Canada is second only to the u.s. in international Programming sales, with film and television revenues exceeding $3 billion annually.

The Man in the Attic, Million Dollar Babies, Jim Lee’s WildC.A.T.s Covert Action Teams, David Copperfield, Following Her Heart, ReBoot, Treacherous Beauties and Evil Harvest are just some of the Canadian programs produced for major American networks in 1994.

Due South is the first Canadian series to get a primetime slot on an American network. Not only does the Mountie/ Chicago cop odd-couple series win for breaking ground in Canada, it is the only foreign primetime series made for a major American network.

Paul Haggis, creator/writer and producer of Due South, spent some 17 years in Los Angeles, working his way up through the ranks of network series and hitting the jackpot with thirtysomething.

The question arises as to what series, if any, will follow suit.

One American network executive says for now at least, Due South is anomaly. Until Canada produces a body of showrunners who have American credentials, original Canadian material for u.s. nets is going to be restricted largely to one-offs.

Showrunners are key to getting a series off the ground, says Todd Leavitt, senior producer at NBC Productions.

‘The development process in l.a. favors first and foremost talent (showrunners). Secondly, I’m embarrassed to say, are ideas.’

Third, says Leavitt, credence is given to deal-making and whether the cost of the show can be leveraged. ‘Typically, because of the nature of the relationship between Canada and the u.s., a lot of the Canadian opportunities fall into the latter category,’ he says.

‘There is a bit of a catch-22, which is typical of our industry,’ Leavitt continues. ‘Most people who are credited in the Canadian television universe haven’t been involved in getting a show off in the States.’

Robert Greenblatt, executive vice-president of comedy and drama (series) at Fox Network, is typically in development on between 100 and 120 projects. At most, four or five of those are Canadian projects, and all of them are dramas. He has a different version of how Due South fits into the big picture, and the ingredients that pique his interest in developing a project are markedly different from Leavitt’s.

All of the shows he looks at come through the Hollywood agencies (William Morris, caa, icm, United Talent), and that goes for everyone, he says, not just Canadians.

Fox’s first pilot with a Canadian producer goes into production this summer. Once A Thief, a two-hour Alliance production featuring director John Woo and written by Bill Laurin and Glen Davies, is set to shoot in Vancouver.

‘(Alliance) made it very easy for us because they came with the William Morris agency, which had packaged a director of the stature of John Woo, which gives the whole thing credibility,’ says Greenblatt.

Hong Kong director Woo’s recent work in Hollywood didn’t really count in the scheme of things, he says. ‘I would have hired him to do the pilot even if he had only done his international films.’

Greenblatt looks at the writer, the idea and how it fits the network, and experienced showrunners are not at the top of his priority list. ‘I’ve had a history of putting people in that position who haven’t done it before, like Daryn Starr on 90210 and Chris Carter on X-Files. In fact, the guys who wrote the Once a Thief pilot haven’t done it either,’ he says.

As for the impact of Due South, Greenblatt sees it as fitting in with the changing scenery of Canadian/American coproductions, whereby Canadian producers are increasingly legitimized. ‘It’s a much more viable partnership. The fact that Due South is on the air here is a big step.’

For a two-hour pilot, Fox pays up to us$75,000 in development and offers a licence fee of between us$1.6 million and us$2 million.

nbc, on the other hand, pays on average us$2.6 million to us$2.7 million of the budget of a us$3 million tv movie.

Paul Haggis, creator/writer and producer of Due South, spent some 17 years in Los Angeles, working his way up through the ranks of network series and hitting the jackpot with thirtysomething.

‘The way Paul Haggis did it is the way most of them do it,’ says Leavitt. ‘They come down here and make their nationality irrelevant.’

For Canadians who choose to work north of the border, Leavitt says it is going to be harder to get in, ‘because the advantages of coproducing with Canada, which are primarily financial at this point in time, are things that don’t come in those first two points (showrunners and ideas). It can be a great idea, but those ideas are very rare.’

The landscape is entirely different in the case of mows and miniseries, and according to one executive, Canada is viewed as a bit of a specialist in these areas.

cbs generally pays producers between us$2.6 million to us$2.8 million for a two-hour movie and about double that for a miniseries.

Joan Harrison, vice-president of miniseries at cbs, estimates she has about 25 projects in development at any given time, and two or three of those are Canadian coproductions. One of them is The Earth Abideth, an mow produced by Sullivan Entertainment and American actor/producer Peter Strauss.

