The art of Canadian drama production.

Even with the input of the new $100 million from the ctcpf, budgets over and above the $1-million-per-episode mark, and the ever increasing number of broadcast windows for Canadian productions, dramatic series stamped Made In Canada are still the most arduous of the program genres to sell and finance, not to mention produce.

How well it’s working is cause for speculation, but the bottom line after year one of the ctcpf is evident if only in the oversubscription tally and the frenetic union crews in the major centers. At the end of the summer there will be more Cancon programming in the offing than ever before. It’s a buyers’ ­ the broadcasters ­ market.

With that in mind, Playback went to the heads of original drama production at the six major networks to discuss the evolution of the flagship Canadian product on their 1997/98 schedules. How program strategy has evolved at their respective nets, the best means of reaching new audience, and blue-sky plans for drama production are all fodder for conversation in interviews with Loren Mawhinney, vp Canadian production for CanWest Global; Baton Broadcasting’s vp dramatic programming Bill Mustos; CTV Network’s group vp programming Gary Maavara; Dale Andrews, executive vp for WIC Entertainment; Andre Provencher, vp programming at TVA Network; and the cbc’s Susan Morgan, creative head of dramatic series.

See p. 34 for case studies on Alliance Communications’ Once a Thief (ctv), the Keatley MacLeod Productions and Atlantis Communications coproduction Cold Squad (bbs), Altantis’ Traders (Global), Donkey Kong Country from Nelvana and Medialab of France (wic), the Chris Haddock and Lazlo Barna-produced DaVinci’s Inquest (cbc), and Diva, produced by Productions Sovimage (tva).

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‘The marketplace gets more and more competitive as more signals and channels are being licensed, but we have held on to our market share, I believe very nicely,’ says Loren Mawhinney, vp Canadian production for the CanWest Global System. ‘We think it’s because we are very disciplined about who we are. We are dramatic series oriented, slightly edgy, with lots of attention to the youth market, but we’re solidly 18-49.’

Mawhinney has been at her current post for three-and-a-half years (she says she knows the time because her promotion coincided with the birth of her son). For Global she has commissioned the drama series Traders, Psi Factor and The Outer Limits (Atlantis), Jake and the Kid (Great North/ Nelvana) and Ready or Not (Insight Productions) and was instrumental in developing the critically acclaimed New Producers Series (no longer running), which helped assist in the professional development of emerging Canadian talent.

The mantra at Global, the once dubbed ‘Love Boat Network,’ this season could be ‘stay the course’ as there are no new Canadian series but a slew of successful returning fare, including Traders, Ready or Not and the sci-fi franchises Psi Factor and Outer Limits.

‘We were lucky this season in that we had some very successful franchises to choose from last season. It’s better if you can renew a success as opposed to creating a new one. It’s a lot of work and you never know whether it works or d’esn’t, so we’re really happy that we’ve got things that we can still support.’

The decision to renew such Canadian series plays into Mawhinney’s belief that successful Canadian product deserves to be rewarded. ‘You should be able to applaud things that are doing well and generating enough interest to do 22 episodes annually until you get to 65 or until the interest wanes.’ she says. ‘Television is a habit-forming creation and you have to provide people with enough stuff that they can get in the habit of making that show a part of their lives.’

To help keep a successful show like Traders going, Global created a strategic alliance with the cbc, giving the pubcaster the second window on the high-finance drama. ‘Sublicensing to the cbc enabled us to raise our licence fee, which allowed the producers to raise their budgets,’ says Mawhinney. ‘It’s important for us that the show continue to attract audiences so we had to make sure that the quality stayed high and went higher if possible.’

Mawhinney says that while CanWest Global is a broad-based, mass-audience broadcaster, ‘we have a target audience that is slightly younger than the cbc’s. Generally speaking we are 18-49 in both our Canadian and American shows, so we work with Fox, and sci-fi shows work well with our audience, and that’s partly due to our promotions department, they can really create hits here.’

For the future, Mawhinney says comedy may become a focus at CanWest Global, which should include the as-yet-unconfirmed adult-oriented Nelvana animation series. ‘Canadian comedy is the next thing we’re trying to make happen,’ she says.

Despite Global’s youth-oriented strategy Mawhinney says they have had senior meetings on Internet type issues but have no plans to move towards more cyber-oriented projects. ‘As a broadcaster we just felt that we’d be taking our energies away from our core business, and when people are playing on the Web they’re not watching tv.’