ACTRA Presentation to the CRTC
Public Notice CRTC 2010-952
“Group-based licence renewals for English-language television groups”
8 March 2011
APPEARING:
Tyrone Benskin, Actor, ACTRA National Vice President
Wendy Crewson, Actor, ACTRA Toronto Councillor
Stephen Waddell, ACTRA National Executive Director
Joanne Deer, ACTRA National Director of Public Policy and Communications
Garry Neil, Consultant
Tyrone Benskin:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, Vice-Chairs, Commissioners and staff. My name is Tyrone Benskin. I am a professional actor and ACTRA’s National Vice-President. Joining me today is award-winning actor Wendy Crewson, Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s National Executive Director, Joanne Deer, Director of Public Policy and Communications and consultant Garry Neil.
We are here as the voice of 21,000 professional performers, members of ACTRA, whose work entertains, educates and informs audiences in Canada and around the world.
We’re also speaking for the seventeen thousand members of the Canadian Federation of Musicians, the foremost organization of professional Canadian musicians.
We are honoured to be invited to speak to you about implementing the new group-based approach for licensing private television broadcasters.
As you might have heard, we weren’t exactly big fans of the 1999 Television Policy. We have always been inundated with American content. But since 1999, we have lost even more ground especially in prime time. We welcome this chance to start fresh with a new and improved framework that will begin to correct the gross imbalance in spending between Canadian and foreign programming. The return to Canadian Programming Expenditures and new spending requirements for Programs of National Interest is nothing short of a victory for our industry and for Canadian audiences.
It will give Canadians the chance to enjoy our Canadian voice, our culture, on our TVs through scripted dramatic programming.
So the framework is in place. But we all know that the devil is in the details. And the details here are not small. The biggest concern for ACTRA is that we arrive at CPEs that are fair, reasonable, and most importantly, that take us forward, not backwards. If this new framework results in less Canadian content and not more, it will rival the 1999 TV Policy as an utter failure.
We support the Commission’s proposal that each group should be subject to the same overall CPE in order to create a level playing field. We also agree that a minimum group CPE of 30% of the gross revenues is appropriate for all four broadcast groups: Bell, Shaw, Corus and Rogers.
A percentage-based CPE by nature is fair, flexible and self-adjusting. Groups with smaller revenues will have smaller requirements than those who are financially more robust.
When times are good, broadcasters will contribute more, if revenues take a dive their spending obligations also go down.
For Programs of National Interest, the Commission set out a starting point of 5% of gross revenues. This 5% must be a floor – NOT a ceiling, it was based on the historical spend on drama only.
As the policy states in paragraph 75: “Analyzing past expenditures for drama (category 7) only, the Commission has determined that group expenditures of at least 5% of gross revenues over the licence term is appropriate.”
It follows that spending on PNI must be MORE than 5 per cent to account for the additional historical spending on long form documentaries and award shows, regardless of any re-jigging of the numbers by broadcasters to account for a redefinition of longform docs.
Based on the data we had going into these proceedings – Bell, Shaw and Corus should be spending be at least 10% of their gross revenues on PNI in order to ensure that they are not required to spend less than they have historically been spending.
Rogers is asking for a 2.5% PNI obligation. This is absolutely unacceptable. If Rogers wants the privilege of holding broadcast licences that allows it to simulcast American drama, then it must be required to produce Canadian drama at appropriate levels. Given its unique asset mix, we would be prepared to start with a lower PNI for Rogers, perhaps starting at 5 and stepping up to hit 8% in the final year.
These numbers must be revisited if their assets should change over the licence term. The same holds for all of the broadcast groups.
Again, in proposing these numbers we are doing the best we can without a lot of information.
The critical thing is to come up with minimum requirements that see us moving forward.
It is well-established that the current spend on ‘at risk’ genres –drama, scripted comedy and long form documentary – is inadequate and unacceptable.
Coming out of this process some groups may end up with spending obligations that are higher than what they’re currently spending. And that’s ok.
The fact is, each of these broadcast groups is part of a very large, financially robust, vertically integrated company. They each have more than adequate resources to meet the Broadcasting Act’s requirements to contribute to Canadian programming – and to do so at levels that are higher than recent historical levels.
Surely it was not the Commission’s intent with the new framework to have less Canadian drama. Nor do I think it was your intent to reward historical underspending with a licence to keep doing so.
