AMPIA participated on Monday in the current hearings by the CRTC into the future of Canadian television. AMPIA's Interim Executive Director, Jane Bisbee, made the following presentation during a panel that included representatives from On Screen Manitoba and the Saskatchewan Motion Picture Industries Association.

Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association - Presentation to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunication Commission - November 23rd, 2009 

Presenter – Jane Bisbee, Interim Executive Director, AMPIA

We appreciate this opportunity to be part of a seminal, national discussion that may determine how Canadians see themselves, their communities, and their country in the world for years to come.

Most importantly, given the organization I represent here today, we appreciate the opportunity to focus your attention in this discussion to the point of view of Canadians far outside the centre of this country.

Our place in the country

As you may know, the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association represents over three thousand Albertans involved in all aspects of the screen-based content creation industry.  The organization strives to foster an environment where Albertans can create content reflecting our point of view to our fellow citizens, to the rest of Canada and the world.

From our perspective, there are three key issues that determine the creation of content for screen platforms and that govern producers who live and work in a ‘region’.

First, we must continue to create programming that viewers want to watch by employing the very best in creative and technical excellence.  Without good programs, we will not attract an audience, and we certainly will not have a business model that will sustain an industry.

Many of the programs made in the regions speak to important national and international issues, and do it in a voice that is uniquely our own. A good example is this year’s Gemini winner for Best Dramatic Mini Series -- Burn Up, produced by Calgary’s Seven24, along with their international co-producing partners from around the world. We know we can make good programming. The question is – how do you earn sufficient revenue from that programming so you can keep doing it, and so that such regional, national and international stories are supported, not suppressed.

Secondly, we must create programming that also speaks about, and to, fellow Albertans and Canadians. Because if we don’t tell our own stories, nobody will.  If we fail to do so, Albertans will be shut out of the new digital communication arteries that now are the lifeblood of our world, leaving us with no voice or place in the digital age.

Thirdly, we must ensure that a strong regional independent production sector owns the rights to the programs we create.  Through exploiting the rights to those programs, we can create a sustainable business model for independent companies, thereby ensuring a continued supply of innovative and relevant content from all regions of Canada.

Local Programming Improvement Fund  

There has been much discussion about the value of local news, and the use of the Local Programming Improvement Fund. As Albertans, we are very aware of the negative effect on a community when a local voice disappears. We just have to look at the example of Red Deer, where the impact of the closure of the local broadcaster is now being felt.

AMPIA understands completely the importance of local news.  But a community’s quality of life, identity and cultural expression also includes performing arts, local history, current affairs that can be hard to present within ‘local news shows’. We therefore appreciate the CRTC’s recent move to include local broadcaster commissions from independent producers within the LPIF regulations, and will work with our small market outlets towards creating content that speaks to these communities.

We will also be monitoring the annual report of the LPIF to track whether our members have benefited from this move.  Hopefully, we will see reinvigorated regional programming feeding into the national broadcast schedule.  By expanding the use of the LPIF beyond the news, the CRTC has taken an important step that should encourage the diversity of cultural voices in the regions, and ultimately, across Canada.

But equally necessary is a commitment from broadcasters that such regional programming find an appropriate place in the programming schedule and will be properly promoted once it is there.

Benefits  

The closure of CHCA in Red Deer has also highlighted another on-going concern for Alberta’s production community.  With the disappearance of CHCA, Alberta’s producers lost the Canwest Alberta Fund, and as a result, the benefits designated by the CRTC for that licence. Producers have not yet fully realized benefits promised through licences granted or changing hands between A Channel, CHUM, Rogers, Superchannel, and CTS.  All of these broadcasters sought our support for their licensing applications, only to fall short in fully meeting their commitments in a timely manner. 

We would submit that it may be time for the Commission to consider a more active role in ensuring that these benefits are actually expended for the development and acquisition of programming from the independent production industry in a timely and transparent manner.  Perhaps a trust model could help ensure that the opportunities represented by these benefit commitments are not lost.

Producers from all parts of Canada  

As stated by the President and CEO of CTVglobemedia, "Our country is so broad that a collection of voices from one central place cannot speak for all Canadians."  We could not agree more.  We also agree with the CFTPA’s submission to this Commission that "ensuring high levels of independent production is not the best, but likely the only way of ensuring a diversity of voices and programming choices for Canadians." As AMPIA expressed in our last presentation before you, reducing programming in the regions and from the regions in favour of more centralized decision and production approach would be like eliminating hundreds of ‘independent development’ offices across Canada.

We support the CFTPA’s recommendation that at least 75 percent of priority programming, in terms of hours and expenditures, be produced by independent producers. We would recommend that the Commission ensure this programming requirement include the need to engage independent producers from all regions of Canada. As noted in the CFTPA submission, the use of independent producers from the far reaches of this country will best ensure that we meet the objective of the Broadcasting Act to reflect the diversity of Canadian life.

What this exercise is ultimately about is finding a business model for a truly national broadcast system that works.  We believe a key part of that success is a system that reflects this country from coast to coast to coast, through rich and diverse programming from across the country, produced by independent producers such as the members of the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association.