Harrison says she was pitched by the team and, based on a strong storyline (a rural family saga in this case), she was interested. One bonus that comes with doing a Canadian coproduction, she adds, is the economic advantage – the melting loony and the potential for agency funding – but the key criteria is the story.

‘The rub is satisfying two distinct marketplaces, Canadian and American,’ says Morrison. A project like Million Dollar Babies, the $10 million Cinar production for cbc and cbs that got a 15.9 rating and 26% share of the American audience, is a prime example.

‘Our Million Dollar Babies experience could not have been more positive,’ says Harrison (whose first Canadian relationship was this one), ‘and I am thrilled to hear from Canadian producers.’

cbs came in at the second draft stage, bringing some final script work and cross-border casting to the table.

‘We’re interested in finding material that doesn’t feel inherently American or inherently Canadian – something that transcends the geography of the story,’ says Harrison.

North American productions are a real, and recent, phenomenon, she says, and ‘with companies like Atlantis and Alliance – who have been enormously successful – it’s on the rise.’

‘The American tv market is very xenophobic,’ says Greenblatt, ‘and unfortunately, even when you cross the border into Canada where the culture is incredibly similar, it just becomes that much harder to buy into that.’

Where Greenblatt pushes the envelope is with location. Once A Thief will be shot in Vancouver, and for a change, the city is starring as itself.

‘The interesting thing about Due South is that you had to bring a Canadian character to Chicago to sell the show. With Once A Thief we’re going to have two Asian and one Caucasian character partnered together, but the show is going to be set in Vancouver. A real Canadian location.’

The idea behind the Woo pilot is to focus on the city as part of the larger Pacific Rim, thereby shifting the locale not just to one foreign destination but to a geographical area that carries some mythological weight.

‘There may be a little bit more flexibility in this particular show,’ Greenblatt adds, ‘but I don’t think it’s going to become the usual thing.’

Although Harrison says she is working to increase the number of miniseries at the network and is wide open to pitches from north of the border, these pots of gold don’t necessarily lead to a rainbow.

Aside from the old adage that success breeds success, Harrison says there is no connection between making mows and miniseries for an American network and then sliding in with a series.

Even if the writers, idea and showrunner are in place, there are more strategies required to get the show on the air, not the least of which is negotiating licence fees.

One source speculates that of the reported $1.5 million-per-episode budget for Due South, the network initially put up $1 million (typically the American network would be putting in $1.275 million of that budget for a full licence fee). It is all negotiable, ‘if the show flies,’ says the source.

To make matters more complicated, if the show is a comedy, the odds of making money are against you. Although the American comedies play well in Canada, due to comedy-culture issues, they don’t travel well elsewhere.

In the case of The Martin Short Show, an nbc/Catalyst Entertainment series for nbc which flopped after a very brief run last fall (but is up and into production as of March), Leavitt knew what he was going into.

After studying the economics of great network comedies, Leavitt found they were ‘very aggressive and difficult.’ Typically, he says, the producer stands to lose between us$200,000 and us$250,000 on every episode, and that can go on for five years.

Leavitt estimates a top one-hour drama can generate from us$350,000 to us$400,000 an episode outside of the States, while a great hit comedy generally won’t do more than us$100,000.

‘At least Rambo works in all territories. Guns blazing and car chases. Everyone understands that – the Middle East, the Far East, India, South America.’

In order to gain some leverage, Leavitt wanted to try something new with The Martin Short Show.

‘We looked at the financial issues and said, if this goes, there are no real obstacles to shoot this in Toronto. Maybe we can try something new whereby we start the production here and later on set it up in Toronto.’

In this case, he adds, the show would have gone ahead anyway, but the opportunity to position it as a Canadian production made it even more attractive.

There are many projects that can only get made because of coproduction financing, says Leavitt. ‘I don’t think it is necessarily happening for the right reasons. Ninety-nine percent of coproduction activity exists as a result of certain kinds of financial necessity or attraction.’

Deals with Canadian producers are on the increase and some of the walls are starting to break down, says Leavitt, but there is still – among the network commissioners – some hesitation where Cancon is required.

‘The commissioners want to get the best possible product they can on the air and any time you ask them to make creative concessions – as with working in a Canadian Content context – theoretically you can argue you are compromising your ability to do that only because your choices are not free choices. That’s why this coproduction business is very difficult, because you have to overcome those preconceptions and prejudices,’ says Leavitt.

‘The more you do it and the better you do it,’ he advises, ‘the more willing the end users are going to be to work within the context of Canadian content requirement.’