OTTAWA – As the CRTC considers how the scope of April’s OTA licence renewal hearings might be “significantly narrowed or reduced”, given the severe economic fallout on broadcasters’ balance sheets, panelists at the annual film and TV producers’ conference presented their own suggestions at a session during the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association Prime Time conference last week.
The panel took place after the regulator had issued a February 13 notice of consultation outlining economic and other issues to be resolved or better understood before it can issue long-term renewals, and requiring licensees to answer a series of questions by February 23 on what their contributions to Canadian programming should look like in 2009-10.
Because the CRTC only plans to issue one-year renewals for conventional broadcasters this year, it’s asking them to focus their comments on four key areas: the appropriate contributions to local, priority and independently-produced Canadian programming (programming), given the current economic conditions; the terms of administration and delivery of the Local Programming Investment Fund; whether to impose a 1:1 ratio requirement between Canadian and non-Canadian programming expenditures, either on a short- or longer-term basis; and the terms for the digital transition by August 2011.
At the CFTPA conference, panelists commenting on the CRTC’s new direction for OTA television represented producers and TV writers but no broadcasters.
Tom Cox, president of Seven24 Films, notes that the last decade – since the CRTC released its 1999 Television Policy – has been a “rough ride for drama producers.” But fiction production isn’t all that’s down. Andrea Nemtin, president and CEO of PTV Productions, added she used to do three point-of-view documentaries a year and now produces one every two years.
Maureen Parker, executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada, says she’s not sure that any reduction of regulatory obligations would be a positive step for writers. Since the arrival of the 1999 TV policy, “We’ve watched a complete winnowing out of our business,” since that policy permitted cheaper programming, broadened the definition of priority programming.
But Nemtin says that because of the decline in ad revenues, one-year renewals for OTA services are appropriate. On the other hand, she adds, the industry was told that “consolidation was to be a good thing. So why don’t we look at broadcasters as integrated businesses, “since specialty revenues are not down?”
In fact, the CRTC’s consultation notice, along with CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein’s speech to the conference, says that as of 2010, the Commission will look at ownership groups rather than individual stations, when doing licence renewals.
But David MacLeod, executive producer at Big Motion Pictures, isn’t convinced it’s a good idea to combine “the healthy puppy and the sickly dog.” He doesn’t like the idea of “relief” for OTAs “because it seems likely this would mean relief on Cancon spending. Because that’s why they have a licence….We need a broadcasting czar. Someone with a vision.”
“The CRTC is the czar,” comments Cox, “and it has done OK, more or less, but (the environment is) getting very complex.”
“It’s profitability, not ad revenues, that’s down 90%,” said the CFTPA’s Mario Mota, referring to financial figures released recently by the CRTC that show profits before interest and taxes for private conventional broadcasters fell from $112.9 million in 2007 to $8 million in 2008. “The CRTC is looking at the route of that decline….It’s good to look at the corporate groups” in approaching licence renewals, “because they cross-subsidize.”
On the question of whether to require Canadian broadcasters to spend the same amount on Canadian and foreign programming, panelists stated they would like to see a breakdown of broadcasters’ financial data to see how much was being spent on various genres.
This approach, says Parker, would allow producers, creators and others to see “which types of programming are suffering.” But she would not want a 1:1 spending ratio in place for all genres, such as news. We want to know, added Mota, “how much broadcasters are doing in priority programming.”
And on the eternal theme of the proportion of in-house versus commissioned programming, the panelists argue the independents should continue to supply 75% of Canadian programming.
“It’s OK for (broadcasters) to do magazines, reality, gardening, etcetera,” says Cox, “but not drama.” “On the whole, says MacLeod, the broadcasters don’t want to do drama. “The question is, who’s going to own the copyright?”
But, asked moderator Grant Buchanan, a partner at McCarthy Tétrault, should Canadian priority programming be subsidized by the government? Shouldn’t it be good enough to stand on its own?
“No!” says Nemtin. “The U.S.,” adds Parker, “can cover their costs in their own market. We can’t. Almost every other country in the world has subsidies except the U.S. and India.”
