Appearing
for Norflicks Productions Ltd.:
Richard
Nielsen, President and Kerri Neraasen, Producer
We
do, however, welcome this opportunity to address the issue of meaningful
diversity.
The
following statement concerning diversity was issued in a CRTC Public Notice in
June of 2006:
“Diversity
refers to the inclusion of groups that have traditionally been underrepresented
in broadcasting: ethno-cultural minorities, aboriginal peoples and persons with
disabilities.”
And
the statement continues:
“To
ensure that all broadcasters contribute to a system that accurately reflects
Canada’s multi-cultural and multi-racial nature and recognizes equal rights,
the CRTC has taken a multi-faceted approach regarding the presence and portrayal
of the above-noted groups on the air and their participation in the
industry…”
This
kind of diversity which has been enshrined as part of Canadian Broadcast policy,
reiterated recently by the Commission’s Chairman, who in turn was echoing the
statements of previous Chairmen, is a good policy – we support it – but it
is not a policy that addresses the issue of diversity. It is, in fact,
affirmative action.
Broadcasting
in all its facets is the most effective instrument we have for the creation and
dissemination of our common culture. It has become democracy in action.
Therefore
diversity in broadcasting must not begin and end with employment equity or a
better ethnic balance as reflected on air, or with themes that humanize our
treatment of the disadvantaged. Diversity in broadcasting is the guardian of
liberty – a ticket enabling all to join, or at least be represented, in the
great debate that freedom and democratic society seeks to provide. Indeed,
nothing day by day better reflects a nation’s culture or its cultural
aspirations than what it broadcasts.
Democracy
is not a matter of group rights but of individual rights as our Charter makes
clear – and it goes beyond the right to speak. Communication in broadcasting
is a cultivated skill – an art – a calling – as well as an invitation to
democratic participation.
This
kind of diversity, which I would describe as fostering and accommodating
individual creativity, has been largely ignored, not to say trashed, by this
Commission since its inception.
Diversity
was not served by concentrating almost all decision making for English
television in
Diversity
was not served by awarding licenses for Specialty channels mainly to established
broadcasters and cable operators.
Diversity
was not served by permitting those who received licenses from areas outside of
Diversity
is not served by approving mergers and takeovers that reduce the number of
broadcasters Canadians have at their disposal, nation-wide, from 6 to 4.
Diversity
is not served by a system of subsidies that centralizes the commissioning
process so that the same programming and creative values prevail everywhere.
Diversity is not served by taking control of subsidies away from Producers who are many and giving it to Broadcasters who are few.
Diversity
was not served by building a wall between the French and English broadcast
communities.
Diversity
is not served by making the work of creative artists subject to the whims of
bureaucrats employed by private or public corporations, or funding agencies.
Diversity
means that people with something to say, or show, and the talent to express it,
are not controlled but encouraged. It means that our most talented artists and
performers are not forced to go abroad in search of more congenial and
supportive surroundings.
Diversity
is not served by regulations and rules so numerous and so complex that they
force producers to employ professional help simply to fill out the required
forms.
Diversity
is not served by importing everything the
Diversity
means supporting, wherever possible, new initiatives and new players at the
management and corporate level.
It
is misleading that a 2006 statistical review issued by this Commission was
entitled “Building on Success”. Success
by what measure, one wonders?
No developed country attracts as low a percentage of its home audience to the entertainment and drama programs it produces. No developed country offers its audience so few domestically produced dramas compared to those it imports. No developed country sells as few of its domestically commissioned and produced shows to foreign markets.
Diversity
is an issue primarily because artistic talent, the only indispensable ingredient
in successful programming - is little valued throughout the system.
Talent
is always in short supply, and for that reason the entertainment professions if
left on their own rarely discriminate on grounds of race, ethnicity, gender or
sexual orientation. It follows that diversity in our business only has to
be nurtured when it has become an end in itself, supplanting the search for talent as it has in Canadian
broadcasting. This has been allowed to happen because ninety five percent of the
time Canadians watching drama or variety are watching imported American programs
which are, of course, talent driven. No one, including this Commission, has
indicated the least concern about the diversity or lack of diversity in US
programming imported into
Canadian
entertainment programming exists because it is a condition of license, not
because our private broadcasters want to program it or produce it. It
was not always thus.
