Canadian Heritage Committee on March 14th, 2007

[Richard Brownsey]

We believe that's probably the essence of what you have to decide. We have a difficult situation here, with a very broad mandate to serve a country and with very limited resources. Attempting to reconcile that is one of the tasks before you.

Can you continue to have a broad mandate without the resources to support it? If you do, it is bound to fail; it's inevitable. If you believe the mandate should be broad, with educational, cultural, communication, and nation-building responsibilities, it must be resourced accordingly. I think that's the essential dilemma that faces the CBC, and why one could come in here and criticize much of what it does, because it is expected to do too much with the resources it has. With that kind of situation, you either reduce the expectations or increase the resources.

[Carl Bessai]

I totally agree with what Richard is saying.

We're talking about choice in what to put our money into. I would love to see the CBC have a stronger brand presence in this country, like the BBC. The BBC has such a strong national presence in the U.K. It has a whole wing called BBC Films, which actually makes money.

The CBC, with its mandate, has the opportunity to really make choices. One of the most embarrassing recent choices was the ridiculous idea to imitate the American show The One, when they had that lovely guy from The Hour go down and do some damn talent thing. You know the show, right? Everyone laughed about it, but there are huge amounts of money that go...and choice. Let's imitate what's working really well for some lame private broadcaster. That just smacks of a bad choice, a bad decision. It is about choice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

I thank everyone for their presentations here today. If we have any more questions, I'm quite sure we can get them to you for your responses.

We'll recess for a few minutes while we get our next presenters here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Welcome.

I know some of you have been sitting patiently in your seats. We are running a little bit behind. We had a little longer morning session than we had planned, but we wanted to make sure everyone had an opportunity to make their presentations and answer the questions that were put to them.

In our second session this afternoon, I welcome the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, the Union of BC Performers, and, as an individual, David W.C. Jones.

Welcome to our afternoon session. We start off with a presentation from the Canadian Film and Television Production Association.

[Trish Dolman, Producer, Vancouver Branch, Canadian Film and Television Production Association]

Thanks for having us. I hope we'll be entertaining. I know you guys have listened to a lot of people.

My name is Trish Dolman. I'm on the national board of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, which represents producers across the country in film, television, and new media.

I'm also joined today by my colleague, Brian Hamilton, from Omni Film Productions. Why don't you introduce yourself?

[Brian Hamilton, Vice President/Executive Producer, Omni Film Productions Limited, Canadian Film and Television Production Association]

Good afternoon. I'm Brian Hamilton. I'm on the B.C. board of the CFTPA. I'm the vice-president of a company called Omni Film Productions, which is one of B.C.'s busiest independent producers.

We've been in business for 27 years. I think we're one of CBC's most prolific production partners. We have six projects under way with them right now in the genres of documentary, family drama, late-night serious drama, children's and youth, and online.

[Trish Dolman]

I come to you as both a representative of the CFTPA and an independent producer. I'm president and founder of a local company called Screen Siren Pictures. This is our tenth year in business. I have produced drama, feature films, documentary, and performing arts programming with the CBC in my 10 years in business. So I want to talk from both those perspectives.

For me, the greatest importance of a public broadcaster is its contribution to our sense of a shared national identity. In the last presentation, Carl cited the BBC, and I wanted to use the BBC as an example of what I consider to be a very successful public broadcaster. They've created a brand that works and is recognized within the U.K. and also internationally. It has three basic pillars: one is news; the second is nature programming or what they would call natural history; and the third is drama.

For me, the CBC, if I can use an analogy, is sort of like someone you're in a relationship with, who you love a lot, but who is not quite living up to their potential. When I think of my relationship with the CBC and how I have seen the CBC in my career, it's something I love and very much want to work. I think it's very important in Canadian culture, as is CBC radio, but I always feel that it could be more effective. I think there has been some progress made recently. I think the CBC has done a lot to live up to its mandate, but it could be doing more. I think it's an essential component of the Canadian broadcasting system, and it's really an integral partner--if you look at companies like Brian's--to independent producers.

