Source : Toronto Star

by Antonia Zerbisias

You can make viewers subsidize Canadian TV, but you can't make them watch it.

So imagine the challenge in attracting audiences to The 16th Annual Gemini Awards, which honours the best in homegrown programming.

Not only will tomorrow's gala go against the return of Boston Public and Ally McBeal but also the Sept.11 episode of Third Watch, another bout of The Weakest Link and the very hot Everybody Loves Raymond. The Geminis haven't a miniskirt's chance in a madrasa.

Need I point out that these U.S. series air on the same private Canadian networks that, as a study released last week by the lobby group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting revealed, saw their profits grow 42 per cent while their reliance on CanCon subsidies has more than doubled, to the tune of $239.9 million a year?

To be fair, most Canadian TV, with the exception of news and sports, is a money-losing proposition. That's because a domestic drama series costs a network about $200,000 an episode (rented from independent producers who get the subsidies) while earning maybe $125,000 in ads. That's an automatic loss of $75,000. Meanwhile, a typical U.S. series costs some $80,000 an episode while generating $200,000 in ads – for a cool $120,000 profit per hour.

You do the math; you see the problem.

But here's the paradox: The networks don't want to give up CanCon. Despite how quotas are forced upon them by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the privates are now saying that homegrown TV is the key to their future.

"The traditional model where Canadian broadcasters simply rented money-making U.S. content and used it to cross-subsidize money-losing Canadian content is not going to work in the digital environment," Michael McCabe, the private broadcasters' lobbyist, said in a speech last week to the National Press Club in Ottawa.

Because future-hype says that we'll be downloading TV off the Net one day, the private networks won't be able to play the middleman between Hollywood and couch potatoes. Which is why McCabe reiterated his demands that his member networks "take full ownership of their programming."

Translation? Cut out the independent producer and give the subsidies directly to us.

Now I don't know about you, but I feel that BCE Inc., which owns both CTV and the phone company, gets enough from me every month, thank you very much. As for CanWest Global, well, if it can manage a newspaper-buying spree while putting millions in the pockets of its controlling Asper family, why should I make it any richer?

Not that the big production companies deserve to grow any fatter on tax dollars either. I'm thinking Alliance Atlantis in particular, which is doing very well with TV right now. (Its miniseries Nuremberg and Haven, up for a total of 19 Geminis this weekend, were actually produced for U.S. TV.) Canadians nourished this company for years, into a production powerhouse and a TV giant with a stable of specialties (Showcase, Life, HGTV, History, etc.).

Time to cut the cord and let the funding go to truly independent producers with plenty of vision but not much cash. Or reroute some of the money to the CBC from whence much of it was stripped. For, if there's one thing the terrorist attacks have demonstrated to thoughtful media watchers, having a public broadcaster with an experienced, well-oiled news machine not beholden to advertisers or Bay St. results in bigger and better coverage.

Anyway, the subsidy system is flawed, relying on paperwork and bureaucrats to decide which projects are worthy. By the time judgments are rendered in the spring, writers must scramble to come up with scripts while producers hustle to get the shows cast, shot and edited. They also have to compete with the U.S. productions that have set up shop here, nabbing the best crews and locations.

No wonder so few Canadian dramas can hold large audiences. It's not that we don't have the talent and the vision. It's the system that kills the quality.

It doesn't help that the industry then celebrates the whole thing with an incestuous awards show, which not only must compete with U.S. powerhouses but also opens with executives giving their sermons on why we should watch Canadian TV. Last year's Geminis gala, which attracted a mere 640,000 viewers, was an embarrassment, with the host and the presenters coming out and praising the set, with dull shots of bored audience members nobody recognized, and endless tributes to people and programs few people saw.

Yes, that sounds harsh, but I watch this thing year after year – and it never gets easier. I always have hope, though.

My wish for tomorrow's gala is that the producers learned from last year's mistakes, that this year's host Mike Bullard kills us with his comedy and that the lineup of presenters, including Nicholas Campbell, Wendy Crewson, Tamara Hickey, Rick Mercer, Wendy Mesley, Leah Pinsent, Sarah Polley, Julie Stewart, Steve Smith and Mary Walsh, are recognizable enough to viewers that they'll want to stick around and watch.

But I doubt that will happen. That's because the ratings for many of the presenters' shows just can't compare with their U.S. rivals.

Which makes me despair: "Geez, viewers out there are helping to pay for this stuff. Don't they want to see where their money goes?"

© The Toronto Star