Richard Stursberg, CBC’s executive VP in charge of English television, has put drama at the center of his mandate to reform the national broadcaster. But to make significant inroads, he’ll need money, and lots of it.

Speaking at a luncheon of broadcast sales executives Feb. 17, Stursberg called Canadian drama ‘the most important cultural challenge facing English Canada today’ and ‘the most important programming challenge facing Canada’s public broadcaster.’

Echoing his Feb. 3 remarks to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, Stursberg told the packed room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto that CBC should get a long-term renewable envelope of 50% of the Canadian Television Fund. The money would go to productions acquired from independent producers for primetime telecast. Last year the CTF was valued at $233 million, of which the Ceeb got roughly 40%.

‘To begin to address the drama crisis, the CBC proposes to act as the anchor for a significant expansion and renewal of all aspects of drama, including comedy, miniseries, soap operas and high-impact programs,’ Stursberg said. ‘We would like to effectively double the deep primetime [8-11 p.m.] weekday schedule devoted to Canadian drama. We believe this is possible, but we will need the support of the federal government.’

The public broadcaster is also asking Ottawa for $80 million phased in over three years to strengthen its regional presence in terms of producing local news, children’s, sports and cultural programming.

The 50% envelope would return to the Ceeb its original share of CTF dating back to the public fund’s creation in 1996. It would allow the network greater flexibility to develop programs since funding levels would be predictable, Stursberg said.

Under the proposal, the CBC’s schedule will transform over three years to come more in line with public broadcasters in Britain, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. The network would increase hours devoted to domestic drama by 50%, comedy hours by 10%, and double ‘Canadian high-impact programming,’ such as Trudeau and Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion.

‘We will need to strengthen our development process, improve our testing and market research, and sharpen our production decisions and improve the quality of our promotion. We will have to foster a culture that celebrates greatness,’ said Stursberg, who took over at CBC five months ago following his resignation as executive director of Telefilm Canada.

‘We will have to foster an even stronger and more collaborative relationship with the independent production community, since they are our most important partners in this endeavor.’

Such comments will come as music to the ears of Canada’s production community. For much of the last five years, producers, actors, writers and directors have lamented declines in drama and questioned the commitment of broadcasters, including the Ceeb.

Stursberg told his audience, made up mostly of executives from Canada’s private broadcasters, that despite the fact that audiences on conventional stations increase by over 25% between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, those slots are not being made available for Canadian drama. Despite the fact that drama accounts for 50% of total viewing in primetime, making it the most popular category, Canadian drama only accounts for 9% of screen time and 5% of viewers, he added.

The CBC, Stursberg said, can change this with Ottawa’s help.

‘We are not asking Canada’s private broadcasters to play a big role in this transformation,’ he said. ‘The only broadcaster in the country with the shelf space… to devote to English-Canadian drama is the CBC. The other networks’ deep primetime is almost completely taken up with simulcast and non-simulcast U.S. programs. They cannot free up this time without compromising their responsibilities to their shareholders.’

Stursberg also criticized the CRTC’s recent ad-time incentives that reward broadcasters airing Canadian drama by increasing the number of ads they can sell in primetime. He said that while the initiative will help private broadcasters, it would give little advantage to the CBC. That’s because private broadcasters will use the opportunity to sell ads around their hugely successful U.S. simulcasts, something the CBC does not air. It will also make American programs even more valuable to the networks during ‘real’ primetime, creating yet another hurdle for Canadian dramas.

‘It has the effect of making American programming more valuable to the networks and their advertisers. As a result, it will be even harder to move these shows out of real primetime. So the private networks will get more money to produce more Canadian drama; they just will not be able to put it in real primetime, where the audiences are.’

-www.cbc.ca