OTTAWA – Research released Monday – a week before the Canadian Association of Broadcasters annual convention – by the Canadian Film and Television Production Association says that changes to the financing policy infrastructure have heavily tipped the scales in favour of Canada’s broadcasters.
"Between 2000 and 2002 Canadian film and television producers earnings before taxes dropped from 6.7% to 1.6%," said Ira Levy, CFTPA chair. "In comparison large broadcasters have maintained a consistent rate of profitability well in excess of overall Canadian industry averages."
The figures are part of an analysis the CFTPA commissioned from the Nordicity Group Ltd. examining Canadian television broadcasts’ financial performance and their investment in Canadian television programming.
"It is particularly interesting," said Guy Mayson, CFTPA president and CEO, "that television broadcasters now spend four times more on foreign programming, and five times more on foreign drama television programs than on Canadian drama."
The findings also look at the reason behind this decline noting that between 1999/00 and 2003/04 broadcasters operating revenues increased 11%, yet financing for Canadian Television Fund supported production dropped by 14%.
"This divergence in revenues and production financing follows the CRTC 1999 Television Policy, which removed the requirement for conventional broadcasters to allocate a percentage of revenues to expenditures on Canadian television programming," Mayson added. "Clearly Canadian broadcasters need to be contributing more to Canadian production costs. It is essential broadcasters increase their Canadian programming budgets across the board if we are to meet the cultural objectives for Canadian broadcasting."
According to the CFTPA research, while conventional broadcasters spent more on foreign programming, specialty and pay TV spent about 25% more on Canadian programming than foreign programming. Cancon spending minimums are part of the specialties’ conditions of license and that amount has increased over the years.
