Vancouver: A-Channel’s inaugural fiscal year begins Sept. 1 and already the 1998 budget for its cultural raison d’etre is spoken for.

The long-form-oriented A-Channel Drama Fund has spent the $75,000 kitty on development projects and the $1.2 million in total national licence fee commitments, says fund director Joanne Levy. The fund will be $14 million paid out over the seven years of A-Channel’s first crtc licence.

In the startup years of the twin, but autonomous, stations in Edmonton and Calgary, about six features destined for theaters and/or television screens can be funded each year by A-Channel. But as the fund matures and sublicence sales and other revenues replenish the drama program, up to 10 new movies can be licensed each year.

The model Levy is looking to clone is the successful Channel 4 movie program in the u.k., a challenge she says is made easier by the significant backlog of Alberta stories. The viability of feature films lies in the financial cooperation of television broadcasters, says Levy, adding that such collaboration ensures that regional stories have a better shot at production.

‘No genre or approach is off limits,’ she says. ‘We just need to ask whether they are stories that will attract a large audience.’

Even before the channels go live in Edmonton (on Sept. 18) and Calgary (on Sept. 20) at 8 p.m., two movies are in the can: Silent Cradle, a feature by Alberta filmmaker Bruce Harvey at Calgary’s Illusion Entertainment, and a Christmas-themed movie called Ebenezer starring Jack Palance in the title role has been finished by Calgary’s Nomadic Productions.

At press time, although Levy won’t name producers or program titles, two projects were about to gear up for fall shoots: a $3-million romance involving the issue of eugenics that shoots in Edmonton in September and will make the festival circuit in 1998 before its airdate in 1999, and a $1-million black comedy about middle-class desperation that shoots in Calgary in October and will also be placed in festivals next year.

Other licence fees have been paid to an Edmonton-based thriller that has an American presale to Showtime, an Edmonton period romance set for next spring, and an urban legal thriller.

Drew Craig, president of the A-Channel division of his family’s Craig Broadcasting, says the Edmonton and Calgary stations will be identical in staffing, facilities and mandates, but will grow independently to meet the specific needs of their respective cities.

Transmitters that will extend Edmonton’s signal to Red Deer and Calgary’s signal to Lethbridge should be operational by year two, he says, which will encompass a viewing audience of 2.5 million people. Ad revenues in the first year are expected to be $26 million, with the stations breaking even the third year.

While A-Channel is going after a mainstream 18- to 54-year-old demographic, the marketing push will be geared to younger audiences, says Craig. Echoing the success of Toronto’s Citytv, A-Channel Calgary and Edmonton will have downtown storefront locations that literally open the studio doors to passersby.

Acquired early-prime and prime-prime programming includes The Simpsons at 6:30 p.m., the top-rated newly syndicated shows Friends and Frasier at 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. respectively, the Prime Time Ticket movie at 8 p.m. (opening with Bruce Harvey’s Samurai Cowboy, about an Asian man who inherits a ranch), Highlander at 11 p.m., the new Keenen Ivory Wayans talk show at midnight, and Star Trek: The Next Generation at 1 a.m. before signing off at 2 a.m. The broadcast day starts at 6 a.m.

A-Channel will continue Craig Broadcasting’s collaborative relationship with chum that began with Craig’s original Manitoba stations. A-Channel will air chum’s Cityline, FashionTelevision, Ooh La La and MediaTelevision series. Frasier is bought in conjunction with Roger’s cfmt-tv Toronto. A-Channel is also airing To Serve and Protect, a reality-based cop show from kvos.