As September approaches and most people are dreading the end of summer, I for one am counting down the days. And it’s not just because I’m eight months pregnant and melting in this torturous heat. It’s not even because the long-awaited festival season is finally getting underway. The awful truth is that I just can’t wait for season four of The Sopranos to start.

I’m not a TV junkie who traditionally rushes home to make a program, but over the last couple of years I’ve been unwittingly romanced by a handful of shows that for one reason or another have lured me to the couch on a semi-regular basis. With The Sopranos (HBO) leading the pack, I find myself getting almost equally excited about Sex and the City (HBO) and most recently The Osbournes (MTV).

The fact is American specialty TV drama has revolutionized my viewing habits in a way that ER, Friends and even The West Wing never could.

Likewise, in a face-to-face interview with Playback, AAC topper Michael MacMillan acknowledges that specialty channels are likely ‘the most fertile’ place to make progress with Canadian drama (see Perspective, p.1).

‘If you look at the U.S., a lot of the best, most interesting, most cutting-edge and daring TV production over the past five years has come out of the specialty channels,’ he says, pointing to HBO and MTV. ‘[There’s] a lot of new and challenging programming that gets headlines, that gets ratings, that attracts even more talent to the next projects. And the viewers like it.’

As it stands, specialty viewership in the U.S. has already exceeded that of conventional TV, and with the glut of new digital offerings adding to the pack of increasingly evergreen Canadian specialties, Canadian viewing patterns are not far behind.

While it may be true that because Canadian specialties set their own schedule they should have the opportunity to explore new and innovative programming – unlike the conventionals who are generally at the mercy of simulcasting – economic constraints and regulatory restrictions prevail.

MuchMusic, MTV’s Canadian counterpart, for example, is allowed to air no more than 15% dramatic series or animated programming a week, and no more than six hours of music-related feature films a week, as set out by its licence conditions.

TSN, ESPN’s Canadian equivalent, is not allowed any drama.

The rationale says the CRTC is ‘genre protection.’

‘The more flexibility we give to the niche channels, the more they become like conventional broadcasters,’ says commission spokesperson Denis Carmel. Which begs the question: Is it genre protection or network protection that’s really at play here?

The fact is, if the specialties can do what the conventionals can do but better, the old guard could be overthrown sooner rather than later.

Nonetheless, the new CRTC chair Charles Dalfen has publicly stated his interest in getting more marketable drama on air, pointing out that we’re the only country in the Western world without a dramatic homegrown series in the top-10 rated shows.

MacMillan, meanwhile, insists that if these restrictions on specialties were eradicated, Canadian drama might have a future.

In a recent Playback readership poll running on our website, 67.92% of respondents voted to unilaterally open up license conditions so Canadian specialties can produce drama – a risky undertaking, perhaps, but the time is ripe and the people have spoken.

SAMANTHA YAFFE

Editor