Digital Content Initiative (DCI) Report – October 2015

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Since last fall, the Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) has made many more con­nec­tions and has been build­ing the pro­gram. By July 2015 we fin­ished work on the final­ized, detailed pro­gram that we will be pre­sent­ing to our var­i­ous fun­ders late this fall, 2015. Fun­ders do not fund just “an idea,” they want to see very spe­cif­ic details. So, this ground­work was essen­tial in order to pro­vide a very con­crete, fund­able pro­pos­al with pro­gram cri­te­ria, fund­ing struc­tures, draft bud­gets, and more. This work is done.

We had detailed pro­gram­ming meet­ings with part­ners in both Mon­tre­al and Toron­to, fine-tun­ing the Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion and get­ting gen­er­al feed back on our project. The Cana­da Coun­cil invit­ed Tim Brady to the Classical:NEXT con­fer­ence, May 2015 in Rot­ter­dam, to give a pre­sen­ta­tion on the project. Sev­er­al of the con­fer­ence del­e­gates were very inter­est­ed in the project, and we are main­tain­ing these inter­na­tion­al connections.

In July 2015, Tim Brady was also invit­ed to present the project at the Banff Opera Col­lo­qui­um (orga­nized by Opera.ca). The opera com­mu­ni­ty is very keen on this idea, though their pri­ma­ry tech­ni­cal prob­lem is a very rigid Actor’s Equi­ty Union and this will make it very dif­fi­cult for Opera to work with us. But they will try! In gen­er­al, the Cana­di­an Fed­er­a­tion of Musi­cians sup­ports this project, and has a very rea­son­able under­stand­ing of the eco­nom­ic of the spe­cialised music sector.

In July 2016, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the DCI met with both Cana­di­an Her­itage and the Cana­di­an Radio-tele­vi­sion and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion (CRTC) about the project.

The Cana­di­an Her­itage meet­ing was quite pos­i­tive (a bet­ter tone than the meet­ing 2.5 years ago which set this process going!). They seem to have a bet­ter grasp of the sit­u­a­tion, and the ero­sion at CBC /RSC is now ultra-clear to every­one. But – we are in an elec­tion peri­od – there are NO new gov­ern­ment pro­grams what­so­ev­er being dis­cussed until after Octo­ber 19th. Our strat­e­gy will change con­sid­er­ably, depend­ing on who is in pow­er after the 19th, but we will con­tin­ue, regardless.

The CRTC meet­ing in July was very suc­cess­ful. We need­ed the CRTC to approve our pro­gram for the Cana­di­an Con­tent Devel­op­ment Tax Cred­its: this is the only way to get pri­vate mon­ey, if broad­cast­ers can get tax cred­its by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the DCI. Broad­cast­ers are oblig­ed to spend a cer­tain amount on Cana­di­an con­tent devel­op­ment – by law. The CRTC loved the pro­gram, and we have the offi­cial let­ter of tax accred­i­ta­tion for the project.

In the inter­im, we con­tin­ue to do more research, to estab­lish a sense of the eco­nom­ic impact of spe­cial­ized music in Cana­da (larg­er than you think!) and to make com­par­isons with music dis­sem­i­na­tion and sup­port amongst oth­er G7 coun­tries (as you can imag­ine, Cana­da is very near the bot­tom). This research will be impor­tant for our upcom­ing meetings.

This month (Octo­ber), we begin set­ting appoint­ments with pri­vate fun­ders to present the pro­pos­al and, soon after the elec­tion, we return to our dis­cus­sion with Cana­di­an Her­itage. This is still a very big, very ambi­tious project, but CNMN is seen as play­ing the crit­i­cal, lead­er­ship role in this all-impor­tant com­mu­ni­ty project.

I have no idea where this will go, but so far the jour­ney has been very inter­est­ing and use­ful in terms of build­ing a com­mon cause. Octo­ber 19th….we’ll see!

Tim Brady – Octo­ber 2015 

Tim Brady

Please con­tact Tim Brady for more information
tim@timbrady.ca

Read past bul­letin entries from this committee:
Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report – May 2015 – 20th edition
Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Study: The Ben­e­fits of Musi­cal Cre­ation – 20th edition
Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report – Dec 2014 – 19th edition
Spe­cialised Music Dig­i­tal Con­tent Cre­ation Project – 18th edition

 

Direct link: Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report – Octo­ber 2015
Return to full Bul­letin – Octo­ber 2015