Montreal: Two primary perspectives have emerged from industry response to the kpmg report on the Canadian Television Fund.

Many well-placed observers are taking the position that the production and broadcast programming sectors in this country require separate remedies. Despite all of its shortcomings, the fact is the ctf is a success, if for no other reason than having forced the two sides – production and broadcasting – to work more closely together.

Secondly, there may be a growing consensus, not only on the part of producer and the creative craft associations, but also among some broadcasters, that the time has come to return to basics. If the ctf was about the undeniable interdependency of Canadian production and broadcasting, a new post-review structure may be as much about the need for both sectors to pursue their own goals.

Andra Sheffer, executive director, Independent Production Fund, says the two-masters approach has not been viable; ‘a hybrid ctf has created extremely complex and bewildering eligibility criteria.’

Representing the insider perspective of the industry’s private production funds, Sheffer says the operating procedures, tight timelines and decision-making approaches of both ctf and Telefilm Canada have left the private funds scrambling to adapt.

Sheffer recommends ‘ctf return to its roots as a private fund. Therefore, Telefilm should become the public sector agency supporting television, film and new media reporting to the Department of Heritage.’ Telefilm’s full range of resources would include equity financing, commercial loans, licence fee top-ups, etc.

Because the public policy objectives injected into the ctf and Telefilm operations would be Telefilm’s exclusive responsibility, she says, ‘This would allow the new private ctf’s board to determine the relative importance to the film and television business of issues such as ‘Canadian content,’ regional, language and aboriginal priorities.’

Sheffer also suggests ctf establish ‘an official presence in cities outside Toronto.’

ipf expresses strong opposition to the kpmg recommendation new media funding be separated from tv funding. Sheffer says it’s ‘absolutely essential that the funding of these two merging media remains under one roof. New media is intimately linked to television and film and it would be a disservice to the new media industry to separate them at this stage of development. The ipf’s practical experience as the administrators of the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund confirms the importance of this convergence.’

Mustos for CTV

Bill Mustos, vp, dramatic programming, ctv and a former executive-director of the Cable Production Fund, says, ‘We see Telefilm and the ctf – the yin and yang of public/private support for high-quality Canadian Television – returning to their respective roots. Equal, but different.’

‘A clear separation between Telefilm and the ctf is absolutely appropriate and necessary,’ says Mustos. ‘The current hybrid organization has not progressed beyond the awkward melding of two organizations. Nevertheless, when it comes to government support of distinctly Canadian tv programming, we see tremendous value in a dualistic approach that furthers both cultural and industrial goals.’

ctv is taking the review position, distinct from the viewpoint expressed by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, that Telefilm should maintain its current board structure, executive director and staff, while the ctf retains an industry-based board with the power to hire and fire key staff, further suggesting the chairs of both funds sit on both boards with the view to ‘a high level of harmonization with respect to major policies.’

Mustos points out monies from both ctf and Telefilm are needed for big-budget productions, while separate fund mechanisms ‘would more actively encourage productions that only require licence fee top-up support to apply to the ctf, thereby reducing the burden on Telefilm.’ He says Telefilm should continue with its mandate through equity investments, etc., based on selective and qualitative criteria, and should continue as the ‘primary instrument’ for public policy objectives, encouraging small and medium-sized business, regional and aboriginal support, etc.

‘As the more industrially oriented support mechanism, the ctf should be, as much as possible, freed from public policy constraints….Stripped of these additional public policy obligations, the market-driven ctf can simplify its guidelines and streamline its program delivery functions. This is essential and overdue,’ says Mustos, adding, ‘Of course, the ctf must still be guided by responsible, broad public policy objectives. We would encourage strict adherence to the founding principles of the Cable Production Fund, as laid out in crtc Public Notice 1994-10. These include support being restricted to Canadian-owned and controlled projects, which are of high Canadian-content, in the ‘priority programming’ categories and intended for primetime broadcast.’

On financing, ctv suggests Heritage’s $100-million contribution to ctf (both eip and lfp) could be divided about equally between Telefilm and the ctf. ‘ctv would like to encourage Heritage to provide adequate resources to both funds so as to keep each of Telefilm and the ctf strong and healthy.’

Ostry for OFDC

Although Ontario rang up a record $934 million in ’99 production, Ontario Film Development Corporation ceo Adam Ostry says the provincial industry ‘is showing increasingly acute signs of being sick.’

Ostry says indigenous production in Ontario is slowing down, accounting for only 53% of activity in ’99 compared with 70% in ’95. Consequently, he says, it’s more important than ever that Telefilm retains a strong say in the selection of projects receiving public funds, since the agency’s mandate is to encourage distinctively Canadian storytelling.

‘In Canada,’ notes Ostry, ‘we are notorious for fragmenting what little resources we have. There is a plethora of private funds created by crtc rules. Why further fragment the pot with the removal of Telefilm from the ctf and only have Telefilm [involved] in funding multimedia and features?’

Further, Ostry says, as delivery technologies such as Internet, telephony and tv screens melt into indistinguishable devices, ‘you have to be sure there are Canadian stories in there and that Canadians know [those stories] are Canadian.’

