Canadian Production Companies

CANADIAN PRODUCTION COMPANIES

Most Canadian production companies are relatively recent phenomena. Indeed, prior to 1983 and the creation of Telefilm Canada, the independent production sector was either extremely weak or virtually non-existent. Since 1983, however, the sector has blossomed and Canada now has a number of financially sound production companies. Besides the CBC, the largest production companies are Alliance Communications Inc., Astral Communications Inc., Atlantis Communications Inc., and Paragon Entertainment Corporation. Other companies include Nelvana Ltd., Cinar Films, TeleScene Films, Primedia Productions, Sullivan Films, and Salter Street Films. The most unanticipated addition to the sector occurred in 1995 when Seagram Co. Ltd. of Montreal acquired Hollywood-based MCA.

Pre-Telefilm

From 1952 to 1982, television production was dominated by the television networks themselves. This was especially true of the CBC which produced almost entirely in-house and which was, until 1961, the only network. The dominance of network production arises from three main factors. First, unlike U.S. networks, Canadian networks are restricted neither from owning all of their affiliates nor from producing all of their content. The CBC therefore is an integrated production, distribution, and broadcasting enterprise. As the owner of its affiliates, it naturally seeks to fill their air time with content which it produces in its fully-owned facilities. Second, there existed in Canada no film industry similar to Hollywood on which the nascent television networks could draw for content, expertise, or ideas. Third, CBC television adopted its operational methods from CBC radio where in-house production was the norm.

Consequently, the CBC, and to a lesser extent private networks after 1961, filled the need for content themselves. The CBC became therefore Canada's first major television production company, a role which it maintains to the present though on a reduced scale. However, until the early 1980s, the CBC dwarfed competitors and collaborators alike in terms of both the quantity and quality of its output.

The sheer volume of CBC production cannot adequately be characterized. It is possible, however, to point to certain structural elements. As a public network, the CBC's production activities necessarily occur within the framework of its parliamentary mandate which enjoins it to "reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions" and to "contribute to shared national consciousness and identity". Hence, CBC production must provide for both mass and specialized audiences while being "distinctively Canadian". Second, as the CBC is only partially reliant upon commercial revenues, it has traditionally enjoyed the freedom to experiment and schedule material which is either challenging or of limited audience appeal. Third, its heavy reliance on in-house production has resulted in a recognizable network style across all program categories. This style, derived from the CBC's expertise in news and documentaries, has at times been called awkward, and has been blamed for a tendency to turn even drama into fictionalized news accounts.

Nonetheless, since its inception, the CBC has produced not only news and public affairs, for which it has earned a well-deserved reputation, but also drama (CBC Playbill, On Camera, For The Record), variety (Don Messer's Jubilee, The Tommy Hunter Show, Rita and Friends), comedy (Wayne and Shuster, Kids in the Hall) , science (The Nature of Things), game shows (Front Page Challenge, Reach For The Top), weekly serials (RCMP, Wojeck, Street Legal), talk shows (Take 30, 90 Minutes Live), children's shows (The Friendly Giant, Chez Hélène, Fred Penner's Place), miniseries (The Whiteoaks of Jalna, Empire Inc.), arts programming (Adrienne Clarkson Presents), religious programming (Man Alive), cooking shows, do-it-yourself shows, numerous sports shows, and so on.

Four major aspects of CBC production stand out. The first is its stability. For example, whereas other North American broadcasters have abandoned variety and prime time game shows, the CBC continues to produce both. Additionally, many CBC shows have been in continual production for over 20 or 30 years. Both Front Page Challenge and The Nature of Things debuted in 1956 and are still in production. Comedians Wayne and Shuster performed on CBC television from 1952 until well into the 1980s. The nature/adventure drama The Beachcombers ran uninterruptedly for 18 years from 1972 to 1990. CBC production, then, runs on a longer cycle than American production largely because it is responsive to social and cultural imperatives rather than simply to commercial and economic imperatives.

The second aspect is its variety. The CBC clearly attempts to produce for a much broader range of audience tastes and interests than virtually any other North American broadcaster. As a result, its production slate is perhaps the most highly varied though not the most watched in North America.

The third aspect concerns the nature of in-house production. This practice effectively precluded the emergence of an independent production sector. The CBC felt no need to call upon outside resources since everything could be done in-house. Likewise, outside resources had few opportunities to break into the business since the CBC would not buy from them. As a result, the independent sector languished and CBC production, despite its abundance and variety, acquired a recognizable look. Independent producers were forced to depend upon private broadcasters who were financially weak and slow to develop. However, the 1983 requirement that the CBC purchase dramatic content from independent producers both altered the look and feel of CBC programming and greatly assisted the independent production sector.

