Well, hello. Following on from my previous video, why I'm pivoting my own art, I wanted to share what I'm going to be doing differently in 2023 in terms of my art, my business and a little exciting project in my personal life as well. Now if you watched and completed your art business review and you got my free download as well that gave you the annual art business review form, then you'll likely realise having gone through that process of looking what worked and what didn't work in this previous year, that you might need to be making some changes in the next year. Remember that phrase, what got you here won't get you there? Well, I'm going to be sharing three things that I'll be doing differently next year as a direct result of doing that very exercise. Before I share those three things I'm going to be doing differently, make sure to stay to the very end because I'm going to be sharing a crazy project that I'll be doing in my personal life that's going to run alongside my art and my business and I want to make sure that you don't miss out on the opportunity of following that as well if you would like to. All right, are we ready to dive into those three things I'm going to be doing differently next year. Number one, I'm going to be growing my online membership. Now if you've been watching for a while, you'll know that I have an online course, a building artist business plan, a membership, the art business academy and I also offer occasionally some one-to-one art business coaching. Now up until now with the membership, the art business academy, we focused solely on content and routine. We focused on building out our art business success path, which are the six steps that sit underneath the membership and take you from total beginner with no business right the way through to running your dream profitable art business and all the steps that you need to take along the way. And it's been quite a project, let me tell you, but the feedback from current members is that it's been definitely worth our time, energy and effort of putting together the content and getting those steps in the right order and of course each and every month to make sure that we're delivering high quality new content, the new training, the new downloads, the question and answer session that the members get and of course the most popular item the group coaching. It's been quite a lot of work getting all the pieces to kind of flow together so it's taken a lot of time energy and effort to get it to where it is today and now we are in phase two and phase two it's all about welcoming in many many many new members. So my objective for next year is 100 percent what I've been teaching already and that is to focus on building out and of course engaging with a quality mailing list so my intention is going to be to grow the existing list I have already and continue with that routine that I've set up and I would suggest the same for you no matter how you structure your art business one of your core focuses is going to be growing a mailing list so you can watch and see how I'm going to be doing that over the course of the next 12 months. Of course I have plenty of resources too so I will list the videos and the free mailing list challenge that you can join as well below this video. The second thing I'm going to be doing differently next year is building a solid painting routine now this is definitely something that's only just recently become a must do again so I'm super super excited about that. So since permanently taking on three studio rooms and zoning them for different areas so for example at the moment I am sitting in the front room which is closest to the road and warmest for those of you who live in Australia you'll understand that this is the painting zone and across the corridor I have more of an office an artsy office and then I have a store and kind of making dirty rooms if I need to sand anything or saw something or glue and stick or cut and just make a general mess then I have a big storage and mess zone down there and of course if you watched my previous video how I pivoted my art you'll understand that I have now really stepped into the new version of my thing my art style so of course I'm really excited just to paint at every opportunity so creating that solid routine whereby I come down here in the morning for an hour or two every day and just get the painting done is something that's going to really hold me in good stead for all of next year and beyond. So before this on the art journey I was still exploring trying new things and kind of in that transition from what I done before which is kind of down there you can sort of see a corner of it in this video I think to what I'm doing now which you can't see because it's the other side of the camera but I was not putting real energy in time and building a collection and selling it right and so this is what's new and different for me I'm very excited to be in a place where I feel happy to be out doing that again so that's going to be my second thing I'm doing differently in 2023 and the third thing I'm going to be doing differently is I'm going to be setting up a new standalone art business so now down to the nitty gritty this is the making the money from the art this is the bit that you are likely watching my videos for it's like come on Sophie how do I make the money I know I see the stats I know which videos you watch the most I know why you're here and I totally get it so I'm going to be very transparent as I head out on my journey next year so the very first thing I did drumroll of course I created my own separate new business plan and all of you were nodding and holding on to your business plans aren't you because you've likely got all of those done or you're finishing them off ready for the beginning of next year and in that process I realized of course that my major weakness was my lack of available time to put into the new business you know I have an existing training business and I have that project next year that I'll be coming to at the very end of the video so my time to start this new business is very very limited so therefore I had to look up well how could I design the business in such a way that time wasn't quite such an issue for me so I came up with a kind of obvious solution really I had three different ways that I could structure the business that came to me obviously one is I could take the originals and create products off the originals so therefore I needed less originals and I could have all these byproducts print on demand or drop shipping prints etc etc now I don't actually really want to do that because one of the other main aims is to have less time on the computer so I decided option A not for me option B of course is to create a service with that business now I already have a service-based business so I didn't really want to focus on yet another service-based business or option number three which is what I've gone for while I need to sell somebody else's artwork right so from there my new art business idea was born so remember how I'm also always teaching you how to be super super clear on who your audience are because remember we cannot target everybody we need to niche down we need to create a niche we need to define that audience so my audience is simple they're going to be business owners so small to medium-sized enterprises or even larger corporates so I'll be offering high quality original art of WA by local artists to enhance your working space now if you'd like to follow my journey as I set up and build that business then don't forget to subscribe to this channel because I will be creating a new playlist specifically for the growth of how I structure and grow what's basically an arts agency business starting next year now in a minute I'm going to share with you that crazy project and you'll understand why this will be a fairly slow start and in fact I might not start it till the middle of next year I might not launch it officially until the middle of next year because of a few other things that are going on now isn't this amazing because without a business plan I wouldn't have worked any of that out right I would have maybe said to myself do you know what I need to sell more of my art next year so I'm going to you know find some local people to sell to I'll have an exhibition I'll do this I'll do that and very quickly I could have become overwhelmed because one of my challenges is I don't have so much available time because I'm already running a training business now if I hadn't done the plan I wouldn't have come up with what I think is a super brilliant idea and I'm not only going to be able to build a business for myself but I'm also going to be able to build and support local artists in this area to grow their businesses as well so for me it feels like a win-win and then we're going to enhance walls of local businesses in this Perth area so I feel like it's a win-win-win win-win-win so if he's going to win local artists are going to win and local businesses are going to win so what a great business to build so I'm super excited and like I say don't forget to hit the subscribe button so that you can follow my progress okay drumroll here it is and I hear you say so what is this crazy project you're doing next year Sophie in a couple of days time my partner and I are going to get keys to a property that we've bought locally now the caveat is that probably needs to come down we are going to build our dream home where that property stood so next year we're going to be building a house and it's going to take a while obviously because house building takes a while luckily for me though guess what my partner does for a living he runs a high turnover building company and so it has already designed or we have together already designed the house that we want and so bit by bit alongside him running his business my me running my businesses we're going to be building that house step by step now I know that a lot of you are probably sitting in the nosy camp where I would be sitting if I were watching you with this video and I'd be like I want to see that process I want to watch when you smash down the original house and build a new one right who wouldn't want to see that because you can bet your bottom dollar I am going to be time-lapsing videoing doing all the things every single step of that house built now it doesn't feel appropriate in any way shape or form to put those videos on this YouTube channel because that's not what it's here for so I haven't yet decided whether I'll start a second channel or whether I'll simply put all of it on Instagram but I will let you know don't worry if you want to watch the exact journey of demolishing it's kind of a cute house but it's in a really bad state and it was built a very long time ago it's definitely not renovatable we are going to knock that down and build another one if you want to watch that process then you want to make sure that you are in the place that I'm going to share that and like I say I will let you know so to sum things up next year looks like this number one we've got to put our existing house on the market and sell it number two we have to find somewhere to live whilst we build the new house number three I've got an existing business to run number four I am going to start that new business but you can understand why that won't be happening initially I'm also going to be painting as well oh and my youngest daughter's getting married so we're also going to Europe for that so there's an awful lot of different things all up in the mix next year's going to require a few different things it's going to require discipline it's going to require planning it's probably going to require some patience and it's definitely going to require some self-care time some health routines as well sort of follow how I do all of that make sure that you are following me here on YouTube and over on my Instagram as well thank you so much for watching I hope you're inspired to make your 2023 absolutely incredible and if you're watching this at the time that it's came out comes out then have an amazing Christmas and New Year and I look forward to beaming in through your phone or laptop with more exciting videos from next year so take care everybody thanks so much for watching bye bye


