Banff: Bigger, slicker, and all business. While there’s still a lot of hobnobbing at the 18th Banff Television Festival (June 9-13), the prevalence of cel phones, the stuffed message boxes, and the lengthy queues at business services lead one to believe that delegates have more than a celebration of fine television on their minds. Heads are bent close together in serious discussion out on the patio while the seminars roll on inside. Certainly, the sun and the view might play a part in that.

While the internationalization of the event is in evidence at every turn, you still cannot escape the Canadiana. Flanked by a legion of Mounties in full dress at the cbc/src opening reception, Perrin Beatty and kin presided over a grip ‘n grin receiving line that would put a royal wedding to shame.

On the other hand, even the delegates from abroad are as interested in what’s happening in Canada as the Canadians are, further evidence that a coproduction deal with Canada is increasingly attractive for prodcos and broadcasters from across the pond and south of the border. An 8 a.m. breakfast session with cbc network programming director Slawko Klymkiw on the first day drew such a crowd that listeners took seats on the floor and stood out in the hall.

Facing a tough interviewer in Nicholas Hirst of the Winnipeg Free Press, Klymkiw was careful not to scoop himself on too many details of the cbc’s fall launch on June 18. However, he did hint that the pubcaster will be subscribing to a philosophy of counterprogramming, adding that he will be looking at the schedule as an entire year with the intention of introducing new programming at different intervals throughout.

While much of his time was spent passionately supporting directions the cbc has embarked on in the last year – he called cbc-bashing ‘a national sport’ – Klymkiw told the audience to expect more deals of the type made with wic on Emily of New Moon and with CanWest Global on Traders. ‘We are preparing to do this with other broadcasters,’ he said. ‘It’s an innovative way of pooling resources and it’s the beginning of the construction of a necessary acquisitions market.’

Multi-window deals for Canadian drama also came up in a ctcpf-sponsored seminar on Canadian licence fees. In response to concerns from indie prodcos that such deals would further limit available slots for Canadian drama on Canadian broadcasting services, cbc’s executive director of arts and entertainment Phyllis Platt said the dollars spent by the cbc to acquire previously aired Canadian drama would have once been spent on acquisitions from the u.s. and abroad.

The money

While much of the rest of the discussion could have been scripted beforehand (i. e. producers think licence fees are too low, broadcasters think they are too high), ctv’s group vp of programming Gary Maavara, while admitting he hadn’t been in the job long, broke with tradition by saying he feels fairly comfortable with what his net is paying right now for an hour of Cancon, calculating it at about $100,000 per hour.

Sticking with money, Bell Canada staged a high-tech press conference at the Cascade Technology Showcase, linking up Banff, Toronto and Montreal to announce a $12 million, two-and-a-half-year fund to develop new media content.

The focus of the fund – labeled by vp of the fund’s new board Sheridan Scott as a ‘pre-commercial entry’ funding bridge – will be the development of projects from Ontario and Quebec production companies which have both a multimedia/new media element and a broadcast licence.

There’s still one seat left open on the fund’s board of directors, now comprised of Paul Hoffert (executive director of Intercom Ontario and founder of CulTech), Michele Fortin (vp of French television for cbc), Pierre Lampron (president of sodec), Annabel Slaight (president and ceo of OWL Communications) and three reps from Bell.

In response to questions which suggested that the $12 million (part of a $50 million commitment from Stentor nationwide) was a somewhat paltry sum, vp of business development John Sheridan replied that it was indeed ‘a lot of money’ and ‘a significant sum’ for Bell to chip in.

Money matters were most definitely front-and-center at the Market Simulation where coproduction was the buzz word.

Market simulation

Up first, Peter Raymont of Toronto’s Investigative Productions teamed with Leslie Weiner, head of copros at Gedeon in France, to pitch a six-part, one-hour doc series called Sacred Places: In Search of the Divine. While obviously impressed with the gorgeous promotional tape, most broadcasters were concerned they’d already run similar – and cheaper – programs along the same lines.

Vancouver’s Ken Hegan (Farley Mowat Ate My Brother) got a strong lead on his feature-length action/comedy The Deadline, a conspiracy adventure involving an agoraphobic who happens to run a 1-900 service about dead celebrities. While concerns were voiced about the format – some thought it sounded more like a series than a feature – Citytv’s Jay Switzer threw his hat in the ring, calling it ‘a perfect fit.’

While the French team from Kalamazoo International was sent back to the drawing board by most broadcasters to rework their concept for a children’s project combining music and animation, Toronto’s Megan Smith got much positive reaction from her pitch for a doc miniseries called Eccentrics: The Joys of Sanity and Strangeness. Smith drew interest from Arte in France, as well as from a&e, Channel Four in the u.k. and ctv.

For producers looking for an automatic in, the Two in a Room seminar with Peter Grimsdale, commissioning editor for religion and features at Channel Four, and Discovery Canada president and gm Trina McQueen, provided much grist for creative proposals. The two eventually narrowed the tender down to projects about the morality and ethics behind animal rights issues, the science and psychology of war and the military internationally, and adventure pieces which involve both physical risk and a spiritual journey. A tall order, no doubt, but many producers were already scribbling notes as they left the theater.

McQueen, seemingly ubiquitous throughout the conference’s schedule, was one of the most passionate speakers on another ctcpf-sponsored panel, this one on the state of Canadian documentaries.

Ending a hour of discussion which included some lively debate on the definitions of documentary, the correctness of cultural funding for ‘industrial’ non-fiction work, and doc programming strategies at tvontario versus at the cbc, McQueen urged producers to ‘defend documentaries, however you define them, as being just as important and valid as drama because the funds are being consumed by drama.’

Allen’s scathing review

Another individual with fiery things to say was keynote speaker Steve Allen. While the title of his address – Television: Are Vulgarians Entertaining Barbarians? – may have set up the audience for some laughs, Mr. Allen d’es indeed believe that the debasement of television, and entertainment in general, has led to a collapse of North American family life.

Along with tabloid tv, tasteless sitcoms and sensationalistic local news, Allen cited Psi-Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal as an example of television which misleads its audience and mistreats real science.

Despite a record number of nominations this year, Canadian programs didn’t haul home many of the small yet very heavy Banff Rockie Awards. Granada Television’s Hillsborough, a docudrama about the deaths of 96 English football match spectators, took home the Grand Prize for Best of the Festival as well as an award for best made-for-tv movie.

The nfb picked up a special jury prize for the doc Rape – A Crime of War, as did Alliance’s Due South. Eyebrows were raised in the audience as Due South also picked up the Telefilm Canada English prize (worth $tk). The French-language equivalent went to Les Productions sda for Omerta.

The awards show itself garnered a few hearty yuks from the audience, most of whom were inspired as Australia’s Barry Humphries gave a lengthy acceptance speech for the Sir Peter Ustinov Endowment. Calling the award itself a sort of ‘brutalist toast rack,’ he forewarned the audience that Dame Edna, currently nursing her mother in a ‘maximum security twilight home,’ was making her way to an elk-infested Banff in order to host an event the following evening.

Murphy Brown creator Diane English was treated to a taped congratulatory message from Candice Bergen as she received the newly named Astral Award of Excellence. English, who did a half-hour interview with Dini Petty earlier in the day, said now she would return to l.a. safe in the knowledge that she can tell ‘pal’ Steven Bochco, last year’s winner, to ‘kiss my Astral.’

And really, isn’t that what the tv business is all about? Just ask Steve Allen.