A fight for a TV channel devoted to diversity
Does Quebec need a television channel devoted to ethno-cultural diversity? This is the question that must be addressed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), as Natyf TV pursues a process to benefit from mandatory distribution in the province.
On the air since 2018, the channel is “focused on diversity and the discovery of the different cultures of racialized communities” and has programming primarily dedicated to the black community. However, it has only low radiation and limited resources. A situation that its founder wants to change.
“Currently, Natyf TV has the status of a specialized channel. It is a channel that a person must subscribe to himself. Among the big national cable operators, the only one who agreed to do business with us and distribute us is Bell,” summarizes Jean-Yves Roux, founder and CEO of Natyf TV.
And it's not for lack of trying. In recent years, according to him, his team has tried several times to convince other big players, including Videotron and Cogeco, to broadcast Natyf TV. Unsuccessful, however. “Cable companies are not just cable companies. They are also owners of specialty and general television channels. It's a big media monopoly,” recalls Mr. Roux.
Tired of running into closed doors, he implemented his “Plan B”, initiating proceedings with the CRTC in 2020 to change the status of the channel. “We realized, when approaching the CRTC, that the mandate we had originally given ourselves could be considered an essential mandate for Canadian and Quebec society. It then took two years to go through the whole process, until the fall of 2022,” reveals Mr. Roux. These steps led, on 10 January, to a Commission hearing to consider Natyf TV's application. The CRTC is expected to issue its decision in the coming months.
Change of situation
The change in status would allow Natyf TV to be part of the mandatory distribution in the basic subscription, in the same way as TV5, AMI-Télé, ARTV and TVA.
The monthly fee requested is $0.12. This would be donated to Natyf TV for each subscriber of a television broadcasting service in the province. “It would give us an interesting financial cushion, but it would above all allow us to have access to millions of potential listeners. With so many subscribers, it would open doors for us and allow us to have access to much more interesting advertising budgets with advertisers,” explains Mr. Roux.
Entrepreneur and producer, Kevin Calixte believes that with a larger budget, Natyf TV will be able to contribute to the development of new talent and offer them opportunities that they don't have elsewhere. “They all say that diversity is important to them, but at the end of the day, it's still the same team, the same technicians, the same producers. There may be more representation of the community [in front of the camera], but the story is always written by the same people,” notes the man who is also the host of his own talk show, which has been broadcast on the channel since 2020.
He also recalls that, if traditional television channels have difficulty dealing with streaming platforms such as Netflix, it is, among other things, because they do not offer enough original stories that interest viewers. “For the general public, this would allow for different content. To be able to come up with a different approach to television. There are regions that are less diverse, but it offers them the opportunity to follow a story with a different approach and new faces,” believes Mr. Calixte.
Opposition
However, it is not certain that the CRTC will approve the change in status desired by Natyf TV. In fact, several major players have spoken publicly to ask him to reject the request, including Videotron, Cogeco, TV5 and Rogers. In a joint letter filed on file, Susan Wheeler, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Media, at Rogers Media, as well as Sam Norouzi, Vice President and General Manager of ICI Television, believe that “Natyf's request does not meet the burden of proof and should be refused.”
To support their claim, they state that the channel did not provide a study or survey to support their request. They are also wondering how it could manage to meet its local content commitments. And they believe that Natyf TV's advertising revenue forecasts are “too optimistic,” and that the channel has an “unrealistic view of the current state of the advertising market.” “While Natyf's intentions are commendable, we can't see how, exactly, it will reach such ambitious levels of independent production programming,” they write.
They also point out that mandatory distribution would have an impact on broadcasting distribution companies, which are required to offer their basic service at a maximum price of $25 per month. “[Natyf TV] has not demonstrated that it has the expertise, infrastructure, partnerships with producers and advertisers, and financial stability to meet its commitments. For these reasons, we do not believe that the proposed business plan is viable,” they conclude.
For her part, Marie-Philippe Bouchard, President and CEO of TV5 Québec Canada, indicates, in a letter she sent to the CRTC, that there would be “some overlaps” between the mandate of her channel and the “aspirations of Natyf TV.” “We were surprised to find that Natyf TV mentions a multitude of optional French-language services, stressing that none of them meet the needs of cultural communities.” who seek to recognize themselves on French-language television in Quebec, but who never mentions the existence of TV5/Unis TV, whose mandate is to promote the Francophonie, all cultural communities combined,” she wrote.
Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Cogeco, Paul Beaudry also believes that the role requested by Natyf TV is already taken on by TV5 and OMNI. He also insists on the fact that diversity on the screen is already reflected in the regular programming of conventional televisions. “[Natyf] has failed to demonstrate that mandatory distribution — an extraordinary and exceptional measure used by the Commission sparingly — is justified in this instance”, he explained in English to the CRTC.