As you know, television is facing a lot of challenges. There's fragmentation. The industry is changing. There's a lot of new media directionality. We don't know where television itself is really headed. Anyone who professes to know exactly how it's going to shake down, I would say, doesn't know what they're talking about at all. It's theoretical at this stage.

Really, we think that in order for the CBC to do its job and fulfill its mandate, it does need adequate long-term funding. I think it's always a challenge when everything comes up for renewal, and there's always the new discussion about the viability and what CBC should be doing. It does need stable long-term funding.

Secondly, the CBC is important because it reflects the need for a national public broadcaster that showcases 100% Canadian content. That's what I personally believe, and that's what the CFTPA believes. Really the role of the CBC is to be a reflection of Canada for Canadians, and that means Canadian content. That doesn't mean American content, and it doesn't mean other kinds. We can do co-productions, but it should be primarily a reflection of Canadians first.

Contrary to what people like Jim Shaw say, Canadian audiences actually do want to watch Canadian television. You can see that with public and private broadcasters. CTV has done, for example, a number of TV movies that have garnered over two million viewers. They have a television series that garners more than two million viewers, and CBC has had its share of successes--for example, Little Mosque on the Prairie recently. They promoted a show, and they got the viewers they were looking for. To me that just proves it's a global trend. And it's not just in Canada. It seems to be a product of globalization that as the world becomes more globalized, people want to see a reflection of their own culture. This is true in Canada just as it is true in Germany.

Brian.

[Brian Hamilton]

Omni works for all the main broadcasters, and we also treasure our relationship with CBC. We believe that as a broadcaster, through its mandate, it should carve out its own unique identity and niche. That's a challenge, and it's certainly part of what it's looking to this committee for in terms of guidance. It should trigger the production of programming that is unique and that would not otherwise be made. I have a couple of examples.

We produced a series that aired in January called Dragon Boys. It was a four-hour miniseries set in Richmond, starring an Asian-Canadian cop who was fighting crime that was both coming from within his community and related to Hong Kong triads. It's a story we would not see on CTV. It's a story that is uniquely Canadian, and it's both ripped from the headlines and relevant. That's the kind of programming we believe CBC should continue to do, and to do more of.

Another example is a series we did called Make Some Noise. Make Some Noise is a half-hour music activism series showcasing Canadian youths who are making a real difference in all sorts of causes around the world, from environmentalism to child prostitution. This series was recently awarded the Japan Prize, in recognition of its excellence on a world scale, and it's now being presented in Johannesburg at the World Summit on Media for Children and Youth. Again, this is a program that speaks to Canadian values and makes us all proud of our new generation. Without the CBC it would not exist.

We believe the CBC should strengthen its relationship with the independent production sector. That involves the CBC leading in how it deals with each producer. It should lead by example. The private broadcasters are asking for more and more rights, and the new media issues are coming up. Those are also clearly concerns for CBC, but CBC should establish terms of trade that govern its relationships with producers. Many producers are a lot smaller than Omni. They don't have the negotiating experience, and they need to be assured that the public broadcaster will treat them fairly and not strip away all their rights and make it next to impossible to do the next project. Every independent producer wants this project to go so much that they may well mortgage everything on the current project to make it happen.

Trish, you had some comments to make about different genres of programming that are particularly important for the CBC to pay attention to.

[Trish Dolman]

Yes.

Brian and I just talked before about specifically which genres we feel the CBC should be addressing. We wanted to bring them up based on both our own personal business experiences and how we've worked with the CBC.

