Canadian broadcasters grew richer while their commitments to Canadian drama, at least on the private English side, withered to a fraction of their schedules, says the CRTC’s fifth annual Broadcasting Policy Monitoring Report.

Revenues for conventional private television stations increased more than 10% in 2003 to $2.1 billion, while pay, pay-per-view and specialty services had revenues of $1.9 billion in 2003, an increase of more than 10%, according to the report, released Dec. 14. The report covers the industry up to 2003.

Between 2000 and 2003, the CHUM station group saw revenues jump 59% to $194 million, while CTV improved revenues by 28% to $637 million, CanWest 12% to $672 million and Craig 11% to $51 million. TQS in Quebec improved 115% to $112 million, while TVA improved just 4% to $263 million.

BCE controls 18% of the English-language pay, pay-per-view and specialty services market in Canada to the tune of $265 million, while Corus Entertainment controls 16% ($254 million) and Astral 12% ($183 million). A group called ‘other’ shares 18% of the English market with revenues of $279 million.

Astral controls 44% ($149 million) of the French-language pay, PPV and specialty services market in Canada, while BCE controls 28% ($94 million) and CBC has 14% ($46 million).

According to Nielsen Media Research data included in the report, dramas and comedies remain the most popular television programs, attracting 44% of the average English-language weekly viewing hours over the 2002/03 broadcast year and 43% of the average weekly viewing hours for those watching in French. Overall, 14% of the viewing of English-language drama was to Canadian drama, while 32% of the viewing of French-language drama was to Canadian drama.

That’s not good enough for groups such as ACTRA, however.

The ’03 broadcast year was ‘yet another year in which Canadian private broadcasters were not supporting Canadian drama,’ says Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s national executive director. ‘Although the report indicates dramas and comedies are still the most popular, Canadian drama still lags far behind because private broadcasters don’t give Canadians an opportunity to see their own programming.’

In a table comparing TV stations in Toronto and Montreal, the English stations (CFTO and CIII) show no changes year-over-year in Canadian drama and comedy scheduling (as 17% to 21% of ‘priority programming’), while Montreal’s CFTM shows a marked increase – with French drama and comedy shifting from a 14% share to a 28% share of priority programming in just a year.

Also, private English broadcasters gave the overwhelming majority of their drama/comedy scheduling to foreign programs – CTV 90.5%, CanWest 91.5% and CHUM 91.9%. In Quebec, TVA aired 32% of its drama and comedy as Canadian, while 66.9% was foreign.

ACTRA representatives say it’s more illuminating to track drama volumes from 1999 when there were 12, 10-point one-hour dramas on conventional television. In 2003, there were five one-hour dramas and in 2004, just four.

Meanwhile, ACTRA is ‘not hopeful’ that bonus advertising minutes for increased drama will be able to turn around Canadian drama’s fortunes.

‘Private broadcasters continue to increase their profits while Canadians lose out on being able to see their own stories on TV,’ says Waddell. ‘They’re exploiting public airwaves for profit without living up to their obligations under the Broadcasting Act to enrich and strengthen Canadian culture by offering a wide range of Canadian programming.’

But the Canadian Association of Broadcasters has a different interpretation of the data, altogether. ‘What the CRTC’s report shows is that, by any measure, spending on drama production by broadcasters has increased since the establishment of the 1999 policy,’ says David Keeble, senior VP policy and regulatory affairs at the CAB. ‘Annual spending by broadcasters on drama has increased by $39 million (22%) between 1999 and 2003. Clearly the CRTC’s Television Policy works for drama.’

Adds Keeble: ‘The report, by its nature, doesn’t show the other economic factors which affect ACTRA’s employment objectives for its members, such as the weakness of the export market and the effect of a stronger dollar. What it does show is that broadcasters are not among the negative factors – on the contrary, they have increased their support.’

Total viewing of all Canadian services is up 4.2% between 1993 and 2003, while viewing of foreign services is off 3.4% and videocassette recording activity is off 0.9% over the same period.

According to the BBM fall 2003 survey, Canadians are watching an average of 21.7 hours of television per week. Nielsen pegs the weekly average at 26.1 hours.

There are 550 Canadian television services and 107 non-Canadian services. There are presently 11 transitional digital television stations, located in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. The current Canadian ethnic television landscape includes four over-the-air television stations, five analog specialty services, 21 launched Category 2 digital pay and specialty services and 30 Category 2 services that have yet to be launched. The CRTC has authorized the distribution of 19 third-language foreign services.

Meanwhile, broadcasting distribution undertakings – including 1,985 cable companies, two direct-to-home satellite services, 29 multipoint distribution systems and 12 subscription television systems – saw revenues of $5.4 billion in 2003. Of that, revenues for Canadian cable rose to $4.2 billion (up 7.7%), while those of DTH, MDS and STV combined hit $1.2 billion, representing growth of 27.2% over the previous year.

In 2003, cable garnered 76% of basic service subscriptions. DTH subscribers rose to 2.2 million, an increase of 9.8% over the previous year. In June 2004, 4.3 million subscribers to BDUs were receiving digital services, 19% more than in June 2003.

-www.crtc.gc.ca