Already feeling program supply pools dwindling, Canada’s latest batch of specialty services are heading into their second broadcast year confident independent production won’t feel the impact of a pending change in licence conditions which could mean less money in the crtc-regulated Cancon programming kitty this year.

With three weeks to go until the next and last group of specialties are unleashed, the incumbents, high on their new fall seasons and buffed by increases in audience share over the summer, wrap their second fiscal Aug. 31 and end the period for which their Canadian acquisition and investment expenditures are a flat fee as carved into the licence agreements back in 1994.

As of the end of August, the six English-language specialties – Discovery, Bravo!, Showcase, Life, wtn and NCN New Country Network – will have spent a cumulative $54.6 million on Cancon.

But from Sept. 1 until the year 2000, with the exception of ncn, which has structured investments for the duration of its licence term, expenditures on Canadian content will be governed by the revenue formula, with each of the specialties committing to spend varying percentages of the previous year’s gross on acquisition and indie production.

All are predictably mum on projected expenditures for fiscal ’96/97, but given the uphill battle to make business plans mesh and the ‘make whole’ distant dream factor, gross revenues aren’t as golden as surmised when the applications were put together. Yet given the new licensees in the wings and the program buying frenzy already gathering momentum, cutting back programming budgets or original production isn’t an option, say specialty execs.

Bravo!, which invested more than its mandated $4.7 million on Canadian acquisition and investment last year, is committed to spending 33% of 1995’s revenue this year. In the end, what’s on the table this fiscal may be ‘slightly’ less than $4.7 million, but clearly licence fees or volume of production won’t see the shortfall, says Bravo! gm Paul Gratton.

‘I’m not going to underspend this year at all. I’ve turned some down because their budgets weren’t in our price range, but I’ve never once turned down a project for lack of money, and it won’t be any different this year. My door is open. We’re still working from the standard 15% licence fee. We haven’t turned around and said, `We’re not doing so well, so we’re going down to 10%.’ ‘

Life Network, saddled with the heaviest licence conditions of the lot, is committed to spend 65% of gross this year and meet an on-air Cancon level requirement of 75%. The expenditure will be ‘in the ballpark’ of last year’s $16.1 million, says vp programming Janice Platt, who like Gratton says licence fees and original production aren’t in line to take a hit.

‘(The projection) is perhaps a bit less but it’s not going to have a negative effect on programming at all. We have to go to air with 75% Canadian this year and there’s not a lot of acquisition available, so we’re going in with 15 new Canadian shows, series and live,’ says Platt. ‘We’re looking at making more commitments to independent producers in October and November and our licence fee standard remains at 30% of the budget. Really, we’re just humming along.’

Airing on the plus side are Discovery and Showcase, which spent $12.9 million and $10.1 million respectively last year.

There’ll be a ‘slight increase’ in Discovery’s Cancon expenditure next year, which will show up in ‘the volume and quality of coproductions,’ says president Trina McQueen.

Showcase’s Canadian expenditure will go up ‘significantly’ en route to it spending 42% of last year’s gross, according to ceo Phyllis Yaffe.

wtn execs on summer solstice could not be reached for comment, but given the service’s basic carriage status, last year’s $9.1 million investment is likely surpassed by this year’s projections.

Money aside, a summer increase in audience share, fall skeds, and the upcoming September announcement of new competition are hot topics as year two comes to a close.

The most recent summer audience share numbers available from A.C. Nielsen show an increase over last year’s summer stats for all the specialties, with the exception of Discovery, which leveled off slightly after dominating the pack for most of the licence term.

For the adults 18+ demo for the week of June 24, Showcase is running a 1.3 audience share, up from 0.9 in 1995; Life captured a 0.8 share, up from 0.5 a year earlier; Bravo! is at 0.8 compared to 0.7; wtn has climbed to 0.7 from 0.5; and ncn at 0.9, is up from 0.7 for the third week of June ’95. Discovery rang in tied for first with Showcase at a 1.3 audience share, down from 1.4 last year.

Schedule-wise it’s all systems go, with the rookies and the more established specialties getting a jump-start on the mass nets’ September previews and launching some of the programming stable in August.

Life is front-lining a new focus on live call-in, Discovery and Showcase are pushing deeper into the kids’ market, and Bravo! is providing the conduit for 13 nfb animation productions in a six-week showcase starting Aug. 25, complete with interview segments on the director’s creative process.

No major structural changes to the Discovery sked, although evenings will be a little more streamed to increase audience identification with appointment television and experimental Saturday and Sunday kids’ packs have been added, which ‘will grow into more formal blocks, if it works,’ says McQueen.

Wings, Forbidden Places, @Discovery, Sunday Showcase and big animal programs continue to be the biggest draws and are all returning, joined by 17 new series including Travelers, Go For It!, Born Among Wild Animals, and Discovery’s Secret Worlds.

Showcase, too, will delve deeper into kids, adding The Tick, Ovide and the Gang, Madeline, Dudley the Dragon and The Legend of White Fang to the weekend sked, which, during adult hours, is streaming comedy with the likes of codco, sctv and Behind the Frontline. The focus on kids simply reflects ‘the coming of age of the network,’ says Yaffe.

‘Showcase has a mandate to provide a second window and we feel there’s some responsibility there for kids’ programming, too. Berenstein Bears has been getting an audience of between 30,000 to 40,000, and we’ve been rewarded by a growing audience and from the advertising market.’

One of the few left standing with a vertical sked, Bravo! begins its new season of Footnotes mid-August, is adding a series of half-hours on great themes in literature and great speeches in history to its Literature night, and will cap the month with the world premiere of Gala des Etoiles.

The nfb animation showcase launches with Shyness, Les Drew’s ‘fresh take on Frankenstein,’ and Ishu Patel’s incandescent fable Divine Fate. Other animators profiled in the series include Roslyn Schwartz, John Weldon, Gayle Thomas, Robert Doucet, Chris Hinton, Munro Ferguson and Janet Perlman.

At Life, while the focus stays on health, home and garden (125 new episodes of Martha Stewart), and great outdoors-themed programming, primetime will frontline live tv with programs such as Ask the Expert and Life Live (working title), the flagship startup running at 10 p.m. Call-in programming post 5 p.m. and long before talk tv’s midnight fare is a little radical, but it’s a point of difference that sets the specialties apart and may take the eyeballs bucking the mainstream selections, says Platt.

‘There comes a point where it is very difficult to even try and tear people away from primetime dramas and sitcoms on the main networks. Live tv at this hour is truly alternative.’

wtn kicks off the 1996/97 sked showcasing Jane Hawtin Live!, which will go national via the network after a successful but piecemeal run on WIC Western International Communications’ stations last season. Also joining the talk block are The Best of Shirley, Barbara Walters: Interviews of a Lifetime, and Brit talk diva Vanessa. That Girl returns to the small screen as does Moonlighting, along with an impressive list of features running in weekend slots.

While everyone dives into their respective new seasons, the rumor mill continues turning with speculation about who will get what when the crtc releases its picks of the 40 apps on the table.

Sources confirm that the list is slated for release the first week of September, likely Sept. 3. Whether the commission will license this batch for analog or digital distribution or a mix of both is a mystery until then, although scuttlebutt has it looking something like this: a large number of services will be given a licence, likely as many as 20, in order to stem the invasion of u.s. services into the Canadian market.

Five of those, pegged in need of a guaranteed distribution system, will have analog status. The remainder will be given a licence green light good for two years, during which they are free to negotiate carriage with the cablecos and any dth distributor that actually gets a service up and running over that time period. If the service is not in play at the end of two years, the licence comes back.