If you grew up in Parma in the mid 60s to late 2000s, you likely knew of Parma Town Mall, with its bright blue entrances, old brick facade, and overall creepiness. And of course, you knew of Robert Parma III. You probably saw him around the mall at some point.  If you couldn't guess, he was the owner of the mall. While the public generally thought of him as a good-natured, outgoing fellow, he had a darker side. A side only I and a few others knew about. A side which the public wasn't supposed to see. I started working at Parma Town in 2005. I was hired at the Santa display as an elf, but was kept after the holiday season ended. I worked in the food court for a while, then finally ended up at Hot Topic. The job was fine, but there was one condition. All employees had to be out by 1130, even if the work wasn't done. I was confused at first, but quickly got used to it. I lived in a small apartment right across the street anyway, so it's not like I had a long commute home. Now, by 2017, Parma Town had become what one could consider a dead mall. We had fewer and fewer stores every month or so, and there was even talk of demolishing the mall. I'd asked my manager, John, what he thought of the plans, and he just glanced at a security camera and shook his head. I got the impression something was up, and on my lunch I couldn't help but notice that Robert was walking around the food court more than usual.  Today, he walked around three times and then left. The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure he was watching me the whole time. That was odd and all, but I didn't think too much of it and did my work, then went home as usual at 1130. The next morning, as I walked into the mall, I noticed that there was now a store closing banner above the boarder's books. The sign read, final two days. Final two days. Were they moving out that quickly? I walked inside and instantly encountered their manager, Mitch. He was staring at the closing banner with the expression of someone watching a loved one die. No. No. No. Please, no. He muttered. I asked him why they were moving out so quickly, and he just dropped his gaze, muttered, rent, and sprinted to the back. That day, since we didn't have a single customer, which was typical, I just watched the boarder store, wondering why on earth they only had two days to leave. They were one of the only stores that could draw customers. It wasn't hard, considering it was right across the hall from us. Mitch just stood behind the desk, and I could tell he was terrified. He didn't move the entire shift, not even to use the bathroom or during lunch break. Robert was doing his march, but today he wouldn't leave borders. For eight hours, just back and forth, Cain twirling, hat with the button gleaming. I wondered, could Robert be up to something? The idea certainly sounded possible, with the way he'd followed me through the food court yesterday, and the fact that his entire march now focused on one store. Even again, he might be trying to attract people to the store in its final days. That's the problem with working in a dead mall. Every thought has tons of time to manifest, and by the end, it can be hard to figure out what's plausible or not. The next day, it was the exact same thing. Mitch stared out at the front of his store terrified, and Robert marched on. The constant thump, thump, thump of his footsteps look, and an almost sinister tone. That night, I left work as normal at 11.30. When I got to my apartment, I reached for my key. And then I realized I'd left my key chain in the back room of Hot Topic.  I walked out to the parking lot, and stared at Parma Town, the darkness making it feel creepier than usual. I remember, all employees must be out by 11.30. Robert's voice boomed in my hand. I shook it off, rationalizing that this was a perfectly valid reason to break the rule. After all, I had to get into my apartment, didn't I? I hurried across the street, and walked up to the main entrance. It was locked, no surprise there. Thinking quickly, I hurried around the back of the mall to the rear entrance. This one was also locked. Now slightly worried I wouldn't be able to get in, and thus not be able to get into my apartment, I raced around to the third entrance to the mall. Approaching the glass entry, I thought, if this one's locked, break a window. It's an emergency. Thankfully, I didn't have to break any windows. The door opened with ease. Relief setting in, I made my way to Hot Topic.  Throw in the fact the building was pitch black, save for the glowing exit signs, and this was by far the creepiest place I'd ever been. I was able to recover my key without issue, and was turning to leave, when I heard a low hum coming from the central court. A moment later, footsteps echoed through the mall. I figured I'd see what was going on, but told myself I'd run if it was a burglar. Slowly, ducking behind fake trees, I made my way over. I could see soft lights coming from the area, which I assumed were the emergency lights. Before I could make it to the court, I stopped dead in my tracks. Standing around the large tile compass on the floor were eight hooded figures, two on each point. The low hum I realized came from them. Candles lined each point, circling around the central point. I had no idea what this was, but I knew I had to avoid being spotted, so I ducked under an open store grate. The humming stopped, and a large hooded figure stepped forth from the shadows. I had a feeling I knew who it was, and it was confirmed when he began to speak. For fifty-two years, it has been our town. For infinity, it will be our town. Tonight, we cleanse our town. Robert said. He, along with all the others in the group, slipped their hoods off. It took everything in me not to gasp. I recognized each of them. Christy, the manager of FYE, Ted, the manager of Bath and Body, one person for each store in the mall, and most importantly, John, my manager. The others began to chant in unison, cleanse our town, cleanse our town. Tonight, one of us failed to do our parts to cleanse our town. The law of Parma states plainly. Robert paused to pull a scroll out from under his robe.  Let us cut away the dead roots, so the tree of Parma town may flourish.  The group chanted, we must not lose sight of our future. This town must thrive. Robert put the scroll away and turned to face the moon glowing through the skylight. Bring him forth, Robert bellowed. Let him face his actions. Cut away dead roots.  Why was nobody doing anything about this? I was about to sneak out from under the grate when two people pushed a third forth. It was Mitch, the boarder's manager. I was scared to even breathe as I watched what happened next. The two figures pushed Mitch onto the ground and kneeled on his arms to keep him down. A third stood on his knees, immobilizing him. Mitch struggled and began to speak when one of the figures placed a rag in his mouth. Robert stepped forth, his my town cane raised over Mitch's chest. Mitchell Chaplin, you have failed in your mission to prove yourself useful to our town. For this, you must allow your life to seep into the walls of Palma town so she may prosper. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what was about to happen, but I couldn't look away. Not as the cane came down, as the end impaled itself in Mitch's chest, nor could I look away as several more blows occurred. When Mitch's muffled cries of pain had ended, Robert reached into his robe and pulled out a small jar. He scooped some of Mitch's blood into it and carried it over to the fountain that stood in the center of the court. Oh Palma town, accept this offering so that you may live long. Accept this offering so that you may remain most blessed forever. Hear us, oh Palma, hear us. He poured some of the blood in, and that was when I'd seen enough. Without caring about being seen, I sprinted out of the area. The empty hallways seemed like a labyrinth. Every mannequin seemed like it would start running at me. I don't remember anything after that, save for smashing through the main entrance and slamming my head. All I know is that was years ago. Palma town is long gone, demolished to make way for a hotel. The reason I wrote this down is I think they're back. In this hospital, the Palma town cult. Because at night, I hear a faint voice whispering, it's my heart of town, the one, and only Palma town.


Hi, my name is Friedar Nandekrishnan. I'm an associate professor of Geosciences at Penn State University. Let me give you a short bio, a little bit of background about myself. I first went to Antarctica, gosh, almost 30 years ago in 1985. It was the first time I went down. I went down just as a worker on a project with some other folks that were studying these glaciers. I just went there to look around and to help out on the project. I was captivated by the really stark and uncompromising beauty of the continent and I decided I want to study this. Over the years I discovered that not only was it personally fulfilling because I was working in a beautiful place, but it was also important for the rest of the planet. What happens in Antarctica doesn't just stay in Antarctica. It actually comes out and affects the rest of us here. And I've enjoyed very much being a part of that search.


Are we slaves? Is it the modern life? Life has become so much better because of reform. The solution is only consciousness. There is no other way. In the era of democratization of technology, innovation, smartphone, internet, social media, we are becoming more and more dependent on all of those tools. I am one of them. They are as important today as food, as water, as breath, as air. I'm sorry for the question.  Are we slaves? Is it the modern life, modern life slavery for you? No, I don't see it that way. Even if you were a caveman, you would carry a stick in your hand. You would never keep the stick down because it was necessary. Maybe there was a snake, maybe there was an animal, maybe there was something else. Always a stick. Today you're carrying a cell phone. I don't see any difference. That stick was useful at that time. This phone is useful now. Now, this is technology which has enabled us to do so many things. I remember 25 years ago, 30 years ago, when I was building the foundation, you know, I had to go into those both with a black phone and make 100, 200 calls at a time. Today if I just think about it, my phone calls. All right.  So life has become so much better because of a phone. But now people are in a state of compulsiveness. Anything you give, they are so compulsive, they make it into suffering. Compulsive eating, compulsive drinking, compulsive everything. So the problem is not phone, problem is not something else. Compulsiveness is the problem. The solution is only consciousness. There is no other way. And controlling ourselves. No, not controlling. Becoming conscious. If you become conscious, you're liberated, not controlled.


