IF THERE HAS BEEN a Canadian television channel that has struggled more with its programming, carriage, ownership and identity than OUTtv, which began its life in September 2001 as Pridevision, we don’t know of it.
The original category one digital specialty service license went to a surprising place to begin with. The CRTC, preoccupied at the time with trying to uplift smaller broadcasters, gave the must-carry digital license to what then was Headline Media, the owners of what has become The Score, a straight-male all-sports station where no one had experience in the gay community.
Granted, Headline did partner with Pink Triangle Press but the license really should have gone to CHUM, which had a long history of serving the gay community in Toronto and across Canada and had a weekly show, QTV, dedicated to it.
While the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community welcomed a dedicated channel to serve its interests, many wondered what this new media outlet would be all about, given its majority owners at launch.
Offering a mix of lifestyle shows, drama and comedy during the day and prime time and pornography at night, Canadian carriers were reluctant to package the channel alongside more traditional fare like Book Television, MenTV and Movieola. In fact, the former owners allowed the channel to be sold as a stand-alone for $8 a month, rather than in a bundle of several for $4, for example, like the other category ones.
After two years, Pridevision had yet to reach the 30,000-subscriber mark and lost $11 million and in December of 2003, Headline Media sold 90% of the channel to broadcaster Bill Craig for $2.6 million. Craig, the founder of the infamous icravetv.com who has a background with Rogers Cable and the CRTC, improved the channel, dropped the late-night porn, re-branded it OUTtv and tried to convince the large carriers to re-package the channel as category one must-carries are generally offered.
The channel now has over 400,000 subscribers. While that’s muchg better, it’s less than half of the next-best category one digi-net.
The new majority-owner, which still isn’t quite the owner yet – is Shavick Entertainment, a company that is primarily a movie and TV production company but that wants to make a splash as a broadcaster. The company also plans to push OUTtv into new media and wireless over the coming months, too.
Brian Danks (pictured) oversees OUTtv and is COO of Convergent Entertainment (one of two Shavick Group companies). He recently chatted with Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien about life as a small broadcaster and the particular challenges OUTtv faces because of the demographic it serves.
Greg O’Brien: So, it’s been about a year since the purchase was announced, right?
Brad Danks: Well, it was a little more complicated than that. The purchase from Bill was a lot more difficult that one would have imagined because not only were there some bankruptcy issues, OUTtv was in trouble financially so that complicated matters but also the overall deal with Bill was complicated because there were a number of issues between shareholders and so on that needed to be settled.
The reality is that the change of control application and all the settlement issues wasn’t completed until this summer and we’ve actually filed our change of control at the end of July so if you really want to talk about new management, it’s really effective now.
We’ve been providing stewardship in the interim period, but I would say that new management has begun over the last 30 to 60 days. And some of the new management is old management as well.
GOB: So, who has been running it the last year or so?
BD: Our group, which is really comprised of myself, and James Shavick and his wife Joy MacPhail – and you probably know her background as the former deputy premier of British Columbia and former finance minister (under former premiers Glen Clark and Ujjal Dosanjh).
James, of course, is a very prolific filmmaker. He’s probably at about 90 films now and has done some top-rated TV series’ like Addams Family and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The other group is the Pink Triangle Press/Peace Point Entertainment Group combination who were minority shareholders and have really done a terrific job in stepping in to provide a lot of financial support and other support for the network. Really on a day-to-day basis, the management has really been myself, Wendy Donnan – who’s been there from the beginning and handles the programming and the day-to-day affairs – and Andrew Chang, who is Pink Triangle Press’s chief operating officer and handles most financial matters. (PTP publishes the GLBT Xtra magazine in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa.)
So, the three of us spend most of our time dealing with the management type issues. This was forged about a year ago as all of this came together and we’ve developed an excellent working relationship.
Pink Triangle Press, of course, has a tremendous connection in the GLBT community whereas we are more traditionally filmmakers and television producers. We have done a lot of work with U.S. studios and major broadcasters, so we bring a different approach and different set of relationships to the table, primarily with the Here! network in the U.S. where we’ve done a lot of work and I think that’s going to be a significantly positive relationship for OUTtv over the long term.
GOB: Have you been able to change the programming, or is that something which is still coming?
BD: We’ve made some significant changes and I think everybody agrees in the direction we’re going. One of the things we’re actually surprised about and a little disappointed at is that there still remains a view in the community that OUTtv has some, if not primarily, adult content (which is does not).
GOB: That was another of my questions in that I think you probably still suffer from the fact that the past owners of the channel weren’t exactly accepted in the GLBT community and also from Pridevision’s airing of the adult content when it launched and becoming a stand-alone. Do you think those things still affect the channel right now?
BD: It would be fair to say that there’s a brand lag issue. The Pridevision situation was a strategic one that John Levy (CEO of Headline Media, which is now Score Media) chose at the time and I think a lot of it, from what I understand, had to do with pressure from the cable companies who told him "we really don’t want to carry you in packages," and other pressures they were probably able to put on him. So, he made the strategic decision to go in that direction. It turned out to be the wrong decision ultimately.
I think Bill Craig had it right in saying "I think we should go back and capture the category one status" but an important part of that is being sure all the carriers are comfortable with the programming. So, we’ve made it very clear to all of them that we are really a lifestyle channel – we carry a lot of dramatic programming as well, primarily out of the U.K. For example, our number one show this year is called Sugar Rush – a dramatic series from the U.K. that also plays on BBC Kids.
We are far more consistent with our programming – comparable to a Showcase or a Bravo! A lot of the shows that we carry or will be carrying have played on Showcase or Showcase has expressed interest in as well.
