b.Karen Mazurkewich

Where he’s headed nobody knows, but wherever it is he’s going fast.

Just one week after announcing he would be stepping down as vice-president of cbc English television networks at the end of the year, Ivan Fecan approached cbc executives to request an immediate release from his contract, citing new employment opportunities. It is rumored that Fecan has signed a deal in the u.s., possibly with nbc or a subsidiary of Time Warner.

Jim Byrd has been named acting vice-president, English television networks. Byrd, former regional director for Newfoundland, was hired by Fecan in March as executive director media operations.

Fecan’s departure was not a surprise. Last December in an interview with Playback, Fecan announced that he would leave the corporation within two years. ‘I knew from that day I was going to delegate more and more to the team and allow them to run with it and hold back more… to be a coach rather than a player,’ he says.

Some independent producers have raised concerns that Fecan’s departure will create a vacuum at the cbc. ‘I think there’s an incredible void at the cbc as a result (of his departure),’ says producer Carol Reynolds. ‘I feel very strongly that he has taken the medium and given a shape and identity to Canadian television that did not exist.’

‘It will be a tough act to follow,’ says producer Kevin Sullivan of Sullivan Films. ‘He really created a profile for the position itself, which was never really highly regarded previously.’ According to Sullivan, Fecan’s background was unique in that he had worked both at the cbc and outside the corporation when he did a two-year stint at nbc under president Brandon Tartikoff.

Although cbc had produced series such as Street Legal and Seeing Things and miniseries such as the popular Anne of Green Gables prior to his return from nbc, Fecan is credited by many in the industry as the man who put Canadian drama on the map by pulling together the talent teams for shows such as Road to Avonlea, Love and Hate, The Boys of St. Vincent and North of 60.

When he was brought back from nbc by then vice-president of cbc English television, Denis Harvey, his job was to Canadianize the schedule. ‘One of the first things I had asked him to do was address the Street Legal problem, which was weak scripts. In the first six months he was here he got new writers, improved the show and increased the ratings,’ says Harvey. His strength is in building good teams, he adds.

During his six-year tenure, Canadian broadcasting reached a ‘new zenith,’ according to Sullivan. ‘There are criticisms about some programs, but really no one else at cbc had accomplished as much before,’ he says.

Some say part of his strength was in his ability to make decisions and greenlight projects.

Says producer John Brunton: ‘When you stick your neck out there’s always someone there to cut it off. Most people are scared to make decisions and the one thing about Ivan is that he’s not scared to make decisions.’

One of the political decisions Fecan made on his return to the network as head of arts and entertainment programming was to look beyond the walls of cbc for new talent. His decision to pool money at cbc departments and make in-house producers bid for projects alongside independent producers disgruntled many cbc employees but thrilled the people on the outside looking in.

Understood indies

‘There was little consistent independent drama product on the cbc prior to Ivan’s regime,’ says Alliance Communications chairman and ceo Robert Lantos. ‘He clearly understood the maturity of independent production companies and the advantages of buying programming from outside. Alliance was in a position not only to develop and produce programming, but to invest in them and sell them after the fact. That was the reality which (Fecan) understood and took full advantage of,’ he says. As a result, Fecan was able to generate more programming with less money, he adds.

The shift to more ‘popular programming’ led to a volley of cries that Canada’s public broadcaster was being commercialized.

Fecan defends the decisions made over the years. ‘I think we’re a better public broadcaster now than we were 10 years ago,’ he says.

‘I don’t think anybody feels as a public broadcaster that we should be into more commercials. I think if someone was to write us a $200 million cheque and take us out of commercials it would be a much clearer vision of broadcasting,’ he says.

Should be popular

But he makes the distinction between becoming more commercialized and being popular. ‘We should be popular,’ says Fecan. ‘I think that public broadcasting is marginalized to the point where you’re pbs and you’re getting three percent of the public in urban areas and zero percent in the rural areas and you’re holding major think-tank conferences in Washington to figure out how to keep your two or three share. At that point, you’re not even on the agenda.’

Fecan also defends his decision to move the national news from 10 p.m. to 9 p.m. ‘Before the shift, just about every time period needed to make a certain number (audience) for commercial reasons. Now we make our money where we have to make our money (in the early time slot) and we take risks where we can take risks,’ he says, referring to the later time block where he has scheduled a Canadian cinema slot, Adrienne Clarkson Presents and dubbed French-language shows which do not attract large audiences.

And the drop in audience numbers of Prime Time News when it was shifted into the earlier slot was more than made up for by Newsworld, says Fecan. ‘Most people forget we have two channels. We lost a little on the main channel, but we recovered and gained on Newsworld. More people are now watching cbc news than they were a year or two years ago, but they’re not watching it at one place on the channel and the demographics are different,’ he says.

Fecan says he is very optimistic about the future of cbc. ‘I feel a lot more positive about the future of this place than I have for years because there’s a new government, because development is so full and because our revenues are back,’ he says.

Within the last year and a half, Fecan reorganized his department, naming Deborah Bernstein creative head, tv dramatic series and Phyllis Platt director of programming.

‘Most (programming) decisions for next year will rest on my shoulders,’ says Platt. She is not worried that the whole process will collapse because she says the reins were handed over a year ago. ‘The development process this year has been carried on without his direct involvement,’ she says.