Is 8/10 Really The End of The World?

SO ON Friday, The CRTC released recommendations on how to change the administration of the CTF.

You may or not recall that this process was triggered by a cabler's tantrum earlier this year.

The main recommendations:

• Qualifying Canadian programming would be broadcast in prime time, would meet
a minimum of 8/10 Canadian content points on the Canadian Audio-Visual
Certification Office of the Department of Canadian Heritage (CAVCO) scale, and
would continue to fall within the CTF’s traditional genres of drama, children’s
and youth, documentary and variety/performing arts programming;

• Audience success would be the primary criteria for continued funding;

• Actual and potential return on investment would be a factor in allocating funding
and taking into account the different realities of English and French markets.

To my eyes, the recommendations looked somewhat unremarkable, except, of course, for the one that suggested that Producers lose their seat on the CTF board. Because they benefit, and are therefore in a conflict of interest. That's hilarious because, of course, that's exactly the argument the producers used against the Writers getting a seat on the same board. What goes around...

The WGC and ACTRA both didn't like the new recommendations much. From Playback's reportage:

Actors took aim at the CRTC's recommendations for the Canadian Television Fund on Tuesday, warning that the proposed changes to the embattled fund could lead to fewer key jobs for Canadians.

The CRTC's recommendations, released on Friday, include lowering the minimum CAVCO requirement for eligible primetime content to 8 out of 10 points, down from 10 out of 10.

According to ACTRA national president Richard Hardacre, this "would permit CTF-funded productions to be made without a Canadian in the key roles of a director, or a writer, or a lead performer." Under the current regulations, all three must be Canadian.

The WGC, natch, took a different tack and made (to my mind) a better point:

“Why are we perpetuating this myth that Canadians can’t make TV shows that we want to
watch, about the country we live in. According to Jim Shaw and our regulators, Canadian
talent and market success is inherently incompatible”, said Maureen Parker, executive
director of the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC).

Shows created by Canadians for Canadians draw great audience numbers when promoted
and financed – i.e. “Corner Gas”, “Little Mosque on the Prairie”, “Degrassi: Next
Generation”, “Rick Mercer Report”, “Trailer Park Boys”, our TV movies like: “One Dead
Indian” and “The Man Who Lost Himself.” When shows aren’t fully developed, have cheap
production values, aren’t promoted and are scheduled on Saturday evenings, they won’t
draw an audience. “But what the CRTC fails to understand is that Canadian screenwriters
can’t be held accountable for poor broadcasting decisions. Why is it that on our nation’s
birthday our regulators are reinforcing the negative stereotype that Canadians aren’t good
enough?” said Parker.

That is a larger question, though. We need to first hammer home: when we make good shows, people do watch. People don't want to watch bad shows that are badly promoted and buried.

But...that's another topic for another time.

Here's the part where I get myself in trouble.

Once upon a time, there were a lot of shows made here that were 6/10 productions (by the CAVCO definitions.) What we're arguing about here now is the rump of what's left because most of those 6/10 productions (Canadian in name only, with no meaningful Canadian participation at the top creative rungs) dried up; the market didn't want them anymore. So goodbye Relic Hunter, Earth: Final Conflict et al.

The thing is, when all that was going on, the people who got thrown over the rails first were always the writers.

Writing rooms would be in L.A. These nominally 'Canadian' shows did nothing to help the careers of up and comers here.

But Actors got work. And Directors would get work too. So they did fine. It was writers who got hung out to dry.

Now, suddenly, the 10/10 shows are the only games really in town. If you don't live in Vancouver under the UBCP agreement, you're probably not getting too many guest shots on American series.

So, yeah, we have noisy ACTRA protests complaining about the changes to the rules.

I've gotten a bit of a different perspective on this process since I started getting involved with casting last year. And that experience has made me sympathetic to a number of the Producers' positons. If you're going to have to sell your stuff abroad, you might well need a name to help you do that. There are very few Canadian names, and they're already working all the time.

What I've heard from people who are going through this right now is something a little surprising, and it's this:

It's hard to find good leads.

Lead actors are a different beast. They just are. When you think of the U.S. system, with all their many, exponentially larger acting market, it's still hard to find a good lead. The dirty little secret of our talent pool here is this: there are plenty of good actors in Canada. But LEAD actors -- the ones who are smart enough, pretty enough, charismatic (in that incandescent 'star' way, not in that 'character actor' way) and capable of carrying a series on their shoulders are in very short supply because if they are that good, they do go to the USA. We are also thin on the ground in other areas of talent. It's hard to find good, trained Arab actors. Asian actors (outside of Vancouver) can sometimes be difficult. There are others, too.

(And I know that the same argument was made about black actors in Canada years ago, and there was a concerted effort to improve that, and now Canada has a pool of great black actors. I know that. I'm not saying this is an absolute slam dunk argument...just one to be raised.)

But let's get back to leads.

Lead actors -- smart, star quality, good chops -- tend to have agents in the USA. And try telling that US agent that you're missing Pilot Season for a lead in a Canadian series that only shoots 13 episodes, has no back end, won't put you on option, and oh...you're only making scale. Or close to scale.

I know people going through this right now; tearing their hair out because they can't find a lead. And I know series that have had to cast Canadian because they can't afford to make their budget work if they're not 10/10 -- so they violate the one rule you're never supposed to violate: they cast someone that isn't the best actor for the role. And then they can't sell their show. It's ... ugh.

And yes, maybe casting agents here could try harder, but ACTRA isn't looking to discover new stars either; they're looking to get their current members work. That's their job. All this messianic stuff about 'telling our own stories...' let's sidebar that a moment and focus on the practical.

What I know is this: if the hardest thing to do is find a lead actor, and suddenly you can not do that...well...who are they likely to trade away? The writer? Or that Canadian lead?

We haven't been one big happy family before now. In good times, the actors weren't exactly standing by the writers. I think my script's probably as good as any. With 8/10, sure, maybe the actor will be American and maybe they'll go with a Yankee writer too...

...or maybe I'll be able to set up my script with an American producer and an American actor and shoot here with all the advantages...and it'll still be Canadian.

What goes around comes around, hmm?

-CODA-

Such is the Stockholm Syndrome of working in this industry that I bury the most important point in all this:

Rating, deciding, and allocating money to creative works based on an actuarial "points" system is inherently focacta.