Montreal: As head of television production at Alliance Atlantis Communications, Canada’s largest production company, Seaton McLean surveys dramatic programming opportunities in Canada. ‘I go through and try to figure out the [network] availabilities.’

At last month’s mipcom, where the hot new Alliance Atlantis production deal was Invincible, a one-hour action series coventure with Mel Gibson’s Icon Productions and show creator Jet Li, Playback asked McLean to consider `l’ordre des choses’ a little closer to home.

In this interview, which relaunches Playback’s Perspective series, McLean says the combination of existing resources and the growing offer to produce quality Canadian drama and drama series outstrip existing shelf space. He says unique Canadian programs will play a major role in the future branding success, and survival, of the Canadian film and television industry, and argues the industry has to put more high-end drama on more Can-casters.

Start with cbc, which McLean says ‘is as supportive as anybody.’ Be that as it may, there are many other considerations, not the least of which is the fact that every ambitious producer in this country is aiming for Corp. time. McLean says network executives recently told him they’re sitting on inventory from the past three years.

Then there’s CanWest Global.

‘Global basically has three slots for Canadian-content shows [Traders, Psi Factor and The Outer Limits, all from aac], and they vary in nature to what people might call `industrial,’ which I find ironic because Psi Factor is 10 out of 10 points Canadian, as absolutely Canadian as Traders. Every actor on the show, every writer, every director is Canadian,’ says McLean.

‘So they [Global], I believe, will continue to have three slots,’ he says. ‘And I can tell you pretty much right now what those shows are going to be next year [fall 2000]. Code Name Eternity (a Cancon series from Protocol Entertainment) is going to start airing next year. They’ve got another season of Outer Limits (produced with Showtime and mgm), which they already bought, and there’s a third, which hopefully is going to be [aac’s] Justice. So that’s Global, and maybe, just maybe, they have an appetite for [another] half-hour.’

Then there’s ctv.

In primetime, ctv has Nikita (Fireworks Entertainment), Power Play (aac), Cold Squad (aac/Keatley MacLeod) and The City (Sarrazin Couture). ‘And there are other bits and pieces [made-for-tv movies, mostly]. I think they have a total of five hours [a week] of Canadian drama, so we’re leaving out a couple of things,’ McLean says.

‘Then there’s wic and Citytv, which have their own mandates [licensing programs] such as Relic Hunter (wic) and Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict [picked up by City from ctv in its third season]. And wic has Peter Benchley’s Amazon [aac].’

Our little funnel

‘But here we have a situation where maybe there are three one-hour primetime slots available for next year,’ says McLean. ‘And you’ve got countless producers, hoping – wanting – for their shows to be one of those three. And you’ve got the Canadian Television Fund, Telefilm Canada and the tax incentives – provincially and federally – all fueling this industry that we have very successfully created, and it’s all going into what is essentially a little funnel.

‘The only way that you can match up the end of the funnel with what’s trying to be pushed in is if you increase the number of [dramatic] hours broadcast.’

If Canadian drama is to continue to grow, McLean says more flexibility is needed ‘across the whole broadcasting sector.’

‘It is not my business to tell Izzy [Asper] or anybody how to run their businesses. They’re in it to make money for their shareholders, and good for them. But if we want to solve that funnel problem we have to create more shelf space. And the only way we’re going to do that is by issuing more licences and letting other players, other than the ones that now control the shelf space, into the [Canadian drama] game.

‘When wic gets finally carved up we’re going to end up with three national broadcasters, [while] in the u.s., with upn and wb and Fox Network, you have six networks. With six networks producing all of this American stuff, and only three Canadian networks, and Citytv, of course, then there is going to be even more [program] supply than there is demand. So they’ll [Canadian programmers] have their pick of the litter, and my fear is what will lose out is indigenous Canadian drama.

‘I was talking to someone the other day who was reminding me that Global is broadcasting 17 Fox series this season,’ says McLean. ‘They’ve got a bunch of other stuff as well. As long as the relationship and proximity with the u.s. continues, how are we going to free up more airwaves [and put] more Canadian shows on? And the answer is, unfortunately, we probably won’t.

Headed where?

‘Ask the question who’s going to be around 10 years from now and what are they going to look like?’ says McLean.

‘It’s a hard question, not easy to answer, but I have to believe it’s not simply going to be companies which retransmit other people’s ideas. Everyone knows who Fox is. They have a brand. Everybody knows who wb is, they’ve been very successful that way. What is Global? Global is a retransmitter. It’s okay, I understand business. But looking down the road towards the multichannel universe, you’ll have to be able to create an identity for yourself.

‘Traders has done more to brand Global in the last five years than every single episode of Beverly Hills 90210 has ever done,’ he says. ‘And I think that’s how you build up an identity. Ivan [Fecan, ctv president and ceo] is not wrong when he changes his logo and calls it the `Canadian Television Network’ and puts on large-budget, primetime one-hour [Canadian] dramas. I don’t necessarily agree with the way he’s going about doing it, but the philosophy gets people thinking that’s what you’re going to see if you tune in [to ctv].’

A big piece of the high-Canadian drama contingent is in the deep-orbit end of the program schedule.

