Speech
GOING FOR GOLD: LET'S MAKE AN APPOINTMENT
WITH CANADIAN DRAMA
Notes for an address
by Charles Dalfen
Chairman, Canadian Radio-television
and Telecommunications Commission
to the Banff Television Festival
Banff, Alberta
June 10th, 2002
(CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY)
Thank you for that generous introduction.
It's a pleasure to join you today. I see the festival as a unique opportunity
to meet informally in this beautiful setting with those of you who produce and
broadcast the television that Canadians choose to watch on a daily basis.
Over the course of the week, I hope you will take me up on my invitation to
discuss some of the issues I will raise today.
This year we celebrate 50 years of Canadian television. And there is much to
be proud of.
Canadians have hundreds of channels to choose from, including dozens of
Canadian conventional, specialty and pay television channels.
Our filmmakers are world-renowned.
Our documentaries and animation awards line the walls of boardrooms from CBC,
the National Film Board to private broadcasters such as Corus Entertainment.
What's more, we have proven that we can produce TV programming for the largest
and arguably the toughest market in the world.
The question I am interested in exploring today is how, building on our
successes over that half century, we can reach the point where we have
English-language dramatic television series that we can relate to as Canadians,
the way that Americans can relate to West Wing, or that Britons can relate to
Coronation Street or that French Canadians can relate to Fortier; dramatic
television that reflects us, amuses us, moves us; television that we try and make
sure to be home to watch.
Since we are at one of the sites of the '88 Winter Olympics, and are still
touched by the euphoria of our gold medals in men's and women's hockey in the
2002 Olympics, I've entitled my remarks "Going for Gold: let's make an
appointment with Canadian drama".
I raise this question after only five months in my new position as Chairman of
the CRTC, but after a great deal of thinking about Canada and the challenges and
opportunities facing the Canadian broadcasting system.
I raise these questions, not to minimize our accomplishments to date, because
they really are tremendous, but rather, as it was put in the 1999 Policy on
Television, to build on our success.
I also raise them to express my confidence in our collective capacity -
whether it be as producers, broadcasters, regulatory agencies, policy makers or
creators.
News, documentaries, magazines, music and variety all have their place.
Indeed, the Commission's Television Policy broadened the categories of
programming to which it has attached priority status in recognition of their
place in the system.
Yet none have quite the impact on our imagination or on our identity as drama.
And within the drama category, no programming allows for quite the degree of
identification with characters and themes as does the dramatic series.
Yet, we note the following:
- A review of the top-10 dramatic television series in the UK, Germany,
France, and French Canada indicates that, as in the US, nearly all of the
programs are indigenous; even in Australia, which of course shares the English
language - half of the top 10 series - are by and about Australians. In English
Canada the number is zero.
- A review of the peak time viewing schedules in these same television
markets shows a healthy presence of indigenous drama series. The schedules of
English language broadcasters in Canada show far less.
As CRTC Chairman, I ask myself whether these indicators are consistent with
the Broadcasting Act, and particularly with its spirit.
As a Canadian, I ask myself whether they go to national self-respect? Are
these somehow the measures of a dependent - rather than an independent - cultural
status?
It's been said that years ago one could not get a job on-air at the CBC
without an English accent.
Is it the case today that one cannot get a show on primetime Canadian
television without an American accent?
To use another image, have we turned over to Hollywood the best downtown real
estate in the Canadian broadcasting system?
Let me stress at this point that I am completely mindful of the realities of
Canadian broadcasting and the immense difficulties producers and broadcasters
face in bringing Canadian programming to air.
