Canadians tired of being denied American Super Bowl ads will have their day.

Starting in 2017, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) will no longer allow broadcasters to substitute Canadian ads for the showier (and more popular) American commercials during the Super Bowl.

But while this announcement may cheer up Canadian viewers, it’s really just the start of big changes at the CRTC, as laid out in a speech on the future of television at the London Chamber of Commerce Thursday morning by CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais.

Blais heralded three major CRTC policies that stem from recent decisions regarding free television access, simultaneous submissions and perhaps most significantly, net neutrality.

CRTC is behind net neutrality

Perhaps the biggest outcome of Blais’ speech was his unequivocal endorsement of net neutrality — a principle that supports equal access to the internet unfettered by corporate interest.

Although the CRTC has had a policy supporting net neutrality for a while, it has been hands off — until now.

During his speech, Blais joined sides with Ben Klass, a graduate student who challenged the practices of large mobile-TV providers Bell and Vidéotron. In 2013, Klass complained to the CRTC that Bell (and later, Vidéotron) gave unfair preference to its own video content by letting users watch free while charging for the data used while watching YouTube.

Blais agrees. Although he applauded Bell and others’ attempts to innovate by offering new mobile TV services, he said it could not come at the expense of a fair playing field.

“When the impetus to innovate steps on the toes of the principle of fair and open access to content, we will intervene,” he said.

Klass, who spoke to the Star from his home in Ottawa, said that he’s “relieved” that the CRTC supports open and fair access for consumers. He said the next step is for the CRTC to apply these principles across the industry, including in its discussions on independent Internet service providers.

“I think it’s important that the commission going forward maintains this type of open approach in all aspects of its telecom decisions,” Klass said.

“It’s nice to see Blais invoke citizens and citizens’ rights to a high-quality internet,” said Dwayne Winseck, Klass’s PhD supervisor at Carleton University. “There will be no fast lanes or slow lanes.”

Jon Penney, a professor of law at Dalhousie University, said that it sounds like a small thing, but it will have huge impact.

“If you give them the power to essentially discriminate against the content that flows across its services, then you give them the power to extract additional costs from smaller operators,” he said, which will pass costs onto the consumer.

American ads during the Super Bowl

For many Canadians, simultaneous substitution — switching American signals for Canadian signals during commercial breaks — is the bane of the sporting season.

This is how it works:

The CRTC allows broadcasters who air American programming (such as CTV or Global) to request distributors (such as Bell or Rogers) to switch over to a Canadian signal during commercial breaks.

Broadcasters love this, because it keeps ad revenues in-house. Blais said simultaneous substitution is worth $250 million annually across the industry.

But Canadians hate it.

Slip-ups in signalling times can cause fans to miss the big play or overtime goal.

And what kind of democracy would deny its citizens the joys of “Wassup,” the Geico gecko or Ali Landry eating Doritos?

Blais said that while Canadians loathe it, the financial cost of ending simultaneous substitution altogether is too great. Instead, new regulations will hope to end some of its biggest annoyances.

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“It seemed that they’re looking for a compromise,” Penney said.

Starting in the 2016 football season (so the 2017 Super Bowl), simultaneous substitutions will be banned. It’s the only time during the year when broadcasters will not be allowed to request simultaneous substitution.

Furthermore, Blais said, the CRTC will adopt a “zero-tolerance approach to substantial mistakes.”

If the final touchdown gets cut off because the game ran long and the signal switches to commercial break too soon, broadcasters or distributors could be held responsible and forced to offer their customers a rebate.

“It looks like they are going to provide some teeth to the policies,” Penney said.

But how it will play out is still unknown. A CRTC spokesperson said what exactly the rebate will be, or how it will be applied, will be determined later in the year.

Over-the-air television will remain free

A strong sentiment that arose during the speech was the responsibility that television providers have to provide quality news and local programming to their viewers. In this vein, the CRTC decided to change its stance on free over-the-air-television.

Previously, the commission toyed with the idea of allowing local television stations to shut down transmitters that broadcast their signal over the airwaves for free.

But that didn’t go over well. In its survey of more than 13,000 Canadians, about 95 per cent of Canadians said that access to over-the-air television was important, Blais said.

Now the CRTC is committed to keeping these signals running, in part to keep large television corporations from closing down its local stations to cut costs.

“Media moguls are indeed allowed to be worried about profits, but both the public and private shareholders of broadcasting assets have a duty to ensure that news reporting and analysis continues to be properly funded,” Blais said.

Winseck said the decision is a win for Canadians.

“We expect you to do something with this,” Winseck said. “You’re expected to keep these suckers going, for the time being.”

Although local free programming is popular, Blais said over-the-air television can’t last forever.

“The future of television lies more toward viewer-centric, on-demand models than the scheduled broadcasts such as those provided by OTA,” he said in London.

“I get the sense that this is something they’ll return to again,” Penney said.

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