This issue marks Playback’s 20th anniversary. In all that time of covering film and television in Canada, the production, distribution, broadcast and interactive industries have gone through a period of unprecedented growth and change. To celebrate Playback’s milestone birthday, we look back at some of the most significant individuals, companies and innovations that have defined the era.

Corner Gas
Into its fourth season, Canada’s Seinfeld has never had an audience under one million. Nobody – not broadcaster CTV, producer Virginia Thompson, nor star Brent Butt – ever expected the Saskatchewan-shot laugher about the slight goings-on among residents of fictitious Dog River to catch on like it has.

The show has become such a Canuck icon that it has lured the new prime minister – as well as the last one – to do guest spots. What this sitcom phenom proves is that if you give Canadian audiences high-quality scripted programming and promote it aggressively, they’ll tune in.

Ivan Fecan
The president and CEO of Bell Globemedia and CEO of CTV has sent shockwaves throughout the Canadian TV landscape.

The Geiger-counter pulse started clicking in 1996, when he became president and CEO of Baton Broadcasting, and subsequently led it in its move from part to full owner of CTV. In 1999, he engineered a daring $394-million deal for NetStar Communications and flagship asset TSN.

There were further rumbles when CTV unseated rival Global Television as the top-rated Canadian network, and the industry truly shifted when Fecan played his part in convincing telecommunications giant BCE to buy CTV in 2000 as part of BCE’s convergence strategy. A positive byproduct of the $2.3-billion mega-deal to create CTV parent Bell Globemedia was a hefty benefits package for Canadian producers.

Most recently, Fecan shook things up when BGM launched a friendly $1.4-billion offer for CHUM Ltd., leaving everyone wondering when the next quake will come.

Izzy and Leonard Asper
They don’t call CanWest Global ‘the Love Boat network’ for nothing. Israel ‘Izzy’ Asper built his media empire by rebroadcasting U.S. shows on TV networks he launched or acquired in Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Asper next ventured into TV distribution in 1998 by buying Jay Firestone’s Fireworks Entertainment, and then, later, Endemol’s TV library.

Asper backed away from the day-to-day operations of CanWest in 1999, handing the reins over to son Leonard. In 2000, with convergence top of mind, the Aspers boldly acquired the Canadian media assets of Hollinger International, including Southam Newspapers and 50% of the National Post, for a jaw-dropping $3.2 billion. They would get the rest of the Post in 2002.

But the Aspers’ dream of one-stop shopping for advertisers hasn’t panned out. Izzy passed away in 2003, and, more recently, Leonard has been selling off assets, including Winnipeg jazz radio station COOL FM, to pay down debt and restore shareholder confidence.

CBC loses its way
The past 20 years have seen great turmoil at the pubcaster. Budget cuts have been significant: in 1996, the feds cut their appropriation to CBC/Radio-Canada by $109 million. The following year, they lopped off an additional $95 million. Today, being relatively cash-strapped is only one of the challenges facing the network, which struggles to define its mandate.

Following its controversial – and possibly cost-saving – staff lockout in 2005, CBC programs have failed to find audiences. A recent stab at generating ratings through simulcasting U.S. reality show The One was a disaster. If the Ceeb next loses NHL broadcast rights, it will end up looking a lot more like PBS than a CTV and Global competitor, which suits some people just fine.

The rise of specialties and digis
Getting the CRTC to greenlight a specialty channel was once like being issued a licence to print money. No more. Successfully negotiating a carriage deal that doesn’t leave your digi-channel lost on a crowded channel guide looks increasingly like an uphill fight.

A 1984 CRTC decision allowed the bundling of MuchMusic and TSN with U.S. imports like CNN, A&E and TLC, and subsequently made Canadian broadcasters rich. Ten years later, the Canadian public vented its anger at cablecasters when being forced to pay for new specialties including Bravo!, Showcase and Discovery unless they chose to cancel them. But those channels still became money-spinners.