Good morning to everyone connecting from BC. Good afternoon to our panelists connecting from the Eastern Canada and Europe. Warm welcome to the webinar, what you need to know to export BC grown cherries to the EU and UK markets. My name is Dana Drost. I'm manager in the trade policy and negotiations branch, BC Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation. I'm joined today by my colleague Benjamin Poliznik, senior manager in the same branch who will be assisting us with the tech and Q&A session. So before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge that I'm speaking today from the territories of the Likwungen speaking peoples, the Esquimalt and some Geese First Nations. And I'm thankful you're able to attend today from the territories and communities in which you leave work and play. Our today's webinar will focus on the expert requirements for cherries grown in BC and shipped to the European Union and British markets for the current season. We are very fortunate to be joined today by several experts in the field from the several federal government departments as well as trade commissioners on the ground. I'll do a quick intro now. Cara Smith, Acting Deputy Director at the International Affairs Branch, Market Access Secretariat, Charlene Green, Horticulture Market Access Specialist with Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Lynne Fortein, Agricultural Chancellor at the Canadian Mission to the European Union, Yannick Daly, Trade Commissioner at the Embassy of Canada to France, and Paul Envericove, Senior Policy Analyst with Pest Management Regulatory Agency of Canada. Dear panelists, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule today for joining this session.  So the webinar will last approximately one hour and there will be three presentations. We will start with a short intro into the Canada-European Union Free Trade Agreement and why the EU-UK markets matter for BC Cherry Industry. We'll then move to a quick presentation on the pest of concerns for the EU and systems approach before we dive into the details of maximum residue limits for the European and UK markets. So these three presentations will be delivered by Cara, Charlene and I, and the last approximately 30 minutes. We have reserved 30 minutes for Q&A session after presentations and please use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen to raise questions and you may ask those throughout the event. Please be as specific as you can and if possible also indicate who you are directing your question to. Yannick from the Embassy of Canada to France can be with us until 9.40 Pacific time so we'll give him a chance to go first. So the session will be recorded and presentations will be made available in a post-event email and if you experience problems with audio or other technical issues, please send in a message using the chat function below and direct it either to Ben or myself. So let's start with the Canada EU comprehensive economic and trade agreement CETA and CETA is Canada's most ambitious trade agreement and it covers a lot of sectors and aspects of trade. It eliminates trade barriers between Canada and the European Union. So the EU is the world's largest single market and largest integrated economy. It is market of approximately 440 million consumers and accounts for over 25 trillion dollars in GDP. CETA has been provisionally enforced since September 2017 and what this means is that most of the agreement about 95% is in effect. Canada and the EU will bring CETA into full force once each EU member ratifies it. So far 15 out of 27 EU member states have ratified it. So the EU is a valuable market for BC cherries and a number of BC exporters have taken advantage of it in the recent years and the value of BC cherry expert to the EU varied from 1.5 to over 2 million dollars per year since the CETA entry into force. So CETA helps to increase the experts of BC cherries and makes them cheaper in the EU market by eliminating the ad valorem component of customs tariffs. Canadian cherries are subject to minimum entry price per 100 kilos only if their price is lower than the minimum entry price set out by the EU authorities that varies by season. To claim the preferential tariff under the CETA it is important to certify the Canadian origin of your cherries and you can see the specific wording on this slide with the phrase that the exporter of the product is covered by these documents. So there are some caveats and CETA of course is not a magic one to all trade issues. For example the process of recognition of general of regional conditions for plant pests under the CETA is still not finalized and will be agreed at a later date at least when it comes to cherries. And also CETA does not regulate the control of pesticide residues in plant product intended for human consumption but I'll stop here and let Charlotte and Carla and Cara tell you more about it. So I just wanted to say a couple of things on the UK market. You might have heard that the United Kingdom left the European Union and the CETA stopped applying to the UK market since January 1st this year but since April 1st trade continuity agreement between Canada and the UK entered into force and this trade continuity agreement is not a new and not a brand new trade agreement and it essentially rolls over CETA's benefits and this role is to maintain the CETA benefit while Canada and the UK negotiate a new proper trade agreement. So what does the Brexit mean for BC cherries? Well it also means that there are no tariffs on cherries which is a good thing. The rules of origin provisions are the same as under the CETA but you need to fill in an origin declaration instead of the CETA certificate of origin and you can follow the embedded link in the presentation to find out more. So from January 1st 2021 an independent pesticide regulatory regime is in operation in Great Britain which is England, Scotland and Wales and the new decisions taken under the new regime will no longer apply in Great Britain and this includes the active substances and maximum residue level decisions and any new plant protection products legislation and it is important to note that the Great Britain sets MRLs based on their own assessment but all existing new MRLs remain valid until they are amended. So last but not least here is the website where you can contact the single window agri-food trade services and ask to address market issues or barriers that block your products from certain markets. You can also get the information about latest senator and fit a senator measures, tariffs, labeling requirements and other similar rules that can affect your potential expert of Canadian cherries to other markets and you might also think that others probably experience already the same barrier and have already raised it but that's not necessarily true and the government wants to get the additional information from you the additional details and to know that there are more businesses that affect it so we strongly encourage you to use this service. And here is my last slide with the contact details and if you only take one thing away from this presentation I hope that if you have any questions about the CETA or Canada UK trade agreement or any other Canada trade agreements or how to use them you can get in touch with us and we also have managers for agri-food in our division Adriana and Sebastian who will be happy to to assist you should you have any questions or interest in specific markets and you'll find their content details on this slide as well. So with this I now pass it over to Charlene Green from the Canadian food inspection agency for her update. Charlene, over to you. Thank you Ghana. Okay if you can go to the next slide. All right so I'm just going to do a brief overview I'm not going to get into too many details but the the pest of concern to the European Union are cherry fruit worm and cherry fruit fly. If you are interested in exporting to the United Kingdom cherry fruit fly is not a pest of concern their only pest of concern is cherry fruit worm. And the the first part of the requirements that both producers and packing hoses need to meet is they need to register with the CFIA before the growing season by signing and submitting a compliance agreement to the CFIA. And there are also specific pest mitigation measures for both growers and packing hoses so in the orchards growers will need to set traps for both pests of concern and monitor those those traps and packing houses the the mitigation measures include storage and sorting procedures and all of those requirements are laid out in in the compliance agreement and for for the export of phytosanitary certificate is needed from the CFIA. So next slide Ghana and because there are specific time frames where the the traps need to be placed in the orchard it's a good idea to contact your local CFIA office well in advance of when you would like to export so that they can get you the compliance agreement and also review the requirements for for export so that is the the best thing you can do is reach out to your local CFIA office let them know that you're interested and then they can go over the the specific requirements and also get you the compliance agreement. Thank you Ghana short and please. Thank you thank you Sharlene thanks for your quick update on on this and with this I will now pass it over to Cara Smith acting deputy director at the international branch with the market access secretariat so Cara the floor is yours. Thanks Ghana getting my screen up here I presume you can see it now and you'll stop me if you can't so good morning my name is Cara Smith and I am coming to you from Ottawa Ontario I work for agriculture and agri-food Canada and the market access secretariat so I'm the one who answers those emails when you follow the link that Ghana showed so today we're talking about the European Union it is a complex market the process for setting emeralds is different in the EU than it is in Canada while you shouldn't concern yourselves with the regulatory process too much I will try to explain so as part of the assessment process the European Union uses a hazard based criteria to identify and remove pesticides with certain characteristics from the market in contrast Canada regulates pesticides based on risk to human health and the environment this means that the EU automatically bans anything that demonstrates a CMR which stands for carcinogenicity mutagenicity reproductive toxicity and or endocrine disruption properties the hazard based approach does not consider exposure to the pesticide to determine the risk what this means for growers is that the maximum residue limit MRLs set in the EU may not always align with Canadian MRL set by Health Canada this means close attention must be paid when using pesticides on products destined for the EU market as Ghana mentioned the United Kingdom has since left the European Union but has adopted all EU sanitary and phytosanitary regulations for the time being this means that the MRLs for all pesticides authorized in the EU remain the same for exports heading to the UK market this all being said exporting to the EU is tricky to navigate and it requires research and planning the following slides are brief analysis of the Canadian MRLs compared to those in the EU have organized them into three