The fourth aspect concerns the way in which CBC programs attempt to meet the requirements of the Broadcasting Act. Systematically, they appeal to varied and various audiences, cover topics of broad appeal and specialist interest, are set in various regions of the country, cover different types of interest, are overwhelmingly pro-social, and deal with recognizably Canadian characters and situations.

In this respect, the most typical CBC genre may be the nature/adventure drama of which outstanding examples include The Forest Rangers (1963-1966), Adventures in Rainbow Country (1970), The Beachcombers (1972-1990), Ritter's Cove (1979-1891), Danger Bay (1984-1990), and others. The genre is highly durable and usually features children or adolescents surrounded by caring adults in a nature or wilderness setting. Each week, a problem arises which the young people attempt to solve through their own resources and the help of authoritative others, typically parents, the local RCMP detachment, or a native person. Favourite animals may also figure prominently as companions.

The genre corresponds well to the objectives of the Broadcasting Act. By decentralizing production to non-urban locations, it shows Canada to Canadians and gives all regions a sense of representation. It also appeals to parents as non-violent programming with potentially educational benefits. Furthermore, the genre's lower costs coincide with the resources of Canadian producers. Finally, as the child audience is both very forgiving and constantly renewed, the same programs can be constantly reissued, thereby building up a profitable backlog of shows. For all of these reasons, independent producers have also shown a proclivity for this genre or elements of it.

The CBC's French-language network, SRC (Société Radio-Canada), shares certain of the above characteristics. Like the CBC, the SRC was until 1961 virtually the only French-language producer in Canada and, like the CBC, produced huge quantities of programs across an enormous range of categories. It was likewise bound by budgetary constraints due to the size of its market (approximately 6 million viewers concentrated mainly in Quebec) and by the Broadcasting Act. However, it evolved quite differently.

Television in Quebec was immediately embraced as a tool for shaping a cultural community. As a result, French-language productions enjoy a popularity and cultural status unimaginable for English-language productions. The very rapid development of an indigenous star system and advertising culture further reinforced their appeal. They therefore address a loyal and voracious audience and are less concerned with 'showing Canada to Canadians' than with representing and affirming their own culture. Hence, there is little crossover between French- and English-language productions.

The most popular and enduring genre of French-language TV is the téléroman. It is highly comparable to both the South American telenovela and the Australian soapie, and is a cross between American daytime soap opera, for production values, and prime time drama, for audience interest, cultural impact, and prestige. Téléromans are frequently written by leading authors or playwrights and may possess a cultural status similar to an important play or novel. They frequently broach topical issues or deal with significant historical and political themes though many are merely family sagas.

Private networks began to go to air in 1961. Their production activities, however, were much more limited than those of the CBC and tended to resemble the patterns of American TV. They typically produced news and sports but called upon outside producers to provide games shows (It's Your Move, The Mad Dash), the occasional sitcom (The Trouble With Tracy, Pardon My French, Snow Job), and some drama (The Littlest Hobo, The Starlost). They heavily supplemented their schedules with U.S. imports. On the French-language side, importation was more difficult and broadcasters soon became producers. Hence, the French-language TVA network became an important production company in its own right, duplicating much of SRC's output though with a heavier emphasis on the demotic and the inexpensive. Significantly, TVA has also come to rely on the téléroman, a genre pioneered by the public network.

The market represented by private networks, however, was sufficiently small that only very few independent production companies could co-exist. As a result, the private networks tended to draw heavily upon a very small number of independent producers thereby reproducing in the private sector a situation analogous to the public sector's use of in-house production.

This entire period is characterized, therefore, by the dominance of public networks, the prevalence of in-house production or its analogue, a relatively small number of private broadcasters relying on U.S. imports, and the absence of a syndication market. Beginning in the early 1980s, the situation changed.

Post-Telefilm

In 1983, the federal government established Telefilm Canada. Telefilm administers two funds, the Feature Film Fund (FFF) and the Canadian Broadcast Program Development Fund (CBPDF), each worth approximately C$60 million per year. This money is available for independent producers and Telefilm invests in all phases of production: scriptwriting and pre-production, production, post-production, dubbing, marketing, test-marketing, distribution.

To receive Telefilm funding, a project must be certified as 'Canadian' according to the 'points system' administered by CAVCO (the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office). In the first instance:

· the material must be produced by a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant
· its copyright must be owned by a Canadian citizen
· 75% of remuneration must be payable to Canadians
· 75% of aggregate costs for services must be payable to Canadians

Additionally, the content must obtain six points on the following scale:

· two points each for director and screenwriter
· one point each for highest paid actor
· one point each for second highest paid actor
· one point each for art director, music composer, picture editor, director of photography.