I know you heard Carl Bessai speak very passionately about feature films, so I'm only going to speak very briefly and make a point. Five years ago, at the CBC's licence renewal, they made a promise—it wasn't a condition of licence but a promise—to spend $30 million on the marketing and licensing of Canadian feature films. This was at a time when Heritage brought forth the Canadian Feature Film Fund. I'm a big believer that if government is going to make a decision, there had better be harmony. Why isn't there harmony? If you're going to spend the money, let's get all of the agencies and institutions involved in meeting the objectives of the Canadian theatrical box office.

Simultaneously, SRC committed $20 million to the marketing and licensing of Canadian feature films. They followed through, and I have to say that has to be a contributing factor to the success of the Quebec box office. There are many other factors, but that has to be one of them.

The CBC did not fulfill its $30-million promise on feature films, and I think it should have. I made a feature film that the CBC licensed at the time—I think they paid $75,000 or $100,000 for the licence, around 2000—and that film went on to premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. It won the Claude Jutra Prize for best first feature film. It sold to the Sundance Channel in the United States. It broke a major Canadian talent onto the scene. That was partially because the CBC participated in a licensing fashion, which they don't do at all anymore, or very infrequently.

In terms of art, it's very much a concern to me that recently the performing arts giant called Opening Night has essentially been obliterated. One of the most talented people at the CBC in terms of staff is a man named Robert Sherrin, who runs the arts programming section.

I believe strongly that it's the role of a public broadcaster to reflect the art and culture of society, and it is important that the CBC make some kind of commitment to arts programming or a reflection of the arts in Canada. If it doesn't, the only place Canadians will have will be Bravo. The future of Bravo is under question right now, given the purchase of CHUM by CTV.

We made a film that was an adaptation of a play locally, called The Score, for Opening Night. It went on to become the only Canadian dramatic television film nominated at the Banff television awards last year for best television movie. It was in a global competition against hundreds of other films submitted from around the world, and it would not have been made if it wasn't for Opening Night.

The third genre I want to speak about is documentary. Obviously documentary is a realistic reflection of our culture, and it is something that Canada has a long history with. We're known around the world for documentaries because of institutions like the NFB and the CBC, and I think the CBC needs to make a very clear commitment to documentary. They currently have The Doczone on Thursday night, but what is unclear to us as independent producers is how much will be produced in-house and out-of-house, and there needs to be a very clear commitment to the documentary form.

If you read this, you'll note how much the CBC depends on sports for its audience share, and I think that could be problematic if the NHL goes to another network.

Those are my thoughts on genres.

Brian, did you want to say more?

[Brian Hamilton]

Yes. Just to back up Trish's point about sports, from the last year that statistics are available, the figures are that 48% of CBC viewing was for sports.

One genre that is very close to our hearts is children and youth. We made the series Make Some Noise, and it was a resounding success. Yet the CBC is unable to commission a second season because they've made the decision to not have any time slots on television that are aimed at teenagers or youth. It's a dilemma, because of course it's a circular problem. If we observe that most teenagers don't watch CBC television now, how do we encourage them to come to the network? If we don't attract them as loyal viewers now, how does CBC build up an audience in the future?

So we are working with CBC to forge an experiment entirely in the online domain, where we're taking the content and the spirit of the show and making it available on CBC's online service.

I think CBC has to make many difficult choices in terms of where to put their resources on CBC television. Maybe it is the right decision to not have a youth time slot, but if they don't have a youth time slot, then they need a youth web presence that's very powerful, because that constituency looks to online media much more than to television. It needs to be properly funded and it needs to have some contribution from the independent production sector, because as it stands, CBC online is one of the most popular websites in Canada. Most of its content is created in-house, and that model could certainly see more independent production and producers contribute.

[Trish Dolman]

If I can just inject something to back that up or to wrap up....

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Yes, your time is almost up.

[Trish Dolman]

If you look at Brian's concept that if you attract an audience when they're young, you retain them, if you look at George Stroumboulopoulos and The Hour--and I'm just bringing this up to say that I think CBC is doing some things that are right--that brought a lot of viewers back to the CBC who knew George from when he was a VJ on MuchMusic.

