The Alberta Educational Communications Corporation network turned 20 years old last fall. But at a time when it should, like Global Television, be celebrating its achievements, access is struggling in an increasingly uphill battle to make it to 21. As Playback reported last issue, Alberta’s educational network is in the midst of the gravest crisis of its existence.

access’ services are divided into three components: educational services and enterprises; ckua am/fm radio; and television. The 1993/94 budget for all services is $18 million, with $16.1 million provided by a government grant ($33,000 less than the network received 10 years ago).

At the beginning of December, Dr. Stephen West, Alberta’s minister of municipal affairs (the ministry responsible for access), said the government should reduce its funding to zero. He ordered access’ board of directors to review alternative means of providing the network’s services. At the same time, access president Don Thomas resigned. The network and its supporters tried to rally together to come up with solutions.

According to access program director Michael Schreiner, there have been no breakthroughs. The committees appointed to look at access’ assets, severance packages (access has 150 employees on staff) and the feasibility of private funding, have been studying the situation. At the end of this month, they will sit down with the government and put their plans on the table. access’ fiscal year ends on March 31, so a decision has to be made on the future of the network well before then.

It has been speculated, though, that decisions will be made even earlier to accommodate the Feb. 14 start of specialty tv channel hearings and hearings for new Alberta stations, beginning Jan. 25.

Schreiner says some private broadcasters have already expressed interest in the network and are meeting with the board of directors, but he couldn’t give details.

Gail Hinchcliffe, chair of the board, confirms this. ‘It’s only natural that what happens with access is of interest to a number of independent broadcasters, whether they are licensed now or applying,’ she says. ‘There’s been a lot of discussions with a lot of different entities that are interested.’

But, she adds, ‘what access does and what a commercial network does isn’t apples and apples. We don’t know yet if it would be economically viable; it hasn’t gotten to that stage yet.’

According to Hinchcliffe, there is ‘no question of the value in all the services access provides,’ it’s just a question of finding a more ‘economical vehicle’ for them. But whether this vehicle, if it is found, would receive government funding is a question that no one is able to answer yet.

The very real possibility that access will be shut down has both producers and other educational broadcasters worried.

Independent producers from Alberta and around the country have responded to a call from the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association and sent letters and faxes to the Alberta government protesting the cut of funding to the educational broadcaster. They fear the loss of the services access provides, both as a ‘crucial link’ in the educational broadcaster network and as a catalyst for indigenous Alberta production.

Ira Levy is the chair of Toronto-based Breakthrough Films and Television. His company produces the children’s series The Adventures of Dudley the Dragon. He says access was instrumental, along with the other Canadian educational broadcasters, in developing the series and bringing it to fruition. ‘Acting as an ad-hoc network,’ Levy explains, ‘the educational networks’ fundsacted as a trigger, allowing (us) to access much larger funds.’ Dudley is now seen in almost every region of Canada.

Levy calls the Alberta government’s inclination to discontinue funding shortsighted. He says there is room for public broadcasting to evolve, and says the quality programming found on educational channels is necessary to the broadcasting mix. If not, he says, why would specialty channel applicants be asking the crtc for licences to provide similar services?

But Levy maintains it is important to have and fund the ‘base organizations.They have helped so many independent producers.They take so little public funding and do so much with it. A commercial broadcaster couldn’t do that.’

Dave Schultz’s Calgary-based company, Route 66 Entertainment, is currently producing Chrome Dreams, a four-part documentary series on the history of the auto industry. ‘access was the first broadcast licence we got,’ he says. ‘It got the ball rolling and we wouldn’t have been able to put the project together without that. Especially in Alberta, it’s much harder to swing a production. If we didn’t have access, we wouldn’t have a show,’ he adds.

