Howard Stern’s show was a radio powerhouse in the 1990s. He gored sacred cows in the US and his shock jock style of performing changed the way morning radio shows were done around the world. While opponents tried their hardest to cancel him in the US, it only brought him attention and made his brand even more powerful. He crushed competing DJs across the USA and his show syndication seemed unstoppable. He absorbed fines for profanity from the FCC and just kept expanding his reach..Then he brought his show to Canada..In 1997, radio stations in Montreal and Toronto began broadcasting Stern’s show. Stern’s brand of humour which included everything from fart jokes to having women simulate orgasms over the air was welcomed by many listeners and reviled by others. The ratings and market share for both Canadian stations expanded quickly..Then Stern committed Canadian blasphemy. He made fun of Quebec..The reaction was immediate. Complaints from thin-skinned Quebecers flooded into the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council and to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC.) Stern was threatened with cancelation if he didn’t back down and in typical Stern fashion of the time, he offered a middle finger to Canadian regulators in response. Despite the high ratings, the radio stations hosting his show were forced to drop him under threats of CRTC action. He didn’t last long North of the border..In Canada, the concept of letting consumers decide what they want to watch or hear on their own isn’t considered a right. The Canadian way is to have the state carefully cultivate and control what citizens are exposed to and the CRTC is the arbiter of what is appropriate and is the enforcement arm of the government..The CRTC didn’t go after Stern himself as the content creator. They targeted the platforms that hosted him. They couldn’t make Stern shut up but they could pull the broadcast licenses for the stations that gave him airtime. Sound familiar yet?.The CRTC has long wanted to control the internet. The organization is authoritarian by nature and as the digital world of communication has expanded, the CRTC has desperately wanted to find a way to get the internet under its grasp. Bill C-11 from the Trudeau Liberals has given the CRTC the tool they sought..The CRTC is a dinosaur of an institution, but it has learned from past experiences..Canada has tens of thousands of content creators and many of them are saying things the government would rather they didn’t. It would be impossible to try to register and chase down all those creators though so the CRTC is doing the next best thing. They are going after the service providers..Podcast audiences can range anywhere from dozens to millions of people. One commonality among podcasters though is that they have their content hosted by large internet service providers. It’s the only way to attain broad reach and it saves the content creator from the technical investment of self-hosting. If a podcaster loses hosting services, the podcast dies on the vine..Liberal apologists are dismissing the latest regulations from the CRTC demanding streaming hosts register with them as being irrelevant because it only applies to hosts with over $10 million in revenue. This is true..The problem is, almost every podcaster is dependent on being hosted by those large providers. If the provider is later compelled to regulate the content of the creators, there will be little either party could do to stop it. If the platform has its license pulled, it could be blocked from broadcasting in Canada. If the creator loses his or her platform, they are out of luck too..My show is already under CRTC regulations as it is broadcast on cable channels. A large portion of our audience finds the show through streaming services though such as Spotify, Rumble, iTunes etc. If the Western Standard lost the ability to put content on those platforms, my show would be finished..The new regulations from the CRTC puts streaming services under their thumb and puts the job of policing content into the lap of the platforms. It’s an insidious, backdoor way to control content..What problem is being solved with these new regulations?.How have unregulated podcasters and streamers disrupted society so much they need government control of their content?.Independent content producers haven’t disrupted society at all of course. They have, however, been a thorn in the government’s side as they will focus on issues that subsidized legacy media outlets are afraid to. The government can’t buy the love of independent media as it has with legacy media so it is resorting to trying to control it instead..The government’s attempt to shake down Meta and Google with Bill C-18 backfired and harmed Canadian media. Their attempts to control content through Bill C-11 and the CRTC may succeed though and the loss of freedom could be immeasurable..The Trudeau Liberals have always had an authoritarian streak and this latest move isn’t surprising. It’s terribly dangerous though. These sorts of controls can be difficult to remove even when governments change..Canadians need to stand up to this creeping control of their ability to communicate while they still can..Rest assured; a registry is just the beginning.