Private investors participating in certified projects may also receive tax benefits. Additionally, provincial governments have instituted parallel structures to support film and television production and to attract activity to their territory. To date, Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal have emerged as the centres of a vigourous independent film and television production industry.

Telefilm essentially provided a new source of funding for independent producers. However, it worked in conjunction with three other factors: the widening of the Canadian television industry, the emergence of a US syndication market for Canadian content, and the development of a system of international co-productions.

The television market was widened in several ways. First, in 1983 the CBC was ordered to acquire entertainment programming from outside sources. It did, and by 1990, 50% of its entertainment content came from independent producers. The CBC has therefore been transformed from a producer to a purchaser of programming, thereby creating opportunities for the independent production sector. Amongst the highly successful independent productions acquired by the CBC are the made-for-TV miniseries Ann of Green Gables (Sullivan Entertainment) which earned the highest ratings of any television show in Canada to that time (5.8 million viewers) and was subsequently turned into a weekly series, Road to Avonlea (Sullivan Entertainment), Kids in the Hall (Broadway Video), North of 60 (Alliance), Babar (Nelvana), Wimzie's House (Cinar), and numerous made-for-TV movies including the highly acclaimed The Boys of St. Vincent (Alliance).

Second, since 1982, the CRTC has licensed over 20 specialty and pay-TV channels. These channels not only require but also frequently demand highly specialized content, thereby requiring diversification within production companies or the emergence of parallel specialized producers. For example, the two music video channels, MuchMusic and MusiquePlus, obviously require musical content and a fund, VideoFax, has been set aside for the production of Canadian music videos. The sports channel requires news and information in addition to sports content. The movie channels require a certain number of Canadian movies. The Discovery Channel has an appetite for science and documentary. YTV, the youth channel, has likewise spawned shows aimed at its target audience. All of these channels also provide a second life to many older shows, thereby capitalizing the earlier investments of production companies.

Third, the CRTC has maintained its Canadian content quotas. These quotas effectively create a permanent domestic market for Canadian content. However, in order to avoid situations in which broadcasters program Canadian content in off-peak hours or fund only the cheapest types of content, the CRTC has also attached conditions to the licenses of virtually all the major broadcasters, whether they be over-the-air, cable networks, or independent television stations. The conditions vary from broadcaster to broadcaster but overall require that specified sums be spent on high profile content.

Fourth, U.S. cable networks have also emerged as a syndication market for Canadian content. Although they have insatiable appetites, they also tend to have smaller budgets than the major U.S. networks. As a result, they need content which is more affordable while still possessing acceptable production values. Consequently, they have turned to Canadian production companies and it is estimated that up to 30% of their original programming comes from Canadian producers.

The success of cable networks using Canadian content has convinced not only the major U.S. networks but also major U.S. production companies to begin investing in Canada where many American shows are now produced. As a result, CBS scheduled in 1994 the first non-American prime time series ever to air in the United States, Due South (Alliance). As well, Spelling Productions and Stephen J. Cannell productions have both set up shop in Vancouver. US shows produced in Canada currently include The X-Files, The Commish, Top Cops, and others.

Several conditions have, therefore, combined to transform the fortunes of Canadian production companies. On the one hand, new sources of funding have been created through the establishment of Telefilm Canada and tax deductions. Furthermore, the regulatory environment has contributed to Canadian production through the maintenance of content quotas, the attachment of conditions of license, and the CAVCO certification procedure. Finally, the market has expanded through the licensing of new channels and the emergence of a U.S. syndication market. Even the presence of American productions has created opportunities for Canadian producers by affording them high profile exposure which they might not otherwise obtain. Together, they have given Canadian production companies two things they never before possessed: a track record and a backlog of marketable product.

However, the Canadian television market remains too small and too fragile to support the current scale of Canadian production. Indeed, Atlantis Communications Inc. reported in January 1995 that fully 80% of its license fees came from outside Canada. Hence, access to the wider North American and international markets constitutes the key to continued viability for Canadian production companies. They are therefore driven to seek additional sources of funding through international partnerships and Canada has developed a highly elaborate system of "international co-productions".

Co-productions involve partners from Canada and another country contributing to the manufacture of a single film or television program. They occur within the framework of treaties signed by the governments of both countries and covering financial participation, mutual tax concessions, national treatment, creative control, and copyright. Canada has over 30 such treaties and is the world's leading co-producer.

