In this report we take a look at the activities and game plans of Canada’s public production companies.

In this report:

Alliance p. 40

Atlantis p. 42

Cinar p. 39

Coscient p. 40

Devine p. 42

Greenlight p. 43

Keystone p. 43

Malofilm p. 37

Nelvana p. 38

Paragon p. 40

Industry Minister John Manley commented recently on the current climate for film and tv producers: ‘At no time have the opportunities and challenges for your industry been greater than today.’ As the economic conditions for public production companies simultaneously expand and contract, the wire that links victory and defeat grows more and more taut.

The foreseeable possibilities are immense as dth, dbs and the Internet become established deliverers of content in Canada opening new windows and increasing demand for product.

The new trends in distribution could also spell disaster for providers of Canadian content if regulatory measures are not in place to protect domestic demand for homegrown product.

The issue is up in the air after a recent kerfuffle between the crtc and the federal government over a threat from the ampa in the u.s. to wage a trade war if a regulatory measure for dth in Canada is not removed.

International relations are increasingly cultivated, especially in booming sales of Cancon to foreign markets, as government subsidies shrink at home.

Word that Canada’s export business of tv product has climbed to number two in the world is the big picture. Within that broader scope are the success stories of countless children’s tv series, documentaries, drama series and news programs.

A highlight is Plague Monkeys, a documentary about the ebola virus made by Toronto-based Associated Producers and distributed internationally by Malofilm of Montreal as part of a new strategy the distributor recently implemented to distribute documentary product. In 1995, Plague Monkeys proved one of the highest-grossing Canadian tv documentaries of all time in international tv sales.

Production across the country was up, bringing an economic impact of $2.2 billion and signaling what cftpa chair Tom Berry says is the greatest argument for continued government funding of the industry. ‘The vital cultural issue aside, we’re a growth industry that is worth supporting,’ says Berry.

At press time, the federal budget had not yet been released, and the futures of Telefilm Canada, the cbc and the nfb were still pending, as were the futures of the Ontario Film Development Corporation, the Ontario Film Investment Program and tvontario.

In the area of domestic broadcast interests, Alliance has Showcase, Atlantis has Life Network, and among many companies bidding for new specialties, Cinar and Nelvana are minority partners in the application for teletoon, a new animation channel.

The latest development as production companies turn up their activities in the broadcasting arena is the aggressive push by broadcasters to gain access to government incentives and subsidies that have been available exclusively to producers. The biggest threat for production companies was resolved when the proposed legislation for the new refundable tax credit favored producers with an ownership ruling that would by and large exclude broadcasters.

The roller-coaster rides of the entertainment industries worldwide are notorious and well-documented.

In Canada in the past year, the experience of two tv series made by Alliance Communications is an excellent example of the unpredictable conditions producers contend with.

ReBoot, the computer-animated Saturday morning hit on abc and ytv broke new ground as the first entirely cgi series to hit the small screen. Developed and produced by Vancouver-based BLT Productions, the popular series maintained a solid audience through season two.

Word came last month from abc that, with the network’s marriage to Disney, it won’t be needing competitive material from outside producers like the makers of ReBoot. Alliance’s new media president Steve DeNure is actively seeking a new broadcaster.

In 1994, Due South, Alliance’s Mountie hit, was the first Canadian-originated series to hit a u.s. primetime net when it landed on cbs. The following season, it was canceled. It looked shaky at first, but Alliance pulled financing together to get season two off the ground without cbs, and since, cbs has picked up 18 episodes.

Production companies showed more and more aggression in vertical integration in 1995, opting for stakes in music, new media, and animation production as well as post-production facilities. The indication is the more autonomous the companies can become, the better chance they have of survival in a world dominated by a select few mega-media conglomerates.