categories to help demonstrate products that aren't welcome in the EU ones that need precision and caution and others that have relatively similar MRLs and of course always respecting the prescribed label uses at the end of the day it's all about the MRL found at the farm gate so on this slide you can see a list of products that the EU has effectively banned these products from being used domestically or on food imported into the European Union and the United Kingdom in many cases the PMRA has approved the substances to be used sparingly however i'll point out that dimethylate malatheon propagonazole pyridobin where there is a large discrepancy between the Canadian MRLs and the European however there are some products that the PMRA has authored authorized for a very specific use that would not affect the farm gate MRL of the fruit so for example carcinocasteron is a herbicide that can be used around cherry trees but only four plus weeks after transplanting there's no MRL because expected residues from this use are negligible likely far below 0.01 so this might still be an option for growers with specific breed problems of course so i'm not here to necessarily dissuade you from using an active substance that is unvalue to you i'm here to encourage you to plan carefully if you've negotiated a contract with an EU importer this list includes um this list includes MRLs where the substance isn't banned in the EU but the delta between the MRLs for Canada and the EU are quite different so should you wish to use these substances and export your product to the EU we recommend you determine which member states your products will be shipped to in advance and discuss with your EU importer i'll also and i'm going through these quickly but we have a handout to disseminate afterwards with these lists as well so you can take in a more in-depth look and then i'm going to discuss how to look it up yourself so these substances have MRLs in Canada which are similar to the European Union or lower in many cases when used properly and according to the label for the domestic market you have increased confidence that the EU will accept cherries that have been treated with these products while this list may seem safe it's necessary to be cautious when products are destined for the EU exemptions mean that the product is not regulated for the European Union however in most cases they are in fact regulated in Canada we always always recommend double checking the member states authorization and approved label uses for each product you choose easier than following a list is to use the health canada online label search or the label app for smartphones from there growers can type in the commodity and pass to see what options are available and then cross cross reference that with the EU database once you know what can and can't be used in Canada you're going to want to head over to the EU pesticide residue database search the pesticide crop combination and then compare it to the Canadian MRL set by health canada these links are provided in the information sheet that I just spoke about anyone has any questions today we have an online panel consisting of a lot of experts who may be able to answer your questions from the PMRA CFIA myself from the market access secretariat our councillor agriculture councillor Lynn who works in Brussels and the French trade commissioner highly valuable to this conversation as we've had issues exporting to France in the past so with that I will give it back to Ghana and that concludes my presentation thank you very much thank you so much Cara thanks for your very comprehensive presentation and I think we could move to the Q&A session now and see whether we have any any questions that are coming from the audience or the questions that were submitted during the registration process and I hand it over to Ben to walk us through any concerns that were raised Ben great hi thank you thanks speakers and just one reminder that if you have any burning questions you can still submit them through the Q&A portion the Q&A button I should say at the bottom of the screen there so none have come in yet so I encourage you to use that and I believe you have the option of submitting that anonymously as well just thought I would mention that I will start I guess with some of the questions that came in during registration and I'm just going to throw them out there and if you feel like your position to respond please do so the first question is regarding logistics and this this person says that logistics have been very challenging this season for both air freight and sea freight unreliable increased costs and overall risks associated are making it harder to export at this moment is there anyone who would like to speak to that well maybe I can comment on logistics well it's obvious that there are less flights from Canada to France and from Canada to Europe in general let's say maybe 50% maybe 30% so that's less space available just in terms of freight some of these flights also are subject to cancellations when when there's not enough people in the flight but in the recent past there's been the number of people on these flights I understand has been variable something like 10% 20% capacity so this would mean more freight available so it wouldn't be too bad but it would be only so not another plane every day maybe a plane every two days or every three days so that'd be some kind of constraint from the statistical side thank you any is there anyone else who would add anything to that I and I recognize that this may not be in the I'll add I mean just from a general EU perspective in Brussels we certainly have not heard that there have been a lot of challenges EU wide as opposed to you know anywhere else in the world so I mean yes of course you know it's many things have been challenging under COVID and not the least of which is this but I would encourage you to contact my colleagues in Ottawa certainly via that address that was provided if you are encountering some specific issues in the EU I mean like I said I haven't heard of anything specific I mean I think the EU to be honest like Canada has been quite responsive in terms early on in terms of ensuring that things continued moving there may be some problems because of Brexit depending where your product is going in or moving around so that's probably a bigger issue to be honest with you than COVID over the medium term anyway so but if you are having some issues please let us know and it's good for us to be aware of those things okay thank you and I guess part of this question was was also I guess overall the overall risks associated and unfortunately we don't have the ability to ask the the the asker what you know if they're referring to specific risks with you know their product and maybe just you know it being perishable and you know getting held up at the border or something like that but if there if you know if there are specific issues or barriers that you're encountering I'm sure the speakers would be happy to talk to you about that if you connect with them after the after the session okay I see a question just came into the Q&A so I will I'll read through that one it is what is the latest news with regard to the labor union related problems in the port of Montreal this was a major issue in 2020 we need that court to be working normally for ocean freight shipments to the EU and the UK I'm not sure if there's anyone here that can respond to that question but I will just throw it out there just in case I honestly I'm not an expert but I'll tell you I thought it had been resolved that's what I thought I had seen but that's purely me looking in the media but I don't know that there's any experts on that on the line currently we have to get back to you on that yeah yeah and for the questions that we don't have the immediate answer Richard for example like this one we'll be happy to to investigate and to get back to you with the response absolutely okay next question is some MRLs are so low that growers have trouble meeting them some plant protection products are not accepted or have strict guidelines I'm not sure that's a way it's maybe Kara you want to speak to that it is less of a question I guess and more of a comment about the situation I think Paul might be best to respond to that as it has to do with how how the pesticide is used so yeah I mean you know without having any any specific examples to to speak to I mean we do know that that there are differences from one jurisdiction to the next with respect to MRLs you know and simply because an MRL is is lower or higher in one jurisdiction does not necessarily indicate you know a health a health concern you know when it comes to MRLs that are that are higher in in Canada and lower in the in the EU on paper it does it may represent you know a barrier to trade but but the EU does have import MRLs and and I know that when it comes to minor uses such as cherries you know obtaining import and import tolerances might be a little bit more of a challenge but it would be it would be useful for for us as government anyway to know to understand to have a better understanding of what particular pesticides are of interest or would be of interest to the BC growers in order you know in order for us to as Cara mentioned with respect to cross-referencing with the EU EU database so you know if we had some specific examples perhaps we might be able to provide a little bit a little bit more guidance on on that okay so of course yeah um so so I just want to say that from sort of my seat sitting here in in Brussels and looking at the situation in Europe I just want everybody who's anybody who's intending on exporting to the EU to be aware that there is increasingly a call by European consumers for things to be pesticide free by that they mean chemical pesticides but pesticide free so the the commission and to be honest regulators because I suspect that there's also some some products that you would like to to see more readily available or with a higher MRL in Canada as well but I'll just make that assumption um you know regulators face a lot of pressure to respond to to those consumer demands which then become political demands via elected officials I do think certainly in Canada and in in in the EU as well regulators have have looked at the science and they do make their decisions based on on what science that they have in front of them in the EU in particular where things get difficult is at the political level so if there are products that you feel are absolutely necessary in Canada and that would make it impossible for you to to successfully grow your your your crop your product your your fruit I I agree I mean please please raise it with us because those are the kinds of examples that we are looking to put forward to the European officials to tell them look you know things are not always the same everywhere they know that but we but we do need to put examples in front of them of you know where these things are going to have an impact um on the negative side because right now most of what they're hearing are demands from consumers that you know everything be clean or pure or whatever it is so so that that's the way I would put it but yes we hear you and we agree um and I just don't want to give you the false illusion that things are going to move in any other