In February 2013, my girlfriend and I sat in front of the TV and devoured the series House of Cards, in one go, 13 episodes in one weekend. We were in front of the TV, but the images we were watching did not come from a TV station. They came from a platform called Netflix. For us, as individuals, it made no difference. A good story is a good story. For us, as a people, it changed everything.
Quebec’s distinct society was forged around television. Every day, every evening, we spent time together. Nothing is more precious than time spent together. Artists, journalists, politicians, scientists, workers came to our house and we received them to our great delight.
We got information together. We laughed together. We cried together. We created a collective memory, mixing fiction and reality. Television was a link, the representation of who we were.
To protect it and regulate it, governments have established all kinds of rules, advantages and responsibilities. Since its invention, we have grasped the enormous power of this technology and we have worked to ensure that it serves people. Serving our culture. Serving our advancement.
When cable transmission allowed the multiplication of channels and access to American stations, we ensured that there was a redistribution of the sums collected in the local industry.
One would have thought that access to American channels, from the 1970s, would have repercussions on listening to local stations. Not really.
Because the French-speaking majority in Quebec prefers to watch TV in their language. Which is quite normal. All nations do the same.
Language was the ultimate protection of Quebec’s cultural industry. Stronger than any law or measure. Even with all their resources, NBC, ABC, CBS could not weaken our broadcasters.
Now, international platforms offer most of their content in several languages, including French. And that’s what changed everything. This is why Quebecers subscribe en masse to Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video. Before, to have access to stories in our language, it took TVA, Radio-Canada or Télé-Québec.
Now, that is no longer the case. I know that there are more and more people who follow their favorite soap operas in English, but the fact remains that the French offering of the giants has removed the last protective barrier.
Why did our leaders, who were able to ensure that the appearance of radio, then television, allow an expansion of national culture, not know how to do the same thing with the web?
They have not grasped the power of the beast. As if for them, the web was a gadget, a complement, a satellite, whereas it is the universe. They were completely overwhelmed. It was going too fast. Lack of vision? People from another era? Their carelessness leaves us behind today.
Without supervision, competition is unfair. Imagine a highway on which some cars have to obey the speed limit and others don’t. We know who will arrive last. It is not just the Quebec television industry that is threatened with disappearing, it is the Quebec identity itself that is in danger.
For decades, culture was the magic potion of our Asterix village. The magic potion has just changed sides. It’s the Romans who have it. We soon risk doing like the Romans.
Last night we set our watches back an hour. At 2 a.m., it was 1 a.m., simple as well. We should be able to move back the calendars by 10 years, so as not to find ourselves where we are today.
During this decade, the platforms have benefited so much from the all-you-can-eat buffet, have prospered so much, have taken up so much space, have created so many habits among consumers that controlling them, regulating them seems impossible. We can blame them, but it was up to us to assert ourselves.
The most determined will say that it is never too late. TRUE. It’s just that the standoff was already David against Goliath, it became David against 10 Goliaths.
Television will not die. The word TV comes from the Greek TV, which means far away, at a distance. See images that are far away. Whether we call it “platform” or “application”, it remains the same process. We see things that are not really in our face.
What is likely to happen is that we will see ourselves less and less in these images. That they will come from even further away. To the point of no longer recognizing ourselves there. And to abandon our difference in order to be able to resemble what we see there.
All my thoughts are with those whose immediate lives are turned upside down by the consequences of this announced crisis.
Government people, we have been telling you for 10 years: “Do what!” » Our TV needs vision.