A mature industry, Ostry argues, would support a range of story types, from ‘strongly and unmistakably Canadian’ through ‘works that explore foreign occurrences or universal themes from a Canadian perspective, and product made under service contracts…which is not identifiable as Canadian.’

Paradis for CAFDE

cafde president Richard Paradis, representing distributors and exporters, says both the kpmg report and the Silcox/Colbert report prepared for ctf’s board overly focus on the ctf, with surprisingly little in-depth analysis of Telefilm. ‘That’s why we said, ‘Why didn’t they focus on trying to find ways of making Telefilm better?’ as opposed to saying right off the bat, ‘Oh, we should take everything away from them’ without really explaining why?’

According to cafde, ‘the government of Canada [should] reclaim its role as the direct provider of public funding’ for tv production, and ‘pubic funding should be administered by an organization mandated to do so in the public interest.’

On governance, Paradis says the kpmg report reveals ‘an apparent lack of objectivity’ in calling for a new organization to manage ctf, at the same time adding that Telefilm should retain responsibility for film and tv coproductions.

Paradis says provincial funding agencies are converging efforts to encompass not only tv production but also sound recording, new media and book publishing. He says kpmg’s notion that Telefilm has been preoccupied with feature film ‘is a surprising statement with very little in-depth analysis to support it. We do, however, concur with kpmg that public funds should be managed within one agency – and we believe such an agency could be a revitalized Telefilm Canada.’

Egan for B.C. Film

Rob Egan, president and ceo of British Columbia Film, warns of the danger of the artificial separation of cultural and industrial objectives. ‘They are interdependent and intertwined,’ he says. ‘The regional incentive mechanisms of the ctf are, in fact, a reflection of this reality.’

Egan says it’s premature to suggest the Canadian production industry in b.c. is on the same level as Ontario and Quebec, even if recent growth is impressive. In ’99, he says, overall production in b.c. reached $1.07 billion, but b.c.-owned-and-controlled production made up only $298 million, or 28% of the total (compared to Ontario, which recorded $491 million in content production in ’99). The point being, the foundations of content production in b.c. are still very much under construction, with content production at the $44-million level only three short years ago.

And it isn’t just about the numbers, says Egan. ‘Not only is Ontario, specifically Toronto, the largest production centre for indigenous production in Canada, it is also the industrial centre of the indigenous film and tv industry. Most of the major entertainment companies, broadcasters, distributors and financiers are headquartered in Toronto. Toronto is, undeniably, the decision-making centre for the industry and this reality has a major impact on the challenges faced by regional creators and producers.’

The agency is also opposed to any recommendation that would replace ‘fully functioning regional offices [as currently operated by Telefilm] with storefront offices. Our concern,’ continues Egan, ‘with this recommendation is that it appears to be nothing more than a cost-saving measure which fails to grasp the role that well-resourced regional offices, with decision-making power, play in the regions.’

The DGC report

In an executive summary, the 3,000-member Directors Guild of Canada raises doubts about the lfp’s ‘Visibly Canadian Elements’ requirements. The guild says lfp ‘may be excluding production that ought to be eligible for ctf support. It is our view that the costs of these restrictions exceed their presumed benefits.’

The dgc says the kpmg report recommendations on Telefilm fail to consider the impact on Telefilm stakeholders, and ‘suggests to us that there are gaps in the analysis undertaken to date, which appears to have focused almost exclusively on the ctf.’

Mackenzie for NSFDC

Ann MacKenzie, ceo of the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, raises concern over ‘the ctf’s governance structure, the composition of its board of directors and the opportunity that exists for conflict of interest.’

MacKenzie says much of the $200 million in ctf funding comes from the federal government. ‘Even the funds provided by the cable companies are in effect a flow-through tax,’ but the ctf board ‘approves guidelines and funding decisions that directly benefit their individual organizations. From a public policy point of view this is not acceptable. The current situation does not fairly treat the many diverse voices and faces in all regions of Canada.’

MacKenzie says the ctf structure ‘violates one of the obligations of the corporation contained in its funding contract with the Department of Heritage. Section 7.1.9 states that the composition of the board of directors will not be dominated by any particular interest group and will consist of a fair and reasonable number of representatives from Canada’s regions. Currently broadcasters dominate the board of directors and there is not one representative from Atlantic Canada. Many small to medium-sized companies in Nova Scotia have not been successful in accessing funds through the ctf as the guidelines are complex and weighted in favor of large, vertically integrated companies that have in-house legal and financial counsel. There is no one advocating for these regional producers’ interests at the ctf.’

In a pre-review letter to Heritage Minister Sheila Copps, MacKenzie says the kpmg recommendation eliminating regional bonusing ‘would have a severe negative effect on Nova Scotia’s film and television industry if implemented.’

If the development of production companies in the regions is ‘far above and beyond the mandate of the ctf [per kpmg],’ the nsfdc argues that that is not the case for the federal government, which has a mandate to ‘serve all constituents, including those in the regions.’ *

With files from Susan Tolusso

-www.pch.gc.ca