QUEBEC – For the second time in 10 years, Quebec’s public cultural and educational network, Tele-Quebec, is being put through the re-organization grinder, this time cutting about one-third of its permanent staff and further reducing in-house production.
The overhaul, approved by Communications and Culture Minister Line Beauchamp, is expected to free up $8 million annually, which will be re-invested into programming, produced more and more by the private sector. This year’s budget is $57 million.
“We undertook this process of modernization in order to have fewer structures and more Quebec programming,” said Beauchamp. “It’s not Télé-Québec’s mandate to provide a management service for private producers.”
“It’s imperative that Télé-Québec focus on its primary mandate, presenting programs, by investing its financial resources on that,” she said.
Between 100 and 300 jobs, out of a permanent workforce of 330 will be eliminated, most of them in Montreal. The nine regional offices, with a total staff of about 30 people, will be maintained.
As recommended last year by a government-appointed study group headed by Claude Bédard, a communications specialist whose c.v. includes stints at Télé-Québec and Radio-Canada, the network will farm out most of its TV production to independent producers. Its educational services and school broadcasts will be turned over to a non-profit organization set up by school boards.
For some in the milieu, the re-organization is a relief because for awhile, the Charest government was thinking about closing Télé-Québec entirely, as a budgetary measure.
But Beauchamp said she wanted to express “loudly and clearly” her “profound attachment to Télé-Québec”.
Nonetheless, for Télé-Québec’s unions, the changes signify the “dismantling” of public television in the province.
“Never have we witnessed such a deconstruction of public television in Quebec,” said Gaetan Lavoie, president of its producers’ union. “It’s a black day in the cultural history of Quebec.”
The Parti Quebecois’ communications critic, MNA Daniel Turp, called it a “disguised privatization” of Télé-Québec. “How is the minister going to reconcile the mandate of a state television network with the imperatives of the private sector?” he said in a statement.
When in government though in 1996-97, the PQ cut the network’s workforce almost in half, to about 330. At the same time, it cajoled the network to reduce in-house production in favour of working with private independent producers. Before 1996, independent producers accounted for 20% of Télé-Québec’s production; now it’s more than 80%.
Its budget has not changed significantly since 1996-97 through PQ then Liberal governments. The government allocated $54.1 million then, compared to the $57 million today.
The network, number four in the ratings parade behind TVA, Radio-Canada, and Télévision Quatre-Saisons, has nonetheless carved out a niche for itself.
It receives respectable ratings for its public affairs shows, documentaries, and cultural programs, such as its weekend music variety show “Belle et Bum” and “Vidéaste recherché.e”, which features Quebec-produced film shorts.
It also has the distinction of being the Quebec ratings leader among the two to 11-year old set because of its children’s programming, which includes “Ramdam”, which last year was the most watched kids’ TV program.
Télé-Québec president Michèle Fortin said the network wants to maintain its children’s programming, while expanding its regional content and adding a science show. She also wants the TV season for original programming to be extended beyond the end of March.
Glenn Wanamaker is cartt.ca’s Quebec editor.