direction in the EU anytime soon thank you Lynn okay uh all right the there was another question in the Q&A I think Paul is going to look into that one separately unless Paul you want me to address that to the just to let everyone know what what the question was if not I'll move on to the next one in the registration do you have a preference there Paul uh no no sure go ahead um I mean I don't think I can answer that or right this very moment it'll take some uh a little bit of thinking but but certainly if you would like to share it with the group sure okay so the question was we have Dan, Dan et al, uh Fenn Pope Patherin now I'm now I'm feeling um sympathetic for for Kara approved for use in cherries this year is there any information on EU MRLs for this active also with a PHI of 16 days hand harvesting mechanically assisted harvesting will this pose any potential issues in the EU market and so that's something that Paul is going to to look into and if there are similar questions um please please I would encourage you to follow up directly with Paul uh okay um all right I can just jump in and say that I I checked quickly in the the MRL in the EU is 0.01 which is limited and limited detection if that's helpful for right now but we'll compile a more comprehensive answer with your your question in mind thank you Kara uh okay I see that there were a lot of similar questions during the registration process along these lines so people with questions and challenges around uh determining the appropriate PHIs um based on approved rates or just general comments about how difficult it is to understand uh the the MRLs and I guess how to choose products based on these MRLs is there anything else anyone would like to say to that specific issue um I mean I would say honestly just having that kind of a statement and that kind of information is useful um because yes I I agree we I think the uncertainty right now causes a lot of of it creates a block in and of itself before there's even a product that that gets stuck at port or that gets hit with non-compliance um and and you're correct we need to hear more that there are situations where exporters or or individuals or companies won't even consider exporting because it's too complicated and there's too much uncertainty because it's very difficult for us to make that case we know it's there we know intuitively that it's there but then when we get asked well nobody's having any problem so you know what's the issue um I I think you know the more information we have so thank you for those comments I think that's that's really helpful and and just you know be be uh I guess reassured to a certain extent that that we are we are aware of that situation in the EU and of that that uncertainty and uh and you know the the difficulty of following what it is that is going on and what is currently approved and what might be approved in a year from now and what that means so so we we hear your we hear your voices for sure if you if you have any any suggestions as to how we might help resolve that I that would be great but we're certainly uh doing our best to advocate for you um on that front thank you Lynn another question that came up a couple times or comment um is is around uh the lack of harmonization uh with with different emeralds and um I think a couple of you have spoken to it already uh in your presentations or your responses but I just wanted to throw that one out there as well just to uh to see if anyone had any other comments on on that I mean I think there's others on this panel who are probably more familiar and and work more closely with this on a day-to-day basis but I mean I think from a government of Canada perspective what we're seeking is not harmonization uh of MRLs I think maybe we strive towards having methodologies and and science and information that that is somewhat similar so that you know we're coming to to the to the same conclusions in the end um but I think what we're looking for is flexibility to be honest with you and this is where import tolerances are key flexibility to recognize that you know there may be different needs uh in different geographies and different climates and that you know harmonization is not necessarily always the best solution so depending harmonization where uh you know I would say that that's the key it's the devil's in the detail but sometimes it's actually good to have some some flexibility uh to allow trade to flow thank you Lynn uh Ghana I don't want to put you on the spot but is there anything around free trade agreements that we can say here just in terms of uh you know to Lynn's point not necessarily working toward harmonization but uh putting in place rules or or processes where we may be able to you know alleviate some of the the burden that comes with the multiple uh standards and rules and regulations and things like that across the board yeah Ben thanks thanks for the question uh well as I've mentioned in my presentation there are some provisions um in the in the CETA and there might be some provisions in the Canada UK bilateral trade agreement which will be negotiated that might help facilitate and reduce the the number of trade barriers and reduce the number of duplicative certifications and testings and there are still some provisions that are there but that need to be agreed and discussed at a later date so the free trade agreements they are very much living creatures in that sense and it takes some time uh between the the parties to to discuss and to agree on on certain things but we'll be certainly updating you once uh there are any any movements on the files pertaining to cherries and to to cherry access for cherry access to to the European Union uh market and any facilitation that happens there and I just wanted to uh to mention a couple of things that um Yannick the trade commissioner and the embassy of Canada to France has forwarded as before the webinar he unfortunately had to leave the session but he was also saying that he is working on compiling an updated list of French importers of cherries and he was encouraging the um you the BC exporters uh of cherries to reach out to your past contacts in in France to re-establish the the connections and commercial relations before the the season starts for for Canada uh since the uh dimethyte uh does not seem to be a problem this year for for the French market since they uh there is the the regulation on the European Union level regarding uh its MRL so that's the the remark that I want to make thank you ganna lean I see you have your hand up is that uh new or or an old hand no it is new but if there's somebody else sorry I I do tend to talk a lot so if there's anybody else who wants to make a comment no I can go ahead I just wanted to speak to the point of free trade agreements I mean free trade agreements do not what free trade agreements do in in in and of themselves as they establish the rules of the game um so when you're talking about tariffs you can have binding tariffs in an agreement that you bind to zero in an agreement for example but you cannot or nobody no regulatory authority in and no government has ever agreed that we should bind regulations in free trade agreements why because regulations need to be flexible to respond to different circumstances different situations new science new circumstances for example nobody knew this covid virus existed two years ago um so you know if if we had something bound in an fta that stopped us from from acting on that it would be problematic and so that's why you end up seeing things and I'll continue my parallel on covid where you see this big discussion that's going on now about intellectual property and you know what should be done to provide greater access to to the vaccines in different parts of the world because what you have are a set of rules on sanitary phytosanitary measures technical barriers to trade etc that that look at the behind the border issues the regulations of which pesticide approvals and mrls is one um and and what we try to do in the free trade agreements is write in as much flexibility as we can um for that trade to continue to happen without tying the hands of our regulators so that they're they're unable to ensure appropriate uh risk management and and safety um rules etc so i ganna's right in the sense that you know what you have out of cita are a series of ongoing committees bodies potential regulatory cooperation um that that would help us you know come closer or come together or have discussions at the technical level with experts in the eu um to to try to to diminish some of those gaps or to in introduce some of that flexibility as trusted partners because that's really what it comes down to is how do europeans trust our authorities and what they're doing and do we trust european authorities and that they're doing the right things and being safe the the the fundamental issue with the eu though is that they tend to take a more precautionary approach than most countries in the world so this is where you run into a lot of difficulty in the eu because you might you might have two um assessments by scientific bodies that come up with the same conclusions but then when you get to the risk management stage the eu in in its very legislation will take a more precautionary or risk averse approach to that product um so so there's there's you know some things that uh take a lot of time because a lot of it is going to be based on you know how do we how do we get to the point where we can get the eu to trust that we are in fact um taking into account uh the the right things in terms of of risk and and risk management in the meantime however i will repeat again um there will continue to be for the very near future in the near future many situations where the eu will have uh higher requirements or lower requirements in this case for mrl's than in canada and i think as as kara pointed out in her presentation um it's really important to prepare yourself to to be meeting those requirements when you enter the market um for regulatory reasons yes because it's the law but also because your reputation vis-a-vis eu consumers relies on that um whether it's correct or not that's that's what they believe and that's what they want um so for now over the short term certainly while we continue these discussions through fta's um and and we have fortunately an fta there to build that to to have those discussions and build that trust um i would recommend that you you proceed cautiously or with precaution as the europeans would say for anything in that market in particular right now as it involves chemical pesticides because that is the the what i keep calling the new gmo in the eu this is this is the dirty word uh vis-a-vis closely being followed by deforestation but don't worry we don't have that issue in canada so we're okay on that front thank you lin does anyone else have anything to add to that no okay well i think we are getting near the end of the questions that have come in i haven't seen any new ones come in through the the q and a box and um so maybe i'll just give everyone a chance we have a little bit of time so if if anyone has any final words on the panel um this is your time i'm gonna be again oh paul's got his hand up yay go over to you paul all right thanks i just wanted to mention um that you know when it comes