When Stéphane Venne composed his memorable song Children of the future, YouTube didn’t exist yet. Nobody could imagine it.
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Today, the giant Alphabet subsidiary is viewed by more than two billion people every month, including hundreds of millions of children and teenagers. YouTube videos speak 80 languages and “inhabit” a hundred countries, including Quebec. Even as a child, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren would turn on YouTube as soon as they entered my house. You travel on this platform with your eyes closed.
YOOPA is YouTube’s latest victim. Last Monday, TVA announced that its specialty channel for young children would be shutting down in January. She will have lived 13 years. A teenager! On October 1st it was VRAK that gave up the ghost. Originally designed for young people, VRAK soon abandoned it to target young adults and then older ones. In the end, the average age of the VRAK’s “young people” was 46 years! This did not prevent him from dying at the age of 20.
Radio-Canada, whose many children’s programs are still remembered by older viewers, has long almost abandoned its audience of young people and children. Against all reason, the public broadcaster has chosen to “grow old” with an audience that it is trying to rejuvenate, but without much success.
TÉLÉ-QUÉBEC is squeaking
It remains Télé-Québec. But there is a creak there too. Money is running out, young viewers are also running out and since it is forbidden to sell advertising to them, the temptation to ignore young people grows every year.
To do the right thing and silence parents who complained about advertising in children’s programs, the Quebec government banned them in 1978 for all programs aimed at children under 13. Whatever the ad is! Almost all parents welcomed the ban, but YouTube did not yet exist.
The offspring of Alphabet, Netflix, Disney and the rest appeared and changed the game. Their resources are unlimited compared to those of Canadian and Quebec broadcasters, although our producers benefit from generous tax credits and receive tens of millions each year from the Canada Media Fund.
IF WE CHANGE THE LAW?
The Quebec government has granted Télé-Québec an additional 100 million over five years to allow its public broadcaster to invest more in children’s programming. Why shouldn’t Quebec take another step and amend its consumer protection law that bans commercial advertising to children under 13? It is the only law of its kind in the country. A weakening would hardly bother our children, who are already full of advertising everywhere. Neither YouTube nor Disney and Co. have a moral obligation to do this.
Not long ago, the death of VRAK and the announced death of YOOPA, both of which still had over half a million subscribers, would have caused an outcry. Without going unnoticed, their disappearance does not cause much uproar. Are we supposed to believe that our television will die in the face of general indifference?
The children of the future that Isabelle Pierre sang with so much enthusiasm will not have known Bobino, Monsieur Surprise or Passepartout. The little Quebecers of today who are attached to YouTube, Disney and Co. will be culturally stateless people tomorrow.