I do a lot of TV watching for work, to see what's on, and I watch The Hour for pleasure. It's the right time for me. I like what he does, etc., but it's just an example of how you need to have something that draws a young audience that they recognize from before that brings them back.

[Brian Hamilton]

The last, very short point I would like to make is that the regional office here in Vancouver is scarcely relevant to a larger production company like us because they do not have financial authority. All of our conversations regarding programming, commissioning, etc., are with Toronto, but their role is to help those producers who cannot afford a plane ticket or who have not dealt with the corporation before to allow them an entree. I'm not saying that's not valuable. That's valuable, but it's a little bit nonsensical to me that the people who are our friends and colleagues who work in the Vancouver office don't have a role in deciding how our programs get made or in developing them. We go directly to Toronto.

[Trish Dolman]

When CTV and Global both have representatives on the ground who can make decisions, as an example.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much for that presentation.

We have to remember we only have a little over an hour here, and if we want to get some questions in, we're going to have to keep to the time schedule.

Our next presenters, please.

[Mercedes Watson, Chief Executive Officer, ACTRA - British Columbia, Union of B.C. Performers]

Hello. My name is Mercedes Watson. I'm the chief executive officer of the Union of BC Performers. I'm here today with two of my colleagues: our president, Howard Storey, who is a performer, and my colleague, Thom Tapley, who is our director of operations—film, television, and digital media.

We know that you have spent a great deal of your day listening to a heck of a lot of people, and our approach, for that reason, will be slightly different. You will be hearing from our national organization in a fulsome way. They will provide to you a full brief on all the issues that have been outlined in the mandate review. So we will not take your time going through them again, because you will hear from them directly on those points.

We will touch on some of the issues that we think are key to our jurisdiction here in B.C. and on issues we have been dealing with as an organization and that we feel could be further developed through the mandate and through initiatives the CBC could take up for itself.

Just to give you a bit of a sense of how we have come here, I have almost 20 years' experience in the industry. I started with one of the very small independent production companies in Toronto and have had the benefit, over my years within this industry, to work with Alliance Atlantis, when it was still Atlantis, and then more frequently, or certainly for a longer period of time, at Showcase Television. And I was one of the members of the team that launched Showcase Television.

From there I moved to ACTRA and became a member of that organization, working specifically with performers with regard to their rights--copyright specifically--and the introduction of the new rights that legislate remuneration for performers in sound recordings. After that time, I came and joined the UBCP. My involvement within this industry spans quite a breadth of experience, from television production to broadcasting to distribution to legal issues and copyright legislation. So that is the basis from which I'm going to be presenting to you.

I will allow my colleague, Thom Tapley, to do an introduction as well.

What we wanted to say today is that the Union of BC Performers represents 5,100 performers in the province of British Columbia and the Yukon. That remains our jurisdiction. Over the past year, we have been negotiating our collective agreement. So regrettably, the submission we are making to you today is not necessarily one that we would have spent as much time on as we would have liked. But we think the points we will be making will be significant and meaningful for your continued foray into the area of the review of the CBC.

As I mentioned, you will be hearing from our colleagues nationally, specifically on the issues of the current mandate of the CBC.

We have elected today to provide to the committee thoughts on how the CBC can re-vision itself. We think this has probably been a day when you have heard how everything should be changed and how everything should be different, and we thought perhaps we would give you an idea of how that change or difference might be brought about.

We think the CBC can re-vision itself to serve the cultural needs of the vast array of Canadian viewers and listeners who are drawn to it every day. In fact, we believe that its current viewership can continue to grow exponentially in a global manner.

We'd like to provide to the committee and to the CBC our expertise within the film and entertainment industry, specifically in the areas of distribution, copyright, and digital media, to allow for a return of the CBC to its rightful place. We believe that place to be the pre-eminent launching pad for Canadian talent and for digital Canadian products. We believe that the CBC can assist this country in branding itself and its culture through a Canadian-branded digital distribution portal, and that portal would blend marketing with access. These are the two critical elements that have prevented Canadians from seeing our own stories on our own airwaves.

