Angling for regulatory changes and more public subsidies, independent producers are urging Ottawa to re-impose Canadian-content spending quotas on private broadcasters – pointing to a new study that shows lagging support for domestic programming despite rising profits among private broadcasters.

The study by Nordicity Group was commissioned by the CFTPA and arrives ahead of this month’s broadcaster convention in Winnipeg.

The producers, in a separate Sept. 30 letter to Heritage Minister Liza Frulla, cited the apparent failure of the 1999 federal Television Policy to spur homegrown drama production as grounds for Ottawa to reintroduce expenditure requirements and to raise its annual contribution to the Canadian Television Fund.

The producers argue that both are key to recovering from the controversial TV Policy, which did away with such requirements and which many say has caused a slump in domestic production. CFTPA says Ottawa will never meet its goals for domestic production if producers are struggling to survive.

‘We are deeply concerned that if significant changes to the current system are not implemented, the situation for independent producers will worsen and eventually hit a point beyond which it will be extremely difficult to achieve the cultural objectives set out for the Canadian broadcasting system,’ reads the group’s letter.

But private broadcasters, while conceding that there are difficulties for independent producers, say the industry has never had it so good.

‘The 1999 policy, on the evidence, has been a good thing for the production industry. There have been problems. But spending has risen,’ counters David Keeble, senior vice-president of policy and regulatory affairs at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.

Keeble takes issue with the main findings of the Nordicity study, arguing that private broadcasters increased their contribution to CAVCO-certified productions between 1998/99 and 2002/03, and that – stripping out the earnings of specialty broadcasters, which have thrived in recent years – private conventional broadcasters have seen their earnings slip slightly since 1999/00.

CFTPA cites its own numbers to accompany an old refrain that the deck is stacked against Canadian production.

‘The report comes as a result of increased frustration that [producers’] interests have not been looked after, and that producers have been relied on to provide quality programming when licence fees are stable, or declining, and the appetite for rights is greater than ever,’ says CFTPA president and CEO Guy Mayson.

The CFTPA report insists that, between 1999/00 and 2003/04, Canadian broadcasters saw operating revenues jump 11% at the same time that CTF financing fell by 14%.

The CFTPA recommends increasing Ottawa’s annual contribution to the CTF by $95 million, to $195 million; raising federal tax credits for domestic production to 30%, from 25%; replacing the CTF’s equity investments with ‘automatic’ funding envelopes for producers; and raising minimum licence fees paid by broadcasters to trigger CTF funding. The producers want 37.5% for drama series, 25% for dramatic MOWs and miniseries, and 40% for documentaries and youth programming.

But Mayson says the real debate is whether Canadian-content programming matters as a federal policy objective.

‘There’s a commitment from everyone that this is important programming to be featured in schedules. For that to happen, we need a better funding model,’ he says.

Specifically, Mayson urges Ottawa to redress growing market imbalances, citing rising TV development and production costs, falling federal subsidies and the fact that conventional broadcasters are spending five times more on foreign dramas than on Canadian.

But CAB’s Keeble urges the producers to stop worrying about expenditure requirements for broadcasters, and to embrace the CRTC’s proposed incentives program, which rewards broadcasters with more allotted advertising minutes per hour for licensing more homegrown dramas.

‘There’s no point in going back seven years and recreating a policy that wasn’t that great to begin with,’ he says, adding that producers’ real problems are not with broadcasters, but with lackluster foreign markets

‘The international market has really declined quite dramatically. That’s the source of the real problem and that’s what has to be addressed,’ says Keeble.