In 1997, digital set-top boxes arrived, and the first digital Canadian services were launched with few protections or guarantees, amid massive shifts in advertising spending and growth strategies by conventional networks. Today, the CRTC approves most new applications for digital channels with minimal Cancon obligations, letting them fend for themselves in an increasingly vicious marketplace.

1999 Television Policy
According to the Canadian Coalition of Audiovisual Unions, the CRTC’s controversial 1999 TV Policy is directly responsible for a 50% drop in English-language dramatic programming.

The flashpoint in the policy is the removal of expenditure requirements on Cancon programming for broadcasters, and the lumping of regional programming and entertainment magazine shows in the same category as dramas in terms of the amount of airtime casters must grant Canadian ‘priority programming.’ This move, in turn, lead to a greater proliferation of cheaper magazine and lifestyle shows at the expense of indigenous drama.

An upcoming CRTC review of aspects of the regulatory framework for over-the-air TV may reevaluate the earlier decisions.

Alliance Atlantis Communications
In 1998, Alliance Communications, founded by Robert Lantos and Victor Loewy, and Atlantis Communications, founded by Michael MacMillan and Seaton McLean, were the top two Canadian prodcos. So a huge noise was made when the two joined forces to form the country’s own ‘mini-major.’

Lantos departed, parlaying his lucrative getaway package from AA into a career as Canada’s pre-eminent indie movie mogul through production shingle Serendipity Point Films and a 50% interest in North American distributor ThinkFilm.

Despite the risk-taking success of projects like Bowling for Columbine, MacMillan (today AAC’s executive chair) and CEO Phyllis Yaffe have largely forsaken domestic production and tethered AA to its 13 specialty channels and CSI cash cow (see feature, p. 6). And despite a recent boardroom storm, AA’s Motion Picture Distribution has retained both Loewy and its output deals with New Line and Miramax.

Canadian Television Fund/Canada Feature Film Fund
In 1996, Canadian TV production got a shot in the arm with the creation of the CTF. Funded through parliament, the cable and satellite industries and Telefilm Canada, the CTF faced a setback in 2003 when the Liberal government slashed its contribution to the fund by $50 million over the following two years. But one year later, producers breathed a sigh of relief when the feds restored their $100 million per year.

Meanwhile, in 2000, then-heritage minister Sheila Copps introduced the Telefilm-managed CF3, doubling the feds’ annual investment in Canadian feature film to $100 million. Among the chief goals was for Canuck films to claim 5% of the domestic office, which they finally did last year – although mostly on the back of French-Canadian releases.

This year, a union was launched between Telefilm and the CTF, whereby the latter is now responsible for the policy work behind TV funding while Telefilm hands out the actual cash.

The Quebec New Wave
As if to punctuate the zenith of Quebec moviemaking, Bon Cop, Bad Cop officially dethroned Porky’s this month as the all-time most successful Canadian film at the domestic box office. The one-two punch of funders Telefilm Canada and SODEC, better scripts, talented producers and a star system built from TV have combined to help Quebec films capture an 18% market share, compared to 4% just 10 years ago.

The rise has been truly spectacular, as illustrated by 30 of Quebec’s top 50 indigenous films at the box office having been released in the past five years. And the province’s cinema is drawing its share of critical plaudits as well, with Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions becoming the first Canadian best foreign-language film Oscar winner, in 2004.

Atom Cronenberg
Linked thematically but fiercely independent in vision, acclaimed filmmakers Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg have evolved as the dark and brooding twin solitudes of English-Canadian cinema. Cronenberg has been the more commercial force – both The Fly (1986) and A History of Violence (2005) made around US$60 million in box office worldwide – but it was Egoyan’s screenplay and direction on The Sweet Hereafter (1997) that earned him best writer and director Oscar noms, a feat never duplicated for a Canadian film.

