Canadian Heritage Committee on May 24th, 2007

[Marlene Cahill, Branch Representative, Newfoundland and Labrador, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists]

For most of the licensing fees for most of the productions that are done here, the initial broadcast licence, which triggers the other funding, comes through the CBC. For the most part, the CBC is the.... Without the initial broadcast licence, everything else doesn't fall into place, which means you really have no production. Outside of CBC's not doing production, the fact that they are buying productions is also a major force here, as I'm sure....

Oh, Mary's gone.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I think that's what Mr. Pope touched on, about replacing St. John's as a Toronto. I guess what I'm saying is, if someone wanted to film a story about Vikings in the Norway area, they could use Newfoundland as a place to do it, because we have the talent and because we have the track record for putting together a good film, such things as The Shipping News and Above and Beyond.

The CBC, then.... What you're saying is there should be autonomy for the region, obviously, but in addition to that, it's a real challenge to keep the talent and to keep the infrastructure here in this island.

[Amy House]

That's true.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Without the CBC, that comes close to collapse. Is that too drastic to say?

[Bart Simpson]

I don't think so; I think it's pretty accurate.

Obviously we also want to look at ways we can work with other countries, and there have been quite a few co-productions through Newfoundland.

But in terms of what's going to keep the infrastructure alive on a regular basis, as something you can count on, something that will develop, and something that will take the needed time to develop projects--in particular regarding documentaries, but also fiction--the CBC provides the continuity and the source. Removing it would be very problematic.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

You've gone over your time a little.

Ms. Bourgeois.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Ms. Marlene, you said earlier on that there were too many American programs. Last night, someone came to the microphone to say that they no longer saw themselves in the current programming. You then spoke about funding to produce Canadian programs.

Could you tell us about the scope of the problem? You must have the figures to indicate what percentage of American programs are on the air here, in Newfoundland, as opposed to Canadian programs. How much money have you lost over the last few years in terms of dramatic productions or Canadian programs?

I'm not sure if I'm putting my question well. We no longer see ourselves reflected, there are too many American shows. In my opinion, it is an issue of culture, of protecting culture. Do you agree? What figures could we see to demonstrate that there is indeed an overwhelming number of American programs?

[Amy House]

I don't have numbers, I'm sorry. I know what people are watching on TV, and I hear what people say about what they're watching. When they turn on the CBC, sometimes they're watching American programming—and Coronation Street too.

We struggle to produce shows that reflect us, and we turn on the TV and see American culture. I don't think we're stepping up to the plate, taking the chance to produce what we do in our own country, and then giving it a chance on the airwaves.

[Marlene Cahill]

Regional programming has been gone from Newfoundland for a long time. Around 20 years ago, the CBC stopped producing in-house here almost totally, except for news and current affairs programming. But what they started doing was issuing licensing fees to independent producers with access to other forms of funding. So we still saw Newfoundland productions.

For the first few years, we saw those shown on a regional basis. The CBC still had a regional schedule to a certain degree. This has pretty well disappeared, again except for news and current affairs. As Paul said earlier, every production that comes out of here goes to national television.

I would like to see some kind of regional programming again, something that's produced for here, done here, and shown here. If this works well, then it could go to national television.

I would actually like to go back to where we were 20 years ago, which sounds awful, but in terms of developing and protecting the culture of Newfoundlanders and Canadians, doing it first regionally and then taking it to the next level, that would cut out the need for....

I understand why the American programming is there; it all comes down to dollars.

As Mr. Pope said earlier, if you talk to anyone at the CBC, they'd much prefer to be programming and airing Canadian content. The revenues and resources just don't seem to be there to do it.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

That leads me to a question on what Marlene was talking about earlier. The CBC should be on the leading edge of technology. I wonder if the population is ready to be on the leading edge of technology. Not everyone has a new television or new technology at home. It is expensive, and it all depends on the regional audience. Moreover, we talk a lot about this famous show Little Mosque on the Prairie at this committee. That does not mean that people are ready to accept that here.

You will therefore understand that it is difficult for the committee. We must take into account what you are doing at the local level, what the CBC is doing elsewhere and its capacities in terms of new technologies. It is rather confusing. Could you possibly go back to what you said and explain how the CBC must be ready with regard to new technologies, as well as the new message that it must be sending to all Canadians?

[Amy House]

New technology is a mystery too, but I know it's there. I know we have to tap into it. It's a growing concern, so we have to be on top of it.

Marlene.

[Marlene Cahill]

There are two things with the new media. The bigger centres of Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver are much more into it than a place like St. John's. The viewers there and the producers are further ahead than we are, there's no doubt about it whatsoever. So moving over to the new technologies and all the rest, I think that's a national concern more than a regional concern, to be totally honest, except for the fact that these new platforms you talk about are what our kids are using.

I have no idea about YouTube or any of them. I don't touch them. But I have a 13-year-old and an 18-year-old who can fly through a computer and know so many websites. I had a $270 phone bill from them downloading browser time. They're the next audience.

If CBC is going to continue for the next 20 to 60 years, that's the audience they have to access. They're on their cellphones, computers, and websites. They are watching TV, but not the same way we did. So I think the new technology is important for audience development. It's something those of us here in Newfoundland will probably catch up to soon.

[Amy House]

At breakfast we were talking about cross-pollination and trying to incorporate both. We give a little bit of what we want to the kids, and the kids give a little bit of what they have to us so we all get on the same wavelength, pardon the pun. We need to bring it together somehow. That's where I think the CBC could be putting some energy into finding ways to bring new media into our lives, and cross-promoting it with regional programming.