Traders is on Thursdays at 10 p.m., up against er and The National on cbc. Cold Squad (aac/Keatley MacLeod), Power Play (aac) and The City (Sarrazin Couture) are scheduled Friday nights on ctv.

‘Four hours of indigenous Canadian content drama [on the private networks] are being put into a black hole,’ says McLean.

(The cbc series Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy (aac/Milestone Productions) is also broadcast on Fridays.)

‘I do believe that lumping in approximately 50% [of all higher content Canadian one-hour drama series] on Friday night is not doing anybody a service. But I’m not a programmer, and when ctv says this is creating a night that showcases Canadian drama, then they no doubt believe that is true. And from a programming perspective, it’s probably a good thing to do. Each to their own.

‘You can’t just look at one piece of the puzzle,’ he says. ‘Is it [the current scheduling wisdom] done to create a home for Canadian television and a brand identity for the network? Or is it to put all these Canadian content shows that are mandated into one pot and throw them on the lowest viewing night of the week, clearing out the rest of the schedule for the simulcasts? I don’t know.’

There’s mandated programming, and then there’s charity. A bit of a sore point with McLean, who says, ‘I’m sorry and this has been put up [in print] elsewhere, or everywhere, but the cynicism of putting Traders up against er, and then to turn around as recently as [last month] and point out that they [CanWest Global] don’t make any money on Traders and they only do it because (a) they’re forced to, and (b) they recognize the value in having a so-called corporate Canadian flagship show – but don’t get it wrong, they `don’t make any money on it.’ ‘

There’s a pattern here, too.

Licence fee averages continue to back up a point or two every year, and producers point to broadcasters who alone benefit from the Licence Fee Program top-up. And then there’s the general economic impact of increased program supply and choice.

According to McLean, Global does make money with Traders, ‘and they could make a heck of a lot more if they didn’t put it against er.’ He says Traders’ $225,000 an hour licence fee (the show’s budget is $900,000 per episode) isn’t putting anyone out of business. ‘But what they don’t mention is what they’re paying for Psi Factor and for The Outer Limits. And if you take those three shows you have a licence fee average that is less now than what licence fees were five years ago.’

North-south fixation

The producer says Canada has to keep prying its viewfinder from its North-south fixation.

‘We’re making strides and inroads in the United States, for example, with the Emmy Awards. But still, if you look at what’s going on in Germany or France or Spain or the u.k., there are many broadcasters or channels in those countries which don’t have a single hour of American programming in primetime.

‘In the u.k. right now the only [u.s.] show running in primetime on bbc and itv is Buffy The Vampire Slayer. And prior to that, the only [u.s.] show that had really succeeded in the international market was The X-Files. And if I’m a Canadian broadcaster, I would look at that and I would ask, `Now, what’s the signal coming out of there?’

‘So there’s zdf, Channel 4, rtl, and all the [successful] market share that these [networks] have is because of their indigenous programming, because they have branded their networks as the only place you can see this [national content] show.’

`Children of necessity’

‘Traders is. . . a terrific show, but we don’t make it for Europe, we make it for Canada, and after the fact try to sell it. But you won’t stay in business very long if that’s your [only] business. So that’s why we do Beastmasters [with Tribune and Endemol]. For every Beastmasters we do, we’re able to pay for a Traders. Then we find vehicles like Cold Squad [and its forensic female investigator lead], which is 10 out of 10 Canadian, bald-faced-Vancouver-here-we-are, but it has universal themes, it’s a cop show, and it’s our most successful seller in the international marketplace, I believe. That’s perhaps the perfect situation – when you can achieve both.’

And if the Europeans can increasingly get it together to do their own medical dramas or soaps, McLean says they still need Canadian producers to supply shows such as aac’s Peter Benchley’s Amazon (66 hours coventured with Eyemark and KirchMedia [Beta Taurus] at a cost of us$1.2 million per), ‘big, expensive action-adventures with recognizable faces they can play in a variety of different slots.’

‘On Amazon, the American licence fee is close to 20% to 25% of the budget. The licence fee coming out of Canada represents 5%.’

Add in the domestic production tax credits, and McLean says aac typically goes into the international production market with half the program budget missing.

(Canadian licence fees for aac one-hour dramas vary from 3% of the budget to just over 25%. aac produced $438 million in television production in fiscal ’99.)

‘You have to look elsewhere. You have to do coproductions. We are children of necessity,’ he says.

aac is slated to do 273 hours of all categories of tv drama production (children’s and animation included) in fiscal 2000 (ending March 31). ‘Last year we did 340 hours and next year we’ll do less than 273,’ says McLean.

‘Even if we end up [in fiscal 2001] doing 250 hours, it’s still more than any North American independent or other producer. Excluding the sitcoms and stuff like that, we’ve got to be up there among the top three [in drama].

Canadian coproduction has historically been a bridge between the u.s. market and Europe, says Mclean. ‘That continues to be absolutely true. We facilitate. We compromise and take very different parts of the jigsaw puzzle and put them all together. We’ve had to. That’s how our industry has grown.

‘So ideally, we’d be grateful like crazy if we – broadcasters, producers, the crtc, cavco, everybody – would race to make as much good quality Canadian drama as we can – right now – because in 10 years from now if we haven’t done that, there won’t be an industry.’