to when it comes to assessing uh and registering uh products uh you know in canada and and elsewhere um but the this is really the process is really driven by what the registrants submit um and sometimes you know sometimes the registrants have um you know they have their own uh i want to say agenda but they do have uh their own requirements um in terms of how they believe the products need to be used one thing that we as regulators do not always have um access to is once a product is is registered okay so we we receive um based on i mean based on the the studies that have been done uh and the field trials that have that have been done by the registrants we review that package but once once a product is registered and it is and it is used um sometimes uh you know growers themselves may use the products a little bit differently um they uh we're often told by by growers that you know the the idea is not to use as much pesticide as possible but the least amount of pesticide as possible um and sometimes the use the real world uh use practice information does not necessarily line up with the label so for example um you know a grower might use a lot less of a pesticide uh that is actually provided for on the label so you know the residues resulting from that use uh would be a lot lower uh than the MRL and and and this is not something that we typically uh have access to we might sometimes have it uh when it comes time for for reevaluation um so you know if if there is a case where uh the um the label use is not necessarily reflected of the real world use so if you're using a product a lot less than what is provided for on the label um it might be interesting uh for for us uh to know because it may it may in fact you know uh result in in lower uh in lower residues and therefore possibly um you know compliance uh with MRLs in whatever market your uh your target and and paul it would be the best way for them to let you know that so uh there are there are various ways um uh one of the obviously obviously one way is to inform the registrant of the various various practices another way is to contact our in full service line at PMRA that is a sort of an all-encompassing call line whenever the for any kind of pesticide related issues so you know that is that is the best way to to get in touch directly with us all right thank you other final comments i just i just wanted to add i see there's a reference to brian christy in the chat um and and i just want to say we're very familiar with the brian christy studies and both at agriculture canada and here in brussels and it's definitely something that we we've used to advocate um so that sort of information is very much something that we but i'm trying to lower my hand and i keep raising it okay so so yes and and i also completely agree with the comment about um you know the bc cherry association and various industry associations and and keeping in touch with them they will have information they'll be aware of you know what the big the big issues are and the big things to be careful of and also your importers who whatever contacts you have in country where you're thinking of of exporting ask them many questions you will not look stupid you will look smart because you will look informed and you will look like you know that it's complicated in the eu and that that you're you're doing your homework and you're you know reaching out making sure that you have all of the details so so do not hesitate to ask a lot of questions and to reach out to whoever it is that might be able to help you with that and the closer to the source the better thank you Lynn uh Kara i just wanted to plug the market access single window that window is not only just for the eu but it's for all geographies that you may export to so any market access issues you experience whether it be to the us or china japan um you can put in your issue or questions into that that single window and um an operator so to speak will get it to the right person on the other side and their service standards associated with that single window so you won't be left waiting in the case of say a stop shipment or a serious issue thank you Kara cool uh yeah well we're still on the call i i've been doing a little bit of digging on the uh on uh gail's question about uh denital and whether the uh the phi of 16 days uh would result in any issues with the EU market so um because this product was uh just recently registered we have uh we don't have any uh cfi monitoring data on it yet um so in terms of real world residues uh unfortunately we can't answer that question uh yet so i would err on the side of caution what this one means thank you paul okay there's a question that just came into the chat and um it is uh earlier Kara shared a way to search for products registered on cherries this person spent hours last week going to the pmra database and reviewing pesticide labels for phis and info on whether products were um registered required on cherries is this an easier app to use i guess that's for you car i'll share this with paul as uh he's the one who has brought the the app to light but from what i can see yes the app is much easier to use as you can search sort of by commodity and it pulls up all the the pesticides that are registered in canada um whereas the other way around you sort of have to search one by one i think but paul is best to share his wisdom and how he quickly chris yeah i mean unfortunately uh unfortunately there's no easy way uh to do it obviously the the label search app is is probably the the most user friendly um the website is perhaps a little a little less so although it does allow you to to make the search a little bit more granular um but i mean it it does it does still uh require some effort to go into every label to uh to see what uh to see what they say um but right but as of as of right now that is the only way of of uh of doing a comprehensive uh okay um charlene i would not be doing my job as a moderator very well if i didn't give you an opportunity to make any final comments you may have um yeah no final comments from me i think maybe just echoing um what car said earlier and you know if you have any issues um you know with stop shipments or you know market access issues with um with any importing country that the the mass single window is is a good place to go so thank you and any other final comments and i think we've exhausted the questions that have come in so uh thank you kara charlene lin yannick paul and ganna and thank you all for attending today's webinar uh if you have any other questions uh it's been mentioned several times but please just follow up uh at the contact information that you saw in those presentations um and i think you'll probably receive it afterwards as well uh there were a lot of other access points that were mentioned today and i'm assuming we'll we'll send that all out afterwards um you will receive a follow-up email there will be a link uh there with the recording of today's webinar today's webinar was recorded and uh as well as some of the presentations and some some other helpful resources and um there will also be a survey in that in that email and uh you can we would really appreciate it if you would fill that out and just let us know how how today's session went and how useful it was for you uh so on behalf of the government of British Columbia uh and our speakers thank you for joining us today and and have a great rest of your day


What's good, Josh your boy Ross back again with another video. So we're gonna be checking out the decline of WWE what happened Well, I can tell you what happened Vince McMahon happened. That's that's where the decline Went at I know a lot of people like to make the point. Oh, it went because it was at TV 14 and then it went to PG It wasn't the same and to an extent that is true But I always look at NXT NXT was a a PG product that they They kept the wrestling essence pure and it worked You didn't you don't have to be super edgy You don't have to be over the top with the with the you know the content that you bring Just make sure the wrestling and the stories that you're telling is good and important And you push the young talent and push the people that the fans want to see that's really all you have to do You know stay in touch with what the fans want not every time what we want, you know make sense but you know understand where we're coming from and Try to Tell a cohesive story wrestling wise where we can buy into the product It don't have to be a whole bunch of blood You know a whole bunch of crazy stuff to make wrestling great, you know saying You don't have to do that. That's all I'm saying it can still work in a PG landscape You just have to be able to tell better stories in the ring Have a lot of wrestlers to be themselves character wise and And I have faith in the talent that you have there. That's really what it is So if you want to know the downfall to decline of WWE Here's the cliff notes Vincent Mann. There we go, but we're gonna check this video I appreciate all love and support. Let's get right into this The wrestling world in shock today former champion Chris Benoit found dead in his Atlanta home along with his wife and young son police now Treating the discovery as a double murder suicide a shock he find at a downtown Minneapolis hotel the body of world What's the entertainment star Eddie Guerrero and how there's drugs and their steroids in this business? And they need to I think Vince needs to definitely enforce the drug policy more than what he's doing on July 22 2008 WWE officially transitioned all of their programming to PG Meaning that all of their television shows and pay-per-views would hold less shock value and contain themes That parents may deem suitable for their young children the move came after a long time WWE superstar Chris Benoit killed himself his wife and son in a double homicide in June of 2007 the incident left the mainstream media painting WWE in a very poor light and after the death there was much more finger-pointing that went on questioning WWE's integrity a small time before that WWE instituted a wellness policy after a steroid scandal and the death of fan favorite Eddie Guerrero Who passed away at age 38 the other reason as to why the company went PG was that CEO? Linda McMahon was leaving her position in the company and running for Connecticut Senate Yeah, so WWE had to clean up their act a show like what they were putting out wouldn't be fitting a potential senator the gruesome violence Presentation of women themes and overall subject matter was one which many people found inappropriate So the McMahon spent 50 million dollars on Linda's Senate campaign and donated another 8 million to universities for grants But the campaign was unsuccessful even though Linda lost WWE still believed that they had to clean up their act and the PG rating stayed What WWE also wanted was to entice wrestling in general as fans were seen as cheap and having no brand loyalty Oftentimes you'd see WWE on random ads for things such as acne medication So 2008 came and the shift to PG programming was underway This is what many fans believe was the downfall of the product that they once loved But before we delve into the now we have to go back to the past. It was October 19th 1999 I can see that like I said I understand why people say PG