Atlantis Broadcasting has announced its intentions to establish a commercial production service for advertisers aiming at the ‘lifestyle’ audience.

abi, owner of Life Network and controlling shareholder of HGTV Canada, plans to leverage its expertise with the potentially lucrative adult 25-54 audience with a full-service arm equipped to write, direct, edit and clear lifestyle advertising.

The company’s sales division, Atlantis Multinet Sales, is extending the creative and production offering to the media side of the equation with the assembly of tv awareness campaigns on Life and hgtv.

‘[The initiative] comes in the spirit of being experts in lifestyle television, not just programming but communicating to the lifestyle target 25-54 viewer,’ says Kathleen Bazkur, abi vp, on-air brand and creative services.

Bazkur says the arm could offer ‘attractive’ rates, without the overhead of a traditional agency, and that the undertaking is designed not just as a revenue generator but as a means to establish new working partnerships with prospective clients.

‘The initiative was designed to work in synergy with the sales team,’ says Bazkur. ‘So we can put together a media campaign for advertisers who thought tv advertising was something they couldn’t do.’

The commercial production initiative will access in-house talent, including on-air promotions manager Mitch Harrison and senior producer Stacey Hatch, as well as bringing on freelance directorial and other talent according to the scope of projects.

Youth specialist ytv announced a similar in-house initiative earlier this spring, with the broadcaster using its considerable savoir faire with the young set in the creation, production, direction and post-production of advertising messages.

The broadcasters’ initiatives are generally seen as having more competitive significance for ad agencies than production companies.

Says brand engineer Philippe Garneau of Garneau Wurstlin Philp, Toronto, the situation is another indication of the redrawing of boundaries in the advertising world as a whole. Garneau says while the ad-making efforts of broadcasters could be considered a competitive threat, that competition is probably felt more immediately by traditional advertising agencies than by brand-building agencies.

Entities like ytv and abi offer proven understanding of their target as watchers of tv, says Garneau. ‘But knowing the youth market or the blossoming garden leisure crowd is one thing. Knowing how to sell to them and build a brand is quite another,’ he adds.

What has drawn the ire of some commercial production companies are the efforts of the cbc in the area of commercial production, with producers calling attention to the use of public money in what they say is an unfairly competitive enterprise.

The cbc has been operating its in-house commercial arm, Event and Sales Promotion, for over a year, and while most advertising has consisted of promotions and contest tie-ins for the network’s clients, the unit has recently undertaken higher end work, including a campaign for Air Canada.