Quality control

Monday night we’re sitting in our favorite neighborhood bar surrounded by modules. Not space modules. Modules producers and broadcasters will become intimately familiar with over the next couple of months, beginning Dec. 10 when the ctf released its magnum opus of revamped and revised eligibility criteria. ‘Not tonight honey, I have a module’ may make it into a Made In Canada episode. About 300 people across the country will find it outrageously funny.

Whereas the funding application process was never much fun, these some 60-odd pages are a labyrinth of ranking and weighing, more complex and arguably, on the Licence Fee Program side, more subjective. Understanding them is an act of frustration. Just as we were ready to throw up our hands, order another round and commit to filling empty news pages with the full text of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, who should walk in but one of our favorite producers arm-in-arm with Genie-nominated director Sturla Gunnarsson.

Being the creative type, Gunnarsson was out the door at the first sign of finance particulars. The producer lunged for the drama module, of course, and took a flat 30 seconds to sum it up: ‘This is incomprehensible drivel and the only thing it adds up to is that there’s not enough money.’

Absolutely. There’s not enough money. In fact, outside of that bonny day two years ago when Minister Copps, Phil Lind and Bill Mustos announced the first round of financing and producers and broadcasters alike practically jigged in the aisles, it’s never really seemed like enough money. Ten years ago, it would have been the goods for the six existing production companies. Heading into 1999, it’s a leg-up and no more than that for the more than six times that number of companies that exist today and a comparable multiple of broadcasters.

Given the supply and demand ratio, the new guidelines have something for everybody and this may be the fairest way for as many as possible to share the wealth. But what it has to do with creating quality programming, we’re not sure.

With financing more projects a cornerstone of the new guidelines, there has to be less money on a per project basis. At the same time, the Cancon-centric criteria will make presales that much more difficult, if not impossible. The answer, apparently, is greater investment from the broadcasters and/or the producer and/or the private sector, although what the incentive is for investing in Canadian programs with little international sales opportunity is anyone’s guess.

Then there’s the part about the greater the percentage of licence fee, the greater the chance of receiving funding. We know it’s Christmas and we all want to believe, but one would have to be blindly optimistic not to anticipate that a broadcaster paying a 50% licence fee for a program he doesn’t have rights to wouldn’t want that 50% to equal as little as possible. De facto pressure to pull the budget down. Again, what happens to quality?

The modules are launched and it’s too late for all this. Maybe the decision to go with quantity – in part an effort to quiet any and all disgruntled producers – will work out in the end with x thousand hours of programming to convince the Feds of the wisdom of renewing the fund. But although the party line is that the higher licence fees from the broadcasters is something the producers always wanted, time will tell whether this particular strategy helps produce the kind of quality programming necessary to compete for audience. On that happy note. . .

Merry Christmas, Season’s Greetings, or whatever salutation is festive and correct to you and yours at this time of year. Have a wonderful holiday.