Preliminary figures for the CFTPA’s fiscal ’08/09 obtained exclusively by Playback indicate that overall production volume in Canada was down by 4.3% in fiscal ’08/09, largely due to an 18.2% drop in service shoots.

The plunge in foreign location outings can be partly attributed to the unstable greenback and the fact that new provincial tax breaks – designed to compensate for a sagging economy and a diving American dollar – were introduced too late to influence the ’08/09 results.

However, the CFTPA is cautious about analyzing the preliminary figures right away because it has bumped the Profile publication date from February until December 2010 so extra data can be included, namely on alternative distribution platforms and interactive media numbers, ‘and the bulk of this information will only be available to us in the spring,’ according to Susanne Vaas, CFTPA VP business affairs.

In December 2010, a double-edition Profile will include data from fiscal ’08/09 and ’09/10, with year end remaining March 31.

Consequently, Vaas feels it premature to comment on the sneak-peek numbers (see trends opposite), especially since the Canadian TV production figures appear to have risen significantly (5.9% to $2.162 billion) in an overall year of decline. She did, however, offer some speculation and a promise: ‘It could be the result of increased budgets of just a few projects, but we’ll have to analyze this before we say for sure,’ Vaas explains. ‘We’re looking into the reasons and the full analysis will be released in December.

‘We didn’t undertake the behind-the-scenes analysis yet because of the shift in the timelines,’ she continues. ‘The full analysis of the numbers will be undertaken when we’ve got all the figures in the spring. We’ll do all the number crunching in the summertime and we’ll be ready to publish in December.’

Vaas says the new Profile will also include timelier figures for the international coproduction scene.

‘We’re adding more up-to-date information on copros, and adding information on the interactive media sector,’ explains Vaas. ‘It’s very difficult to obtain comprehensive interactive media figures because there’s no centralized source for those numbers. That being said, this is the first step towards integrating new and existing data about the interactive media industry in Canada.’

The CFTPA exec also notes that ‘Profile is a compilation of some 20 sources of information, from CAVCO to the CRTC, from Telefilm Canada to all the provincial funding agencies. So in order to compile straightforward production volumes, it really requires a lot of time and co-ordination of the sources. And we wanted to provide complete and up-to-date information on what we’ll be adding. So when we realized the February deadline didn’t meet our new goals, we had to shift the traditional project timelines.’

Vaas says that once the new schedule is established, numbers will actually be provided in a more timely fashion than they have in the past, with figures for ’09/10 actually being released in 2010, less than nine months after the March 31 fiscal year end. And moving forward: ‘We’ll provide a more up-to-date snapshot on the landscape in Canada,’ Vaas says.

THE 2008/09 TRENDS

• Total volume of production: decreased by 4.3%, from $5.263 billion to $5.036 billion

• Canadian television production: increased by 5.9%, from $2.041 billion to $2.162 billion

• Canadian theatrical production: decreased by 21.8%, from $301 million to $235 million

• Foreign location and service production: decreased by 18.2%, from $1.765 billion to $1.444 billion

• Broadcaster in-house production: increased by 3.3%, from $1.155 billion to $1.194 billion

Figures Include both French- and English-language productions

All figures subject to change prior to publication of ‘Profile 2010’

Revised 2007/08 figures

Figures supplied by the CFTPA for ’07/08 have been updated as follows since the publication of ‘Profile 2009’

• Canadian Theatrical is revised from $273 million to $301 million