With the modest licence fee under his belt, Schultz was able to bring in the support of the Saskatchewan Communications Network, utv in Vancouver, cfcf-tv, and ckoc-tv, and the project was a go. He fears that without the detonation factor an Alberta-based educational network provides, Alberta-based productions are going to be even more difficult to get going. ‘It would be a real shame to see (access) go down. People don’t realize what they’ve got until they lose it.’ access is about more than money,’ he says. ‘They’re very supportive of the indie production community. They’re there for you, interested in the program.’

First chance

Margaret Mardirossian, who is based in Edmonton, went to access with her first documentary, Ronnie Burkett: A Line of Balance. access gave her her first broadcast fee. ‘It gave me that push,’ she says. She, like Levy, describes the move to cut government funding as shortsighted, especially at a time when so many others are vying for broadcast licences. ‘access provides an alternative – people do want to see that kind of programming,’ she says.

Another Alberta producer, Sherry Kozac of Missing Link, was also able to use access as a kickstart for her production. Her $500,000 documentary, For the Birds, is now in distribution and doing well in Canada and internationally. access came in off the top three years ago with a broadcast licence. ‘access plays a vital role,’ Kozac says. ‘No one else would have backed it (the documentary). It has a strong Alberta base.But now that it’s finished, people want it.’

Crucial step

Although access only provided a total of 6% of the project’s total budget, it was a crucial first step. Kozac, who has little hope the network will be salvaged, worries about where Alberta producers will go. There will be nowhere to tell Alberta’s stories, she says, ‘and we have great stories to tell.’

Members of the fraternity of Canadian educational broadcasters are also, naturally, troubled by the events in Alberta. Peter Herrndorf, chair and ceo of tvontario, sees the potential loss of access as a loss for both the broadcasting industry and Alberta as a province. From his view at tvo, if access stopped functioning it would mean the loss of a very valuable partner for coproductions and coventures, and what Herrndorf calls ‘an important national link,’ which helps to give programming from any one regional educational broadcaster national exposure. Herrndorf sees the network as the provider of an indigenous voice for Alberta, which ‘tells Alberta’s own stories….It would be a terrible loss.’

‘What’s so unusual is that educational broadcasting was recognized in the 1991 Broadcasting Act as an integral part of the industry; it was built into the act,’ Herrndorf says. ‘I think that we as a country have recognized the importance of the balance in the broadcasting system with us (educational broadcasters), the cbc and private broadcasting.’

Herrndorf is skeptical of the ability of a non-government-funded entity to provide the services of an educational broadcaster. As an alternative, he suggests more efficient use of existing educational broadcasters. ‘(At tvo) we anticipated less money from government, so we moved to diversify our revenue sources.’ The largest of Canada’s educational broadcasters, tvo now sells more programs internationally and raises more funds from the public. It has also worked consciously to build audiences.

That’s not to say access hasn’t tried to reduce its dependence on government money. But according to press reports last summer, then-president Don Thomas’ efforts – a plan to reduce government funding by 40% – went unheralded by the new government.

Jim Benning, ceo of the Saskatchewan Communications Network, is also troubled by the events at access. As an educational broadcaster himself, he believes educational tv should be viewed as an integral part of the educational system and therefore should receive government funding.

If access dies, he says, Alberta’s educational tv (and radio) infrastructure dies with it. Like Herrndorf, Benning equates that development with a loss of locally produced content as Alberta becomes dependent on outside production.

‘Over the longer term in Western Canada, given the distances, it becomes important that you use modern technologies, tv being one of the dominant ones, for education and communications,’ says Benning. The Prairies, he says, should not just be users, but producers of educational programming. He worries that a year or two down the road, Albertans will want to use the technology and resources now at access, and will have to start from scratch.

Neither Herrndorf nor Benning really fears a domino effect in their own provinces. In fact, Herrndorf says this will remind the Canadian government and the crtc how important it is to support educational broadcasters. ‘We do fine on the private side,’ he says, ‘but in order to have the kind of balance we want in our broadcasting system, we’ve got to find a way to nurture and support the educational services.’