Trailblazer Nancy Chapelle reflects on multifaceted career

Chapelle leaves behind a lasting legacy as she prepares to depart the Bell Fund – just as she did at TVO and Catalyst before.

When Nancy Chapelle steps down as the Bell Fund’s executive director at the end of the year, her contributions to the Canadian screen sector will stretch far beyond her nine years navigating what seemed like impossible changes.

As she retires, following a four-decade career, she does so as a producer, programmer and funder, whose foresight, creativity and ability to embrace change has helped to shape and transform the Canadian media landscape.

“Every industry needs champions and that has been Nancy for the audiovisual industry in Canada,” Christina Jennings, chairman and president of Toronto-based Shaftesbury, tells Playback. “She is a trailblazer who thought about how we can help Canadian content to perform — and outperform — on the global stage.”

Michelle Melanson, president of Toronto-based prodco Headspinner Productions, is one of many producers whose careers were directly influenced by Chapelle. Her first gig in the industry was on the children’s series Shining Time Station, produced by Chapelle’s former production banner Catalyst Entertainment.

“In the early 1990s, you often wouldn’t see a woman in charge,” recalls Melanson. “She was so kind, open and in control. Her door was always open, and no question went unanswered. As my career grew, I would always remember her as a kind mentor and someone who really cared about our industry, and for people to succeed.”

Chapelle, however, looks back on her decades-long career with humility and gratitude.

“When you’re starting your career, you always think you need to be indispensable,” she says. “It took a while, but I’ve learned that if you want to grow and become a leader, you need to surround yourself with the best there is, the brightest and the smartest. Your role in life is to ensure their success.”

When Chapelle co-founded Toronto-based Catalyst Entertainment with Charles Falzon in 1990, she handled the production side while he oversaw distribution. Looking back at their partnership, Falzon recalls being “the rainmaker” while Chapelle was “the person with the buckets holding onto the rain and collecting it all.”

Under the duo’s leadership, the company created strategic alliances with clients like NBCUniversal, CBC, BBC Worldwide Americas and Thames Television, while crafting a broad-range library of more than 4,000 hours of scripted content — roughly 60% of which was produced in-house.

Catalyst became known for family hits like Shining Time Station, while taking major creative risks in other areas — such as producing the soap opera Foreign Affairs in South America or opening a theme park in Malta after taking over a studio there.

“These opportunities were so out of the norm,” recalls Chapelle. “When I was working with Charles we would look at ourselves and go, ‘Wow. Okay. We’re really going to do this.’ You never think you’re going to wake up one day and be operating the Mediterranean film studios in Malta.”

“Nancy made things happen,” recalls Falzon, now the dean at Toronto Metropolitan University’s The Creative School. “She was a solid person in a tricky industry. We were pioneers in independent production and distribution in this country. We were making it up as we went along. And she was very good at pulling teams together. People really respected working for her.”

In 1994, Gullane Entertainment (previously known as The Britt Allcroft Company) purchased a significant share of Catalyst Entertainment. Falzon and Chapelle stayed on in progressive key roles until 2002, when U.K.-based HIT Entertainment’s hostile takeover of the company prompted the pair to move on.

Chapelle shifted gears to programming the following year when she became managing director of content and programming at TVO. There, she oversaw the evolution of the public broadcaster from a single TV channel to a digital multiplatform educational media organization.

“She had the backs of all the creative people who worked there because she understood how scary and exciting it is to be creative,” recalls former TVO CEO Lisa de Wilde, now Bell Media professor in media management at York University’s Schulich School of Business.

De Wilde recalls having to reinvent how TVO did current affairs by finding a high-impact, lower-cost way of delivering quality journalism. She says Chapelle was integral in creating an in-studio program and worked to increase the number of women guests.

From a digital standpoint, de Wilde remembers Chapelle for her steadfast commitment to growing her team in the rapidly changing industry. She says the programmer forged a partnership with Waterloo, Ont.’s Communitech as a way of catalyzing the team’s interest in digital and the promise it held.

“We’re talking about VHS tapes that were moved around the building on carts,” recalls de Wilde. “She knew where we had to go and she focused on bringing the promise to light — smaller cameras, things that had been less possible suddenly becoming super possible. She was good at demystifying what technology change meant to producers in their day-to-day jobs.”

Chapelle recalls the challenge and how she developed a curriculum to teach programming teams how to create digital content to meet the needs of emerging audiences. “It was uncomfortable when we wanted to go digital,” she says. “Everybody was used to that linear broadcast model. But we had to widen our audience; we had to deliver content wherever that audience wanted to consume it. We had to learn those skills.”

For 11 years at TVO, Chapelle also worked with regulatory requirements and corporate policies. That experience proved invaluable in 2015, when she took over from founding executive director Andra Sheffer at the Bell Fund.

There, Chapelle oversaw the biggest overhaul in the fund’s 26-year history. In framing policy for Certified Independent Production Funds (CIPFs) in 2016, the CRTC restricted the Bell Fund and other financing bodies of its kind from spending more than 10% on non-programming digital content. As a result, the Bell Fund had to close its programs, reimagine its impact and launch new programs that aligned with the updated regulations.

“Nancy led a deep dive into the value proposition of the programs at the time,” says Naveen Prasad, chair of the Bell Fund’s board of directors. “It was pretty bold, but it was the right decision that essentially led to pilot programs that have become the substance of all our current funds.”

According to Prasad, the Short Form Digital Series, Slate Development, and the TV program — which includes the TV Selective program and the Major Production Funder (MPF) performance envelope — were all developed from the perspective of a producer, and contain key components producers need to succeed, despite “limited funding.”

“I led through, I think, nine of the most consequential years of the Fund,” Chapelle now recalls. “Today, where we are in this moment, we are again reminding the CRTC about the important role the CIPFs play in the industry.”

Chapelle says she empathizes with producers because she knows what it takes to do the job and remembers knocking on those doors. It’s why, in her role with the Bell Fund, she has encouraged team members to take time to communicate with the production community, putting on webinars, application clinics and hosting one-on-ones. The goal is to help producers deliver successful applications.

“The producer’s role has changed,” she says. “These days you have to think about online platforms, where your audience is, how to build relationships with them. That’s a big learning curve in terms of the discoverability of Canadian content. There has to be a role for producers in that, and it’s one we have to encourage and help develop the skillsets for.”

Looking ahead, Chapelle believes the new executive director should embrace the “small but mighty team” and allow them to be the best versions of themselves. Meanwhile, the new person (Editor’s note: Marcia Douglas has been named as the next executive director since this story went to print) will have to lead through important changes such as the CRTC’s work to modernize its regulatory framework and the continued efforts toward meaningful representation of emerging racialized and underrepresented communities on and off screen.

“It’s not just reading the tea leaves, but you always have to be thinking about where the industry is going,” she adds. “For me, it was always: how can we help the industry grow and where are the opportunities to grow the industry?”

“Nancy leaves a fund that is now well-managed, well-focused, and has a continued game plan to support producers in the future,” says Prasad. “As far as what her retirement means for the industry? It’s immeasurable, but it will be felt.”

This story originally appeared in Playback‘s Winter 2023 issue