Nothing gets people talking like bad news and, so, there will be much to discuss this month when Canada’s private broadcasters meet in Quebec City for the annual Canadian Association of Broadcasters powwow. It has not been a banner year for Canuck TV and – thanks to those funding shortfalls, a still-sluggish international market, the continued problem with signal theft and a pair of controversial proposals before the CRTC – the television execs holed up at the Quebec City Convention Centre have a lot of issues on the agenda.

The CAB conference runs Nov. 9-11 and is expected to bring together some 700 TV and radio reps, slightly more than last year and money is foremost on their minds. The CTF crisis served as a ‘lightning rod’ for broadcasters earlier this year, drawing attention to the large-scale ills of the funding system, says CAB president and CEO Glenn O’Farrell.

Many ‘casters are frustrated by the apparent disconnect between the Ministries of Heritage and Finance – the former calls for more homemade TV shows, while the latter refuses to write cheques – and bridging that gap has been a major goal of CAB since last year. O’Farrell is optimistic that the two ministries are coming together, with stakeholders, to stabilize the flow of dollars and cents.

‘The [government] system has failed to understand the demands on the system versus the supply,’ O’Farrell says. ‘We need some clarity there, we need some certainty.’ O’Farrell hopes Paul Martin will help out when he takes over as prime minister.

‘There’re a lot of very positive feelings. Mr. Martin has said he will reinstate the government contribution to CTF to $100 million. But the broader picture,’ connecting Ottawa’s financial and cultural policies, ‘remains work to be done.’

CAB members are equally irked by 49th Media and the Canadian Cable Television Association, both of which have announced plans that, if approved by the feds, threaten to significantly rewrite the rules of Canuck TV. 49th Media wants permission to sell Canadian ads on American specialty channels such as TLC and CNN, while the cable association is looking to add 17 premium channels, including HBO, Showtime and ESPN, to the digital menu. Pick any broadcast exec at random, and he or she will let fly with a flurry of unflattering adjectives about both plans – arguing that they ‘strike at the heart’ of the television trade.

‘We are 150% opposed to these new services that CCTA has proposed,’ says Phyllis Yaffe, CEO at Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting. Specialties such as AAC’s Showcase, along with other pay and movie channels, such as those run by Corus Entertainment and Astral Media, are among the most threatened. ‘All kinds of channels are involved in the programming rights issues that come out of this… but for us, the bigger issue is what is the principle of letting in new competitive services that bring nothing new to Canada?’

Many seem confident that both proposals will be quashed by the feds – ‘I can’t believe they’d be allowed to do that,’ says CanWest Global’s VP of Canadian production Loren Mawhinney – but the CAB execs are taking them seriously, and met recently to plan the counterattacks.

‘We’re really very concerned,’ says O’Farrell. ‘We think there’s a real issue here that has to be seen for what it is. And until we have an indication about what the commission is thinking, we’re not taking anything for granted.’

Yaffe, CHUM’s Jay Switzer, Bell ExpressVu president Timothy McGee and Astral Media’s Andre Bureau will discuss both proposals on the morning of Nov. 10 in a session called Redesigning the Landscape: What’s in Store for the Canadian Television System? Expect a full house.

Later that afternoon, stakeholders will compare notes about signal theft, against which CAB has also been running a vigorous ad and lobby campaign. Canada AM cohost Seamus O’Regan will sit down with ADISQ’s Solange Drouin, CHUM’s Roma Khanna and Jeff Shallit of the activist group Electronic Frontier Canada, among others, to puzzle out how companies can compete against the ease and freedom of digital piracy.

As TV switches to HD and all-digital signals, many are predicting that the piracy problem will get worse before it gets better. ‘Our biggest issue is fear of piracy,’ says John Riley, president of Astral. Astral’s The Movie Network has been quick to go digital, but must continually step up security efforts to ward off signal theft. More digital content attracts more content crooks, he says.

CAB-ers will also peer into the crystal ball on Nov. 11 when Globe and Mail wag John Doyle leads a session about what trends lie ahead in TV programming, assuming, as everyone seems to, that reality shows are on their way out the door. Steve Levitan, producer of Train 48, will be on stage, no doubt talking up the merits of the low-cost, on-the-fly series he imported from Australia.

Mawhinney predicts that the trade of formatting rights – see the success of Global’s Train 48 and CTV’s Canadian Idol – will continue its upward trend in the year ahead, replacing to some degree the lingering gap in the international markets.

Although rewriting successful shows for new markets is not a sure-fire success (i.e. the recently cancelled Coupling), Mawhinney notes that broadcasters can at least reduce their risks by comparing local demographics to those of the originating countries. Canada is a good match for Australia, and parts of Europe, and Global is looking to bring more discount shows like 48 to Canadian viewers, such as the Oz-made fix-it show The Block, for which Global just snagged the Canadian format rights.

Yaffe is thinking along the same lines, and looking to repeat the success of Trailer Park Boys, the cut-rate hit that airs on AAC’s Showcase. She says the show is a good example of the innovation needed to revive programming in Canada.

‘What can we afford? My view is we can afford to take more risks, be more creative, do more different things, but not spend so much money,’ she says. ‘That’s what’s going to make Canadian TV work.’

-www.cab-acr.ca