French audiences. Factual information on these differences is presented in this chapter as well as in Chapter 5. Figures 4.21 and 4.22 show the viewing of Canadian and foreign programming, by English and French audiences, for 1992-93 and 2000-01.

 
As can be seen, despite an increase in the supply of Canadian programming available (see figure 4.11), the all-day viewing of Canadian programs increased slightly for English-language audiences, from 32% to 34%, and decreased slightly, from 68% to 65%, for French-language audiences between 1992-93 and 2000-01.

These data, however, cannot tell us what Canadians prefer to watch. One way to tackle this issue is to compare program supply with what is actually watched. Figure 4.23 shows that drama is by far the most popular program type for English and French television viewers, generating 41% and 34% of all viewing, respectively. It also shows that Canadian audiences are more attracted to certain types of programming.

Furthermore, figures 4.24 and 4.25 show that English Canadians watch proportionally more Canadian news and sports than what is available, and watch far less of what is already a modest supply of Canadian drama and comedy.

Three points concerning these data need to be made. First, only 34% of what anglophone Canadians watched in 2000-01 was Canadian content. Second, francophone Canadians watched a much higher proportion of Canadian content, almost 66%. Third, less than 10% of the drama watched by anglophones was Canadian, and surprisingly only 26% of the drama watched by francophones was Canadian.

Although the situation described above might seem discouraging it does not show an important increase that occurred between 1984 and 2001. In 1984, 2% of the drama watched by English-speaking Canadians was made in Canada; by 1999, this had increased to 9%.¹⁹ This represents an improvement of more than 450%. Similarly the viewing of Canadian drama/comedy in the French-language market more than doubled from 10% to 26% during this same period.

One reason the viewing of English- and French-language drama/comedy has increased is because there is more programming available to watch. Due to improvements in program support measures (see Chapter 5), Canadian drama/comedy now represents 17% of the available English-language drama/comedy and 20% of all available French-language drama/comedy (see figure 4.24). In other words, the gap in the overall supply of English and French-language Canadian drama/comedy has narrowed significantly since 1984. The important difference, however, is that French-language Canadian drama/comedy now attracts a 26% audience share, whereas English-language Canadian drama/comedy attracts a 9% audience share.

To sum up, Canadian English-language television programming, taken as a whole, has not been as successful as its French-language counterpart in attracting viewers, particularly to Canadian drama and comedy. That said, both language groups have solid audiences for Canadian news and sports programming.

The Committee recognizes, however, that it must be cautious in its approach to the question of Canadian programming. One reason is that the problem may not be a lack of programming, but a lack of viewers. A second reason is that the problem is almost entirely in the area of English-language drama and comedy. The same problem does not exist with sports, children's programming or the news. Indeed, the Committee was told repeatedly during its hearings and its site visits that the range and quality of our children's programming is a Canadian success story.

For example, Mr. Alex Park, Vice-President, Programming and Educational Services, Shaw Children's Programming Initiative, told the Committee:

Incredible Story Studios, was voted the best children's program at the recent Gemini Awards, and was a silver medal winner in the New York International Children's Festival. This program, this Canadian program, is viewed in over 125 million homes in over 30 countries around the world. It is recognized as the most successful children's series sold in the international marketplace — one hundred per cent Canadian stories created by our Canadian children.²⁰

Making a more general point, Mr. Richard Stursberg (who was at the time the Chairman of the Board of the Canadian Television Fund) said:

In many cases kids' programming, especially for very small children, is set in a non-specific environment that travels extremely well internationally. In fact, it's fair to say that Canadian kids' producers do very well internationally.²¹

General support for these points about children's programming can be seen in figure 4.27. In 1992-93 about 30% of English Canadian children's viewing time was to Canadian programming. By 2000-01 this had increased to 40%. As for French-language programming, it can be seen that there was a 6% drop between 1992-93 and 2000-01, from 56% to 50%.

To sum up, it is worth noting that the most recent data for 2001-02 (see Chapter 5) show that there are thousands of new hours of Canadian programming being made available to watch each year. Excluding news and sports, more than 2,800 hours of original Canadian programming were created during the fiscal year 2001-02, an increase of nearly 400 hours from the previous year.²² Moreover, if one includes news and sports, there were several thousand additional hours of Canadian programming. This means that it is now possible for Canadians to watch just Canadian programming. As will be seen in Chapter 5, however, there is an ongoing challenge to support the creation and production of original Canadian programming.

Chapter 3 discussed various applications of nineteenth and twentieth century technologies that contributed to the emergence of today's broadcasting system. This section attempts to look forward to suggest the types of services that might be available to audiences. While no one knows the exact configuration of these services, glimmerings of the future can already be seen.

Changing habits

Figure 4.28 provides some perspective on how television viewing habits have changed in recent years. Using English television viewing data, this figure shows that there was a steady decline in the percentage of people who watched Canadian conventional television services between 1994 and 2001, and a concurrent increase in people watching Canadian specialty services. What this suggests is that viewing patterns are in transition and will likely continue to change as even more new media choices become available.

Perhaps of greater significance is the explosive growth in Internet use, not only in Canada, but worldwide over the past few years. Although estimating how many users are online is an inexact science, it is believed that more than 600 million people are now online. Figure 4.29 shows the

distribution of these online users by major regions. It is worth noting that virtually no one was online in 1991 and that most of this growth has occurred since the mid-1990s.

Within the Canadian context, Figure 4.30 shows that households with an Internet service provider (ISP) increased rapidly between the summer of 1997 and the fall of 2002.

Statistics Canada further estimates that 4.7 million Canadian households in 2000 were connected to the Internet, of which 3.7 million (78%) were linked by telephone and 1 million (22%) were connected by cable (i.e., had high speed access). Moreover, over half of all Canadian households had at least one occupant who was a regular Internet user in 2000, which was an increase of 42% from 1999.²³

As for the amount of time spent online, figure 4.31 shows that between the summer of 1997 and the fall of 2000, Canadians increased their use of the Internet, from an average of 4.7 hours to 7.8 hours per week. Of particular interest is the fact that 35% of Canadians who use the Internet spent 10 hours or more per week online during the fall of 2001.

C. Key Challenges