One week into the Canadian Television Policy Review and everybody is fair game. Reporters being hung out to dry, smear campaigns orchestrated by cloak-and-dagger ‘researchers’ over the phone, favors called in, allegiances formed then betrayed, and unprecedented backbiting in an industry already schooled in the fine art of slamming one another. Choice quote from the smoking area: ‘Hell hath no fury like an agenda disguised as a moral principle.’ Apparently not.

We here in the media are a little furious ourselves after days of trying to sort through these numbers. Never has there been a more graphic illustration of how numbers can be used like Lego to create any shape required. From the Nielsens and the bbms to who is spending how much and who is recouping how much and the impact of increased licensed conditions and how many hours of drama each broadcaster is airing in primetime, the list goes on. It’s insane.

And lo and behold, just when one thinks the end is in sight, over the fax this week come new numbers from the cab outlining the financial impact of both the cfpta’s 10 plan and the Directors Guild’s 7 plan. Nice timing. Where were these numbers in July or August? Perhaps buried in the monolith submission? Or maybe it undermines the ‘We want more Canadian’ party line to be part of the ramp-up propaganda.

Midway through the hearing and nobody’s coming out on top, which is as it should be. The cab, after months of preparation, arrives at the hearing with pathetic viewership goals – 7.5% to 10% of viewing to Canadian entertainment programming – and no cohesive plan for how any group movement towards using viewership as the benchmark for success is going to be accomplished.

On the flip side, the producers are hell bent for leather on a 10/10/10 plan that pays little attention to reality and only in the 11th hour of the hearing giving due diligence to the fact that people watching their shows is important.

In between asking questions that span the abcs of broadcasting to the minutia of 150% and 200% credits, the commission doesn’t appear to be warming to either agenda, but neither does it seem to be warming to Bay Street, which is in the room articulating a truism we don’t really like to talk about in Canadian entertainment.

The creative side of the industry and the commission dialogues on the 10/10/10 concept and talks about culture and content and ideals which is necessary and admirable lands with a dull thud on shareholders who care only about risk and return.

And although we have some serious questions about exactly how much of a money-loser Canadian programs are for the distributors (see $1.15 vs $.28, page 32), hobbled broadcasters aren’t going to help the Canadian broadcasting system. Producers squeezing licence fees from broadcasters splitting a percentage of a lesser advertising share over 10 hours per week are going to know a whole new meaning for ‘funding gap.’ and if this process results in regulation that doesn’t pay attention to the economic realities of the market, it could very well undermine everything the collective have worked for over the past 15 years.

Play the bbms and the AC Nielsens any way you like, but the sad fact is that if CanWest Global subscribed to national ratings data which showed viewing audiences all across the country for the private networks, a Canadian primetime drama would not make the top 10. We’re not there yet.

It would be honest if everyone with a vested interest in more production would admit that Canadian programming is still a second-class citizen when it comes to eyeballs and what the rich national advertisers are willing to spend their money on.

With brilliant writing, production skills, a great deal of cash and just one program to spike so that the outdated, ridiculous Canadian program stereotype still in the minds of viewers could go away, we could get there. The broadcasters and their thinly-disguised anti-Canadian program agenda would choke on it because the truth is there’s a fierce Canadian loyalty out there and if we can tap it, we can sell it. But it has to meet the standard, and that’s only possible with strong producers and strong broadcasters.

In the ’80s and before, it was fine to adopt the ‘require it because it will create jobs and develop the skills necessary for crews and talent to manifest themselves, no matter what it looks like on screen and no matter how much money the distributors lose’ approach. But we’ve gone beyond.

The same mind set will not sustain and develop an industry that competes with the best programming in the world for the audience. All parties at the hearing know this, so why everyone came to the table digging in their heels on their own respective agenda without a plan that makes it simple for the commission to implement a reasonable and productive growth plan, we’re not sure. The cab could have offered more – as in real money. The cftpa could’ve asked for less – as in one or two more hours, over time.

Now there seems to be this calm acceptance that the crtc knows that everybody is playing real estate – they ask high, you go low and meet somewhere in the middle. That’s a big gamble, considering so many new faces on the commission and the volume of material they’re being required to sort through, understand and synthesize in this process. More importantly, particularly when there seems to be no consensus on the part of the commission on what role ‘viewership’ should play in deciding new policy.

Broadcasting vice-chair Andree Wylie questions whether using ‘popular’ as a benchmark might lead to ‘lowest common denominator’ programming and dilute the variety of choices available. On the other hand, commissioner Andrew Cardozo says he doesn’t see the juxtaposition between public policy objectives and the issue of viewership, saying that since ‘public policy is about serving the public they ought to be the same thing.’

Who exactly knows whether the majority of commissioners are siding with the more = variety concept and hang how much more, and who is erring on the side of linking viewership to quality and recognizing that the funding system will only support so much drama?

The commissioners all have one vote and a couple of options to choose from thanks to a host of selfish agendas that do nothing to service the whole. If this blows up into requirements that dictate a low-budget Canadian primetime and splinter finite production resources to the wind, each sector has itself to blame. Many hours of mediocre television is not better than a fewer number of high-quality shows. It’s going to be awfully sad if we end up going backwards after so many years going forward.