MONTREAL: When the CRTC renewed the CBC and Societe Radio-Canada licences and their affiliated specialty news services in January of 2000, it attached the strange condition prohibiting both the English and French TV networks of the CBC from broadcasting non-Canadian blockbuster movies during peak viewing hours.

The proscribed blockbuster, in its non-Canadian designation, was defined by the CRTC as a film ‘listed within the top 100 films of Variety magazine’s list of top-grossing films in the United States and Canada, within the 10-year period preceding the date the film is broadcast by the licensee,’ and ‘[released] theatrically in Canada within two years from the date the film is broadcast.’

The commission gave CBC 36 months to implement the decision, which comes into effect in two weeks, on Sept. 1. CBC and SRC have asked the commission to amend their licences and scrap the foreign film prohibition.

Ignoring the rather dubious, indeed quaint, notion that most of Variety’s top 100 box office list is made up of blockbusters, which presumably CBC/SRC would dearly love to buy, it’s worth noting how much the CRTC has done on behalf of Canada’s private broadcasters in the past three or four years.

Its ’99 TV Policy effectively lets private broadcasters off the hook in terms of dollar commitments to Canadian priority programming, notably drama series. And it recently granted DTH services permission to redirect more money away from priority programs, this time to a fund reserved for a handful of small-market private broadcasters.

Programming high-quality foreign films, including U.S. family-style entertainment, not to mention the old Sunday evening Disney showcase, is a long-held tradition in public broadcasting. And unlike the private network approach, those films are not the subject of simulcasts on either national public network.

SRC aired 37 films in primetime last season that appeared on the Variety top 100 list. This was out of a potential 1,000 films for the preceding 10-year period. During the same period, CBC aired 11 films from Variety’s list, making up only a miniscule sliver of CBC’s entire broadcast year, about 1.5% of the total peak-time hours.

In reply to reasonably legitimate concerns about the availability of CBC/SRC dollars for Canadian features, CBC says it increased the number of Canadian feature films broadcast on the network by 25%, from 37 in 2000-01 to 56 in 2001-02; and in the past two years has entered into production commitments for 12 Canadian features, with development commitments for 10 more. As for the French-language SRC network, it nearly doubled the number of Canadian films broadcast, from 38 in 2000-01 to 69 in 2001-02.

In the thriving Quebec movie market, at least 80% of all French-track feature films produced receive some form of financial support from CBC/SRC.

Some of the films that have aired on CBC and SRC include The English Patient, Chocolat, Life is Beautiful, Shine, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Shakespeare in Love. More recently, the list includes the Raiders of the Lost Ark trilogy. The network has also acquired the rights to the first two Lord of the Rings films. All are entirely appropriate CBC/SRC programming choices.

Why would distributors allow the regulator to dictate who their clients should be? As for the production industry, it will be among the big losers, again, if CBC and SRC audience ratings are further marginalized.

LEO RICE-BARKER

Montreal Bureau Chief