Source : C21Media

Canadian actors are blaming the country's broadcasters for the current 'crisis' in domestic TV, after a new government report has revealed that nearly 90% of the nation's TV viewing is of foreign programming, mainly from the US.

Viewing by English-language audiences to Canadian drama and comedy programmes has sat at just 11% for the past three years, while Canuck eyeballs tuned to foreign drama and comedy fare accounted for the remaining 89% of viewing.

The statistics were uncovered yesterday through a study released by Canada's broadcast watchdog, the CRTC.

The fourth annual report on the status of Canadian radio, TV and satellite/cable distribution details a decrease in scheduling and expenditures for domestic drama programming in 2002. The country's actors union (Actra) has said it clearly shows that broadcasters are not supporting Canadian TV drama.

"Canadians can’t watch what isn’t there," said Stephen Waddell, Actra's national executive director. "We expect things to get even worse if broadcasters can continue to spend less on Canadian drama and fail to schedule it in primetime."

The CRTC is currently in the process of reviewing the drama situation here in Canada, and the country's actors, writers, directors and many producers are hoping that it will mean an overhaul of its 1999 Television Policy that removed spending requirements for Canadian broadcasters and permitted them to satisfy Canadian content obligations with genres other than drama.

Just four Canadian-produced drama series aired on the major English-language networks last season, compared with 12 in 1999-2000, the year the CRTC changed its programme regulations.

While indigenous drama dominates TV screens in the UK, Germany, France and the US, English-Canadian television ratings show that not one of the top 10 series watched is made in Canada.

Overall, viewing of all Canadian TV genres, including sports, news and variety programming makes up just 32% of total English-language viewership.

The flipside is true in French-Canada, where 76% of all TV viewing is of home-grown programming. French-language drama and comedy account for 48% of viewing for those genres, up from 43% in 2000 and 46% in 2001.

"Clearly, the CRTC must introduce a new mix of meaningful requirements and performance incentives before (English) Canadian programmes fade to black,” warned Waddell. He also stressed the importance of restoring and stablising the country's largest production subsidy, the Canadian Television Fund (CTF), which was slashed 25% by the federal government earlier this year.

Other findings from the CRTC report illustrate that the growing popularity of speciality cable channels may be encroaching on revenues for the country's conventional broadcasters. Revenues for conventional English-language private television fell slightly (1.7%) from 2001 to 2002. At the same time, revenues for English-language speciality, pay and pay-per-view services increased by 10.8%.

According to the report, CTV is the top conventional private broadcaster in terms of audience share, with a 19.2% of total TV viewership. CanWest Global follows at a 14.7% share, and Chum, which doesn't have full national coverage as both Global and CTV do, averaged an audience share of 7.6%. CBC, the country's public broadcaster averaged 6.7%.

The report also shows that profits for Canadian broadcasters have for the most part remained stable or increased for all station groups in recent years. In this respect, CanWest Global leads the pack, though it lags behind its main rival CTV in both ratings and overall audience share.

© C21Media