was the downfall and I get that to an extent is that's partially true But I also think it could have worked a lot better in the PG era If they would have did certain things correctly hell We're still in the PG era, but at the same time There's some things that still work on the show because of how they're booked how the characters are booked how the matches flow that's because of Storytelling character development those things matter WWF went from a private company to a publicly traded company Meaning that the company sold ownership in its business to individual investors or investment firms Why did they do this you might ask well They offered stocks so that they could build capital to expand into different avenues Aside from just the in-ring and touring aspect So if the company would reduce risk of losing its money and the money Invested into their company in the form of selling ownership could be translated to different media ventures Yeah, if we know anything about Vince McMahon, it's that he's a businessman before all else Yeah, we'd seen his failures with the Ico pro supplements and the world bodybuilding Federation But once the company went public we saw McMahon try to grow the WWF brand even more We saw the company open up WWF New York trying to combat the WCW nitro grill turns out putting a restaurant in Times Square Isn't the most profitable business decision and by April of 03 that restaurant was shut down and it cost Vince $25 million we saw Vince McMahon try to launch his own football league XFL which cost him and NBC $35 million WWE Studios and WWE Niagara Falls Weren't the success that they thought they would be point is before trying to be a wrestling company WWF wanted to get into mainstream touring and the retail business You see at this time the company was in its most popular time frame known as the attitude era a time period between 1997 and 2002 where if you linked wrestling to just about anything it would sell sex to enhance our Federation had an emphasis on relying on sexual themes shock value course language and a more mid-teens to adult oriented approach A time where the crowds were the loudest story lines and characters were the most compelling and the wrestling business was at its height Following that era the company rebranded from the World Wrestling Federation to World Wrestling Entertainment following a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund over the WWF trademark in 2002 and the WWE went from this extremely sexual barbaric and shock value driven attitude era to a bit more toned down but still Controversial Aggression era many of the characters from the previous time frame were gone or on a part-time basis and the popularity of Wrestling was down from the previous period it was during this time where the Benoit incident took place and after that The failed Senate run and other allegations McMahon knew that he had to adapt or his company would be left outside the greater entertainment world with so much controversy Already surrounding them and that's where we come today the PG rating for WWE programming We have seen some of the worst angles and segments during this time frame Yes, the Muppets a commentator thinking he was super Cena 47 and a half million raw guest hosts Italian night fart little people's court a computer being the general manager of a nationally broadcast television show truly some of the worst television in the history of television This is what many fans say ruined WWE everything they once loved was gone and they were left with a shell of what the Company once was so did PG really kill WWE as a whole the first thing wrestling fans immediately point their fingers to is declining ratings You can attribute terrible ratings to the downfall of television overall But did the audience really tune out as much as people say they did well since 1993 WWE's premier TV program has been Monday Night Raw and for this video We're gonna use raw as the benchmark the heights for this TV show came in the late 90s where they scored numbers topping out at 8.1 I want y'all to understand That's a lot of people to be watching your show 8 in the millions 8.1 million 7.4 million That that's a lot of people to be watching your show But you have to also understand that was a different time 99 2000 people were actually just watching TV when they got home. That's now it's different people don't watch TV as much I'm just keeping the stack people don't watch TV as much as streaming. I don't even watch TV I don't even have a TV set up like you know to watch like cable or regular TV I literally just have my smart TV hooked up to the different apps. I just watch different streaming networks Well, I watch YouTube. That's it Dead Ash, you know I'm saying so is one of those things where it's like they don't get all those views They will never reach those views ever again only because people are watching other things Hell, what's the point of watching a boring three hour raw if you can watch get the clips get the highlights on YouTube So what I do well, I'll let y'all tell me what happened if and if I want to check out a segment I will you know saying so a lot of people do that and a lot of people just don't watch TV in general So the numbers will be lower off is obviously by default million viewers Before we get to the ratings we have to understand them first in the US and Canada ratings are done through a company called Nielsen The company gets households to become part of their data sampling program and those households are known as Nielsen families They then install meters in these homes to measure how programming is watched what age bracket it's watched by and how long it's watched They then take those numbers and extrapolate them to give advertisers information on who is watching what how accurate are these numbers? They're not accurate not at all numbers represent a small portion of a general audience Which is actually watching the set programming all ratings truly are as an estimate of how many people are Watching a certain show at a certain time, but for the purposes of this video Let's use five-year increments from 2000 to see the drop-off in raw's rating in the year 2000 raw was averaging 5.87 million five years later come 2005 that five point eight went down to a four Come 2010 WWE's flagship TV show was down to a 3.28 and then dipped even further to 2.64 with the addition of a third hour by 2020 Monday night raw's average viewership fell to 1.87 million a drop of about four million viewers over a 20-year period If you look at raw's decline overall the past few years against the top 50 non-news cable programs You can see that raw's decline is massive in 2020. It went down over 20% Smackdown, it's a little bit more gradual. That's because it's on a much stronger network Even if you go by single years from 1999 to 2003 you'll see that the TV numbers for raw were already declining roughly losing about a million viewers every five years For raw since 2000, but they're still getting TV deals. Why well live sports always do better than something like a sitcom or a movie Consumers choose to watch sports and professional wrestling live more often than not and because WWE continues to rank fairly high in key demographics Advertisers see WWE as a hot commodity ticket That's one of the critical reasons as to why a third hour was added to raw USA Network saw it as lucrative when it came to potential advertising and revenue Even though historically raw's third hour has seen a high drop-off rate But still USA benefits from putting a bidding war on advertising See that and this is one of the reasons why it's kind of a tangent But this is one of the reasons why I know a lot of us are looking forward to potentially a title versus title match at WrestleMania and Maybe you know in you know combining ending the brand split, but it's not gonna happen And this is why this is this is why I've always said the brand split It's not gonna happen because these separate networks Fox and USA. They're not having that they they want to have separate things going on and Be able to Increase their money their revenue for that particular network.  It's more money for the network. It's more money for WWE That's why they did it. You know I'm saying so it's like at the end of the day It hurts to show it does and I always I feel like Vince is he's a businessman before anything else So I I don't see them ending the brand split because at the end of the day It's gonna make them money to keep Separate titles on separate shows to have you know different feels because these networks They ultimately have say so in kind of what happens a little bit on the shows and how things move around so Time fans always criticize Ross falling ratings But for WWE that doesn't really matter as long as they maintain these numbers. They have guaranteed income WWE's deal to broadcast Monday Night Raw on USA pays them 265 million dollars a year until 2024 the WWE on Fox deal pays the company 205 million dollars per year until 2024 which is why they have say so on On who they want on particular shows so my fox was not getting rid of some of Roman Reigns I can say that now They have say so on that they do or as well add to that that WWE gets approximately 45 to 50 million dollars for two shows a year over a 10-year stretch in the form of Saudi Arabia Specials and financially they're set where the issue comes in and where they're losing fans is the actual Substance of the program each year more and more fans tune out of the show why? Because WWE cannot create a cast of characters to get them intrigued Let's go back to when I was a kid for our generation. It was Eddie Guerrero John Cena Lesnar Batista Randy Orton the generation before us the Rocks Stone Cold Triple H mankind Before them it was HPK Bret Hart undertaker razor Ramon a cast of characters which had us hooked and wanting to see what they would do the drama the antics the over-the-top stories they just Transcended the game you look at how WWE hasn't been able to build new stars It's a testament as to why fans stopped watching. There's literally one guy right now that brings intrigue One guy WWE has missed the boat on stars who the fans want to embrace and want to see on that next level Eric Bischoff put it best. I think the WWE has done a great job over the last 15 years 20 years of making WWE the star and the talent is a supporting cast member That really says it all give me a reason to care and I'll make time to watch your programming Wrestling has kind of lost that cool factor if you really think about it once you hit a certain age fans are tuning out They aren't creating as many of those second and third generation fans Who are going to pass on the tradition of watching wrestling oftentimes? It's one and done kids become adults and as adults they see WWE as a program for kids those same fans that WWE could have had for a longer period of time Go somewhere like the UFC which has gained a lot of momentum with teenagers Doesn't help that your writers don't even know the talent's name Another reason as to why fans tuned out is it's more easy to consume content than ever You look on social media shows are recapped in seconds Why would you want to sit through two or three hours? If you can just watch a 10 minute highlight video on youtube Consumption of media has changed people are cutting