By Slava Levin and Hari Srinivas
If you have a VCR in 2019, it’s likely gathering dust on a shelf. There’s nothing wrong with it. It still does the same job it always did. But today we live in a streaming, on-demand world. The relentless drive of progress has turned your perfectly good VCR into a museum piece.
That’s how innovation works. It disrupts. Sometimes, that disruption can be messy. But it gives us solutions that actually meet customers’ needs. And they will take the better option every time, by voting with their feet – and their pocketbooks.
Both of us understand this very well. We’re innovators and entrepreneurs. We thrive on bringing new ideas to our customers. Through our company, Ethnic Channels Group, we pioneered delivering television signals over the internet (IPTV) years before Bell and Rogers introduced Fibe and Ignite.
From our headquarters in Markham, we use IPTV to deliver multi-ethnic programming faster and at lower cost than many people in the industry ever thought possible. Today, Ethnic Channels Group is the largest distributor of multi-ethnic television in Canada. Our technology is the backbone of the ethnic television packages offered by Rogers, Bell and Shaw. Without us, Canadians would not have the ethnic television choices available to them today.
So, we know ethnic television. We understand the crucial role it plays in helping new Canadians integrate and succeed in this country while maintaining a connection to where they’re from. And new Canadians aren’t just an important audience, they’re a large one: equivalent to the population of Quebec. For all those reasons, we strongly believe that now is the time to take ethnic television in Canada to the next level.
For years, Canadian television consumers have only really had one multilingual television brand to choose from: OMNI. OMNI Television broadcasts third-language (in other words, non-English or French) programming across Canada under a mandatory-carriage license. That means that every cable and satellite provider in Canada carries it, and every customer gets it. You could say OMNI TV is omnipresent.
There’s no question that OMNI has played a groundbreaking role in delivering television to a multiethnic audience over the past several decades. But OMNI is based on an outdated model. Programs in languages like Cantonese, Mandarin and Punjabi get preferential, prime-time placement on OMNI’s schedule. Other languages get relegated to off-hour timeslots and lesser airtime.
Today, OMNI is just like your old VCR in our on-demand, streaming world. It still does the job it was designed to do. But is there a better option?
The issue is up for discussion today because – right now – the CRTC is considering new applications for the mandatory-carriage license now held by OMNI’s owner, Rogers. To be fully transparent, we have submitted our own application for that license, for a new service called Voices.
Voices is unlike any kind of multi-ethnic television service Canadians have ever seen – or heard. It will deliver multi-ethnic programming in ten languages, through simultaneous translation, for 55 hours a week. The languages will be chosen based on what the data tells us are the ten most-spoken third languages in Canadian homes. And ten is just in the first year – the number of languages carried on Voices will grow to 25 after three years.
Voices is built on the same technology that CBC uses to broadcast Hockey Night in Canada in Punjabi.
Indian broadcasters have delivered a similar service for years now. What we’re proposing isn’t a radical technological change. It’s just a more effective use of tools we already have to create a better viewing experience for Canadians – have one of the most diverse viewerships in the world. It is a viewership that is, in our view and the view of many others, being underserved by the status quo.
Our competitors don’t want to change the way we deliver multi-ethnic television. If it isn’t broken, they’d argue, why fix it? Frankly, that’s an argument VCR manufacturers would have agreed with. History shows us that Canada’s major media companies do not embrace change.
As entrepreneurs and innovators, we thrive on change. We embrace it, and pursue it relentlessly, because change is how we drive progress. And in the end, it is Canadian TV viewers who benefit.
As broadcasters privileged with work in this great country, under license from the Federal government and on behalf of the Canadian people, delivering the best possible product is – and should always remain – our highest priority.
(Slava Levin is the Chief Executive Officer of Markham-based Ethnic Channels Group. Hari Srinivas is the President. Learn more about Voices at www.voicestv.ca)

Caregivers who came to Canada to provide care to Canadian families, in the hope of eventually transitioning to becoming a permanent residents should apply to the Interim Pathway for Caregivers (IPC).
Caregivers who have been working in Canada temporarily but who have not qualified for any other current caregiver program are encouraged to review the criteria and begin working on their applications so that they don’t miss the June 4 deadline.
Criteria of the IPC include:
• a valid work permit
•1 year of work experience as a home childcare provider or home support worker, or a combination of experience in both occupations
• a minimum Canadian Language Benchmark 5 level in reading, writing, listening and speaking in English or French
• a foreign equivalent or Canadian high school diploma
• If you can’t get your Educational Credential Assessment before the deadline, you must provide proof that you’ve applied to get one
• If you can't get your language test results in time before the deadline, you must show proof of an appointment to take the test along with the date
Applications for permanent residence through the IPC will be processed in 12 months and there is no cap on the number of caregivers, with their spouses/common-law partners and dependent children, who will be accepted.
“Caregivers came to Canada to provide care to families that need it, and it’s time for Canada to care for them in return. To demonstrate our commitment, we are finally providing them and their family members the opportunity to apply to become permanent residents.” (Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship)

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