Industry committee  As I said in our presentation, it's quite possible now that one would be hired to write something for the Internet that would end up on television, or with a mobile phone company that wanted specific dramatic content partly to lure customers into buying their service. They could

Industry committee  Thank you, Maureen. The challenge in Canada is even greater now that every market in the world is faced with convergence. As a screenwriter it's now conceivable that I could be engaged by Rogers Wireless to write a digital series that would be available on their wireless platfor

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm going to let Maureen deal with some of the bigger rights issues. Our broadcasters pay a smaller licence fee for their shows than almost any broadcasters in the world, as a percentage of the budget. I'm not just talking about the U.S.; I'm talking about all of Europe, where

Canadian Heritage committee  Conventional broadcasters are looking for solutions to the difficulties they find themselves in. We are here to say that Parliament should ensure that regardless of the need for a short-term fix or a long-term solution, Canadian programming should not be sacrificed to pay for it.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, that's true.

Canadian Heritage committee  There is some degree of cost efficiency. There is also the fact that Saskatchewan is having a bit of a production boom and we weren't actually able to get the facilities there to get the show on the air for January. In the current run, I believe, a quarter of the show is going to

Canadian Heritage committee  That's right. That was certainly true in November when we produced the eight that were on air in January.

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely not. Or if it was, it had something to do with flights into Regina. That was another reason it was impractical. We had to fly an actor in from L.A., and you can't get from L.A. to Regina directly. So we need to talk to Air Canada.

Canadian Heritage committee  Maureen might be able to answer it better than I can. It seemed as though there was a bit of a perfect storm in 1999 in our industry concerning drama that partly had to do with a change in the CRTC policy for the private broadcasters. That was one of the things in the storm. The

Canadian Heritage committee  Of course, our membership is national. Screenwriters do want to reflect the place where they live--Canada, the city, the town, all of that reality. The truth of production in this country right now is that the hardest thing to do is to get a show on air that is about Toronto. The

Canadian Heritage committee  Development is when you write the script, essentially. When they want to put a series on the air, the first thing you do is have an idea for what the series should be and then go to a broadcaster, often with a producer, and pitch it. If they like it, they commission a script. Tha

Canadian Heritage committee  When you're pitching a project, if you have an idea for a series, you might take it to all three—the only three broadcasters that are out there—to pitch it. They have development people who listen to your idea. Two of them may love it and one of them may not. It's very hard to

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, what we want is that they put more of our stories on the air; that they'll have more time slots to fill, so they'll develop more shows to fill them.

Canadian Heritage committee  The CBC should offer distinct or niche programming in order to attract that audience, but it's unrealistic to suggest that the CBC should get out of the advertising and ratings game completely and leave the field to the private broadcasters. We do believe there is a place at the

Canadian Heritage committee  Good morning, everybody. The CBC needs adequate, stable, and permanent funding if it is to have any hope of fulfilling its mandate to be distinctively Canadian, to reflect the regions, to contribute to the flow of cultural expression, to contribute to national consciousness and