Looks like Netflix is chilling with Ottawa
OTTAWA – The Canadian TV biz held a three-hour, industry-wide affair in Ottawa on Wednesday evening, where the Canada Media Fund showcased internationally competitive primetime broadcast TV series to local bureaucrats and politicians (and juuust before Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly outlined her vision to change a bunch of things.)
Netflix and other foreign Internet players, and their impact on local producers and broadcasters, loomed large at the National Press Center event and Joly only sent along her Parliamentary Secretary, Sean Casey, to address the industry gathering and praise Canadian TV producers.
In stage-side comments to Cartt.ca, Casey reiterated his government's opposition to new taxes, including HST, being placed on Canadian subscribers of U.S. digital services or Internet service providers (even though that places Bell Media’s CraveTV at a competitive disadvantage).
But Casey said "there will be news" as Joly unveils her new Canadian content strategy, "and it won't be a Netflix tax," he added, without giving details. There sure was news…
Unfortunately, the CMF showcase had wrapped before news filtered out that Netflix will invest $500 million in Canadian productions over five years, (and many expect other U.S. digital giants like Facebook and Google, which depend on local advertising revenues, to follow that lead).
It's a far cry from 2014 when then CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais ignored Netflix and Google after they refused to hand over proprietary figures about Canadian content on the Internet as he held hearings on the future of TV here.
Fast forward to 2017 and Valerie Creighton, president and CEO of the Canada Media Fund, told Cartt.ca that, while the industry still has a "two-tiered system" where local broadcasters and streamers are regulated and Netflix and rival U.S. players are not, the Americans play an increasingly big financial role north of the border.
"Those companies are interested in Canadian talent," as Creighton pointed to Netflix and the CBC partnering on homegrown shows like Alias Grace and Anne.
Eager to showcase Canadian-made TV shows that sell into the U.S. and widely international, the CMF showcase was long on talent from a host of Canadian networks, with appearances by Orphan Black star Kevin Hanchard, Private Eyes star Cindy Sampson, Murdoch Mysteries's Helene Joy, and Marc-Andre Grondin of TVA's gritty drama L'Imposteur, which is hoping to follow 19-2 and spawn an English-language remake.
Jocelyn Deschênes, an executive producer at Sphere Media developing the Imposter reboot with Bell Media and Awake creator Kyle Killen, says they're near to pitching the project about an ex-con taking over the identity of another man to major U.S. networks initially, rather than to Netflix and other digital platforms.
"They don't all have just Marvel series on their schedules," Deschenes said of the traditional U.S. broadcasters.
Despite nervousness abounding as the CMF showcase took place on the eve of Heritage Minister Melanie Joy unveiling her government's plan for Canadian content in a digital world, talent and execs were surprisingly upbeat.
"There's never been as many places to sell shows, but we also have fewer broadcasters," Scott Garvie, senior vice president, business & legal affairs at Shaftesbury, said of the dilemma of Canadian companies to look beyond the home market to partner with foreign producers, broadcasters and streaming services to get their shows made and distributed.
The CMF could be forgiven for bringing a gaggle of stars from the CBC's Kim’s Convenience to Ottawa for a well-earned bow, the better to charm politicians with a bona-fide Canadian hit show.
Ivan Fecan, the producer who brought the play Kim's Convenience to the small screen through his company Thunderbird Entertainment, said that the comedy about a Korean-Canadian family running a Toronto convenience store succeeds because it's a family sitcom with universal themes.
And now that Kim's Convenience is into its second season, with a possible third in the wings, Fecan can look to international sales, including into the U.S. market.
Fecan too has U.S. cable channels, rather than digital platforms, initially in mind as a possible home for Kim's Convenience south of the border. "We're in no hurry to sell it. I don't want to show it to just anyone," he said, mindful of CTV's popular Corner Gas sitcom languishing stateside on WGN, a superstation that skews urban, when the Canadian comedy had an rural Saskatchewan setting and storyline.
The Canadian nets' primetime lineup was presented to Ottawa funders alongside an array of online and other digital content as part of a single pitch to Ottawa backers that the industry is no longer relying on arcane technology to sustain its future.
Yves St-Gelais, a producer with Montreal-based Neweb Labs, showed off Maya Kodes, an interactive holographic pop star who releases songs on iTunes and holds real-time, virtual concerts.
"They're live, no delay or playback, and they create an emotional connection," St-Gelais said of the 360-degree livestream concerts.