The advantage of co-productions are higher production values, access to foreign markets, and opportunities for on-going business relations. Their disadvantages are that they also create opportunities for conflict over financial and creative control, can be nightmares to administer, and can result in culturally unspecific content. The success of co-productions in their various markets is, of course, extraordinarily variable but they have served the fundamental purposes of broadening the financial base of production companies and giving them international reach.

Structure of a Production Company

An examination of some of the leading companies reveals strategic differences and similarities.

Astral Communications Inc. of Montreal was founded in 1962 as a photographic store but incorporated under its current name in 1974. It owns over 100 photographic stores, distributes film, television, and video, and has a library of 2000 titles. For Astral, production refers to the physical process of handling raw material and distributing content rather than to the combination of ideas, money, and talent to form a television program. It provides video duplication, post-production, and dubbing services, and owns a motion picture laboratory in downtown Montreal. It also participates in production and has long-standing relationships with Walt Disney Co., Warner Brothers Inc., Columbia Pictures, Universal Studios, and Hearst Entertainment, as well as others. For example, Astral and Twentieth Century-Fox have together formed Fox Astral Television which develops and finances international co-productions and distributes NYPD Blue, The Simpsons, The American Music Awards, and others. Astral also controls seven Canadian specialty channels: The Movie Network, Viewer's Choice, Family Channel, SuperEcran, Canal Famille, Moviepix, and Arts et divertissement. Finally, it manufactures up to 32 million CDs per year for music, education, and video. Astral invests, manufactures, and distributes. Its strength, therefore, lies not in the content which it produces but in the distribution networks which it controls and in its ability to market across media. Finally, as with many Canadian production companies, Astral handles both film and television productions for both the English- and French-language markets.

Alliance Communications Corporation of Toronto was incorporated in 1985 and is involved in both film and television production and co-production. Although Astral is Canada's largest entertainment enterprise, Alliance is definitely its most successful and its president, Robert Lantos, is currently the most important producer in Canada. Alliance has broken itself down into separate operating units: Alliance Releasing which handles distribution, Alliance Productions, the production arm, Alliance International, which distributes to Europe, Latin American, Asia, and the Pacific Rim, and Alliance Equicap, its financial and brokerage arm. Alliance produced two "breakthrough" programs in the late 1980s, Night Heat, a police drama, and E.N.G., about the daily life of a television station. Not only did they sell internationally but they also achieved extremely good ratings in Canada, demonstrating that Canadian content could be popular (even in Canada) and that Canadian production companies used the highest production values. Alliance also landed the first regular prime time Canadian series on a U.S. network, Due South, and is currently developing several other projects. It also produced Mrs. Harris Goes to New York, To Save the Children, Woman on the Run, Family of Strangers, Counterstrike, Bordertown, Diamonds, and others. Alliance has heavily used the co-production treaty system in order to gain expertise and entry into various markets although it is tending increasingly towards purely private investment. Alliance's long-term strategy has been to invest in more modest projects budgeted at under $30 million and to finance only part of them. Alliance also owns 55% of The Showcase Network, a specialty cable channel which serves as an outlet for its catalogue. Like Astral, Alliance is involved in both film and television and produces and co-produces for both the English- and French-language markets.

Paragon Entertainment Corporation, though based in Toronto, has located its CEO and chairman, Jan Slan, in Los Angeles. Paragon's strategy is not to rely on the Canadian market but to produce for the North American and international markets. It wants to be in the right place at the right time and to be independent of Canadian financing. It sees itself as a production company on the international scene which just happens to be Canadian. It has been reasonably successful and has produced Forever Knight, Lamb Chop's Play-Along, Sherlock Holmes Returns, and Blood Brothers. The "Canadian" element of these programs lies in their financial and creative control rather than in their thematic or stylistic content.

Atlantis Communications Inc. of Toronto has a varied production slate including Lost in the Barrens, Ray Bradbury Theatre, Tekwar, The Twilight Zone, Maniac Mansion, Adrift, Journey into Darkness: The Bruce Curtis Story, Kurt Vonnegut's Monkey House, and Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad. Like many other production comapnies, Atlantis produces for both the film and TV markets. Atlantis also owns a cable channel, The Life Network, as well as 28% of YTV. It intends to launch a science-fiction channel in order to capitalize on its expertise and backlog in the genre and to acquire another permanent outlet for its production.

Nelvana Ltd. of Toronto has specialized in the traditional Canadian niches of animation and children's programming. Its recent productions include Babar, Tales From the Cryptkeeper, Cadillacs, Dinosaurs, and Tintin. Babar in particular yielded profitable marketing tie-ins (toys, posters, etc.).