cords and not as many people watch prime time television anymore in the u.s Consumption of television is declining as you can see add to that that WWE just has too much content They have seven plus hours of shows on a weekly basis with raw smack town main events nxt and more It's very hard for the company to keep things unique with that much programming But does that give them an excuse to produce the content? They do Hell no smackdown has been a show which has always been PG Only issue is that PG in the early 2000s was the equivalent to tv 14. Yeah, WWE right now is probably TVG more than anything else But why don't they push the envelope a little bit more? If you think about it, there's a lot that they could do with the tv PG rating. Yes If I had to take an educated guess It's probably because we live in a world of political correctness and everything is over analyzed at every turn There's someone sitting behind their keyboard just waiting to cancel your tv show The problem goes a bit deeper than just tv figures though We've seen full-on pockets of arenas during paper views Completely tarped up because no one bought tickets Monday night raw is half empty venues basically bribing people to go watch WWE with two for one tickets That is because live event figures are down Consumers are not wanting to go watch WWE events as much as they once did here You can see that WWE live events account for about 10 of WWE's overall revenue and each year The amount of money they make from live events gets smaller if you take out the pandemic year of 2020 And you look at WWE's paid attendance since 2017 It's down by 29% If you want to gauge popularity even more then you can look at something like google web search Which has been down by 61 percent since 2017 the interest in WWE's product is plateauing And it's being seen as a casual event more than ever. Oh look, WWE's in town. You got a few hours to kill Yeah, let's go. So you may ask if people aren't coming to events as much as they once did How does WWE make money? Well, do you guys remember in 2014? WWE launched this thing called the WWE network having everything from prank shows Documentaries and all the wrestling you could possibly want Vince McMahon and WWE themselves saw that they had to cannibalize the pay-per-view model and get into the growing video on demand world The venture cost WWE 66 million dollars to start up the network had varying success And would see dips and subscribers after WrestleMania season and on a yearly basis overall So in 2021 nbc universal streaming service peacock acquired the rights to distribute WWE networks content the deal got 1 billion dollars here in canada that right is given to roger sports and entertainment for both the network And broadcasting all weekly shows on sports net WWE studios is something that you guys might be familiar with and despite what many people lead you to believe The studio is actually very successful at pulling WWE in money That production company has deals with Netflix, A&E and universal to distribute content You guys know how they're always advertising Ms. And Mrs. Total Bellas or some animated film they have coming up That's because that rocks them in a ton of money It's actually really strange if you look at it the wrestling world has completely changed First wrestling events would be on free tv and it was basically a commercial to get people into live events Then at live events it became about selling merch Then it turned to pay-per-view buys and attendance numbers and after that they made it about streaming the WWE network Now it's mainly all tv deals and letting your content be filtered to other companies or services Why do they get so much money? Well, they're well respected and trusted in the community and they've locked away all mentions to what I started this video with WWE used to make most of its money selling things directly to consumers like tickets to shows Pay-per-views dvds magazines and action figures Now WWE makes most of its money selling things to other businesses As you can see each year that number is getting larger. Why is it getting larger? Well, the tv rights world has exploded social media sponsorships If you look at the other end in terms of live events pay-per-views and home entertainment That number is projected to have a large dip in the coming years as everything shifts over to social media and heavy advertising It kind of makes sense, right? They don't have to give you the hardcore consumer a good in-ring product as long as these financials match up and investors are happy And there we go That's why they can put out bullshit storylines on television As long as these networks as long as these other brand deals they have or cool.  They can literally feed you bullshit Cringy bullshit And it doesn't matter because guess what they're still gonna make money The only way they really lose money is if people completely stop like they don't get no type of views No type of like people stop watching it people stop going to the shows completely Like people don't even pay attention to it But they'll always be bringing in money, which is why it's not going to change anytime soon when it comes to What we see inside the ring Most of these investors could care less about wrestling the dollar signs are the only thing that matters And without them going PG that would have never been able to happen Look at their yearly revenue from 2015 to 2020 the 2020 number probably would have been larger if they were touring Another huge chunk of their revenue is social media and the platform you're watching this video on right now YouTube WWE over its social media instagram facebook twitter has over one billion followers on youtube They rank in the top 10 most subscribed youtube channels. The company makes an estimated 45.8 million dollars yearly in terms of youtube revenue media advertisements like snickers kfc Cricket wireless the works if you look into WWE's annual reports You'll see that each year their social media engagement is increasing and the company pushes hard for that They are not a wrestling company. They are a media and entertainment company To that market in a way WWE plucked themselves out of becoming an afterthought and became one of the world's most profitable companies But since they're making this much money it also raises a huge question Why are they firing people despite being in the best financial position they ever have? True ever since WWE named nick con president and chief revenue officer The company has slash contracts which raises the question of a possible sale The thing about the cuts is they're all pretty random if you look at it If you want to re-baseline your company logic would suggest that you do so with cheaper and less proven commodities But those cheaper contracts seem to be the ones which the company is letting go With that they've also let top merchandise shippers such as bray Wyatt just leave when a company clears the cover like that So to speak it has eyes rolling could wwe be sold Rumors would suggest companies like disney nbc and comcasts have led the way when it comes to those discussions But if the company were to sell it would be a very slippery slope Look as much as people may hate wwe the way they do business their storylines their relationship with the saudi government Wrestlers need places to work.   It's definitely over. That's why aww is staying in their lane because at the end of the day They sell wwe. It's not gonna be the same, bro. It's gonna be worse. You're gonna have people who really don't care about wrestling Trying to run things That's dead on arrival And that's why a sale to a company like disney would be one of the worst moves ever Just look at wwe on peacock the amount of censorship how inaccessible they've made certain things The past is already dying. It really is something to be scared about So to conclude the wwe going pg killed the company as much as fans speculate that it did The answer Is yes Interest in the product is at an all-time low the numbers show a decline and more and more fans are turning to all elite wrestling Which is cut into vince mcmahon's long-standing monopoly over the wrestling business. Here's the thing Everything wwe did in the attitude era was cool, but at the end of the day it was unsustainable You could argue that anything the company did after 2001 onwards didn't work Wrestling lost its coolness and once we got to about the mid 2000s the aura really wore off So fans who were going to tune out anyways were already gone the move to pg However was the smartest business decision the company ever made after so much controversy They cleaned up their acts and became trusted among mainstream media the pg rating allowed more fans to tune into the show They try to appeal to everyone they base their ideology their business model and their shows for the casual consumer And of course children it's a business you appeal to the demographic that will keep you afloat And for them that is kids Shock value wears off things like chair shots and adult themes had become commonplace Now when they happen they feel bigger and there's more intrigue The company though was able to make a global expansion and if they didn't go pg They would not be able to is this company overhated without a doubt But if you bleed everything together at the end of the day, it's a business and the company is killing it where it Matters wwe already has a built-in hardcore audience to the point where they'll be fine unless you know But I want to hear from you guys. What do you think? Do you guys think pg unless they lose that hardcore audience and I've said throughout this video pg It's not the ultimate killer of or the decline of wwe. It takes part of it It's part of the decline in wwe, but it's not the ultimate reason once again It all comes down to the bottom dollar Vincent man is a businessman before anything else. So he's gonna make sure he gets as much profit as he possibly can That's what he cares about. That's what these networks care about. That's what these other brands care about making as much money Off wwe and there's nothing wrong with that But the storyline and everything else the in ring wrestling. It doesn't really matter to them This is why aw is a thing. This is why you have aw because yes, they have their own sponsorship But they're more on the edgier side. They care more about the in ring wrestling So there is your substitution and we all want wwe to be better in a sense, but at the end of the day This is what we have. This is the product we have and uh, you know There that's why we have other companies that you can check out and I'm liking where aw is heading In the direction in the future of their content. Hopefully they don't fall in the footsteps of wwe. So comment down below Let me know do you guys uh You know, what do you guys take on the decline of wwe? Is it strictly just them going to pg or do you feel like, you know, all these brand deals and Vince McMahon all all those combining with the decline of actually Like wrestlers being pushed and storylines being created Do you feel like that could be part of the reason like let me know what your reason Reasons for the decline in wwe. I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions. Appreciate all love and support row two 70k appreciate y'all kicking with me. See y'all next week. Peace