[Marlene Cahill]

The final thing is there isn't enough money in the CBC now. There aren't enough resources to do the programming, buy the programming, and show Canadians to Canadians. It's horrendously expensive, as we've all seen with the new equipment and everything else that's needed. It needs to be separately funded; it can't affect the programming.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Simpson is next, and then we'll move to Mr. Angus.

[Bart Simpson]

I have just a small follow-up in terms of new platforms and new media.

The CBC had a terrific program, called Zed, which was on a couple of years ago. Nobody really knew what it was, at the end of the day, but it was designed to be some kind of way to interact with the new audience and established audiences by having it both on the Internet and on television. It was great for documentaries as well as for fiction. But the sad thing that I found was that with the last go-around, with the new model of how the CBC would work content-wise, Zed didn't factor into it. I think it was something that was perhaps given up on too soon.

I do a lot over in Scandinavia, particularly in Sweden. They're going nuts over the model. We invited the acquisitions editor of Zed over to Sweden to do a talk with the Nordic short film and documentary distribution association. They are looking seriously at this as a way of interacting with their audiences.

In addition, just when Zed was cancelled, one of the main founders gave a talk down in Las Vegas, and Al Gore's television station was also interested.

I think that's a model that could be picked up again and perhaps have a strong presence in the regions, because if it's strictly net-based, it might not be that difficult to work with in terms of infrastructure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

We went a little over time there again.

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you very much.

We've heard many times, “We want the CBC to be like the BBC. The BBC has excellent programming and it's non-advertising.”

I'd say there are two problems with that model. Number one, my riding is the size of Great Britain. It has 85,000 people; 13% of them listen to Cree radio, 35% listen to francophone radio, and the rest, English radio. So our markets are substantially different. The other thing is that I haven't seen anybody, from any of our parties, put up their hand and offer the $500 million that we're going to lose in commercial advertising.

So we're in a bit of a conundrum with the CBC, because people say we want quality programming, but we want it to be relevant. So if we want quality programming, we shouldn't be chasing ratings. If we don't have ratings, they say nobody is watching it, so why should we be spending $1 billion or $1.5 billion on programs that nobody watches? So the snake ends up eating its own tail as it's trying to catch up.

I'm setting this up because it seems to me we've heard nothing about this documentary channel. I'm just throwing this out for your feedback. I'm wondering whether or not we have an opportunity, actually, to set up a separate service that is non-advertising, that is based on content, where we have the best of Canadian programming on a stream that is not trying to change what we're doing on the CBC on our commercial revenue with Hockey Night in Canada and competing with drama and reality shows, that we actually have a possibility with this other network to put out the best of everything that we're producing.

What's your perspective on this, particularly from the documentary world?

[Bart Simpson]

I can speak to that.

When you say you've heard nothing about the documentary channel, are you referring to...?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

We don't know what's happening. We don't know where it's going. We know there's a documentary channel.

[Bart Simpson]

Yes. Actually, if you speak to some people at The Documentary Channel itself, they would tell you that they don't know what's happening at this point, because of all the negotiations, etc.

All I can say as an independent filmmaker is that they've been one of our greatest allies. They don't have anything in their mandate saying they have to do feature documentaries or point-of-view documentaries. That's what they do. They invest very heavily in a small number of high-profile feature documentaries. Manufactured Landscapes is a recent example. It has become a home where, especially internationally, when you travel around the markets and everything, they've become a centrepiece for good, thought-provoking, audience-drawing documentary.

So the question becomes, how will the boat get rocked when the CBC comes in and works with the current establishment? It's still an open question. I don't know exactly how it's going to end up. At the end of the day, we've certainly tried to get into discussions with the CBC, the previous management especially, to figure out how we could work together to make it into something, but with the current slate of more lifestyle and reality programming on the main network, how much is that going to influence The Documentary Channel, especially when the definition of “documentary” is a bit flexible when it comes to the CBC?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I guess the question that I have--and it's been raised a couple of times--is that we are paying, as taxpayers and through government, a phenomenal amount of money to produce Canadian content. We've got the Telefilm envelope. We have the CTF envelope. We have the Independent Video Fund envelope, and we have the National Film Board. It might have all been a great idea in the 1970s, but should we be talking brass tacks here? In 2007, when, obviously, the CBC summer schedule is a bunch of American movies that I can get at my video store, should we be doing some kind of consolidation of all these funding envelopes to make sure that these points-of-view documentaries, this really good content that we're creating, has an outlet? Would it be possible to look at this other channel--it's going to be very difficult to compete with the commercial network with all the pressure that it's under--and to use this other channel as a stream to actually showcase the best of everything that's being produced in Canada? Is that a dialogue that could go on?

[Bart Simpson]

Absolutely, it's a dialogue that could go on. At the same time, it's not to the exclusion of keeping a documentary presence of some kind on the main network. You can do interesting cross-pollinations. Maybe it's the best of The Documentary Channel on one dedicated night a week, that kind of thing. So you draw people over to The Documentary Channel.

That's totally a dialogue that we're happy to have, as long as, as I say, the presence remains on the main network in some way and The Documentary Channel really does have a well-defined view of what a documentary is, so you're not seeing the reality programs—they're fine, too--and that kind of programming on a channel dedicated to reaching the audience that would like to see that kind of material.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Scott.