Cinar Films of Montreal has likewise targeted children with Wimzie's House/La maison de Ouimzie, a program aimed at 4-year-olds from which it expects marketing tie-ins. It has also sold The Busy World of Richard Scarry, based on the popular children's book known around the world, and produced Are You Afraid of the Dark?, a horror/fantasy show for young people, for both Nickelodeon and YTV. Its has also produced the TV-movie Million Dollar Babies, about the Dionne quintuplets.

Independent producer Kevin Sullivan has enjoyed enormous success, first with the two-part miniseries Anne of Green Gables, then with the weekly series Road to Avonlea, which ran for seven seasons, and finally with his TV movie, Butterbox Babies. All three ranked amongst the highest rating Canadian television programs.

Interestingly, many independent production companies have attempted to locate at least some of their output in an area of traditional Canadian strength, the "family drama", which both incorporates and transforms elements of the nature/adventure genre. Like nature/adventure shows, family dramas usually involve children and families, though they possess few of the precocious or saccharine characteristics of U.S. sitcoms. They also systematically eschew violence in favour of cleverness or circumstance and foreground pro-social values. However, unlike nature/adventure shows, they freely mix humour with drama, often fail to end happily, and jettison the requirement for wilderness settings and animals in favour of urban and frequently highly ironic plot lines.

The most celebrated example is probably The Kids of Degrassi Street (Playing with Time Productions) which spawned both Degrassi Jr. High and Degrassi High. Like nature/adventure shows, the Degrassi series is aimed squarely at a family audience, features young people, and involves weekly dilemmas, but these are now cast in an urban setting with frequently unforeseen results and are neither clearly drama nor comedy. Mom P.I. (Atlantis) involves a mother whose job as a waitress forces her to moonlight as a detective; My Secret Identity (Sunrise Films) concerns a teenage boy with super powers; Max Glick (Glick Productions Inc.) follows the early-1960s adventures of the young title character; etc.

Astral has been a publicly traded company since 1974, however, Alliance, Paragon, Atlantis, and Cinar all went public in 1993. Another factor which most of these companies have in common is their effort to acquire existing film libraries to feed their distribution channels. Finally, virtually all of them have major deals underway with U.S. networks and all of them maintain offices around the world.

Canadian production companies are, therefore, relatively recent phenomena. They produce for both film and television. They increasingly attempt to control distribution outlets thereby tending to make them integrated production/distribution houses on the CBC model. They increasingly attempt to acquire film libraries to feed their distribution networks and to market internationally alongside their own material. They rely heavily upon international markets although they rely less and less upon public money. Their content is frequently "Canadian" from the point of view of creative and financial control rather than from the perspective of tehmatic and stylistic content.

-Paul Atallah

FURTHER READING

Ayscough, Susan. "The Experiment that Spawned an Industry (Telefilm Canada at 25)." Variety (Los Angeles, California): November 16, 1992.

"Canada's Who's Who in Film and TV (Canadian Entertainment Review)." Variety (Los Angeles, California): November 22, 1989.

Eisner, Ken. "B.C. to Prairies: Film Biz Boom." Variety (Los Angeles, California): April 24, 1995.

Kelly, Brendan. "Facing Up to the Future: Canadians View Expo as Great Meeting Place." Variety (Los Angeles, California): January 16, 1995.

___________. "Focus Sharpens on Production (Special Report: Canada)." Variety (Los Angeles, California): November 22, 1993.

____________. "Light Turns Green in Canada (MIP-TV Market)." Variety (Los Angeles, California): April 11, 1994.

___________. "More Homegrown Up There (Canadian Motion Picture and Television Production Companies)." Variety (Los Angeles, California): April 24, 1995.

____________. "The Year of Maturity: TV Biz Leads Growth as Firms Go Public and International (Special Report: Canada)." Variety (Los Angeles, California): November 22, 1993.

Lorimer, Rowland M. and Donald C. Wilson (eds.) Communication Canada: Issues in Broadcasting and New Technologies. Toronto, Canada: Kagan and Woo, 1988.

Magder, Tec. Canada's Hollywood: The Canadian State and Feature Films. Toronto, Canada: University of Torono Press, 1993.

Murray, Karen. "Local Fare Finds Hungrier Palates South of the Border." Variety (Los Angeles, California): November 16, 1992.

_______. "Paragon Slate Sees Yank Nets Head North." Variety (Los Angeles, California): March 16, 1992.

Pendakur, Manjunath. Canadian Dreams and American Control: The Political Economy of the Canadian Film Industry. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1990.

Rainsberry, F.B. A History of Children's Television in English Canada, 1952-1986. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1988.