In the program

While the tv delivery debate rages on in the living rooms, committee rooms and courtrooms across Canada, the software packagers are feeling a lot more bullish these days, and with good reason. Whether folks side for rabbit ears, mini-dishes or status quo, whoever delivers the signal needs content, and Canadian tv programming suppliers are producing truly global merchandise.

Last year round Gemini time the mood in the industry was less optimistic. The multichannel universe was a dark cloud looming over a programming landscape where several long-running Canadian series were winding up and the fate of the new breed was still unknown.

Now, not only are Canadian tv movies breaking ratings records and new series regenerating the industry at home, there’s the Due South u.s. primetime network-pleasing phenomenon and sci-fi series TekWar making basic cable history in the u.s. as well. Expect more good ratings news when The Boys of St. Vincent finally gets its national u.s. premiere on a&e next month.

At a Canadian Club lunch in Toronto this month, where Norman Jewison was presented the association’s Canadian of the Year Award, Jewison advocated that to protect our cultural identity, Canadians need ‘to have faith in who we are,’ and in our institutions. He pointed out that without encouragement, the talented and gifted will move away, and while noting that living beside America makes it especially difficult for Canadians to find their place in the sun, Jewison concluded that we are doing it, and getting stronger every day.

Later, in a talk entitled ‘The tongueless man gets his land took,’ luncheon speaker, Atlantis head Michael MacMillan, said the old Cornish proverb sums up the challenge Canada faces in a new borderless market where media is the new growth industry. The state of our cultural life is more vital than the military or trade concerns which previously defined a nation, he said.

After citing the facts that Canada is second only to the u.s. in the world arena of tv programming sales, with film and tv revenues exceeding $3 billion a year, and that 80% of Atlantis’ sales are to foreign broadcasters with 1994 revenue of over $100 million from tv broadcasting, MacMillan stated that the company’s plan is to become a world leader in software.

MacMillan said that the key is to control means of production and distribution, which can only be achieved through critical mass, which is why the company has broadcast interests and foreign offices. MacMillan sees the three pillars – production, broadcasting and distribution – blurring into the emerging role of packager.

A sentiment that the delivery side of the equation is also echoing. Stentor head Jocelyne Cote-O’Hara told Playback: ‘The important thing now is that we (producers and distributors of Canadian content) promote ourselves. cbc is beaming into the States via satellite, and I was pleased to see that because it’s something we never do. We’ve been so busy trying to protect ourselves here that we haven’t looked upon ourselves as creators of critical content that has marketable value beyond our country.’

Or as MacMillan said: ‘Éthe future belongs to those who can provide the messages, who can tell the stories.’