Last year’s Prime Time in Ottawa marked film producer Sandra Cunningham’s first as chair of the CFTPA. And what a time to assume the role: the past 12 months have seen the evolving impact of broadcaster and film distributor consolidation, a slumping service sector, Bill C-10, and a collapse of the indie feature film market worldwide.

All of these developments have kept the producers association busier than it’s ever been. But according to Cunningham, the coming months will require just as much vigilance.

The CFTPA and your partners in the production community have worked hard to make the case not only for the inherent value of arts and culture, but also for its economic importance. Given the government’s recent renewal of the Canadian Television Fund and the Canada New Media Fund, it sounds like they listened.

There’s no question that the government is taking very seriously the importance of this sector and its ongoing stability… There was lots of speculation about whether there’d be any renewals at all, so obviously we’re happy about that. [But there is still] the need for stimulus and for growth in this sector. While we’ve maintained a sense of continuity that will help broadcasters and producers plan for the next couple of years – which is very important – it doesn’t get us to the growth that we need. That’s our longer view.

Though it’s no surprise that the government didn’t take it a step beyond, given everything else that’s going on right now.

I don’t think you can be surprised by anything. I think we’ve had a highly politicized budget. There is so much need out there. There’s so much uncertainty in so many industries. I just think we have more work to do to demonstrate that our sector is not an ailing sector, but a growing sector, and can be a real engine for job creation – and highly skilled job creation – as well as an important vehicle to showcase Canadians to Canadians.

You have spoken to James Moore, the new minister of Canadian Heritage. What are your thoughts on him?

He’s young; he’s very attentive and wanting to get up-to-speed on a number of files. He was very responsive in the meeting we had and very much appreciative of the extensive but concise picture we painted of our industry, and we look forward to moving ahead on longer-term plans of how the partnership can work and how we can grow. The gesture was a change in tone for this government. We had a meeting with all of the key staff, so that everybody was briefed in there at the same time. That’s a good sign. I sense there’s a real interest in where things are going on the new media front and new platforms, and how we can make Canada a leader in this.

How are the terms-of-trade talks progressing? They seem to have been going on for a loooong time by now.

Actually, they’ve been going more quickly than we expected. All parties are at the table and have committed to regular meetings. On that level, it’s going very well. I think the bigger concern is that without trade, no terms can accomplish what they need to accomplish. Ongoing negotiations will now become a complete in-tandem approach vis-à-vis the licence renewals and all that’s going on in the broadcast world.

Is there a particular sticking point at this stage?

The big sticking point would obviously be the rights, and that always has been. The asset that producers bring to the table is the copyright ownership in developing original property, and therefore the value in the property has to do with the value of the various rights. There used to be far more places to sell those rights and to be able to both finance and generate revenue on a program. That’s collapsed, and understandably broadcasters, looking ahead – not knowing where all of the different platforms are going – also want to have access to all of those rights, whether they’re exploiting them currently or not.

For years, the CFTPA and the unions and guilds have said that the 1999 Television Policy was a disaster that needed to be revised. There seemed to be a lot of momentum for that heading into the upcoming licence renewals, but with all that’s happened in recent months with layoffs at the broadcasters, they are telling the CRTC ‘Look, you can’t put all these regulations on us.’ It might be a tough time to get stricter Cancon rules.

It’s a repeat at every licence renewal. There is no question that the broadcasters are taking advantage of the global financial crisis to anchor their point of woes, but there are some very profitable broadcasters supported by a highly regulated system. Yes, we do think ’99 represented a disaster, and I think you can see that we will be coming back and making a very forceful argument – and I think a compelling economic one – for increased Cancon.

But there’s no denying that the broadcasters that are most reliant on advertising are taking a huge hit right now – or are about to take one in coming months.

I think we all recognize that advertising revenues are decreasing, and I think yes, that is going to change [things]. We have to change the business model of how we all work. But that’s very separate from saying all of a sudden the Canadian government and taxpayer have a responsibility for propping up companies that depend on foreign programming.

Cancon in primetime has hit some very high points in the last couple of years, and there has been demonstrated proof that Cancon can be sold internationally and can be profitable for a broadcaster in primetime. I think the age-old model of having to rely on foreign content in order to be profitable is no longer that clear.

Since you’re a feature film producer, I couldn’t let you go without asking about the market share for homegrown films at the domestic box office, which reached the coveted 5% in 2005, but slipped to 3% last year. At this point, are there any new strategies that can be put in place, or will it always come down to the performance of a few specific films?

I think there’s still a great deal of work to do to develop and reach Canadian audiences, and this is where feature film may well benefit from new platforms and the ability to reach niche markets, because we are not competing at the $100-million level – of either marketing dollars or production dollars.

What you have is actually a very mature feature-film producing community with some very solid companies across the country doing globally competitive work in the coproduction realm. And I think that’s where the next step needs to go – developing our international presence as well as using this ability to develop the talent and, on decidedly smaller budgets, use new tools to get to and develop niche markets. If we just try to count on the classic model of going head-to-head with foreign fare at the Cineplex, Canadian films are always going to have difficulty with access and longevity.