I
left the CBC in 1972 after 11 years and with
The
most profitable and perhaps productive period of this long run was the first
four years from 1972 to 1976 when there were no subsidies, no tax credit, no
Telefilm, no CTF, no tax shelter and no pass through payments from cable
subscribers. In the first four years
of NFI and its associated
During
this period we co-produced series and programs with the BBC, Time Life Films,
RKO and the New York Times, and with France, Japan and Germany, and attracted
sponsors such as Noranda, Imperial Oil and General Motors; each of whom paid a
significant percentage of the program’s costs.
The
Canadian audiences for our programs compared very favourably with US imported
shows in similar genres.
The
first two series we did for the CBC cost 3.5 Million, a lot of money in those
days, but the CBC paid us in total 120 Thousand, or less than 3% of the cost of
the programs. The remainder was paid for by the BBC, Time Life Films, Noranda
and Imperial Oil, all of whom were more respectful of our independence than
today’s agency bureaucrats and broadcasters.
How
was all this possible? Because Canadian filmmakers and TV producers were then
respected worldwide. I walked straight out of the CBC and sold my first series
to Time Life Films and the BBC, not because they knew me – they didn’t –
but because they knew and respected Canadian television.
The
present sad state of Canadian television is a sharp contrast to its spectacular
beginnings.
In
the 50’s and 60’s management of the CBC believed that television production
should be in the hands of those who made the programs, in other words, the
talent; producers working with writers, directors, performers and crew each
respecting the other’s vital contribution.
I’ve watched and occasionally protested as the diversity implicit in
the arts, which is inseparable from the primacy of individual talent rather than
corporate or managerial oversight and control, has been consistently eroded and
undermined by public policy.
Money
is not the problem. The total amount of subsidies to Canadian broadcasters
varies, but it exceeds two billion dollars annually, slightly more than half of
it going to private broadcasters and cable companies, all of them very
profitable private corporations.
It
is not the purpose of this submission to follow the money, but we would be
remiss if we did not note that if one does the math and adds up all the money
available to Canadian production and compares that figure with the money
actually spent on Canadian programming, a huge discrepancy emerges.
The
villains in all this are a centralized government bureaucracy, a concentrated
and centralized commercial broadcasting structure that owes its solvency to US
programming, and a regulatory agency that has been inattentive to the effect its
decisions have had at the program level.
In
closing, we would like to point out one last depressing result of the system we
have devised, which is that American programs, in the minds of our broadcasters,
have set a style and a standard we should emulate – by which they mean copy – never mind that copies are never as good
as the original, never mind that Canada is a very different society from the
United States. Canadian Idol, a clone of the
Diversity
has no meaning if it lacks authenticity, if, rather than reflecting life, it
reflects only other TV shows, in particular, foreign ones.
The most distinctive aspect of
For
almost two and a half centuries Canadian politics has been about keeping the
French in and the Americans out. Our broadcasters, and sadly our Government
policies and regulatory bodies such as this one, have reversed this process -
keeping the French out and the Americans in. The result is that we English
speaking Canadians cannot find ourselves on Canadian television. It’s
embarrassing, but it’s more than that. Culture defines a society and the
diversity we have lost sight of despite our determination to recognize the
diversities that co-exist within
Despite
this pessimistic appraisal of where we are, the situation is not hopeless. This
Commission must lead the way in rationalising the present system. The emphasis
on distribution must be replaced by an emphasis on production. The commissioning
process at the CBC must be regionalized. Above all, we must devise a system that
is talent driven. We must stop subsidizing commercial broadcasters. We should
get the CBC out of advertising entirely – and out of sports. We should make
our 24 hour News channels into co-operatives, marrying the resources of
commercial and public broadcasters. And we should try to find a way to place
sensible limits on the amount of American programming imported - we’re not
talking about roll-backs – but a relatively painless reduction in the number
of Specialty Channels.
Finally, the Commission must restrict ownership concentration and try to cultivate DIVERSITY in OWNERSHIP.