Banff, Alta: As usual at the Banff Television Festival, about the only ones working up a tangible stress level are the independent producers. Busy pitching, schmoozing and generally making merry with the broadcasters and funding agencies that can kick projects from development to reality, the week-long festival, which wraps June 15, has been a hotbed of program ideas.

Albert Schultz playing a mutant Scrooge, Kate Fillion’s Lip Service as a four-hour series, and Icelandic producer Ralph Christians proposing Viking antics animation; all had their chance to pique the interests of the powers that be at Banff as more than 1,000 television industry execs pondered investment, basked in the 25 degree Banff sunshine, and saluted the finest programming the world has to offer.

The 17th Banff festival launched with the annual Rockie Awards, which saw Alliance Communications’ Due South and Rhombus Media’s Dido and Aeneas amongst those selected from the over 600 entries from 35 countries and territories as the best of the best.

Applause was long and loud at the Due South announcement pegging it best continuing series against the likes of er, Murder One and NYPD Blue. Dubbed ‘the little series that could,’ Robert Lantos, Arthur Weinthal, Telefilm Canada and the Cable Production Fund were paid homage for sticking with the show, although the award was a bit of a swan song for the series, which may not see another season. Even master of ceremonies and Due South star Paul Gross couldn’t hold back quipping, ‘But if we’re not continuing, should we even be in this category?’

Dido and Aeneas, the Rhombus-produced dance opera, took best performance special. Bravo!, cbc, CH4, rdf and ncrv, the cpf, Rogers Telefund, Telefilm and the ofdc made up the list of partners thanked by Rhombus’ Barbara Willis Sweete. ‘Receiving this is like standing at the tip of Mount Rundle,’ said Sweete. ‘I don’t know whether to giggle, cry or stand in awe.’

Other Canadian additions to the night, which saw the bbc/a&e coproduction Pride and Prejudice taking the Best of the Festival grand prize and best miniseries, included the announcement of two new annual Telefilm awards of $20,000 each, which will recognize quality television and encourage the development of Canadian programs with an international appeal. This year’s winners were Hiroshima, the first Canada/Japan coproduction, produced by Telescene Film Group, Daiei Company and Cine Bazar, and Le Cafe des aveugles, produced by Les Productions Pixart.

Producer and comedian Steve Smith was also honored, receiving the Peter Ustinov Endowment. ‘This is humbling. Not as humbling as what I had to do to get it, but humbling nevertheless,’ said Smith, who single-handedly brought duct tape to popular culture.

The remaining Rockie Awards went to: Sweeties (Erotic Tales) and Lost Children, both from wdr Cologne, winning best short drama and made-for-tv respectively. Gogs, produced by the u.k.’s Aaargh! Animation, won for best animation program. Gaston and the Truffle Hunters, produced by Boreales, Canal+, and Premiere, France, took best children’s programming.

For the third year running (a Rockie record), Grub Street Productions in association with Paramount Pictures Television took away the award for best comedy for Frasier.

Best information program went to Frontline Hospital from KRO Broadcasting Organization in the Netherlands. Lauderdale Productions and CH4’s Return to the Dying Rooms took the social and political documentary category; Horizon: Fermat’s Last Theorem from bbc was named best popular science program. The arts documentary category went to Blacklist – Hollywood on Trial from Koch TV Productions in association with American Movie Classics, USA. Screening rooms were fuller than usual Tuesday after Monday night’s Rockie Awards glimpsed some truly great programs.

Well-attended panels

Overall this year, the signature panels were well-attended, with the Stephen Bochco hour, Two in a Room, and the Pat Ferns market simulation almost filling spacious Banff Springs ballrooms.

Two in a Room, in particular, packed the place, with the cbc’s Don Richardson, executive in charge of documentary production, and Channel Four’s Jacquie Lawrence butting heads on terms of tender for the coproduced documentary to be commissioned.

