ACTRA Presentation to the CRTC

Public Notice CRTC 2009-411

“Policy proceeding on a group-based approach to the licensing of television services and on certain issues relating to conventional television”

25 November 2009

APPEARING:

Ferne Downey, Actor, National President, ACTRA

Wendy Crewson, Actor, Member, ACTRA

Nicholas Campbell, Actor, Member, ACTRA

Stephen Waddell, National Executive Director, ACTRA

Joanne Deer, Director of Public Policy and Communications, ACTRA

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(**Ferne Downey**)

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Vice-Chairs, Commissioners and CRTC staff. My name is Ferne Downey. I’m a professional actor and the National President of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists.

Here with me today are internationally-known Canadian actors Wendy Crewson and Nicholas Campbell.

Supporting us are ACTRA’s National Executive Director Stephen Waddell and Joanne Deer, Director of Public Policy and Communications.

We’re here as the voice of ACTRA’s 21,000 members, who live and work in every corner of Canada. Our members are English-speaking artists whose performances cross all delivery platforms – film, television, sound recordings, radio and digital media.

We are also representing the views of 17,000 musicians, members of AFM Canada.

Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, we are honoured to appear before you here today.

ACTRA is embarking on this process in a spirit of partnership with Canadian

audiences, the Commission, broadcasters, distributors and our colleagues in the

creative community.

We agree with you Mr. Chair that this hearing is not about the past. It is not about enshrining or protecting old business models. And it is not about taxing consumers.

I am here to talk about what we believe these hearings ARE about:

• The role and responsibility of private broadcasters.
• The failure of the 1999 Television Policy.
• How to get more scripted Canadian programming in prime time.

I’m also not here to dwell on the past. But I believe that we can be informed by the past and we need to make sure we do not make the same mistakes.

We welcome this opportunity to re-write the rules for Canadian television. We urge the Commission to seize the opportunity presented by these hearings to take a bold and creative approach and to reverse the disastrous results of the 1999 Television Policy.

We have detailed the disastrous results of the 1999 TV numerous times before you.

The devastating impact of the Policy may not have been intended, but it cannot be disputed. As a result, in the past 10 years we’ve seen Canadian drama all but disappear from our TV screens. We’ve seen our culture eroded and thousands of jobs lost as U.S. programming flooded our prime time schedules.

We have been heartened to hear you Mr. Chair express growing concern with the gross imbalance in spending on Canadian and foreign programming. That imbalance is graphically demonstrated on the charts we have here today. They are the prime time schedules of Global and CTV. The red is Canadian programming – the blue – American.

Mr.Chair, this is wrong. This not what Canadians were promised in the Broadcasting Act. We are here today to implore you make sure that this does not continue.

The need for distinct Canadian content is becoming increasingly critical with the digital revolution. With access to a virtually unlimited supply of content from around the globe, Canadians must have the opportunity to see our own stories, dance, art and music celebrated, or it risks being drowned out altogether. ACTRA also believes that Canadian stories must be available to the widest audiences possible, and conventional TV is the way to do that.

We’ve heard the broadcasters come before you and beg for more flexibility. Flexibility is what got us into this mess. Broadcasters asked for flexibility in 1999 and got it. “Trust us” they said. Well we saw what happened. Left to their own devices broadcasters bowed to the bottom line and ditched drama in favour of cheap magazine and reality-style programming and U.S. imports.

In our written submission that you have before you, we propose a detailed framework for corporate group licensing that builds on what is working, and offers fixes for what is broken. Today we will focus on a few key pieces:

• Retain all scheduling, niche and CPE expenditures for specialty/

discretionary services. They are working.

• Re-instate a CPE for OTA services
• Introduce a drama CPE floor for all broadcasting groups, regardless of

whether they have OTA services

• Eliminate the concept of ‘priority programming’
• Implement a scheduling safety net on OTA services for underrepresented

programming categories, in particular, drama

Our proposal is flexible while being balanced. It is forward thinking. It serves the interest of Canadian audiences as well as multiple industry stakeholders – not just one or two.

Most important, it ensures that Canadian audiences have access to their own airwaves.

I will now ask my colleagues to go into more detail on our proposal.

(**WENDY CREWSON**)

You might wonder why we’re so obsessed with drama. It’s simple.

Drama is the linchpin of popular culture. It is the one thing that we all turn to. It is the voice that can go from one end of the country to another. It is our humour, it is our fears, it is our hopes. It is our dreams. It tells our stories to us and to our children.

It diminishes us to not have our stories on television in prime time in the form of drama and unless this turns around we are truly becoming a branch plant of American culture and that’s all we’ll ever be, we will lose our identity.

So how do we fix this? First off we applaud the Commission’s approach to look at broadcast groups as a whole.

Looking at specialty and conventional broadcasting undertakings together in their

corporate groups allows us to build a forward-thinking model for television that

will help bring about balance and greater strength for the system as a whole.

So – if we’re going to take a new approach look at what works.

The exhibition and spending requirements that have been placed on specialty undertakings work.

While conventional broadcasters have faced some challenges, specialty services have flourished and have made an enormous contribution to Canada’s broadcasting system over the past 10 years. Canadians have access to a wide array of diverse programming that offers them so much choice. Thanks to the regulations those choices include dramatic Canadian programming. High-quality, engaging, award-winning programs that are sold around the world.

We urge the CRTC to keep those niche rules in place for specialty channels. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

We then recommend that the Commission apply that winning formula to the conventional side and impose a Canadian Programming Expenditure on the conventional services in each group.

