It’s a good thing Alanis Morrisette isn’t scripting the current scenario unfolding in the Canadian entertainment industry. She’d be so busy thanking India and misunderstanding the meaning of the word "irony," she’d miss all the real action on the next ironic frontier.

Meanwhile, as jet-setting entertainment execs rewrite the lyrics charted by Canadian Patsy Gallant in the anthem "From New York to l.a." to read "From Halifax to t.o.", ironies appear to be growing faster than behemoth snowbanks in Ottawa.

On Feb. 9, for instance, at the cftpa producers conference in the capital, a panel of the famous and perhaps now infamous waged a lively debate on the future of independent producers in Canada. Former This Hour Has Seven Days host Laurier LaPierre demanded the straight goods from such panelists as ctv chief Trina McQueen – who said creativity in big companies is fuelled by small companies, except when working with their private funders becomes too exhausting – and producer Kevin Tierney of Ardglasson Productions – who said only fools would think indie producers are not an endangered species. But even as this provocative he says-she says flew back and forth at the Chateau Laurier, top executives at Salter Street Films were trying to fly from Ottawa to the starboard coast to finalize the deal points of ssf’s sale to Alliance Atlantis. They do say timing is everything.

Now the strong aac buyout offer is in the hands of shareholders since there have been no rumblings of a competing offer. aac gets a new genre as Salter adds comedy content to aa’s mix of kids, drama and factual. aac will ask the crtc to transfer ownership of Salter’s hard-won independent film channel to aac, effectively diluting the diversity of specialty broadcasting ownership that the crtc endorsed in its licensing exercise last fall. Another irony. Or is it?

aac ceo Michael MacMillan says, first of all, that the loss of diversity which is expressed as entertainment consolidation, as in aac buying Salter, is both inevitable and necessary. He says if you’re in drama programming, for instance, although there are more channels to sell to, you need to exploit more windows because licence fees are falling. That means the payback to the producer takes longer and small and medium-sized enterprises can’t always "finance the wait." Thus, "one needs scale, not for creativity, but for financeability." Certainly, transfer of ifcc to aac dilutes diversity, but when, he argues, have there been more programs and more program types on tv than now? With its financial muscle and specialty expertise, aac believes it provides not only diversity of voices in broadcasting, but also "clarity and efficiency of voices."

So, over to aac if the shareholders are willing. And Salter, after all, stays in Halifax, near mythic Atlantis, long a muse to creativity. Therein lies perhaps the most beguiling irony of all.

SUSAN TOLUSSO

Editor