TV: more access

Montreal: In a new report commissioned by the federal government, Canada’s private broadcasters are calling for a major expansion of their role in the program production process and ownership of more outlets for the programs. They also want a reworking of rules governing access to the country’s production funds.

The blue-chip committee which wrote the 35-page report says the survival of quality, primetime Canadian programming is at real risk if Cancon continues to be viewed as a regulatory obligation and tax and not as a business opportunity for broadcasters.

To effectively meet the challenge and resist the looming avalanche of foreign and specialty channel competition, the report says broadcasters need equity access to more markets and ownership of new tv and communications outlets, including multiplexed channels, repeat channels, new pay-tv and specialty channels, and video-on-demand services.

Commissioned by Canadian Heritage Minister Michel Dupuy, the Report on the Future of Canadian Programming and the Role of Private Television: Keeping Canada on the Information Highway says strengthening the presence and performance of Canadian programming is the single best guarantee for the future.

The report says private television has to take up the challenge, as public funding is reduced, and it calls on government to implement policy and regulatory changes which will allow broadcasters to expand revenues, sell more advertising time of all kinds, and assume a central role ‘as developers, producers, owners and distributors of Canadian programming.’

The report outlines 10 fundamental challenges facing Canadian programming and broadcasting. According to its authors, the report ‘represents a reworking, not a dismantling, of the current policy framework.’

Competition is key

Cochaired by Charles Belanger, president and ceo, broadcast group at CFCF Inc., and Bruce Cowie, Electrohome president and coo, broadcast group, the working group which prepared the report says technological and market changes are leading to increased competition which is placing enormous stress on both the system and its policy regulators.

For a variety of reasons, the broadcasters are optimistic many of the report’s recommendations will be implemented ‘within a year or two.’

Following last month’s crtc hearings on I-way convergence, there is a growing feeling in the industry that the process ‘wasn’t so much about the struggle of pipes’ or future competition between the telcos and cable companies, the aspect played on by the consumer press, as it was a recognition by government of the need for more and better Canadian programming in the future.

Broadcasters’ outlook changing

Speaking at a Can Pro ’95 workshop in Quebec City on April 4, the day before Heritage released the report, Canadian Association of Broadcasters president Michael McCabe said private broadcasters are also changing their outlook.

‘Canadian broadcasters didn’t take Canadian programming seriously enough (in the past), but that has become a distinct sea-change,’ he said. ‘The private industry has come together with the public interest, and that interest says it wants Canadian programming.’

At the same session, cfcf’s Belanger said the industry had ‘pinned high hopes on this one (study).’

‘Circumstances seem ripe for a shake-up in the Canadian regulatory system and the opening of doors to private broadcasters.

‘Broadcasters don’t want more regulation,’ said Belanger. ‘They seek a clear operating field to become the engines for quality Canadian programming.’

The working group which drew up the report consists of Guy Crevier, president and ceo of Tele-Metropole; Ivan Fecan, executive vice-president and coo of Baton Broadcasting; Jonathan Festinger, general counsel and secretary, WIC Western International Communications; Pat McDougall, director, programming, CFCN Communications; Joanne McKenna, president, CanWest Global Developments; Paul Robertson, senior vice-president, marketing, Baton; Dr. Gerri Sinclair, director, ExCITE Centre, education faculty, Simon Fraser University; James Sward, president, CanWest Global System; Moses Znaimer, president/executive producer, CityTv, MuchMusic and Bravo!; cochairs Cowie and Belanger; and observers Michael McEwen, cbc senior vice-president, media, and Susan Baldwin, director-general, broadcasting policy, Canadian Heritage.

Main challenges

The report’s recommendations offer short and mid-term solutions to what the broadcasters see as the main challenges facing Canadian programming and private television.

It says the ongoing growth of program choice in the system is reducing mass audiences and revenues for over-the-air broadcasters, and that the effectiveness of priority carriage rules for cable is threatened ‘by a heavy flow of new services, the possible entry of new distribution modes, and new navigation systems.’

The report also says the rising wave of new services is causing the breakdown of simulcast rules designed in the 1970s. As a result, broadcasters say they are less able to protect rights, and the dollars needed to cross-subsidize Canadian production are leaking out of the system.

Another key issue raised in the report is the high cost of quality Canadian programming, especially primetime drama.

The broadcasters say such programming does not earn enough revenue in Canada to cover production costs, and as the system becomes more competitive and public funding continues to decline, the situation is bound to deteriorate.

The report points to a potential financial crisis, noting the primary revenue sources that support conventional tv in Canada are steadily weakening while subscription payments, the fastest growing source of revenues in the system, contribute relatively little to Canadian program production financing, less than 14% of all Canadian program spending.

It underscores the fact that broadcasters ‘do not have legal ownership of their own signal,’ and as distribution systems proliferate, they will be unable to control or seek compensation for the use of their property.

It also says there is no overall game plan for the digital conversion of over-the-air broadcasting, despite the active conversion taking place in the tv production and distribution industries.

Finally, the report says the crtc’s current detailed regulation of conventional broadcasters is creating serious imbalances in the system, specifically, an imbalance between programming obligations and available revenues.

Industry response

Industry response to the report has been mixed.

The cab says it supports the recommendations, especially those calling for priority access for conventional tv services on new distribution systems, stronger measures to protect stations’ program rights, and the demand that carriers contribute directly to the funding of Canadian programs.

The apftq, the Quebec producers association, says it supports a role for broadcasters as equity partners in productions. The producers say this will facilitate broadcaster participation in off-shore revenue streams.

However, both the Quebec association and the Toronto-based Canadian Film and Television Production Association are opposed to broadcaster affiliates gaining access to production funds. The associations argue broadcasters already have access to the funds by controlling what they will and won’t put on air.

Telefilm Canada says it is willing to entertain the concept of access by affiliate producers, but prefers the status quo for the time being.

Telefilm says it first wants to evaluate its own budget situation, the impact of the Cable Production Fund and the outcome of the government review process.