Canadian drama is still in a serious crisis while private conventional broadcasters are raking in the cash, according to The Need for a Regulatory Safety Net, a new study released by the Coalition of Canadian Audio-Visual Unions.

While the study finds that broadcaster spending on drama hit a seven-year low of $56.3 million in 2004, it projects that by 2008 advertising revenues for English-language conventional broadcasters will increase by more than $200 million, and suggests broadcasters should be required to increase drama spending proportionately.

‘It’s critical that broadcasters start telling stories about Canadians by Canadians,’ said CCAU chair Peter Murdoch at a June 13 press conference held at the Banff World Television Festival.

The study, funded by CCAU member groups, including ACTRA, the Directors Guild of Canada, the Writers Guild of Canada and NABET, was conducted by Peter Grant, Grant Buchanan and Monique Lafontaine of the law firm McCarthy Tétrault, with statistical and financial analysis from media and telecommunications consultants Nordicity Group.

‘What we found was quite shocking,’ says WGC executive director Maureen Parker.

Partially a response to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ claim that their members face a downturn in advertising revenues, the study examined yearly spending on Canadian drama and calculated five-year projections of broadcaster advertising revenues.

The study asserts that neither fragmentation nor the advent of satellite and Internet technologies are leading to a decline in ad revenues for conventional broadcasters. It projects advertising markets will grow 5.4% a year, 3.9% for conventional broadcasters and 10.8% for pay and specialty stations.

‘This is a lucrative business. Despite market fragmentation, despite the move to digital, [broadcasters] will still make money,’ says Parker, maintaining that not enough of that profit is funneled back into the Canadian system.

Glenn O’Farrell, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, counters that the study’s facts and figures are totally flawed and that projecting advertising revenue growth for conventional broadcasters anywhere near the range of $200 million by 2008 is highly unrealistic. ‘We’re looking at the public record for our figures. I don’t know where they’re getting theirs,’ he says.

‘The study seems to be void of even the most elementary understanding of where the industry and marketplace are at,’ he continues. ‘The study is just so off the radar, off the table, that there’s nothing to engage in meaningful discussion with [the CCAU] on because we’d be talking apples and oranges.’

While O’Farrell admits that the CRTC’s latest Broadcasting Policy Monitoring Report does point to increasing advertiser spending overall, he says conventional broadcasters are ‘experiencing flat or minimal advertising revenue growth,’ clearly nothing near the levels of growth suggested by the CCAU.

The CCAU is calling for Canadian broadcasters to spend a minimum of 7% of their gross ad revenues on Canadian drama, which, it says, would more than double their current commitment, increasing annual spending on Canadian drama to $131 million from $53.6 million.

According to Parker, however, it’s not only a question of money. Canadian broadcasters, she says, continually place homegrown shows at times in their lineups when most Canadians aren’t watching. For example, she points to CTV’s decision to start airing the original Vancouver-set drama Robson Arms at 10:30 p.m. on Friday nights throughout the summer, calling the move ‘discouraging.’

In response, the unions point to the CRTC’s 1999 Television Policy, which requires broadcasters to air eight hours of Canadian priority programming during ‘prime time,’ defined as 7-11 p.m., Monday through Sunday. The study advocates rethinking the 1999 TV Policy to define primetime as periods when most Canadians are watching television – 8-10 p.m., Sunday through Thursday – and that reruns, previously aired Canadian programs and low-budget magazine-style programming not count as priority programming.

As for the CRTC’s 2004 advertising incentive intended to entice broadcasters to produce more drama, the unions maintain that it remains unclear whether the incentives will have any effect.