The level of ‘edginess’ made for entertaining exchanges with Lawrence’s ‘Planet Queer’ idea going over like a lead balloon, and each finally agreeing to a production dealing with ‘societal change’ that explores ‘an aspect of life that is culturally challenging.’ The winning pitch was announced Friday morning, post Playback press time.

Keynote speaker Melvyn Bragg took to heart what the cable industry has known for more than a year. ‘As the German playwright Frederick Schiller wrote, `The public is now everything to me – my preoccupation, my sovereign, my friend,’ ‘ said Bragg, who suggested that television programmers have an obligation to breed an audience appetite for quality arts programming.

‘Television is the very medium of democracy. Democracy is having trouble discovering those willing to patronize and develop its higher instincts – no problem at all in finding those keen to exploit the power of its lowest common denominator. Yet if it wants to dig into the deeper sympathies and habits of viewers, it must dig into the mind and imagination it currently fears because big audiences do not automatically follow. A bland acceptance of the status quo is doomed.’

The v-chip too had its hour in the sun at a session pointing out that several glitches loom before a workable system can be distributed. The question of compatible classification systems between the u.s. and Canada resurfaced, with the u.s. suggesting a ratings system similar to that governing feature films, while the Canadian contingent continues to look at a multilayered system regulating sex, language and violence.

Action Group on Violence on Television chair and Discovery Channel ceo Trina McQueen admits there are ‘concerns’ about the two different approaches in progress, but says ‘the deal is that we will have full and frank discussions between the two groups. We’re eager to see what they’re doing and vice versa, so I believe it will all come together.’

To date, agvot has had one meeting of the committee, which is looking to hammer out a workable system by the middle of July and then test it in Shaw Communications’ v-chip trials already in progress.

Time lines

Time lines are also an issue, with the Americans aiming for January 1977 and the Canadians told by the crtc to come up with something by September. September is still the goal, says McQueen, but adds that the priority is making sure the system developed is buttoned down the first time out.

Asked by mediator Laurier LaPierre whether the crtc-imposed deadline for a classification system was ‘a pronouncement, an order, or a wish,’ chairman Keith Spicer responded that it’s all of the above, but added that making television safer for children is the goal, ‘never mind the dates.’

The cftpa signed on with agvot this month and will be participating in the discussions.

Amongst scuttlebutt of a new cultural production fund, which Telefilm wants to control (rumored to be split between public and private broadcaster streams, with the estimated range thought to be $100 million to $200 million), the specialties decision, and the imminent announcement of the new crtc chair, the cbc was a hot topic amongst producers.

With about $200 million left to cut from the cbc budget, a good chunk of it from programming, producers were nevertheless cautiously optimistic about the new windows opening on the cbc’s new all-Canadian primetime.

‘The financing is always rough. What we want is the extra window,’ says Neil Bregman, president of SoundVenture, which is producing a series of children’s vignettes for the cbc this season.

It’s going to be increasingly difficult to find program financing from both within and outside the corporation, says Phyllis Platt, executive director, arts and entertainment for cbc, who estimates having cut $23 million from the arts and entertainment budget over three years.

Fewer episodes of the five new primetime series were commissioned this season, the lowest being six for Gullages, Newfoundland’s first tv series, written and directed by Bill MacGillivray and produced by Terry Greenlaw.

But a new production fund may be on the horizon to help augment budgets, and in the meantime, the strategy is in part to look at new partnerships and sponsorships, says Platt.

More second and third windowing with the specialty channels is something ‘we’ll probably do more of,’ and although sponsorships seem maxed out, there may be some wanting to be a part of identifiably Canadian programming, she concludes. ‘We may make some changes in our approach to marketing and sales.’

While the majority of productions that take root at Banff won’t see money on the table for a while, the market simulation yielded up a rare on-the-spot development cash commitment from Global for Geoff LeBoutillier’s drama special, The Other Side of the Pole. ‘We want this project. We love this project,’ said Global’s Loren Mawhinney, a rare combination of words this week. AV