THE YEAR 1972 saw the beginning of the Watergate scandal and the M.A.S.H. television series. It was also the year that the balm of simultaneous substitution (simsub) was handed to Canadian broadcasters.
Simsub, where the Canadian feed including ads is substituted over the American channel’s signal, was designed to soothe broadcasters’ fears over bruised bank accounts caused by advertisers defecting to the U.S. with the advent of cable. Instead, this Band-Aid solution healed one hurt but caused another. Peel it back and there’s a sore festering over Canadian content.
(Ed note: An earlier version of this story contained an inaccurate description of simsub. Cartt.ca regrets the error.)
With their built-in marketing and promotion that drives viewership – and, therefore, advertising dollars – few disagree that it’s cheaper and easier to buy pre-made shows from the United States.
“Private broadcasters have obligations to shareholders,” pointed out Kirstine Stewart, executive vice-president of English services for the CBC. “They have to make sure they have certain margins. Being Canadian first doesn’t always make sense when your responsibility is to finance.”
Simsub brings in ratings and revenues that can be hard to achieve with Cancon alone. (Although, in the past few years, the CBC is making programming that more Canadians are picking over U.S. shows, according to Stewart, such as Rick Mercer, Dragons’ Den, Heartland and Republic of Doyle, which are all reaching more than a million viewers.)
But, simsub also often means that Canadian content doesn’t get pride of place on the TV schedule. “Sometimes things get lost,” admits Corrie Coe, CTV’s senior vice-president of independent production. “You pay for your own markets but are not able to schedule it. It’s the curse of having a broadcasting system with signals coming into the market when you’re buying them at the same time. Simsub makes it difficult because you’re not controlling your own schedule to the same degree as if you could prevent those signals coming in.”
It effectively makes us drones to the American broadcasters. It hands over some of the most important broadcasting decisions to another entity that has no reason to care about you. Canadian programming is like a ping pong ball bouncing around, and American broadcasters hold the paddles. Programs get pre-empted which causes confusion among viewers, who get frustrated and then get lost.
“The Listener points to the fact that the power of simulcast trumps,” said Will Dixon, a television writer, director, and instructor in the film and media department at the University of Regina. “It’s more important to maintain simulcast relations with CBS rather than air this Canadian show. It was bumped by simulcast and that’s always going to be priority rather than building Canadian show mandate.”
The series Murdoch Mysteries is another, Dixon says. “It was supposed to start in February but was bumped and bumped to June 2011 on Tuesday nights. Then it was bumped to Wednesday because So You Think You Can Dance or America’s Got Talent had a two-hour show on Tuesday. Because of simulcast, it got bumped to another night and another night and you, as the viewer, are supposed to keep track and find it.”
CTV’s Coe doesn’t believe jumping around on the schedule hurts Canadian programming. “Everything’s a balance”, she said. “There may be instances that are frustrating because things move around on the schedule but, on the other hand, the revenue, the margins that come in on non-Canadian programming, allow us to have a more robust Canadian production and commission rate than we might be able to have.”
While Stewart understands the benefits of simsub, she appreciates the scheduling flexibility she has at CBC. “I can plan the schedule that I see fit. And we’re building something that’s specific to the Canadian audience and what they’re looking for. We’re not beholden to putting something on when our American partners want to put them on. (The benefit to that is) you can leave it in a spot to grow or move it around because you find it doesn’t work at Tuesday night at 8 but works on Thursday night at 8. We can create something for a time slot.”
A few years ago, CBC needed the crutch of American programming to provide viewership and revenue for its Cancon, Stewart added. “It’s the same reason private networks buy those shows.” But you won’t find many in the upcoming CBC schedule because Canadian programming is making money.
“Simsub is the policy that keeps Canadian TV in a ghetto,” according to television writer Denis McGrath. “Every time someone stands up there and talks about letting the free market work, I scratch my head and say, ‘you mean the free market where you’re given the gift of pasting your signal over the U.S. network so long as you’re showing the same show at the same time?’ I mean, any talk of the market after that point is just ludicrous. What we’re really talking here is, ‘don’t touch our protections, but don’t make us do anything for either the consumer or the creative community.’"
