TORONTO – The Directors Guild of Canada is adding its name to the list of production industry professions upset at the recommendations by the CRTC’s task force looking into the funding of the Canadian Television Fund.
The DGC filed comments with the CRTC this week urging the commission to reconsider several recommendations.
The task force, led by CRTC vice-chair Michel Arpin, recommended in its June report that the CTF contributions from BDUs be taken out of the fund and put into a private funding stream. The directors object to this, saying that the BDUs make those contributions as part of their obligations under the Broadcasting Act. It’s public money that should be used in the public interest, the DGC says. “The CTF is not a private fund to be directed by private interests. Public money should not be supporting non-Canadian actors, writers, and directors. It’s simply unacceptable,” says Monique Lafontaine, DGC General Counsel and Director of Regulatory Affairs. “This will also put the entire onus on the CBC to support 10-point productions, which is unfair to the already underfunded public broadcaster.”
The task force also recommended that the CTF fund 8-point Canadian productions instead of 10-point. This is not good public policy, the directors say. “If this recommendation is put in place it will bring only one very unfortunate certainty: a Canadian director, writer, or significant actor will be eliminated from Canadian productions,” says DGC president Alan Goluboff.
“There is no evidence on the record to show that an 8-point production has more of a chance than a 10-point production of delivering Canadian audiences,” Goluboff says. “Given the record of CTF funded productions of the past few years—for instance Corner Gas, Degrassi: The Next Generation, and Little Mosque on the Prairie—it is clear that 10-point productions can do very well in Canada and around the world.”
The directors also object to the task force recommendation that $25 million of CTF money, or some 10% of its total budget, be used to support content in new media. “To pillage from the oversubscribed CTF makes no sense,” the DGC news release states.
Other groups representing professions in the production industry, including writers and actors, have also objected to the report’s recommendations. The CRTC’s call for public comments ended on July 27.