As we have seen with the specialty side, a CPE requirement is enforceable, reduces loopholes and potential for gaming, and is self-adjusting. CPE works for broadcasters by giving them fairness and flexibility. When times are good and their revenues are up, they are able to contribute more to Canadian programming, when times are tough and revenues decline, their contribution to Canadian programming also goes down.

We also want to be very clear – ALL revenues broadcasters receive must be taken into the calculation of the CPE, including any possible NEW sources of revenue.

But a CPE alone is not enough. We need to take steps to protect dramatic programming. We saw what happened when drama wasn’t protected in the 1999 Policy.

So we also propose a CPE for Drama for each corporate group to create a floor and ensure that broadcasters don’t give into the temptation to pour all of their CPE commitments into the cheapest of programming.

Now obviously we don’t want conventional broadcasters to get a free pass here – they must contribute their fair share to their groups’ commitments to drama.

The Commission has previously stated as an objective that English-language conventional television broadcasters should increase their spending on drama to 6% of total revenues. We think this is fair and urge the Commission to require conventional broadcasters to reach this 6% target over their licence term.

A group CPE to produce original Canadian drama delivers on the Commission’s key objectives in outlining the scope of this policy review, greater flexibility that results in greater support for Canadian programming. It delivers benefits for each of the key stakeholders:

• Flexibility. It does not propose costs per hour or a number of hours.

Licensees can opt for a few more expensive programs or additional less

expensive programs. It also doesn’t impose new requirements for exhibiting drama on services where it does not make sense.

• Reactive. Like the general CPE, the drama CPE would be based on the previous year’s revenues, the amount would be self-adjusting.
• Transparency. The Commission would not need to worry about how or where the money is spent, so long as no double counting occurs.
• Balance. This approach takes advantage of the increased consolidation of

the industry, allowing licensees to draw on the strength of more profitable parts of their corporate group to support others.

• Quality. Since broadcasters will have to spend the money on drama, the question moves from “How do I produce the cheapest programming?” to “How do I produce the best programming, and how do I schedule and promote it to maximize audience levels and potential advertising revenue?”
• Choice. Canadians will benefit from increased options to watch the type of programming they enjoy most – drama – that reflects our own experiences.

(**Nick Campbell**)

Now there is something that ACTRA and CTV agree on – the concept of priority programming is a dud. It needs to go. Unlike CTV, we think it needs to be replaced.

We need to put safeguards in place to make sure that the programming coming as a result of the conventional CPE and group CPE for drama doesn’t result in a whole whack of fabulous programming that is relegated to specialty services.

New Canadian dramatic programming produced as a result of group drama

CPE must air at least once on a group’s OTA services, within two years of

delivery, resulting in a minimum of two hours of dramatic programming per

week between 8-11:00 p.m.

Broadcasters have gotten too used to ticking off their CanCon obligations by airing reruns in the summer and on Saturday night when no one is watching. That has to stop.

These minimal requirements are not onerous. Replacing ‘priority programming’ rules with more genre-specific scheduling requirements would be more effective in ensuring an adequate amount of drama on conventional services while giving broadcasters more overall programming flexibility.

We also urge the Commission to take similar steps to ensure an adequate amount of other vulnerable genres, namely long-form documentary and children’s programming on conventional services. These important genres have become increasingly relegated to specialty services and it is critical that Canadians have the choice to see these types of programs on their conventional channels.

The past 10 years have shown us that broadcasters will only air as much Canadian drama as the CRTC tells them to do so. So we’re asking you to tell them to cut their addiction to made-in-Hollywood programming and start using the talent they have right under their noses.

I can’t underscore enough the opportunity we have here. There is no shortage of talent in this country from writers, directors, actors, crew – you name it. Our industry is now 52 years old, it has matured. Producers come to us from around the world to use our talent – from grips, to writers, to directors to performers.

The problem is too few of our broadcasters have taken the time to notice.

Unfortunately, when folks are producing a series in Canada they are having to have to go down to L.A. to find the talent the need – the CANADIAN talent. Too many of the brightest Canadians, especially the younger ones who have been through the devastation of the past ten years, have had to take their skills elsewhere to make a living and find creative opportunities.

We need to seize this moment of opportunity so our talent will stay to serve and create shows for a Canadian TV industry that is poised to explode in ambition, reach and profitability.

I’ll also tell you a secret – we want broadcasters to make money. Lots and lots of money.

We’re not dumb – we get that a healthy system is one in which broadcasters are able to make profits. But in exchange for permission to use the public airwaves and to benefit from other supportive public policies, broadcasters have a public service obligation. They must contribute to our cultural identity by supporting, promoting, airing and celebrating

fully Canadian stories. Because if they don’t give us access to our own TV screens to tell our own stories, celebrate our own history and heroes, share our dreams and our fears, then no one else is going to. So if they don’t we don’t really need them do we? We can get American Idol from Fox.

We’re not asking for a lot here. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that Canadians can have two hours of their own scripted programming in prime time each week.

Don’t let the slap-fest between the broadcasters and the cable broadcasters hijack the agenda here. The CRTC has a duty to make sure that the airwaves are working for Canadians. To make sure we have a voice. That we have access to our culture. That we can see ourselves on our TVs.

(**FERNE DOWNEY**)

We’ve been waiting for this chance for 10 years. We can’t risk another 10 years of this – our industry and our culture will be dead. The CRTC has to get this right.

We can have a fantastic future, but we need to work together.

We can, and must, develop a contemporary television policy that will meet the dual objectives of strengthening Canada’s domestic broadcasting industry and providing Canadian audiences with the opportunity to enjoy the best programming we can offer.

We’d be happy to answer any questions.

**END**