Many journalists remarked that Quebecor Media owner Pierre Karl Péladeau grinned as Heritage Minister James Moore launched his idea for the Canada Media Fund.

It’s not surprising that someone with the octopus-like reach of Péladeau is cheered by news that is making independent producers very nervous. As the owner of a conventional broadcaster (TVA), cable provider (Videotron) and print and online news portals (Le Journal de Montreal, canoe.ca, Sun Media), Péladeau is this country’s master of cross-platform Cancon delivery.

And his programming is popular, too. In an uncertain digital universe, the Quebecor Media brand is a sure bet, a fact that could radically alter the television landscape in la belle province.

Péladeau has been pushing the federal government to adopt his vision of how to fund Canadian TV and online content since he and Jim Shaw temporarily stopped making payments to the Canadian Television Fund two years ago.

But Péladeau went one step further than Shaw. He provided the government with a handy blueprint for a new fund: the $109-million Quebecor Fund, which, he said, would be financed by his company, which would also produce the content – perhaps with some help from outside producers – and distribute it over Quebecor Media’s multiple platforms.

Péladeau’s master plan effectively eliminated the need for those pesky private producers, whom he has already said publicly are paper pushers more adept at manoeuvring the CTF’s complex selection process than producing content people watch.

The media mogul’s wish list was clearly a guide for those in charge of the new CMF’s structure. (It is worth noting that when Minister Moore was recently quizzed about important cultural and business figures in Quebec on the popular talk show Tout le monde en parle, one of the only names the visibly embarrassed former sportscaster recognized was Péladeau. Robert Lepage and Atom Egoyan were a mystery to him.)

In addition to giving cable providers more power to govern the fund than they had under CTF and removing CBC/Radio-Canada’s special status – two of Péladeau’s major requests – Moore’s new fund will favor multiplatform content that has the most potential to generate high ratings. And it permits broadcasters to access CMF money with in-house programming.

All good news for Quebecor Media, which perfected the multiplatform approach to delivering content in 2003 with the infamously popular Star Academie, a distinctly made-in-Quebec combo of American Idol and Big Brother. Currently winding up its fourth edition, Star Academie regularly pulls in over two million viewers every Sunday on TVA, which, if you didn’t know, is Quebec’s most-watched network and proud champion of popular tastes. (When Céline Dion comes to town, she performs on TVA.)

At the peak of its popularity, more than three million Quebecers tuned in to Star Academie, which critics here wryly refer to as Star Epidemie (Star Epidemic) because Quebecor Media bombards us with the contestants’ every move on its multitude of media holdings: canoe.ca, canoe.tv, Illico, Videotron cable, the free subway newspaper 24 heures or the tabloids Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec. Did I mention the over half-dozen entertainment magazines Quebecor Media owns?

Quebecor Media has the multiplatform criteria covered. Péladeau is also an astute reader of popular tastes, or at least his life partner, TV diva and producer Julie Snyder, is. Snyder, who adapted the Star Academy franchise for a Quebec audience and hosts the show, understands, perhaps more than any producer in Canada, what audiences want. And in Quebec at any rate, it’s not drama.

While viewers do continue to tune in to teleromans or kitchen soaps – they regularly grab audiences of more than one million – most of the 21st century’s major TV events (the shows watched by more than two million) have been French-language adaptations of American and European reality, game and talk shows such as Star Academie, Le Banquier (Deal or No Deal) and dating show Occupation Double; all three of these hits were broadcast on Péladeau’s TVA.

Which is what has this province’s producers worried about the future of televised fiction.

Of course, there are rules in place to protect Canadian content, particularly drama, and Moore has said that CMF will favor ‘predominantly Canadian talent,’ but at this point his discourse is vague enough to make producers anxious. Does Canadian talent mean writers, directors and performers making TV drama, or could his definition be broadened to include a variety show such as Star Academie, which features up-and-coming Canadian talent as well as Cancon performers such as Dion and Bryan Adams?

Even if the CMF continues to favor drama, if conventional broadcasters such as TVA can do in-house programming, where does that leave independent producers?

Of course at this point the specific guidelines haven’t yet been worked out, so this is perhaps paranoid speculation. But who would have guessed a few years ago a company as profitable as Quebecor Media will now have access to public money to make content? And the latest speculation has it that Moore’s government might help Péladeau further by setting up a fund to help conventional broadcasters weather the recession.

In a Playback profile of Péladeau a few years ago, I noted that he appeared to be attempting to rule the Canadian media universe. The federal government seems to be helping him to do just that. Perhaps a Quebec media mogul as a friend could help the Conservatives finally make inroads here. It certainly couldn’t hurt.