TORONTO – With Canadian broadcasters in Los Angeles now viewing this fall’s potential U.S. hits (not to mention the great big misses) – and making commitments to buy, too, Canada’s actors union says the process is nothing but a big bet.
"Canadian performers are angered that executives of Canada’s private broadcasters are in L.A. this week gambling hundreds of millions of dollars on new American shows for the fall television season while neglecting our own domestic industry," shouts the press release.
“Canada’s private broadcasters are eager to hand over more than $250 million dollars on new American dramas and reality shows, when they should be investing in new Canadian dramas in their own backyards,” said Richard Hardacre ACTRA’s national president. “They spend millions of dollars on American shows in what amounts to an annual crap shoot that pays out few winners.”
Broadcasters spent about 12 times more on non-Canadian programming than they did all year on Canadian drama. However, that number doesn’t take into account the millions spent on Canadian news, variety, comedy and reality fare.
"Canada’s private broadcasters enjoy the benefit of protection from foreign competition, but are not willing or obligated by the CRTC to invest in Canadian English-language television dramas. It is not acceptable that Canadian broadcasters acquire simulcast rights of U.S. shows, air them in prime time slots, and treat Canadian dramas as second-class citizens," continues the ACTRA release, which showed no sense of the irony in the complaints because the ads which run in Canada during those U.S. shows help pay the actors for the drama and other Cancon programming that ACTRA members work on.
“Our broadcasters have decreased their spending on Canadian drama by almost $12 million over the past year,” says Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s national executive director.
Canadian performers want the CRTC ensure private broadcasters spend at least 7% of their advertising revenue on new Canadian English-language dramas and schedule a minimum of two hours of these dramas in real prime-time (Sunday to Thursday, 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.), but that’s a fight they will have to bring to the license renewals of the broadcasters in 2008, as the CRTC said last week.
