IT MAY NOT BE UNTIL 2010 when the CRTC holds licence renewal proceedings for the big Canadian TV companies, but the new chief executive of Canada’s national producers association has been working hard on that file for weeks already.
“We believe that the corporate group licence renewal hearings that are coming up in 2010 are probably the most important regulatory event of our generation and will have wide-ranging impact for the next 25 or 30 years,” said Norm Bolen, president and CEO of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA), in a recent interview with Cartt.ca. “It’s very important we get them right.”
Only a short time into the job – he hasn’t even moved his family to Ottawa yet – Bolen came quickly up to speed on production issues and is taking the proverbial “big picture” approach to the increasingly complex milieu in which close to 400 association members operate small- and medium-sized TV, film and interactive media production companies.
Bolen began his career in media as a student journalist in Saskatchewan and edited the “underground” publication The Prairie Fire in the late 1960s. From there, he jumped to electronic media and began, via CBC Saskatoon, a 20-plus year career with the public broadcaster that included stays in news and current affairs in both radio — including a notable stint producing CBC Radio’s venerable current affairs program, Sunday Morning – and television.
When a third tier of specialty channels was licensed in the mid-’90s, Bolen moved away from his long-time home at the Mother Corp and launched a specialty, as did some of his CBC colleagues as well.
It was 1997. Then-CEO Phyllis Yaffe asked him to launch History Television for Alliance Communications. When AC became AAC, the new company added Showcase and others and Bolen was headed toward his eventual role of heading all TV and digital media operations for the conglomerate. But when Canwest Media took over Alliance Atlantis in 2007, the new owners brought in their own people and, after a decade of rapid growth there, Bolen bid his second major career home adieu.
Throughout his career, Bolen gained a tremendous appreciation for the importance of Canada’s independent production community. He made this point during this year’s OTA license renewal proceeding, and will doubtless repeat it many times over the next many months.
“The key question we always have to ask – and… this is where we’re on the same page (with the Commission) – is what is the point of having a Canadian broadcasting system if all you’re doing is rebroadcasting American programming?” he asks.
Following a discussion of how the “Canadian content on the Canadian system” argument is overdue, Bolen added: “We’ve seen some encouraging signs with regard to Canadian, even though the broadcasters are arguing they should have less of an obligation to do Canadian in prime time, certainly to do less high-quality drama. They’re actually having some significant success right now with some shows….We see five dramas that are either being broadcast in the United States in prime time on the big networks or are about to be, that are Canadian content. That’s a new development. We haven’t seen that for 15 or 20 years and I think that’s very encouraging.
“It’s somewhat ironic and counter-intuitive that at the same time that we’re having these successes, like Flashpoint (the others are The Listener, Copper, The Messenger and The Bridge) that the broadcasters are trying to move away from producing more of that kind of programming.
Bolen points out the CRTC has been listening to the CFTPA and the others in Canada who have been complaining about Canadian broadcasters spending hundreds of millions of dollars on foreign, primarily U.S., programming. Evidence to that effect emerged earlier this month at Banff, in a speech by CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein, who touched on the thorny issue.
Von Finckenstein did not specify how the CRTC would regulate broadcaster spending on non-Cancon vs. Cancon, but his assurance that a regulatory requirement will be looked at more deeply marks an about-face for the CRTC compared with its regulatory frameworks decision, issued in October, which did not require OTA broadcasters to increase spending on Canadian priority production and offered an incentive, instead, for them to increase local content.
A return next year to minimum spending requirements or the introduction of a similar provision would be a significant first step in dismantling the deregulation ensconced in the 1999 TV Policy and a giant leap forward in Bolen’s quest to create more demand for Canadian productions. And when more content begins flowing to broadcasters, he wants a real Terms of Trade regime in place to ensure more deal-making equals more fair trade, too.
