Peter Moss, EVP programming and development at Corus Entertainment, has spent the last three decades as a student of theatre and television, always seeking the next lesson – and the next big challenge. With Moss slated to receive the Independent Production Fund Outstanding Achievement Award next month from the Alliance for Children and Television, Playback takes this opportunity to examine his enormous contribution to the industry. From his time in theatre in London and Toronto to his executive posts at the CBC, YTV and Cinar, Moss’s career is characterized by its remarkable drive.

That wasn’t always the case, however. Born in Montreal, Moss admits to being ‘unfocussed’ in the middle ’60s – until he discovered the stage, that is. ‘I went to the National Theatre School of Canada, and all of a sudden everything came into focus,’ he recalls. ‘I surprised myself at the amount of discipline I could bring, which no one, least of all my parents or I, thought I was capable of.’

Without the infrastructure in place in Canada to develop further, Moss’s passion for the stage led him to a master’s degree in theatre at the University of Michigan, and then on to London. ‘If you wanted to take the next step and work out how you fit into the world, [New York or London] were your two choices,’ he says. ‘Those were the places where the best was happening.’

Moss landed at London’s Fringe Theatre in 1972, and found the creative community awash with artistic disciplines, including the Theatre in Education movement – a call to bring the enlightening power of performance to children.

Moss recalls putting on ‘elaborate, extraordinary plays for 60 kids in grade three,’ and witnessing their instincts being stoked. ‘The human capacity to experience beauty is one of those distinguishing things, and kids have the same capacity. They are in awe of things that are extraordinary.’

During a visit back to Canada, Moss met then Stratford Festival director Robin Phillips, and when he returned to London he received an offer to be Phillips’ associate director.

‘I felt like I was being drafted,’ he muses. ‘I’m sitting in a rep company in Leicester, and the Stratford Festival calls and says ‘come back.’ And you think ‘I can’t say no. My country’s calling.” Add to that the birth of his first child, and Canada was it. Notes Moss, ‘Nothing makes you patriotic like having a kid.’

Starting in 1977, Moss spent five years at the Stratford Festival, directing 17 productions on all three stages. But by 1981 it was time to move on. Enter the Young People’s Theatre: financially rocky and artistically adrift, it was a siren call. He threw himself into the role of artistic director and spent 11 years putting together award-winning versions of plays including Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang and The Threepenny Opera.

It was also Moss’ classroom: ‘[Kids] come to the theatre eager to receive – and I think that this is true in terms of television too – kids whose elbows are on their knees, leaning forward and just swirling with energy. As the lights go down, you can hear them roar with excitement. They come to this with an incredible passion and if they are not satisfied, it’s your fault. You have to watch carefully. You’ll see how you lose them because they’re there to be lost.’

YPT was the perfect place to learn the art of balancing the visual and verbal in narrative, and it was also a place where Moss felt he could make a difference. ‘If you’re going to change minds, if you’re going to use your theatre to change the world, the only hope you have is to get people who are young enough to respond deeply enough,’ he says.

In 1990, with the theatre hitting its stride, achieving profitability and adding three touring companies, again it was time for Moss to move on.

‘At a certain point in the nature of all institutions, you build it up to a certain size and that’s as big as it’s going to get,’ he explains. ‘The next challenge is to keep it up there, and then, inevitably, to manage the shrinkage. Not that they shrink permanently, but there’s an ebb and flow. I brought it to the point that I thought it was as big as I could get it, and then I really didn’t think that I was the person to manage the next phase. It was not as much fun to handle the shrinkage as it was to grow.’

In 1992, after a couple of years trying to make the jump to TV directing, Moss was offered the chance to become the creative head of children’s programming at the CBC – a position he dubs his ‘first real job.’ He saw the pubcaster as a chance to go national and really learn broadcasting. Although he arrived as CBC was suffering deep cuts, he is proud of his time there, which saw him put together the CBC Playground – one of Canada’s first branded blocks – and winning a two-year, behind-the-scenes battle to allow for PBS-style branded sponsorship in the CBC preschool block. It was a victory he believes paved the way for the pubcaster’s Get Set for Life block of today.

After CBC came the Children’s Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop), where Moss, remaining Toronto-based, worked on notable projects including Dragon Tales. The original plan had CTW opening CTW North in Canada to animate Dragon Tales, but the U.S. outfit lost interest once it discovered Canadian ownership restrictions prevented it from having a 51% stake. The animation instead went to Sony, and Moss found himself a fifth wheel, too frequently commuting between Toronto, New York and L.A.

In 1997, Moss took on a new challenge as VP programming and production at YTV, at a time when the channel was looking to cope with upstart Teletoon. ‘I don’t think [YTV] fully appreciated what a branded cartoon channel would do to them,’ observes Moss. ‘I mean, what could be better as a kids’ brand – ‘all cartoons, all the time.’ It really took off.