It's a three-step process. It's straightforward: enlist experts, dialogue in order to address the new digital media realities with a view to investigating new modes and how those can best be used to serve the needs of the CBC, focus on branding the content to make it proudly Canadian, and create a model that remunerates all rights holders and makes it possible to have access to all content.

We have had discussions about the limited resources of CBC. It has continued to stretch itself more thinly in order to achieve everything that everyone feels the CBC needs to be for all the people of Canada. We believe that a digital module could assist in those costs. It is cost-effective and has a wide reach for not only the youth--as Brian mentioned earlier--who are no longer drawn to television and are concentrating their energies on the Internet, but also others.

The trend is that most people are no longer drawn to television and are accessing content, information, music, and entertainment through the Internet and digital distribution. We believe there is an opportunity to use those methods to expand the reach and make better use of what is already a very well-known and successful Canadian brand, and that is the CBC.

My colleague Thom Tapley will continue with our thoughts.

[Thom Tapley, Director, Operations and Communications - Film, Television and Digital Media, ACTRA - British Columbia, Union of B.C. Performers]

My name is Thom Tapley and I'm the director of operations. My career spans one year less than Mercedes' through all facets of the industry.

I think we might be able to provide the most assistance through a discussion on digital media. We've been seeped in that world for quite some time now.

I'm concerned when I hear the comment made earlier today that perhaps the CBC shouldn't spread itself too thin. The implication is that “too thin” might be the Internet aspect of things. We believe that the Internet is where it should be moving. The CBC will be able to reach the most consumers globally, but also be the voice of Canadians. It will enable a two-way dialogue between Canadians and the public broadcaster.

We've had a number of thoughts on how to go about that. We think who we discuss the changes with is very important--how the changes will take place and how to best address them. Although dialogues like these are very important, it might be useful to broaden them to include people who typically might not belong to or take part in these discussions--people like Chris Anderson, who wrote a book called The Long Tail. There are countless other theorists out there right now who have some interesting ideas.

Chris is particularly interesting, because we often refer to Canadian content as niche content. Part of The Long Tail study was that niche content wasn't able to make the return on investment that the hit model or Hollywood model was producing. So through the years they developed a hit model, where you put a whole bunch of marketing into a small number of films. Those films were hopefully very successful and created enough revenue to continue on with your business.

That didn't serve Canadian film very well, in particular film promotion, because we don't have the money Hollywood has to market films. Trish made the point earlier that if $100 million or $125 million is spread over all Canadian films for production and distribution, and now marketing, it's a very small amount of money to spend on marketing. However, if you took that $125 million and spent it to market one film, it would have a real opportunity in the international market.

We're not able to do that because the system is set up to individually market each project. But when you take an example like the CBC, if you start promoting that brand instead of the individual projects that are going to be produced, we think there are ways to leverage that to actually be competitive internationally and bring not just viewers in Canada to Canadian content, but global consumers to Canadian content.

There are a number of discussions we can have to sort of suss out ideas in that area, so we will close our presentation and hopefully be able to answer any of your questions on the subjects we talked about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Great. Thank you very much.

We'll move on to Mr. Jones.

[David W.C. Jones, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In comparison with what I've heard today—and I've been here all day—which has been quite in depth, my presentation is very basic, straightforward. I hope you'll bear with me.

I have a British heritage. In 1965 I had the opportunity to apply to Canada for landed immigrant status and was privileged to be granted full Canadian citizenship in 1971.

