Members of the post-production and music industries in Ontario and Manitoba are instituting action plans in response to the cbc offering its facility resources to the private market, but are meeting with various levels of success in establishing a dialogue with the network.

The Supporters of Manitoba Music Industry, a group of studio owners, producers and musicians, issued a press release in mid-October outlining concerns about unfair competition from the cbc in music production which has been ongoing since June 1995.

smmi spokesperson Norm Dugas says the efforts of the organization have garnered media attention and the group has also taken its concerns to members of parliament and cultural and industries ministers at both levels of government as well as to members of private cultural industries.

The Manitoba industry mobilized after considering the long- and short-term repercussions of the cbc’s move into free cd production (asking a $1 return on every cd manufactured) and equipment rental, repercussions they say will extend beyond recording studio owners.

Dugas says the cbc intends to produce nine cds per year; the 10 cds produced in the past 18 months represent a loss of between $200,000 and $500,000 in revenue.

cbc producer engineer Norm Lussier says the activity, part of an initiative for the cbc to coproduce projects with the Manitoba music community, consists of making recordings made for cbc programs available for lease-back for release after the material has aired.

‘We’ve done coproduction work with people in the past,’ says Lussier. ‘What we’re trying to do with this, and the reason we need consensus from studio owners as a group, is we want to be able to coproduce material with resources from (funding body) Manitoba Film and Sound as well. Their mandate is to stimulate production; we thought if we could pool our resources it would be in the name of creating more work for the private sector, not taking it away.’

Lussier says the practice of the cbc renting out equipment is not common and it is generally equipment not available elsewhere.

Meanwhile, members of the Toronto post-production community including Norm Stangl, president of Spin Productions and chapter president of the International Teleproduction Society, and David Greene, director of music at Magnetic Music and president of the Toronto chapter of the Society of Professional Audio Recording Services, met with cbc management and operations staff last month to discuss industry concerns about the network’s facilities being made available on the open market.

Greene says the tone of the meeting was cooperative and provided the first opportunity to exchange substantial information. According to Greene, the network says it will only accept outside bookings for excess facility time at rates which do not intentionally undermine the market at large and is also willing to hear all specific cases where they have ‘annoyingly undercut’ the private sector and institute remedial measures.

Where excess facility space exists that is not required for internal production, the network will use equipment to upgrade cbc facilities across the country.

Stangl says the two parties agreed that the industry group would monitor the cbc facilities situation across the country and would reconvene in early spring.