‘It was time for a big refreshment [at YTV] and I was lucky in that I came just when the whole company understood that’s what had to happen. Not only was there a willingness but there were also a great deal of wonderful partnerships. Everybody got in gear and we thought ‘OK, we have to remake this.”

And that’s exactly what YTV did, bringing 50 new shows to the schedule in one year alone, a large percentage of them Canadian.

‘I didn’t want to have to pay huge amounts of money for American product and fight people for it,’ says Moss. ‘The only way to build any channel is to have proprietary programs. If all you do is buy what everybody else buys, your share will always be split among the people who buy it… You need to find a way of guaranteeing the shows you provide your audience will be connected with you.’

After revamping the YTV schedule and increasing ratings by 35%, Moss was called home to Montreal in 2000 to assume the role of president of kids programming prodco Cinar Entertainment. But if the YTV schedule situation had been the frying pan, Cinar was the fire, its subsequently well-documented problems including allegations of tax fraud and the improper investment of company funds. Moss entered just as allegations began to surface, and while he was never connected to the controversy, he found himself trying to right a ship that was sinking fast.

‘I stuck it out for two years because in the first year I didn’t understand how bad it could be, and I thought we could get through it,’ he says. ‘In the second year, I understood how bad it was, but I still thought we could get through it if we kept producing. There was a great crew of people who stayed on who were prepared to work very hard to bring the company back. At a certain point we had a schedule, but the board turned it down because it didn’t want to spend any more money. They just wanted to sell. For the last four months I was there, I was really just part of the dog-and-pony show Merrill Lynch put together to take the company on the road to sell.’

Moss says he learned more about the corporate world in those two years than he ever wanted to.

‘I feel like I’ve got a law degree and a MBA,’ he says. ‘I learned some things about what kind of trouble large companies can get into and the way big international companies have to function. I learned a little bit about how to handle the creative struggle between shareholders and the marketplace. It’s a very uncomfortable mix when you’re a standalone creative company and you have to report quarterly, because ideas don’t come quarterly. Hit programs don’t come quarterly.’

After returning to directing to cleanse his palette, this time on the CBC MOW Scar Tissue for Shaftesbury Films, Moss heard the Corus call of duty again last year. But, he says, he would not have returned solely for Corus’ YTV franchise – a challenge he had already faced and conquered. Instead, he took on the role of executive VP of programming and development for all the company’s brands – YTV, Treehouse TV, Discovery Kids, the Golf Channel, W, CMT and two movie channels.

He sees the grouping of diverse genres as a formidable task – like that of running a large network. ‘It took awhile to get up to speed, but audience instincts are the same,’ he says. ‘You have to treat them in the same way – as a community of interests as opposed to one audience. One of the things that I learned early on is that demos don’t watch television. People watch television.’

Shortly after his arrival, the newest Corus acquisition, Nelvana, took a $200-million write-down. Although that would be a distraction to some, Moss says it is something he can’t concern himself with on a day-to-day level: ‘I have a specific job. It’s like a playground and I’m just in charge of the swing set. My focus is on the programs people watch and that’s all… [because] ratings are the raw product that drive the economic engine.

‘Nelvana will be doing less, no question. I think we’ll move to a higher return on what they do, so that it isn’t still a question of churning out 250 episodes a year, but of making sure those episodes work harder for them. When you think of that, it’s one finished episode per working day. That’s too hard.’

Moss believes Nelvana’s state is indicative of an industry-wide condition. ‘I think we’re still getting over the ’90s,’ he explains. ‘We haven’t recovered from all those big media companies that over-expanded and took on huge debt loads. It’s like the whole media industry, writ large, swallowed this elephant and it hasn’t passed yet.’

But it isn’t all doom and gloom. For Moss, even downturn has its upside: ‘There’s a much greater creative surge beginning to happen, and maybe that’s because there’s less work. There’s time for ideas to filter up – they’re richer. It’s funny in a way, that when there’s such a high degree of capacity, stuff gets a little diluted. At the moment the ideas that are coming are more developed, more interesting.’

When it comes to his award, to be presented at a June 2 gala at CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, Moss is quick to point out that ACT is not offering him a ‘lifetime’ achievement citation – the sort of thing you get and then never work again. He is also very gratified by the acknowledgment.

‘You keep your head down and work away and your horizon is just what’s in front of you – just this challenge and then the next,’ he offers. ‘I don’t really tend to think of myself in relationship to anyone else: as better than, worse than, similar to. So when they turn around and point their finger at you, it’s surprising. ‘Me? You mean me?’ It’s like one of those things where you think they’re talking about someone behind you.’