by Craig Colby
In 1976, Global Television took a chance on a series created by a Toronto sketch comedy troupe. After two seasons on the Toronto based broadcaster, Edmonton’s CITV picked up the third season. Then something unusual happened. NBC in the United States commissioned seasons 4 and 5. That show was SCTV. The careers of John Candy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Catharine O’Hara were launched because in 1972 the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRC) decided that Canadian culture, values and sensibilities should be reflected on our television screens.
The CRC created a simple system. Broadcasters had to invest a certain amount of revenue in Canadian production and air a certain amount of Canadian programming, across the schedule and in prime time. Government money was also included as grants and tax credits.
By Golly, It Works!
Guess what? The system worked! Broadcasters made money, producers made shows, people in all aspects of production were able to have fulfilling careers, make a decent wage, have families and buy homes. A lot of programs were made, not necessarily about Canada, but by Canadians with a Canadian perspective. A lot of good ones.
Since the CRC made their rules, the TV world has changed. The CRC changed to the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission). Signal carriers Bell, Rogers and Shaw bought up almost all the channels. Streaming services like Netflix brought programming to Canada.
The CRTC needed to update some rules to reflect this new reality. So, they did.
Really?
The new rules didn’t call for streamers like Netflix to contribute part of the revenue they derived from Canadian audiences to Canadian production. They didn’t ask them to provide a minimum amount of Canadian production on the services. Instead, they rolled back the amount of Canadian content required of Canadian broadcasters, and the amount of revenue they needed to set aside for production as well. This allowed broadcasters to make fewer, but more expensive shows.
The CRTC didn’t just change the rules. They changed the idea.
In a speech to the Canadian Club on March 12, 2015 CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais explained the new policy, a shift from quantity to quality. One line from Blais’s speech stands out to me:
“[The new rules create] an environment where Canadians want to watch content made by our creators – not because it is forced upon them, but because it is good. Indeed, because it is great.”
Blais’s speech displays a profound ignorance of television production, and the creative process itself.
This new idea bungles the relationship between quantity and quality. The book Art & Fear relates the story of a ceramics teacher who divided the class into two groups. One group would make as many pieces of ceramic art as possible. They would be marked on the weight of their creations. The other would make one top-notch piece and be marked on its quality. At the end of the class the best pieces came from the group that made the highest quantity. The people who created a lot of ceramics, made mistakes, learned from them, and moved on to make another. The other group agonized over one single piece and missed out on chances to develop their skills.
One Roll of the Dice
Pooling a lot of money to create one expensive, perfect gem doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to be good or that people will watch it. After the new rules went into effect, CTV partnered with Netflix on a historical drama set in the Canadian fur trade called Frontier starring Hollywood star Jason Momoa. I can’t speak to the quality of the series because I didn’t watch it. Chances are neither did you. The show lasted 18 episodes. Not a hit. Spending all your money on just one show to make a hit is like thinking that sitting down at a roulette table and putting all your chips on 7 will make you rich.
You know what was a hit? How It’s Made - a dirt-cheap show about manufacturing. In the hey-day of greenlighting shows It barely got commissioned, even at a rock bottom price. How It’s Made is seen in prime time around the world and, according to IMDB, it’s in season 32. I can’t praise this massive hit show enough. This hit came out of a system that produced quantity.
Quantity is Awesome
Quantity has other huge benefits too. Here's an example from my career. When Discovery Channel launched in Canada in 1995, one of its signature shows was a daily, one-hour science news program called @discovery.ca, later renamed Daily Planet. I was one of four daily producers hired to create the bulk of the content. The program was a quantity machine. We had to fill an hour a day, with a modest staff and meagre budget. Because of this, producers had to find, research, co-ordinate, direct, and write their own items. Some of the best creators in the business came out of Daily Planet, people working on Hollywood programs and international co-productions. The show produced producers. Building a skill set like that doesn’t happen on a giant production which relies on silos of expertise.
It was also a damn good show. At the Gemini Awards in 1997, @discovery.ca was nominated for Best Information Series, just a few years after launching. It finally won the award in 2017, the year before it was cancelled, three years into Blais’s new idea. Shows like this won’t be made in the new system. Fewer shows mean fewer opportunities for growth. How are we supposed to develop quality creatives now?
Even Genius Needs Opportunity
Finally, the idea that money, talent and time will give you a high quality hit all the time is ludicrous. Creativity doesn’t work that way. Gioachino Rossini is one of the greatest opera composers of all time. His Barber of Seville is a timeless classic known even to people who hate opera. Rossini created this masterpiece in less than three weeks as a side hustle from his regular job as the musical director for two opera companies, each of whom he owed a new opera every year. Rossini was so rushed, he had to lift the Barber of Seville’s iconic overture from another one of his operas to make his deadline. What else did he compose around that time? Torvaldo e Dorliska and La Gazzetta. I haven’t heard of them either and I’ve had season’s tickets to the opera for more than 20 years. Even the best aren’t the best every time. They need an opportunity to work. Greatest Hits albums exist for a reason.
The CRTC’s new idea tried to solve problems that didn’t exist. Not enough money for premium productions? Not a problem. Canadians partnered on international co-productions. At a conference I attended in Europe, a British broadcaster mentioned Canadians among the best producers of factual content in the world because, despite our modest population, our system allowed us to punch above our weight.
No hits? Tell that to The Property Brothers, Survivorman, and Degrassi Junior High! Tell that to Bob and Doug McKenzie! Canada’s most recent success, Schitt’s Creek, was commissioned by the last place still working under the old idea, the public broadcaster, CBC.
The bottom line is this - the best route to quality is quantity.
Paying the Price
The flawed quality over quantity idea gutted Canadian visual storytelling. Broadcasters now commission far fewer shows. Most Canadian producers I know are making shows for American broadcasters. One American broadcaster, a prestige brand, told me just last week that their audience is the middle of the country. Don’t pitch anything too coastal. Does our Canadian identity dovetail with red state America?
It’s also costing a lot of jobs, hundreds at Bell in the last month. Selfishly, this breaks my heart and scares the hell out of me.
However, we’re losing more than just jobs. We’re losing more than just programs. We’re losing opportunities to express the Canadian identity. This should concern everyone.
The system needs to change again, starting with the idea. We need to make shows that embody our culture, and anyone making money off Canadian viewers needs to be part of that. We need a system that encourages development of talent. We need to make more ceramics.
Anyone who makes decisions about Canadian visual storytelling needs to understand that. Anyone who doesn’t should take off, eh.
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Contact the author at craig@colbyvision.net for consulting, training, writing or production.
Craig Colby is a television executive producer, producer, director, writer and story editor. He runs a storytelling consulting and production service for businesses.