The post of president of the Canadian Television Fund isn’t easy at the best of times. It’s a never-ending challenge to balance the interests of broadcasters, producers, and the various production centers when overseeing the distribution of crucial TV cash.

But Valerie Creighton took on an even more daunting task when she took over the helm of the CTF in January, just as it prepared to partner with Telefilm Canada as a one-board, one-administration organization.

Faced with a March 1 deadline, she oversaw contracting out the administration of the fund’s equity investment and licence fee program to an expanded TV division at Telefilm.

Then she began repositioning the CTF for its new role in research, strategic policy and program guideline development.

The fund is now also responsible for reporting back to its financial partners – including the federal government and the cable and direct-to-home satellite industries – on its resource management.

But Creighton is no stranger to leading an organization through change. She founded provincial film and TV funding agency SaskFilm in the early ’90s, and then returned as CEO in 1999 to lead the organization through a government-mandated restructuring and develop a long-term plan for industry growth.

And it was as Saskatchewan film commissioner that she also oversaw the province’s recent production boom, spurred on by the opening of the Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios and the smash sitcom Corner Gas.

Playback spoke with Creighton about the challenges of the recent transition period and the CTF’s new role.

How would you describe your time at the CTF so far?
It has been a very complex and compressed nine months, primarily because of the transition – setting up the television business unit at Telefilm and the negotiation of the services agreement under which Telefilm has been contracted to administer that program.

We had a really tight timeline. Those processes alone were a big undertaking, never mind moving 40 staff, building a new organization, plus work that had to be done at the board level.

Was the CTF/Telefilm partnership smoother or more difficult than you expected?
It was hard for both organizations. They are two very large national organizations that had to learn to do things differently. Telefilm had to give up its role as an equity investor in TV, and the CTF had to become the reviewer – instead of ‘the doer’ – of the work. So those are pretty big organizational and psychological changes for both entities.

There was some resistance, there was some holding on – but the transition itself, in terms of opening the TV business unit, is complete. Now we are in the process of making it hum. I think we have paved the road to have a productive and positive relationship with Telefilm.

How do you envision the CTF’s new role?
I think it is important for the CTF to build relationships with the stakeholders, industry and government partners, and the direct recipients of the funding, so that we are in a position to put forward good and effective program ideas and build the intelligence that informs the program guidelines.

It is also important that CTF build strong working relationships with Canadian Heritage and the CRTC. The decisions they make have a direct impact on what happens at the CTF, so it is important that we are able to discuss issues facing Canadian television with these organizations…

The CTF also wants to work with the broadcast distribution undertakings in a more proactive way, to make sure they are an important and integral part of the organization.

I also think a very important role the CTF can play in the future is in developing big-picture policy and feeding this into the thinking of government as they look to public policy questions. The CTF board has a good cross-representation of opinion – there are producers, broadcasters, educational networks, the CBC, all around the table – so we can look at the larger picture and give consideration to questions that affect a healthy production environment in Canada.

You recently held meetings across the country with industry stakeholders. What key concerns were aired?
We consistently heard concerns about the development program – issues of deadlines, timing, and the inability of private funds or provincial agencies to participate in financing development.

So the board will be taking a look at some of the technicalities around the development program in the next couple of meetings before the new guidelines are released. My expectation is we may have some changes to that program, depending on the board discussions.

We also heard – particularly in the French market – about a significant backlog of applications and delays in the administering of applications. Partly that was a result of transition issues. Hiring of new staff on the French side caused some delays, but we have that under control now.

Is the broadcaster envelope system working?
It provides more stability and predictability. Broadcasters know how much money they have to work with, and it eliminates the problems of oversubscription. The transition to the envelope system is fairly new [having started in 2004] and it is important to look at the impact and outcomes of that program. There are some issues in terms of how broadcasters make their decisions, and we are monitoring the results to ensure there is equitable access to the system overall.

Coming from SaskFilm, you are very much aware of the challenges of regional production. How is the CTF doing when it comes to spreading the funds across Canada?
When you look at the statistics, the split-out of activity in the regions versus the center is reasonably good. What can really skew the numbers is if a region has a significantly high-budgeted production land in the province one year and not the next, or if a major production company shuts down… It has nothing to do with the CTF.

We have a CTF regional working group that is evaluating a CFTPA proposal to look at the country in a different way – instead of this region/center split, we would look at Canada as five areas of activity – Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies and B.C.

If production in a given year in any one of the five areas drops below its historic five-year average, the proposal recommends that resources would be made available to bring that area back up to its historic average level. There are complexities around implementation of this system, and I don’t expect any dramatic changes in the program this year, but over the long term we are looking at this issue.

What are your priorities for the next six months?
There are a number of significant issues facing the industry that we plan to look at – the transition to digital and support to HDTV programs, building Canadian TV audiences – and we want the CTF to be more proactive, instead of reactive, in dealing with these issues.

A Canadian Heritage report released last December noted dwindling audience share of CTF-financed programs, and called on the organization to track audiences.
We do have an audience measurement system in place. It is one of the four factors we use to calculate broadcaster envelopes. In the 2007/08 operating year, the audience measurement factor is 40% on the English side and 30% for French.

We are also putting systems in place to study audiences more effectively. In terms of how to get more audiences watching programs, the board will look at that in strategic planning sessions in January.

Finally, how are you enjoying your new position?
It has been anything but dull… although it has been much harder to be away from Saskatchewan than I expected. Although Toronto is terrific, the Prairies are in my blood.

The best experience to date was going across the country and hearing such great ideas from the people who work in the industry – that was incredibly energizing.

The CTF is dear to the hearts of many in the industry. It is viewed as a place where we can still fight to make sure our stories from across the country are heard. I want to make sure we keep that intact.