Winnipeg: While national broadcasters remain quiet until next season’s broadcast letters are issued, the specialty channels are making it clear that the high licence fees required to maximize points at the Canadian Television Fund will impact programming decisions.

History Television will be reducing the number of projects commissioned and increasing its licence fees in order to maximize points and raise the odds that priority programs get funded by the Licence Fee Program, says vp of programming Norm Bolen.

‘We simply cannot afford to commission the higher budget documentary programs,’ says John Panikkar, director of programming at Discovery Channel. To maximize points, Panikkar says he would have to put up 55% of the budget.

‘On a show like Champions of the Wild, which costs $2 million, the broadcaster has to put in $1 million. A specialty channel cannot do that, so it’s less likely for producers with more expensive documentaries to get money from the fund.’

Instead, Panikkar says he is being forced to look at smaller-budgeted shows where he can maximize points at a lower cost, and is working more with producers who finance without the fund.

Broadcasters have the choice of either commissioning fewer projects at high licence fees, as History plans to do, or spread the money around more projects and take the chance that projects which accumulate a medium range of points scrape through the door.

‘Either way you go its a crapshoot,’ says Panikkar. ‘It’s a complete unknown – how many points and what level of licence fee will be needed to get money out of the fund.

Panikkar says Discovery cannot go the route of other specialties and commission fewer projects at top licence fees because of the channel’s high Cancon quotas.

‘If you have only a 35% Cancon requirement you can commission fewer original programs and fill the rest of the schedule with cheap acquisitions, but Discovery has a 50% primetime Cancon commitment,’ Panikkar explains.

‘We are one of the biggest commissioners of documentaries in Canada, so we simply cannot increase our licence fees. Jacking up licence fees by 20% to 30% to just get to a mid-range level of points – and that’s not even the maximum – is impossible. We’d be out of business. We have to spread the money around.

‘Another alternative,’ he says, ‘is for specialty channels to partner up with other broadcasters, sharing first windows and arranging second windows. But this does not work in all cases.’

Panikkar says he is also concerned about the overall direction the fund is taking.

‘It seems to be creating two classes of producers – those who do small-budget Canadian shows with flags stamped all over them and get maximum licence fees, and at the other end, the big producers who go internationally and ignore the fund.

Panikkar is concerned about what happens to those caught in the middle. He also notes that the small producers doing low-budget Canadian shows through the fund will have difficulty growing their companies because they will not be able to capture international sales. Instead, they will remain dependent on the ctf.

Kevin Wright, vp programming for Teletoon and Family Channel, says he has not decided whether to put more money into fewer projects or spread the money around, with some projects licensed at high levels and some at lower levels.

Wright does note that medium-budgeted projects trying to access the kids envelope require higher licence fees to maximize points than do higher-priced shows. To pick up 40 points, a mid-budgeted show would require a licence fee as high as $93,000, whereas a higher-budgeted kids program could achieve top points with a licence fee of $76,000. Wright says this scale was put in place by the ctf to recognize the difficulty of financing higher-budgeted kids shows.

However, it’s business as usual at Chum Television, where manager of independent production Diane Boehme says, ‘We try not to get caught up in the frenzy of the ctf. We are not changing our licensing practices. A show is worth what it is worth and we will take our chances. The door is small and we are prepared to rejig financing if a project doesn’t get through.’

Most of the science-fiction Boehme commissions for Space: The Imagination Station is ineligible for the lfp, but feature films and performing arts documentaries do go to the fund. Boehme says many of these programs do not get through the gate at the ctf, but she works with the producers to find other ways to finance the shows.

On the feature film end, she says many of the projects come from first-time filmmakers who are not relying on government sources of money.

Performing arts pieces also are not including the ctf in the financing structure, she adds.

As for the national broadcasters, cbc’s Phyllis Platt says she is still in meetings over the ctf and next season’s schedule and cannot discuss the broadcaster’s plans as yet.

Global’s vp Canadian production, Loren Mawhinney, says she has not finalized orders for next season’s lineup. However, she notes that most of the conventional broadcasters are already paying top licence fees and only ordering high-priority programming. For example, last year Global only asked for two series, Traders and Justice, for a total of 26 hours.

Specialty channels, she says, are ‘going to have to be more discriminating’ when handing out broadcast letters.

Calls to ctv’s dramatic programming department were not returned.