TORONTO – ACTRA says yesterday’s Dunbar-LeBlanc report validates what the actors’ union has been saying all along, that the drama incentives for Canadian broadcasters instituted by the CRTC don’t work.
The report, released yesterday by the CRTC was commissioned by the regulatory body to look into Canada’s broadcasting policy and suggest changes.
Scary for the broadcasters but potentially good for the actors, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin lawyers Laurence Dunbar and Christian Leblanc said the Commission should to re-evaluate its simultaneous substitution policy because it encourages over-the-air Canadian broadcasters to schedule American TV shows in peak viewing times to the detriment of Canadian programming.
“In a very real sense, simultaneous substitution appears to be dictating the scheduling of Canadian English-language over-the-air television networks – pushing Canadian programs into non-peak viewing periods or into the summer months,” reads the report, as Cartt.ca repeated yesterday.
This is a serious recommendation for Canada’s broadcasters, who make hundreds of millions selling ads around U.S. programming, and millions of that flows back into making Canadian programming through the various funds, or which broadcasters produce themselves.
"This report validates what we’ve been saying for five years. The CRTC’s 1999 Television Policy is a failure,” said ACTRA executive director Stephen Waddell. “Canadian TV drama is important. And the CRTC must make changes if we are to have Canadian drama on television at peak times, which we certainly don’t have now.”
"Canadian TV airwaves are awash in Hollywood shows thanks to broadcasters chasing advertising dollars. This report, commissioned by the CRTC itself, says market forces have failed to put high-quality Canadian programming on the air and that more effective measures are needed. ACTRA calls on the CRTC to act," said Richard Hardacre, ACTRA national president.