“The first thing is, you need to have trade. Terms of Trade is our secondary objective,” Bolen says. “The first objective is to get a regulated Canadian content spend so that we ensure that there actually is some trade happening. Secondarily, we have called on the Commission publicly (to ask) their assistance in setting limits on what the broadcasters can and cannot do with regard to their licensing of content from the independent sector.
“We want the public to understand the situation… It’s not just industry people we’re targeting. We want them to understand that if they want to have jobs in the creative economy, if they want to have the production of content in the creative economy, we need to have equitable arrangements between the various players in the broadcasting system.
“The same way that we have collective agreements that govern the relationships between producers, writers, directors, actors — the same way we have regulations that govern the behaviour of cable companies and broadcasters, we need some kind of regulatory approach governing the relationship between broadcasters and independent producers. We see a gap in the system, we’re going to keep arguing it, we’re going to try and rally support behind the idea and we’re not going to give up,” said Bolen.
“The Commission has already said that they expect a Terms of Trade agreement to be in place before the 2010 (OTA licence renewal) hearings… We’ve met with (broadcasters) seven times and they have really failed to have any substantive negotiations. All they want to do is talk about some kind of loosey-goosey principles that are not measurable and not enforceable. We need something measurable and enforceable. As (the CFTPA’s chief negotiator) Gordon Ritchie said, if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t mean anything.
“Konrad has provided the deadline and we’re going to keep pushing.”
Von Finckenstein, via the recent CRTC decision on new media broadcasting, and a few times since, has also called for a national digital media strategy for Canada. Other countries, such as Britain, France and Australia have already launched initiatives towards such a goal. But how will Canada’s film, TV and new media producers fit in to the rollout of such a policy?
“It’s a big question. Put aside just television and broadcasting. There’s a need for us as a nation to develop a strategy for how we’re going to position our country and our economic future with regard to the international digital revolution. What is our role going to be in terms of providing product, whether that be hardware product, software product, content product in the digital age?
“What do we need to do in our own country to invest properly in doing research and development, to ensure the educational system is developing the right skill sets in our young people, to ensure that public policy generally and the efforts of private corporations are focused to take best advantage of what opportunities there are for us? What niches do we think we can fill? …So this goes beyond just independent producers and broadcasters,” Bolen continued.
“The Canada Media Fund now will be creating policies that require people who get funding for digital product or for television production to have a multi-platform strategy. That’s a forced marriage between television and digital media and that’s very important so that the two groups… start to work more closely together. It’s very important that as a country we ensure that that happens. I think the policy (Heritage Minister) James Moore put in place with regard to the media fund is a good start.
And yes, he says, in answer to the perennial question, producers have been able to make money in sales to digital platforms. But he doesn’t talk about digital content on mobiles or MP3 players or iPhones. He’s talking about DVD sales.
“For instance, one of our members has recently done a DVD deal with Wal-Mart in the United States. They have a series… (and) a cookbook that goes with it, and they’ve packaged the DVD and the book and (the package) is appearing in every Wal-Mart store in the United States. And that’s putting millions of dollars in the pocket of that producer.”
Adding that DVD distribution will at some point be replaced by online distribution, which is much cheaper, Bolen brings his career discussion full circle, with a reference to his professional life post-AAC and pre-CFTPA.
He was consulting with mDialog, a Toronto-based company which provides a web video 2.0 platform for independent filmmakers, amateur video makers and production companies. He says it has already begun distributing HD content such as TV series online, which subscribers can access for a small fee.
“One of the things I’ve learned about digital media is it’s an iterative process. You say, ‘OK, I’m going to put the content out there and I’m going to do it in a certain way and I’m going to charge a certain amount for it,’ and then you’ll see what happens. What happens is you modify your business model three, four, five, six, seven, eight times, depending on how your consumers want to use it. The Internet is two-way (communication) — you get hard data in real time, unlike Nielsen or BBM which is less definitive and slower to produce — and with the ’net, you’ll know which products are gaining traction and which are not.
“You need to continually modify your business plan as you grow your business online.”
