Montreal: Canada’s national public television networks are changing the way they do business, with each other and subsequently with independent producers. And while program exchanges between CBC and Radio-Canada continue to be done through acquisitions (Omerta, D’Or, Anne of Green Gables, even the Reseau TVA series Fortier), the networks have become much more proactive in the past two years in the development of joint planning exercises.

The Banff Television Festival is an important annual rallying point for CBC and Radio-Canada, with virtually all senior management and program directors attending. The festival is entrenched as the prime Canadian venue for independent TV producers pitching new program proposals.

‘Our objective, regarding upper management at CBC and SRC and the program directors, is to try whenever possible to do projects together, as we do with the Olympics. This gives Radio-Canada and CBC our own unique ‘color’ since we are the only national networks with the capacity [to address] both the English- and French-speaking markets,’ says Suzanne Laverdiere, SRC’s director of independent production, acquisitions and feature films.

CBC’s Deborah Bernstein, executive director, arts and entertainment programming, English television network, says suitable projects from independent producers ‘have to be thematically important to the country from a cultural point of view and appropriate to both markets.’

Bernstein says projects developed and licensed by the English TV network originate from across the country. ‘We don’t think of producers in terms of where they come from. On the English network, probably over 60% of our independently produced programming is produced outside of Toronto.’

‘What’s new is that right from the writing of a screenplay we [CBC and SRC] work together with the producer at all stages of development and production,’ says Laverdiere. When the time comes, productions with significant licence offers from both networks are well positioned to trigger additional financing from the Canadian Television Fund. ‘And this is a [policy] orientation we will continue,’ she says.

Big-budget dramatic series showcased on both CBC and SRC this season include Random Passage (Cite-Amerique/Passage Films with Irish partners), the biker drama The Last Chapter (Productions Tele-Action) and the miniseries Trudeau (Big Motion Pictures).

Newly co-licensed drama for 2002/03 includes the returning series The Last Chapter II, the prequel Trudeau II, the new half-hour drama (13 episodes produced in double-shoot) Escaping to the Main (Cirrus Communications) and the second season of the children’s series Me-Moi (Galafilm).

SRC and CBC share a growing number of variety and cultural specials, which includes programming marking CBC’s 50th anniversary celebrations in September. Arts and performance programs Opening Night (CBC) and Les Beaux Dimanches (SRC) share complementary Sunday evening windows. ARTV, the French-language arts specialty channel managed by SRC in partnership with ARTE France, Tele-Quebec, L’Equipe Spectra and others, presents another opportunity.

Codevelopment and exchange potential is arguably even greater in factual programming, where producers with the right stuff can mix and match potential windows on CBC and SRC, Newsworld and Reseau de l’Information. ‘It even happens that some documentaries are on all four networks,’ says Laverdiere.

Bernstein says Canadian producers have become increasingly sophisticated and adept at managing change in the domestic and international markets. A case in point, she says, is the growth of interprovincial coproduction. CBC has licensed several new coproductions, including two MOWs, The Many Trials of One Jane Doe, involving producers in Montreal (Muse Entertainment), Toronto (Indian Grove) and Winnipeg (Original Pictures), and Sacrifice: The JJ Harper Story from producers in Toronto (The Film Works) and Winnipeg (Ice Productions).

Bernstein says interprovincial coproduction ‘represents a very clear industry opportunity in terms of spreading the work around the country and outside of where the story is set or its cultural significance. Financing opportunities are maximized and not so insular province to province.’

CBC pitch lottery

The creative heads at CBC arts and entertainment (dramatic series, movies and miniseries, children’s and youth, as well as arts, music, science and variety) take pitches throughout the week at BTVF, but because there are so many requests and schedules are booked so fast, Bernstein says a first-come, first-served-style lottery has been organized for Wednesday, June 12.

Bernstein is more immediately involved in broader planning exercises and policy, meeting with producers ‘who have projects across the departments, as a planning exercise,’ as well with executives from SRC, the National Film Board, CFTPA, Telefilm Canada and significant international partners.

SRC’s Banff agenda includes its annual meeting with francophone producers located outside Quebec, such as the Winnipeg-based Alliance des Producteurs Francophones du Canada. ‘We talk to them about our program orientation, [current] results, trends for the future, and to exhange information on [SRC’s] organizational and internal policy issues, because we don’t have another occasion to meet with them in the year,’ says Laverdiere.

Jennifer Stewart, director international coproductions, sales and acquisitions, CBC International Sales, says she’ll be looking out for program pickups for export sales as well as general acquisitions.

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