Vancouver: As the strike by cbc technicians stretched into a month and the threat that journalists and office workers might join the picket lines loomed ever darker, cbc advertising executives were steadfastly upbeat about ad revenues as Playback went to press.

According to national sales and marketing director Geoff Thrasher, CBC Newsworld, for example, was able to maintain its audience share through the initial days of the strike, which began Feb. 17.

Nielsen Media numbers show that the specialty channel maintained its 0.8 share of adults 25-54 through the two weeks prior to the strike and the first two weeks into the strike. Ad bookings are on par with the same period last year. There have been no ad cancellations, bookings are strong into June and there are no discounts.

‘There is no reason,’ says Thrasher. ‘My audience hasn’t changed. And it looks like a good spring for television in general.’

Thrasher explains that much of the network’s long-form programming is produced elsewhere (for example, The Antiques Roadshow) and that the six daily Newsworld newscasts continue to inform audiences. Also, ads lost to postponed programming have been made up through alternative placements in the schedule.

‘[The strike] has really been of such minor impact,’ he says.

Despite the requisite optimism from the ad department, arm’s-length industry watchers are waiting for reality to bite.

‘We’ve seen before in other strikes a kind of honeymoon period,’ says Vancouver-based media analyst David Stanger, executive vp of Genesis Media.

‘Most advertisers and marketers won’t knee-jerk react. You won’t see the real impact of the strike in the first few weeks.’

Stanger explains that advertisers are waiting to see whether the journalists, represented by the Canadian Media Guild, and cupe office workers will join the technicians. (At Playback press time, all three unions were still negotiating.)

‘At that point you’ll see people starting to make [advertising] decisions’ he explains. ‘It’s the long-term effect that will be felt when advertisers analyze the damage done to their campaigns and they negotiate with the cbc for compensation for lost audience.’

Stanger adds: ‘cbc can’t afford a [protracted] strike, but it wouldn’t surprise me given the fact that the cbc has never followed the rest of the for-profit industry.’

Making the decisions to stay with the cbc more difficult for marketers, says Stanger, is the realization that the Canadian television advertising market is saturated, so that marketers who need to be on television have nowhere to move to even if they wanted.

Santa `stood down’

While the advertising department appears to be relatively unaffected by the strike, production has been hit directly.

The highest profile production affected by the strike is Must Be Santa, called the most expensive mow ever handled by the public broadcaster.

Production began in Toronto at the CBC Broadcasting Centre Feb. 10 with Dabney Coleman in the lead, but work has been officially ‘stood down.’

Three weeks into the strike, cbc representatives had no word on whether the resumption of production would coincide with openings in the actors’ schedules.

Production on Airfarce in Toronto and This Hour Has 22 Minutes in Halifax has been postponed. Pamela Wallin Live is also in reruns and other Newsworld programs using cbc facilities (such as Pacific Rim) are on hold.

The last two episodes of Ken Finkleman’s Foolish Heart have been delayed.

Regional impact

Regionally, newscasts like CBC Vancouver’s Broadcast One have been reduced to two-minute headline prologues to a National News dinner-hour program.

Also at CBC Vancouver, comedy program The 11th Hour, which was supposed to debut March 6, has been stuck in post-production limbo. Production on the local live-to-air Hockey Talk is stalled despite Hockey Night in Canada’s continued production. Booked on Saturday Night, a show about books, is not even airing in reruns.

A long-term strike over summer would impact the production of the five newly ordered episodes of Phil Savath’s These Arms of Mine and might affect the fall production of new teen soap Edgemont Road by Omni Films.

But some national programming continues to be produced.

As the lucrative hallmark production of the public broadcaster, Hockey Night in Canada is benefiting by an all-out effort to continue the program without interruption. Event programs like The Junos and the Aboriginal Achievement Awards came off without cbc as a coproducer.

And the strike is creating opportunities for some producers.

Earlier this month, Toronto’s Roadhouse Productions was handed the responsibility from cbc to produce the televised celebrations of the creation of Nunavut April 1.

Produced for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the Nunavut Protocol Event will be a two-hour production involving about 60 people imported from Toronto and 25 people in Iqaluit on Baffin Island.

Roadhouse, picking up a year of planning by the cbc, will now handle the staging and shooting of the event, act as host broadcaster for the domestic and international media, and oversee satellite uplinks and downlinks