One of the attractions of becoming a Canadian at that time was having the opportunity to view and listen to genuine Canadian productions by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Coming from Britain, where the British Broadcasting Corporation held sway and produced outstanding programs and documentaries of a very high standard, I was encouraged to enter an environment where a similar organization beamed its programming nationwide, thus helping to unite, inform, solidify, educate, and give identity to a young and growing nation. In those early days I felt that the CBC was the glue that held the nation together and promoted unity, just as in earlier years the national railway provided the links for this great country.

Today, it seems to me, the fabric of the CBC is being undermined for a number of reasons: underfunding, political interference, and too few high-calibre employees. There is a deliberate attempt to make it impossible to meet the goals laid down in the CBC mandate, which is to make the service national, regional, and local, to be shared throughout the land.

The standard of programs has also deteriorated. The quality and content in both artistry and taste has seriously diminished. The one major failing of the structure of the CBC is the method of selection of board members and governors of this very important organization. Why should any elected Prime Minister have the power to appoint key members of the corporation, including the president and members of the board? This is absolutely ludicrous.

Some of the best television and radio is provided by public broadcasting through personal and corporate donations. The beauty of this type of programming is the absence of incessant advertising and constant propaganda. To compete with this, there needs to be adequate funding, superior management, and dedicated, capable workers to show the world what Canadians can produce without the hype and gross secularism that sponsorship is bound to encourage. Only in this way can Canada put its name to an independent service that the world can admire and of which Canadians can be truly proud.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that presentation.

We'll move to Ms. Fry for the first question.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I will tell Mr. Jones that he may have had a short presentation, but it was succinct and he said it all in that short presentation.

I want to ask a couple of questions.

We've gone through this. Everyone has agreed that everyone loves the CBC, that the CBC must maintain its uniqueness and that it does have a real mandate. Some people have said it is spreading itself too thinly. Others have said that its expectations are too high for the resources it has been given, so obviously the question is resources. The question is what is the CBC going to do.

You have given some very good ideas of what you thought the CBC should do. You've said it all very nicely: documentaries, feature films, etc., and programming for children, etc. You've talked about the digital world, and I want to question Thom about that later on.

For me, the question is basically this. We've all established, at least from the people here today, that the CBC should remain and should be resourced appropriately. We've heard Mr. Jones say, as many others have said before him, that it's obvious the CBC needs to be very independent and needs to actually have as little political interference as possible, but that it needs to be accountable.

My main question is this. You've identified this as well, Brian—and I have always found this very disconcerting—that the CBC doesn't cater to youth at all. It has ignored that market. How do we develop a future for the CBC? We know resources is one factor, but let's talk about the nitty-gritty of developing a future for the CBC where it could build a new generation of CBC advocates, people who listen to or watch the CBC. How could it do so in the digital media, and, as Thom said earlier, brand itself so that CBC looks at niche content as opposed to the old hip model content?

I would like to hear from you on how you see the CBC moving into the future. We've heard about regionalization, but I would like to ask you if you really believe that the CBC represents the racial and multicultural reality of this country as it could.

[Trish Dolman]

I'll just briefly answer your question. No, it does not represent the racial and cultural diversity of the country.

[Brian Hamilton]

Boy, that's the big question. I think in the area of youth programming I am encouraged by the fewer restrictions on CBC online than on CBC television in terms of how they can derive revenue. I'm also encouraged by the people they are hiring within the online world who think differently, who aren't long-time CBC television people. They are coming from the outside.

I think the big-picture challenge is to make CBC cool. There are certainly parts of the CBC that are cool, George Stroumboulopoulos being one of them. I think it's a matter of bringing the right people into the organization and reaching out to independent producers as well who are already in contact with those viewers.

[Trish Dolman]

Could I add to that? Further to what Mr. Jones so eloquently said, I think you need people at the helm with vision. You need a visionary. Someone needs to re-vision what the full potential of the CBC could possibly be, completely blue sky, not let's shove some American programming on or let's try to compete with private broadcasters. It's never going to be able to do that; let's just admit that. But it needs a visionary, and I don't believe it has that right now.