Canadian producers of children’s television programming have new hard evidence that corroborates something they’ve known in their collective gut for some time – that the rest of the world puts Canadian producers in a class of their own.

Now this group, which includes such names as Cinar, Credo Entertainment and Paragon International, wants to reinforce this image domestically and expand the industry.

The framework for this action is expressed in a long-awaited industrial strategy that outlines how Canadians might make this industry grow.

Driving the Future, Canadian Children’s Television Production Industrial Strategy points to five goals. They reaffirm the existing strengths of the industry, suggest some ways of increasing funding and make the emphatic point that investing in the production of children’s programming is good business.

Some of the specific goals are to lobby government to: designate funding for training; maintain Cancon regulations on all screen-based services; maintain existing cultural programs and extend them to new media.

In the area of stimulating investment, goals include lobbying for an ‘enhanced business tax credit’ to lure advertisers and sponsors into the kids 4-8 timeslot. Another strategy the report recommends is the extension of the 150% broadcaster Cancon credit for live-action youth shows beyond drama.

On the new media/new revenue front, the strategy entails supporting networks and specialties that are good kids’ show supporters and building relationships within the kids’ toy and related industries with an eye to exploiting merchandising opportunities. Raising the number of programs licensed in series and finding an alternative to the Quebec kids’ advertising ban are also goals.

The initiative comes about a year and a half after a group of producers got together to commission a study into the children’s programming industry. Working under the aegis of the Alliance for Children and Television, the group hired Toronto-based research consultant J. M. Johnston and Associates to pull together some hard data on the industry in Canada and abroad.

Researcher Joan Johnston began in January 1994 talking to producers, funders, bankers, governments, telecasters and various special interest groups involved in children’s television production. After a year of collecting information and helping to write the strategy, Johnston comes to this conclusion:

‘Our success as an industry is remarkable. This industry has grown from its origins as a domestic to an export industry,’ and, says Johnston, if anything, Canadians are underproducing. They are constrained, for one thing, by the amount of funding available to them at home.

‘The domestic market can only support so much volume,’ says Johnston. ‘Our industry can produce more.’

The big insight that came from the study is the degree to which children’s programming is on an upswing around the world and the advantageous position that Canadians have in taking advantage of this growth potential, says Annabel Slaight, head of Owl Communications and chair of the producers steering committee.

Slaight says with all the preoccupation in the past over such issues as too much violence in children’s television and too many American cartoons on Canadian television – and with Canadian producers busy working on projects – the industry hasn’t coalesced as an industrial force.

The study has helped the industry see itself as a ‘winner,’ says Slaight.

The goal of the industrial strategy is to keep that feeling going, she says.

‘People have thought of the industry as something to protect. We would like to see a shift take place from a social and cultural point of view to an industrial perspective.

‘Government assistance and the history of regulatory and incentive systems has helped get us this far. Now we would like people to see children’s programming as a good business to get into as well as a good thing to do.’

‘It is an industry with all the success that we look for,’ adds Johnston. ‘It is competitive, knowledge-based, environmentally sound, and export-driven. Also, it is a fundamental building block into new technology and new markets where Canadians can lead.’

The producers committee will be working as an arm of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association to ensure the industrial strategy is implemented. In addition to Cinar, Credo and Paragon, the committee consists of SDA Productions, Soapbox Productions, Atlantis Communications, Cochran Entertainment and O’B&D Films.