With the recent revamping of the Canadian Television Fund guidelines and the Feature Film Policy Review Committee recommendations, Playback takes a look at the potential impact on the Quebec production industry. The report features a discussion of these issues with Radio-Canada’s director-general of programming Daniel Gourd and apftq producers association chairman Andre Picard. We also take and an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the making of Quebec’s most expensive, and publicly financed, filmed tv drama, Omerta: le dernier des hommes d’honneur.

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‘Our understanding is the private sector [broadcasters] have won the battle of the funds,’ says Daniel Gourd, director-general, programming, Radio-Canada.

Under new Canadian Television Fund rules for ’99/2000, the reserved cbc/src share of lfp funding drops from 50% to 38%, with what Gourd calls ‘a free for all’ in store for both eip and lfp money in fiscal 2000/2001.

Gourd says changes to the ctf regulations impact directly on the private networks’ bottom line, overhead and salaries ‘which are getting bigger and bigger because the salaries of their top managers are getting bigger and bigger.’

‘What they wanted was the best of both worlds, the possibility of tax credits for their own production units [affiliates], which they have now obtained, and at the same time access to public funds without the same kind of accountability we have,’ says Gourd.

Gourd says ‘the private broadcaster’ (a sure reference to tva) made its biggest profits this year.

He says the use of ‘every penny’ of public funds by src is carefully scrutinized, ‘but the private sector never has to in anyway or at any time justify their use of public funds or where it goes.’

‘So it’s the same rules for access but not the same rules for accountability. This is a problem,’ he says.

Gourd says quality drama series can only be produced if there’s enough ctf money, and under new ctf rules, producer expectations will have to be lowered. ‘Our discretion as a broadcaster will be lowered significantly,’ he says.

‘Keep our authority’

Gourd says the system will work to undermine the authority of public broadcasters, with decision making moving from programmers to Telefilm Canada and ctf evaluation committees.

‘We should be able to keep our authority as a broadcaster because we should be the ones to decide what will be broadcast or not. We’re ready to discuss this with partners but the ultimate decision has to be made by the broadcaster.’

Gourd suggests the only way to guarantee this will be to oversubscribe (‘come with a lot of programming’) at both Telefilm and the ctf. ‘We are the ones who have to explain what we broadcast and the choices we make,’ he says. ‘Telefilm and the ctf are not accountable for what src broadcasts.’

If src makes funding requests ‘only for what we need’ and some applications are turned down, says Gourd, then src will be faced with a serious shortage of original programming, ‘and our [market] share will decrease very rapidly.’

‘We want to be significant, and to be significant means being competitive,’ says Gourd.

‘We want to commit ourselves to at least one `series lourde’ a year but now there’s no guarantee.’

src invests between $200,000 and $250,000 for two broadcasts of primetime filmed drama series, typically budgeted between $750,000 and $850,000 an hour. Gourd says the broadcaster is often at the 25% level and its total licensing investment in indie-produced drama is approximately $8.5 million – the same amount of dollars src is being asked to invest in Canadian feature films (based on the Feature Film Policy Review committee recommendation of $25 million from src/cbc).

‘src can’t do both [drama and movies],’ Gourd says. ‘It’s going to be one or the other.’

Quality will suffer

Gourd says src is willing to increase its feature film investment, but only over time.

‘If we cut dramatic series on television overall quality will decline rapidly. If the teleroman-plus becomes the rule in the market you’ll see quality drop very sharply. We have the responsibility to do those [filmed drama] series, but if we have to put millions into film forget it, we won’t be able to maintain this choice and we’ll go right down to the teleroman-plus. That’s not bad quality, it’s just not the reference [benchmark] in quality.’

Whatever the increase for films, it won’t be $8.5 million, or even close, he says.

And src has no intention of sacrificing any of its regional stations’ youth programming budget nor its more commercially viable shows for the benefit of feature production. If src ends up with little choice in the matter, Gourd says cultural or ‘equivalent programming like Les Beaux Dimanches and drama series and miniseries’ will take the hit.

‘I think it’s a catastrophe,’ he adds.

The $8.5 million recommended for features is the equivalent of the total operating budget for a regional station like Quebec City or Ottawa or Moncton or all four src stations in Western Canada, says Gourd.

It also represents three-quarters of src’s youth and children’s annual budget. ‘It’s all our Beaux Dimanches [Sunday nights arts, performance and drama showcase] over a year and a half.’

‘We’ll have to talk about it because people say things like, `They put $125 million in the Olympics so they should put in $25 million for films.’ We put $125 million in the Olympics over a 10-year period. But $25 million a year [for films] is $250 million over 10 years for less than a third [of the total minutes of the programming] derived from the Olympics.’

Progressive investment

src is working on five- and 10-year ‘progressive investment’ plans to increase its role in feature films, and is likely to make a proposal along these lines in June at crtc licence renewal hearings.

‘We’ll commit ourselves for five years because our licence will be for five years,’ says Gourd.

This year src is investing about $1.2 million in Canadian feature film prebuys, investments and acquisitions.

src has prebought three or four features filed for the Jan. 22 eip/lfp deadline, including a new film from Charles Biname.

‘We’re not only funding blockbusters,’ says Gourd. ‘We know our responsibility is to try to [license films] which we think will be popular, but some will be financed because of their quality and contribution.’

src is actively looking for a replacement for Johane Brunet, former manager, exterior production and acquisitions, who recently joined TV5. Brunet’s replacement will assume responsibility for the business side of exterior production and acquisitions and for both the financing and content evaluation required for features. Gourd says the hope is to hire someone within the next two weeks.