GOB: How have the BDUs accepted you since the ownership change (proposal) and the programming changes?
BD: It’s been mixed. The ones that have embraced us and accepted the direction we’re going have been extremely positive. We had several free previews last year with zero complaints – including some of the larger BDUs – and the ones who have really taken the time to get to know us as business partners are really really pleased with the direction that it’s going
…We really believe that the BDUs are our business partners. We understand the challenges that they face and we’ve told all of them that we will bend over backwards. There is no adult programming on the network and one of the things you’ll really find interesting is we never get the BDUs coming to us and directly complaining about anything. We’ve had to take a lot of these things on our own and tell them we adhere to Ontario Film Board guidelines on adult content specifically and it’s not the direction we want to go.
What it comes down to for us is we think the positioning for OUTtv is not in the erotic area, not in the adult content area, but in the lifestyle area. (Ed Note: My own cable company, Cogeco, packages OUTtv in the "More Variety" package with Fox News, BBC World and The Documentary Channel and its position on the grid is channel 181, between SexTV and Christian channel Eternal World Television.)
GOB: Now, from what I understand, you have a serious issue out west with Shaw, where you’re packaged differently.
BD: Shaw has become a specific problem for us. They’re at the other end of the extreme. Shaw has bounced us around the channel dial like a ping pong ball over the past 18 months and I have to tell you it’s been a very frustrating situation because when we first purchased our interest in the channel, we thought the placement then was fine.
They moved us without notice shortly thereafter to channel 200 and we asked "Why are you doing this?" because the CRTC good practice guidelines say you’re supposed to call people and tell them you’re going to do these things. We never heard anything from Shaw and then they moved us to channel 370 a short while ago and placed us alongside six adult channels.
We of course objected and wrote to them telling them we don’t carry adult content – so that’s not an appropriate alignment for us. We’ve been back and forth with them but Shaw has been a hard case for us. Joy MacPhail has called their president asking – the former finance minister of British Columbia – and they won’t even take a meeting to discuss it.
… Shaw is problematic. We’ve done a very thorough analysis on where we stand with the BDUs and just to give you an example, Bell ExpressVu is a terrific carrier for us, have done a fabulous job and whom we can’t say enough good things about, Rogers has been better than Shaw, Telus has been terrific for us.
GOB: And you’re sold in lifestyle packages with those, correct?
BD: Yes. And the places where we’re being sold in lifestyle packages with the major BDUs, between seven and 13% of their total digital subscribers have got OUTtv. Star Choice is slightly less at about 5% but Shaw is less than 1%, considerably less than 1%, and going down over the last number of months after they moved us to 370.
They are the most recalcitrant of the BDUs.
GOB: In the beginning, they nearly flat out refused to carry Pridevision and they have maintained a negative viewpoint towards the channel since its launch, which the former owner has dealt with.
BD: They’ve obstructed business opportunities from the very beginning and they’ve never really cogently explained their reasons for doing so. People draw a lot of inferences as to why but they certainly haven’t been prepared to explain them to us. We hear that from a lot of smaller carriers as well… We have most recently done a re-packaging with Sasktel which went really well.
We understand that we are the business partners for the BDUs. We want to make them money and we want to work with them at all levels… and the more people that get that message that we’re here to do business and not here to cause people trouble.
We are of the view that the category one license requires a very deep responsibility on our part as well to ensure that there is ‘comfortability’. We understand that and we’ve made it clear to everyone who has called us that that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
But we had a situation last year with Videotron where during their free preview week which they promised us and we’d prepared for, with alterations in programming and we took off anything that was even close to being questionable off. Then they got a complaint which was apparently over SexTV, which we are much, much – I hate to use the word mainstream because everyone wants to argue about what that means – but we’re not nearly like that.
GOB: I’ve seen both channels. I know what you’re getting at.
BD: And because of the complaint on SexTV, they pulled their free preview for us as well. Rogers did the same thing and we reminded them both that Shaw lost this case at the CRTC which said you can’t offer free previews for one over the other and if they do it again, we’re going to take issue with it,
I think your comment from the very beginning is correct. We suffer from these branding problems and when you’re cleaning up a brand and changing it, some of these things are going to happen.
GOB: Do you envision changing the brand at all?
BD: For now, no. But if we do, a lot of it will depend on how we develop our relationship with Here! Network in the U.S. We have a programming and supply arrangement with them and they’re already providing us with some programming on a barter basis and there’ll be more coming.
And, we’re going into production on three projects in Vancouver, two feature films and one series in the next six months which will ultimately be for both networks.
GOB: So, more of your own original content.
BD: Yeah… And that will open up the question down the road of whether or not we want to assume their brand in Canada for a linear channel. That’s something we would consider, but certainly not now, not for a period of time.
GOB: Is programming for the GLBT community difficult? The reason I ask that is that it seems to me they like many of the same shows that I like – the mainstream type programming. So, how do you provide the real difference so that members of that community will turn to your channel?
BD: I think you’re right – one of the biggest challenges we face is that a lot of the programming, whether you’re talking about Queer as Folk or L-Word or movies like Brokeback Mountain and so on, do bleed into the mainstream so often we’re competing with other digital carriers who also want to market to that community so your question is a very good one.
The only answer is that we’re of the view that if we can bring quality programming – one or two shows that a person would be interested in – we’ll get their subscription. So, we’re very focused on bringing in higher calibre shows. We’ve spent more money on fewer shows than in the past where the notion was to make sure the programming was stronger, dawn to dusk, what we’ve done this year is concentrate very much on prime time and ensure the shows we’ve bought are high calibre shows and that we’re supporting them with specific marketing.
We think it’s a less is more approach and as time goes on, we’ll have more money to spend.