Cronenberg looks to continue his late-career resurgence in 2007 with Eastern Promises, a thriller starring Naomi Watts and Viggo Mortensen, while Egoyan has paused to direct his creative energies to theater and opera after Where the Truth Lies, his most commercial effort yet, failed to connect with audiences.

Tax credits
From the Capital Cost Allowance program (aka tax shelter), phased out entirely in 1995, to its replacement, the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, Revenue Canada and in-house tax specialists have propelled a generation of homegrown movies and television.

The tax shelter used upfront losses to offset a film’s cost, while the tax credit has proven more politically palatable by being labor-based. Either way, producers have exploited the tax system for their own benefit. Couple the federal tax credit with its provincial counterparts – which stand at a potential 55% credit in Saskatchewan and Manitoba – and you have the makings of a national production industry, which has grown to a volume of $4.5 billion in 2005 from $2.3 billion 10 years earlier.

Indeed, the recent increase of provincial tax credits in the major centers of B.C., Ontario and Quebec has helped revive a service sector hobbled by an earlier exodus of Hollywood production scared off by a surging loonie.

Hollywood North
It’s a handle Vancouver and Toronto have been quarreling over for years. Buoyed by healthy tax credits and a favorable exchange rate for U.S. producers, volumes peaked for Ontario in the pre-9/11 summer of 2001 – $561 million in foreign production spending from April 2001 to March 2002, according to the CFTPA – but the lacking infrastructure became evident when Fox’s X-Men franchise left Toronto after filming its first installment to set up shop in Vancouver, which has purpose-built studios big enough to accommodate blockbuster movies.

Despite a slump in summer 2004, B.C. has taken the crown with a steady stream of major Hollywood titles, reaching a feverish $1.2 billion in spending in the 2003/04 cycle, according to the CFTPA.

But with the announcement that the FilmPort megastudio has finally broken ground, Toronto is back in the fight.

Don Carmody
U.S.-born and Toronto-based producer Don Carmody has been instrumental in bringing hundreds of millions of dollars in Hollywood movie production to various Canadian locales.

Carmody’s first coproducer credit came on Shivers, the 1975 horror film that launched the career of director David Cronenberg. He subsequently racked up more than 100 feature credits and earned the trust of the Hollywood studios, which felt better about sending service shoots such as Oscar-winner Chicago and Lucky Number Slevin north of the 49th knowing Carmody would be on board.

More recently, Carmody, who produced blockbuster comedy Porky’s (1982), has discovered a successful model of proprietary production on videogame adaptations such as Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Silent Hill, which pushed US$100 million in international box office.

Cineplex buys Famous
Onex-owned Cineplex Entertainment’s $500-million acquisition of larger rival Famous Players last year – giving the exhibitor an estimated 75% of the Canadian box office – brought up monopoly fears and renewed calls for screen quotas for domestic movies.

Cineplex president and CEO Ellis Jacob finessed the deal through the Federal Trade Commission by divesting the company of 34 Canadian theaters, 27 of which went to Nova Scotia-based circuit Empire Theatres.

‘There’s enough screens in the country for everybody to get a fair shake,’ Jacob told Playback last year, when asked whether Cineplex will give Canadian films substantial access to Canadian screens.
‘But we can’t lose money,’ he added. ‘We’re in a profit-making business.’

The Toronto International Film Festival explodes
The festival to rule all festivals moved from cinephile’s dream to Hollywood hot spot when fest director Helga Stephenson ramped up the star wattage in the late 1980s, and the studios began to see TIFF as the starting line for a run to the Oscars. Since then, best-picture winners including American Beauty (1999) and Crash (2006) have had their world premieres in Toronto. TIFF has also helped thrust many Canuck filmmakers onto the international stage with its Canadian Perspectives program, which launched in 1984.