Quebecor Media, on behalf of Videotron, is also opposed to the channel's request, saying that Natyf TV does not meet the criteria and that the issuance of a mandatory distribution order would create a “dangerous precedent.” The company also assumes that other channels are already taking on the requested role.
“We respectfully submit that Natyf TV does not represent added value in Videotron's offer in terms of its programming and generates little interest for Videotron subscribers, which explains our refusal to distribute it in the past. [...] The inclusion of Natyf TV in the basic service seems all the more unjustified to us,” said Peggy Tabet, Vice President of Regulatory and Environmental Affairs at Québec-Québec in a brief submitted to the CRTC. Gold.
Supports
However, Natyf TV does not only have opponents. Several personalities and organizations have taken a stand in favor of his request.
Four municipal officials, including Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, the mayor of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, wrote to the CRTC to support her request.
“As the first black woman mayor of a borough in the city of Montreal, I share a common mission with Natyf TV: to offer a better representation of cultural communities in search of recognition,” she said in particular.
Several organizations and associations, including the Michaëlle Jean Foundation, the African Canadian Economic Federation (FACE) and the M.É.D.I.A Coalition, also supported the request, as did the businesswoman Fabienne Colas. “The realization of this project would offer the growing number of artisans from cultural diversity the opportunity to produce and broadcast quality content that is aimed at an audience seeking recognition and representation in media”, underlined in a joint letter Mylène Augustin and Joan Jenkinson, representing Black on Black Films and Le Bureau de l'Écran des Noirs respectively.
Co-founder of the Dynastie Foundation, Carla Beauvais uses her own experience to explain what the television channel can contribute. “Since the beginning of the Dynastie Gala in 2017, it has always been a dream for us to be broadcast. Over the past several years, we have made various approaches to all possible broadcasters, but so far, we have never had a positive response,” she reveals. A situation that will change this year, when the Gala will be broadcast on Natyf TV.
Ms. Beauvais believes that other producers are in the same situation and have a lot of difficulty getting broadcast. A member of various juries, including that of the Canada Media Fund, she is aware of the challenges that this poses. “When you have an attached broadcaster, it helps a lot in obtaining different sources of funding for TV or movie content. Often, people can't get to the stage of submitting their project because they don't have a broadcaster,” she says.
She also refutes the argument that other channels, including OMNI, already play the same role. “Other channels place a lot of emphasis on diversity, but not in French. The difference, with Natyf, is that it is a French-speaking channel. It's not a channel for immigrants who want to listen to content in Spanish, Creole, or Mandarin.”
A “vain” approach
A professor at the École des Médias de l'UQAM, Patrick White doubts that the approach taken by Natyf TV will allow him to obtain the expected results. “Obtaining mandatory distribution no longer means much in 2023, when many Canadians are unsubscribing from cable and migrating to streaming platforms,” he analyzes.
In his opinion, the channel should instead work on “another multiplatform strategy” in order to develop its audience. “There would be tangible benefits to having Natyf TV in the television industry, but there are already TFO, Radio-Canada, TV5 and Unis, which play a leading role among Francophones,” he adds.
The professor adds that the channel is “very little known”, which could work against him. “Unfortunately, the approach taken by Natyf TV to the CRTC to obtain the mandatory distribution of the channel seems to be in vain,” he believes.
The hope of the founder
Nevertheless, Mr. Roux, the founder and CEO of Natyf TV, is confident that his request will be accepted by the CRTC. “It's as if the stars were aligned right now. There are too many elements combined that make it obvious that the mandate we are asking for would be useful for Quebec society,” he confides.
If he is ever refused, he still plans to continue the development plan for his television channel to increase his audience. “Of course, without a license, we will not have certain resources. We will have to keep looking left and right to make a short stretch of road. It will be much more difficult to reach our development goals. Impossible, no, but more difficult,” he says.
A channel that is still young
It was in 2018 that the channel went on the air, first under the name CNVTV (for Channel New Victory), whose “inspirational content focused on the family and the spiritual” also included a place for cultural communities.
“During the first few months, we noticed that people could not fully understand our positioning and even had difficulty remembering the name of the channel. We had no choice but to do our homework again,” recalls Jean-Yves Roux, the founder and CEO of the channel.
After a long process, the name change to Natyf TV was formalized in January 2019, and the vocation of the channel was to focus on content dedicated to ethnic communities.
Most of the content currently broadcast on its airwaves is not Canadian, being imported in particular from Africa and France. “We have no choice but to operate like that. Our long-term goal is to develop local talent. But you need the financial resources to do it,” explains Mr. Roux. A situation that would be reversed if the CRTC approved the license change. Natyf TV wants to reorient its programming to serve “Black, Arab, Hispanic and South Asian communities in Quebec”. Various projects for this purpose are currently under development.