These include, but are not limited to:
- the huge power and attractiveness of American drama programming and of the
American publicity machine;
- the fact that the costs of that programming can be largely recouped
domestically in a market of nearly 300 million people;
- contrast that with a small Canadian population stretched across thousands
of kilometres of border with the US, able to access that programming through a
variety of technologies in a range of shades, from white to grey to black;
- the high cost and extreme complexity of financing Canadian drama
programming;
- a US market with little taste for programs not clearly identifiable as
American;
- the consequent need to amortize the costs of indigenous English Canadian
drama over some 24 million people; and
- the enormous disparity between the costs and benefits to Canadian
broadcasters of carrying Canadian versus US programming, particularly in peak
time.
This isn't a new problem.
In fact, it's part of a very familiar model that cropped up over and over
again in the last century.
The American supremacy in entertainment programs, the challenges represented
by its geographic proximity and its cultural affinities for English-speaking
Canada, the fact that a people should recognize itself and be able to identify
with what's on the screen, this objective is so difficult to attain that we may
even ask ourselves if we can attain it.
However, if we care, then should we not try and do something about it? And
that is a big IF. There is no public outcry.
Canadians watch US programs because they like them, and because they are good
- with high production and entertainment values.
However, Canadians do watch Canadian programs.
But as they are used to the best television, not only from America, but from
around the world, these programs have to attract them. So that is the challenge.
If we do care, then do we not owe it to ourselves to find a way forward?
If Canadians are willing to schedule their workweeks and their VCR's to catch
Friends, West Wing, 24, The Sopranos or Sex in the City, should we not try
and engage them with must-watch Canadian choices of the same calibre?
Can we in fact develop appointment television with Canadian drama every week?
I believe that the talent in this room, talent that has created Degrassi:
The Next Generation, Traders, The Associates and DaVinci's Inquest can
rise to the same gold-medal standard and achieve the accolades and the loyalty
that imported programming wins.
I believe that producers of English-language Canadian television can provide
us with dramatic series that will make it to the top 10, in the way we see
British, Australian and French-language Canadian dramatic series hold court in
the Neilsen's.
I hope I am not dreaming, but if I am, at this stage in my tenure, I am not
yet prepared to give up the dream.
At this stage, I raise questions in the hope of creating a dialogue among the
various players in our great industry, so that we can determine whether or not we
are in agreement on the objectives and how to attain them.
I must admit that I was encouraged by the initiatives of the Minister of
Canadian Heritage, the Honourable Sheila Copps, and her colleagues aimed at
ensuring that the major federal agencies for the
audiovisual sector share visions and discuss objectives as they link their
common causes within their respective mandates.
I would also like to set a challenge for our industry - to broadcasters,
producers and those who finance both - to bring forward their thoughts and ideas
on how we can create the business case for taking the necessary risks to invest
in, produce and air distinctively Canadian dramatic programming.
Being new on the job, I am open to exploring fresh ways of looking at key
issues and creative solutions.
The challenge may be decades old, but I would like to think that this creative
industry has not yet exhausted all of its options to find a solution.
In conclusion, may I say how much I appreciate the opportunity to raise with
you this morning a number of questions that I consider to be at the heart of my
mandate as CRTC Chair.
I hope you will permit me to summarize them:
- Can we resolve our historic conundrum of creating space for Canadian
creative expression on our airwaves and our screens?
- Are we prepared to acquiesce in what some might consider a dependent
cultural status?
- Can we work together to overcome the factors that inhibit the financing and
airing of Canadian dramatic series on English language television?
- Can our own dramatic programs make it to the list of the top ten
most-watched series?
- Can our own indigenous productions become appointment television for
Canadian viewers?
- Can we dream of winning gold?
This is the discussion I'd like to begin with you this week and continue with
you as we go forward together.
Thank you.
- 30 -
Contact: Denis Carmel, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0N2
Tel.: (819)
997-9403, TDD: (819) 994-0423, Fax: (819) 997-4245
e-Mail:
denis.carmel@crtc.gc.ca
Toll-free #
1-877-249-CRTC (2782)
TDD -
Toll-free # 1-877-909-2782
This document is available in alternative format upon request.
Date Modified: 2002-06-10 |
