Canadian TV Review: Round One

It’s early in the game, but a quick scan of some of the 282 submissions filed to the crtc for the Canadian Television Policy Review hearing.yields a couple of questions.

Predictably, everyone – with the exception of the crtc and several disgruntled viewers – is coming to the hearing wrapped around the flag but with their own bottom lines their first priority.

The broadcasters, although touting a ‘more Canadian programming’ mantra, see the whole exercise as risk. Rightly so. Advertising revenues and profit are over and above this year’s projections. The number of hours of indigenous product on the air in Canada is a shadow of what’s telecast in other English-language markets like England and Australia. Spending on foreign programming is markedly disproportionate to spending on Canadian drama.

Canadian producers, also sporting the More Cancon position, see the review as an opportunity to increase the pipeline for their product. Generally, Hunter S. Thompson had it right. Even in The True North Strong and Free. ‘The tv business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.’

Having said that, the commission, surrounded by support from all sides for the idea of ‘more’ Canadian programming, can legitimately make some decisions based on more than profit. But not blindly. The cftpa’s suggestion of an increase of Canadian programming in the underserved categories like drama to 10 hours a week in primetime by 2001/2002 bares some thought.

Two questions: 1) With the number of channels that already exist and their requisite Cancon commitments, the funding system blew up this April. Next year’s ctcpf has already been tapped. How exactly are the substantial number of extra hours suggested going to be financed?

2) Assuming the financing dilemma is solved (which is a big assumption), the best case scenario would see all those hours filled with programs viewers, eager to see their own stories told, will turn to in droves.

But what if they don’t? What if the amount of money available in the system is such that the industry is unable to produce programs of sufficient quality to compete with the $1-million to $2-million per episode budgets of the u.s. programs? Viewers could then turn in droves to nbc, abc, cbs and Fox, which are here whether we like it or not, and bringing all those American shows that will be squeezed out of the Canadian broadcaster’s schedules.

It’s a slippery slope that winds up in a very simple equation: fewer eyeballs equals fewer advertising dollars equals less revenue for the broadcasters. Since investment in production is a percentage of revenue, this inevitably results in lower license fees for producers.

If the system is structured after the hearings so that Canadian programs that, by virtue of them being too insular or of lesser quality, are drawing 1% of the audience, are the public policy objectives that drive tv regulation being achieved? It’s a complicated question, but one that needs to be addressed in the course of creating ‘more’ Canadian drama.

According to producers, part of the answer to 1) lies in a greater investment in the underserved categories from the private broadcasters. Fair enough, given the new licences and extended distribution of the past two years.

But if the license fees increase, one hopes the producers are committed to funneling a good chunk of that investment into the pockets of writers and actors in this country. In order to avoid the scenario around 2), the best Canadian writing and acting talent, chronically heading south, need a reason to stay (read: money).