The Annotated Globe & Mail

SUBMITTED FOR YOUR dining and dancing pleasure, a Gayle MacDonald article in the Globe & Mail today about those two new Canadian dramas upcoming from CTV: Flashpoint, and The Listener.

The article starts with a provocative title:

Are U.S. networks messing with our shows?

And then tries to meticulously answer in the negative, by quoting the Executive Producers of both shows.

But no sooner had the ink dried on the licence agreements, when many in the close-knit production industry began to twitter that creative friction between the various factions would be inevitable. With so many cooks in the kitchen, Shaftesbury's Christina Jennings, Pink Sky's Anne Marie La Traverse and Avamar's Bill Mustos, admit that they, too, worried it would get tricky keeping all the parties - in this ego-ridden business - happy.

"Sure it feels like we need to be in three places at the same time, 24 hours a day," says Mustos, CTV's former head of dramatic programming. "And there's no question it's more complicated than when you're just doing a show for a Canadian network. But I have to say it's been surprisingly smooth to date. And I believe that's because Anne Marie and I have a very clear vision of the show, which we sold to CTV first and, within a matter of weeks, to CBS.

At Shaftesbury, Jennings agrees that while she clears everything with CTV (first) and NBC (second), the Americans haven't been pushy.

"Shaftesbury sold the series to NBC and to CTV. In this model, we're considered the studio. CTV put up the lion's share of the money, and NBC and Shaftesbury are bringing in the rest. ... We sit in the middle.

You may wonder why this article's bubbling up now. Some of it probably has to do with rumblings going around the industry that, is it proper that a show that's funded partially by Canadian Taxpayer Money through the CTF, is in effect, subsidizing American network development? (Jennings above may be engaged in a little spin. As far as I understand it, the biggest contributor to the license fee is neither network: it's you and me, through the cable fees we pay to the CTF (the same ones Jim Shaw wants to take away) and Tax Credits. (Now we're back to C10. See how Canadian TV financing makes your head hurt?)

The important thing is that the voices in the article vigorously say no: CTV is the network calling the shorts first and foremost.

Good to hear.

While the working relationships may so far be amiable, Jennings, Mustos and La Traverse all readily admit that they feel pressure, on a daily basis, to make sure The Listener and Flashpoint perform well in the United States, the world's toughest TV market. Not to mention, the most fickle and cutthroat.

"A lot is riding on this," Jennings says. "But if we succeed in the States, the door will be open to more Canadian producers to pitch their shows there.

That's for sure. It's why every creative in this country, no matter where you sit and what you do, has a stake in these shows doing well. And why we're worried when we hear things about what's going on behind the scenes. Which is why articles like this are probably smart. Tamp down the worry. You can't tamp down the expectations -- they're already too high.

But like a lot of articles in the mainstream press, what's most interesting in this article isn't necessarily what's said, but what isn't. And it's not necessarily who they talk to, but who they don't.

In the United States, they just got through a very painful Writers' Strike. In the years leading up to that strike, one of the things that a lot of the American Networks were pushing was for more control. One of the ways they got this more control was to hand out POD deals -- these were development deals that, essentially, went to Producers, not writers. If you read Jeffrey Stepakoff's book about his rise in the business (and the road from the 1988 to the 2008 WGA strikes) you can judge for yourself as to whether that was better for TV or not.

Also, hearkening back to the recent WGA strike, one of the things that infuriated the Networks most, and that arguably hurt them the most, was that the Showrunners -- the powerful hyphenate writer-producers who form the backbone of the TV industry, and who shape and oversee every creative aspect of the shows -- stood with their staffs and refused to complete and shoot episodes (exercising their "producer" duties) while their brothers and sisters were out on the line.

All of the quoted Producers in the Globe and Mail article are non-writing producers. In fact, both The Listener and Flashpoint are staffed in a very, very different way from American TV shows. They don't use the Showrunner model. The person with final say is not a writer.

Now, this is a different way of doing television. And it may result in just as good a product. But it is different. And it is exactly the model that Canadian Television has been using for years -- the model that has slowly been changing over the last couple of years.

The model that is not in place on, say, shows such as Intelligence, The Border, Corner Gas, Robson Arms, and Trailer Park Boys. Those shows all have powerful producers -- but they also have writers in either a primary or an equal power position. (Ie: they don't use "head writers" and the writers are not just hired guns.)

These shows on which so much is riding for everyone -- Producers, Directors, Writers, Actors, and Crew, are being made under one model -- and it just happens to be the model that has resulted in less successful Canadian shows.

The CBC's development team, interestingly, took a turn a couple years back when the regime changed, and are now insisting that their shows have a strong showrunner. Some since have had writer-producers in charge, and some have had the traditional Canadian model -- Producers in charge (usually who cut their teeth as "service" producers on American product shooting here, or who may have come up through line producing) with a revolving door of writers. Anecdotally speaking -- the shows made the first way have continued on. The shows made the second way haven't.

Again, I want to stress how much I would love both these shows to be big fat incandescent smash hits. And maybe the Producers of these two shows are so strong of character and skilled at speaking the U.S. Network language that we'll all be thrilled and surprised when their shows debut to huge plaudits and millions of eyeballs. That will be a GREAT day for our industry, and I'll be the first one lining up to get Producing tips from them. I really mean that. Success makes its own rules. A rising tide floats all boats.

But there's one more thing that's missing from the article in the Globe today:

Michael Amo. Stephanie Morgenstern. Mark Ellis.

Those are the names of the people who created the two shows. Michael Amo, apparently, is no longer with The Listener. In the case of Flashpoint, I admit a bit of a personal bias -- I've been friends with Mark and Stephanie for a long, long time. They've been working on various incarnations of Flashpoint for about five years now.

In the last month, the Globe has run two articles that talked about Flashpoint. They even talked to some of the Flashpoint writers -- but they didn't talk to the two people who actually created the show.

These shows are about more than their U.S. sales. They also are part of a dialogue that's not being had in the open, but in the subtext all around the corners of the industry: How do you organize and produce a quality show? What are the ingredients, and in what proportions? Who has the final say?

Like I said, sometimes what's not in an article is as important as what is in it.