CRTC boss criticizes decision to fold Shomi
OTTAWA Jean-Pierre Blais, the head of Canada’s telecom regulator, took a swipe at two telecommunications giants for killing their nascent video-streaming service in an age in which the Internet has disrupted traditional platforms and the “viewer is emperor.”
In a speech in Ottawa Wednesday, Blais revealed he was shocked at the September news that Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. planned to shutter Shomi, a joint venture in which the cable companies had sunk hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Far be it for me to criticize the decisions taken by seasoned businesspeople, but I can’t help but be surprised when major players throw in the towel on a platform that is the future of content — just two years after it launched,” Blais said, according to an advance copy of a keynote speech he was set to deliver at the International Institute of Communications conference.
“I have to wonder if they are too used to receiving rents from subscribers every month in a protected ecosystem, rather than rolling up their sleeves in order to build a business without regulatory intervention and protection.”
Blais’s speech comes as his time as CRTC chairman — a five-year period largely characterized by a focus on consumers and smaller competitors rather than incumbent providers — winds down, with his term set to expire in June. Speculation is rampant over whether his term will be extended.
But he’s not holding back critiques of industry players in his final months, if Wednesday’s speech is any indication. He had words for incumbents, content creators and the news media as he defended and applauded the CRTC’s direction under his watch.
He noted that incumbents have grumbled about new regulations, namely the CRTC’s decision to open up wholesale access to their fibre networks and to regulate wholesale roaming rates. He invited them to look to Australia and the United Kingdom where governments have or are considering structural separation between wholesale and retail broadband providers.
“If the winds of change blow too hard and they refuse to bend in the wind, the tree may break at the trunk rather than lose a few leaves,” he said.
Blais disagreed with criticism that the CRTC’s involvement in issues such as Internet data pricing curbs providers’ abilities to innovate, citing the cases of Bell Media and Videotron exempting their own content from data charges. (The CRTC quashed the practice.)
“We’re all for innovation ... but when the drive to innovate steps on the toes of the principle of free and open access to content, we will intervene. Abuses of power in the system will not go unchecked,” he said.