Next year, Noah Cowan is slated to take over from Piers Handling as fest director after a three-year transition period. Handling has seen 20 festivals with TIFF, 12 as director, and now looks to focus on his CEO duties. In that time, the non-profit group’s budget has gone from $4 million to $17 million, and its full-time staff from 20 to 104.

Nelvana and Cinar
Nelvana and Cinar, the latter now known as Cookie Jar Entertainment, represent two sides of the $200-million per year Canadian animation production industry.

Nelvana took its game to a whole new level in the 1980s with franchises such as Care Bears and Babar. Playback lists the company, which was purchased by Corus Entertainment in 2000, as the fifth biggest Canadian prodco last year, with $55 million in production spending.

The road for Cinar has been far rockier. A major force in its own right with properties such as Arthur and Caillou, the company was embroiled in a major financial scandal that emerged in 1999 and resulted in the ouster of founders Micheline Charest and Ron Weinberg, and Cinar being delisted as a public company. Charest died tragically in 2004. Meanwhile, Michael Hirsh – one of Nelvana’s founders – successfully led the purchase and rebranding of the troubled company into Cookie Jar (an estimated $26 million in production last year), with talk of a possible IPO.

CG software dominance
Toronto and Montreal are hotbeds of animation and FX software. Toronto produced Alias, the company that devised the Maya 3D character animation system, while Montreal gave us Softimage, which produces the XSI program, and Discreet, which offers a range of cutting-edge post and FX products, such as Flame.

Today, tech giant Autodesk owns both Alias and Discreet, while Softimage is the FX division of Avid.
Maya and Softimage formed the killer one-two pipeline of 3D modeling and animation that facilitated watershed moments in FX history such as a liquefying terminator in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993). Last year, King Kong became the 11th consecutive best VFX Oscar-winner to use Autodesk tools.

Nonlinear editing
Remember Commodore AmigaVision? Neither do we. But circa 1990, it was neck-and-neck with the Avid Media Composer, which first appeared on a Mac and set you back a cool $100,000.

NLE systems, which introduced the ability to cut and paste into a flexible timeline, brought production into the digital age. Today Avid has the pole position in most post facilities, and its products – from audio program Pro Tools to FX system Softimage 3D – were used in every 2005 Oscar-nominated film across seven categories, from best picture to best VFX.

Other A-types have emerged. As processor speeds have made laptop editing a reality, Adobe Premiere and Apple’s Final Cut Pro have also set themselves up for the D-cinema future.

Technological convergence
The ExpressVu satellite TV service (later to add ‘Bell’ to its title) introduced a major threat to the cablecos when it launched in fall 1997, and the CRTC set Jan. 1, 1998 as the date for allowing telephone companies to apply for broadcast distribution licences. But beyond offering high-speed Internet access, there was little more turf crossover between cablers and telcos.

Until recently. Only with the advent of Internet protocol technology have cablers and telcos really begun bundling their Internet, phone and TV services via their respective network infrastructures.
Who would have predicted that the current battleground for supremacy in technological convergence would come not from digital TV services, but in Internet telephony, with cablecos using VoIP to line up more local phone subscribers, proportionately, than their telco rivals?

Digital TV
Back in 1986, Canadians watched their TV via analog cable or over-the-air antennae on 4:3 sets. But a revolution was fast approaching. The next decade witnessed explosive growth in direct-to-home satellite TV and digital cable, the launch of high-definition TV, and high-speed Internet. And the new millennium has brought video on the go, in the form of mobile television.

What it all adds up to is more programming and services for the consumer. At home, viewers have more power over what they want to watch and when, with personal video recorders – featuring ad-skipping functionality – and video-on-demand, through both TV sets and computers.

Broadcasters have to figure out how to keep advertisers happy as traditional notions of caster-dictated programming schedules erode. And the emergence of video iPods and video over cell phones and Blackberrys provides even more options for both the industry and consumers.
From the expected industry-wide HD changeover in 2011/12, to webisodes and mobile content, digital-age producers have to think outside the box.