Broadcasters have a habit of asking for all of the benefits with none of the obligations. The broadcasters will argue for the lowest obligations they can get. We heard one group all but admit that the CPE they proposed was based on nothing but being the lowest number they thought they could sell to the Commission.
As you said yourself Mr. Chair – you gave them unprecedented flexibility in this policy, there needs to be quid pro quo.
The objective here must not be merely to ensure that broadcasters don’t do any worse, it must be for them to do significantly better over the next licence term.
STEPHEN WADDELL:
Producing Canadian scripted drama and comedy programs is only one part of the equation. Providing them to Canadians when and where they are watching television programs is the other part.
We know you are not keen to make any changes to the policy. That said, we feel a responsibility to raise a concern about what might be an unintended consequence of the new policy.
Our fear is that there is so much flexibility in the new group-based policy that there won’t be any drama on prime time on the conventional services. The fact is if conventional broadcasters are not actually required to put drama on their schedules, schedule broadcasters will be tempted to relegate it to their specialty services, leaving prime time wide open for U.S. simulcasts. And they will keep meeting their CanCon obligations with cheap, reality-style programming.
This would be bad public policy. Over-the-air TV is still where programming finds its greatest audiences and where ‘event’ television can bring the country together. And Canadian drama is what makes our Canadian broadcasters distinct. If all they’re just offering us a duplicate of the American network schedules, than why do we even have Canadian broadcasters?
I want to believe that broadcasters will see this new policy as an opportunity to showcase Canadian drama, to promote it and schedule it where they can get the biggest audiences and the biggest financial return. But we’ve seen what happens then broadcasters say “trust us to do the right thing”. Our programming disappears.
We therefore respectfully suggest the Commission to require that conventional OTA broadcasters air two hours of Canadian PNI in real prime time, Sunday-Friday 8-11 pm.
We also have concerns about some of the proposals to amend Conditions of Licence for specialty services. It would appear that broadcasters are trying to use this process as an excuse to wipe away conditions or requirements that were introduced for good reasons and after careful consideration by the Commission.
There has been a lot of talk about genre exclusivity and ‘genre creep’ here this week. It’s clear that broadcasters are pouring a lot of creative juice into interpreting the nature of services for a lot of their services. Yet again, it’s another example of broadcasters wanting the benefits of regulation without the obligations.
We don’t think it serves anyone to water down speciality services to the point where you can’t look at a schedule and figure out what the channel is about.
We trust the Commission will only agree to changes that further the objectives of the Broadcasting Act and serve the system as a whole, not individual broadcasters.
WENDY CREWSON:
These licence renewals are a chance for you to fix something this has been badly broken for way too long. Canadians are drowning in American programming and we need a lifejacket.
The broadcasters still don’t seem to get that a licence isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. A privilege that Canadians give them in exchange for having access to their own stories and their own culture.
We’ve said it here before: we want broadcasters to make money. Lots and lots of money. That’s in every one’s interest. But in exchange for permission to use public airwaves they must do their part and give back to the system.
We also need to remember that while these hearings are about licensing television services, the impact will reach far beyond that. The programs that will be created as a result of CPEs will show up on our websites, iPads, mobile phones and every other screen that pops up over the next five years. If we want Canadians to have choice to see their own content on all these screens – it starts here.
Broadcasters should be smart enough to know that in a world where we can watch anything at anytime, the only way they will survive is to make themselves distinct. And the only thing that makes them distinct is our Canadian programming. Original Canadian content is a product no other country in the world can create.
I have had the opportunity in my career to work on many great U.S. movies and television programs. I’ve also had the privilege of helping to tell some great Canadian stories. I especially treasure being part of programs that shone a light on some incredible Canadians: The Sue Rodriguez Story, Hunt for Justice: The Louise Arbour Story, The Many Trials of One Jane Doe, and The Man Who Lost Himself. It’s safe to say that it is only because of Canadian content rules that these heroes’ stories were told. The fact is we have many more heroes, and many more stories that need to be told. We’re the only ones who can and will tell them. We must tell them because it’s who we are. And you hold the key to getting more of these stories to our screens.
For too long, our own Canadian content has been overshadowed and undervalued. We must do better. And I know we can do better. We are optimistic that if you make courageous decisions in this process, we will get there.
Thank you.
