I was sent an email recently that was written by Mark Surman, Director of Telecentre.org, with the subject heading: Get involved: Help create new Community Media Foundation from CTV / CHUM merger. The gist of the email was an appeal to Canadian new media activists to lobby the feds to promote the idea that the merger of two of Canada’s largest online and broadcast content players should only be approved if accompanied by a commitment to invest substantially in community media in Canada. This is a great idea and should be supported. The email includes a form letter that you can personalize and instructions about how to send it to the CRTC. Hit me back and I’ll forward it to you if you are interested in learning more.

I think community media is in dire straits in Canada at present and that the CRTC has a responsibility to be proactive in addressing the profound lack of leadership in this area, particularly with regard to online content. One of the great incongruities of online macro-economics is the disincentive Canadian access players (i.e. cablecos and telcos who own Canada’s broadband infrastructure) have in investing in Canadian content. See, in radio and TV, there is a symbiotic relationship between content producers and content distributors. Without the artists and labels, radio cannot survive. And similarly, without TV producers, broadcasters can’t operate. But this basic interdependence breaks down in the online sphere, where the broadband ISPs can sell access to the entire www without feeling any impulse to invest in the creation of content. And by and large, they don’t. When it comes to creating Canadian content champions online, as we have done in music and TV and film, Rogers’ track record, dating back to the days of Wave, @Home and Excite all the way up to the present, is pitiful, dwarfed only by Bell’s brainless lethargy for pure backwardness and stultifying disinterest in Canadian content, community-driven media and p2p creativity.

8 years ago I created a non-profit called the Community Media Lab that produced a number of online projects with street kids and other young folks. Since then the void in this area has only become more and more obvious, and yet almost nothing is being done to address it. When Alan Rock’ $3.5 billion Telecommunications Highway initiative was disemboweled by Paul Martin we lost a huge opportunity. It wasn’t a good plan, containing a measly $50 million for community media, but it was a start. Today Canada is wasting its global competitive advantage as a multilingual, educated and supremely wired environment because of the failure to invest in those strengths. Community media is one important area in which Canada could easily become a global leader, but our complacency and greed is blinding us to the necessity and the opportunity to look ahead, look around and look within. But there’s still a chance to turn things around. Let’s see if we can’t use our networked power to inspire some movement at the political level.