“Limiting simsub would work,” he continued. “Exhibition requirements, not just expenditure requirements, could work. A balanced reset, where the agenda wasn’t driven by the huge media companies but someone stood up and said, ‘what do we get back for this great gift we’ve given you? The airwaves, and safe harbor from unfettered U.S. signals…’ that might work.”
Coe says that Canadian broadcasters simply couldn’t compete without simsub. “It would definitely negatively affect the revenue. That just means there’s less money for programming. If you used to be earning $10 and now you’re only earning $7, that missing $3 has to take a bite out of someplace.”
And we just can’t compete at the same level as the U.S. – not for lack of talent, but from lack of revenue. “The market here can’t raise enough money to produce the same number of shows that would allow you to compete head to head on the same level of production value. If we still had Americans bringing in U.S. shows at those crazy budget levels and you have three Canadian broadcasters trying to create enough Canadian programming to fill our schedule entirely with just Canadian, I don’t know if we could financially manage with the market size we have and the sales we’re able to make off those shows to compete at the same budget levels.”
But, Canadian advertisers won’t necessarily disappear as some broadcasters claim. They do not receive tax breaks if they buy advertising in U.S. They have to spend on television somewhere, and they do buy time on Canadian specialty channels.
Cancon does well for CTV, says Coe. But while there are a few shows that have a positive margin, the reasons why are elusive. Good acting, writing, directing, production quality – all can be present but still not hit that magical chord. Flashpoint is one that does, with a consistently strong audience that allows ad sales. “It feels a tiny bit like lightning in a bottle and how do we re-create that next time? Sometimes it works and more times it doesn’t.”
CBS picked up the first season of Flashpoint, and in its second year, CTV stopped airing it as a simulcast. This past fall and winter the show aired in prime, non-simulcast time slots, on Tuesday’s and Friday’s, and averaged more than 1.5 million viewers. “This shows numbers held just as strongly without CBS airing it”, Coe added. “It’s the numbers that attract revenue and advertising. If I buy a commercial spot, how many people are going to see it?”
Cancon differentiates Canadian broadcasters. If you only air American content, there’s no need for Canadian broadcasters. But what if simultaneous substitution was no longer allowed?
“If we got rid of simsub, they would have to make and create shows that drew viewers instead of piggybacking,” said Dixon.
Reverse simsub with the U.S., at least so far, hasn’t worked, according to Dixon, but Cancon can make money. VisionTV CEO Bill Roberts says his business model proves that it can also be successful. “It also frees you from being beholden to Hollywood studios and as we move to a borderless industry (with over-the-top services).”
VisionTV has commissioned and aired more than 1,275 hours of original, Canadian, independently produced programming and supported films, such as The Corporation and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, that have reached global audiences, Roberts said.
“It’s a good and bad situation in terms of how they derive revenue,” says Maureen Parker, executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada. “The problem with simulcast rules is they’ve taken over prime time slots. But with on-demand programs, time slots won’t be as much of an issue. What are they selling if they don’t have content, and if Google and Netflix bid on shows, what are they going to have to broadcast?”
McGrath agrees. “The U.S. networks are on the air already. If Canadian TV went away tomorrow, 90% of the shows Canadians like to watch would still be there. Why would someone notice if CTV or Global was missing? If their local news or occasionally a homegrown program wasn’t around? What do they fight tooth and nail against making?”
Many in the industry believe that with OTT, the cost of American programming may soon become too high.
“Getting rid of the (Cancon) system is a death spiral,” predicts Norm Bolen, president and CEO of the Canadian Media Production Association. “You’ll spend more on American content because it’s easiest and more profitable to do. As soon as you lower Cancon obligations, the cost of American content will go up because there’s more competition. Canadian broadcasters will find it will be harder and harder to get premium content. Why then do we need Canadian broadcasters when they are re-broadcasting American content? If we have no regulations on Canadian content, there’s no motivation for Canadian broadcasters. The easiest thing to do is buy American broadcasts, put it on your channel.”
In the old cable and satellite business, getting rid of simsub would have been a significant blow to the sector, said Kevin Shea, a former CTV and Global Television executive turned consultant. “Those are fair market rules. I went to buy rights for those shows. In that old world, simsub makes sense. We’re still in that old world, but various elements are disappearing.”
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