Canadian producers who have recently landed homegrown drama sales to U.S. networks have paved the way for slate financing of TV shows.

Examples include Shaftesbury Films’ paranormal The Listener and Lionsgate’s 13-episode horror anthology Fear Itself selling to NBC, while the cop drama Flashpoint from Pink Sky Entertainment and Avamar Entertainment was scooped by CBS.

A track record like that has enabled indie Canadian producers, who rely on third-party financing to produce projects, to entertain the possibility of hedge funds, equity players and banks financing a portfolio of TV shows – likely from six to nine series – to spread the risk.

‘We never want to invest in [just] one network series – the odds of it working are low,’ says John Morayniss, co-principal of Blueprint Entertainment, which has offices in Toronto and Los Angeles. ‘But if you can put together a slate, where you have a handful of network series and a few cable series with much lower deficits – so your exposure is lower – and a few Canadian coproductions, all of that private equity money out there looks and says: this is kind of interesting.’

Lionsgate recently opened the way when it signed a four-year, $400-million slate financing agreement with Société générale de financement du Québec to underwrite a stable of movies and TV shows to be shot in Quebec. A Lionsgate spokesman said the SGFQ financing deal will cover mostly TV series production, and also prompted a decision to shift production on the sixth season of the USA Network’s The Dead Zone from Vancouver to Montreal.

The giant Quebec pension fund agreed to finance up to 35% of costs on the productions, which is opportune for Lionsgate, as it recorded nearly $120 million in TV revenues last year, up from $8 million in 2000. The prodco has shrewdly used a combination of network licence fees, international presales, provincial production subsidies (in Quebec and Alberta), and DVD sales to cover production costs on TV series from the first season onward.

Morayniss says Blueprint is laying the groundwork for a similar TV slate financing deal that is the result of a ‘perfect storm’ in U.S. network series financing. The new TV financing model will be similar to what indie film financiers have long exploited.

Previously, U.S. networks self-financed primetime dramas, and retained all the rights. That left indie producers to make mostly lower-cost dramas for U.S. cable channels.

A rare exception was Disney’s Touchstone Television pulling production funding from CSI, which enabled Alliance Atlantis Communications to step in and coproduce with CBS Productions.

However, the recent Hollywood writers strike accelerated a trend whereby the U.S. networks are looking beyond their traditional suppliers for new drama ideas and financing. And just as in movie production, A-list talent is more open to working with indies on U.S. network series.

‘You have higher-end talent that tends to work in the network world and is looking for a different way to do business – outside the studio model,’ Morayniss adds.

On the other side of the ledger, hedge funds and banks are eyeing innovative ways to pursue an upside in entertainment outside of the feature film universe.

Shaftesbury CEO Christina Jennings – currently exec producing The Listener for NBC – says partnering with a slate financier to complete a variety of projects is a possibility.

‘I think ultimately that’s where people want to go,’ she says. Following the Writers Guild of America strike, the U.S. networks’ move to order some series straight-to-air – rather than through the expensive pilot process – has led to the feasibility of slate financing.

‘Post-strike, there’s no question now that the networks are still looking for shows,’ Jennings says. ‘So if people thought [the sale of Canadian dramas to U.S. nets] was a blip in the history of time, they are wrong. They are still looking for shows that they can acquire and prebuy, like Flashpoint and The Listener.’

Shaftesbury had the luxury of time and financial backing from CTV to get The Listener ready for primetime. And the producer now has six dramas in development – comprising both limited and continuing series – that Jennings is shopping to the U.S. networks.

If the U.S. nets bite on one or more of the additional series, structured financing could help get a growing slate for Shaftesbury made.