As much as Canadian television is improving, thanks to innovative programming like Flashpoint, Being Erica and the now-defunct Corner Gas, our prime-time schedules continue to be rounded out with foreign programming – more specifically, U.S. series – while our homegrown content shrinks.
Recent findings from the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) reveal Canadian broadcasters spent a record high of $846.3 million (or 59 per cent of their programming expenditures) on international, mostly American, TV shows in the year ended Aug. 31, 2009, says The Hollywood Reporter.
This represents a whopping 9.2 per cent jump on the $775.2 million spent in 2008.
The CRTC also says private broadcasters spent less on Canadian content last year, just $599.4 million, which is down three per cent on the $619 million invested in local television in 2008.
Although this news is to be expected given our insatiable appetite for glossy American programming, it’s somewhat surprising that poor advertising revenue didn’t play more of a role in the networks’ decisions to spend on expensive U.S. series.
In addition, broadcasters are clamouring for domestic cable and satellite TV providers to pay retransmission fees to help make up for their continuing TV losses.
CTV even threatened to force domestic cable companies to remove popular American shows they hold the Canadian rights to if they aren’t able to negotiate first-time carriage fees from content carriers.
Overall, conventional broadcasters lost $116.4 million before interest and taxes last year, compared to a profit of $8 million before interest and taxes in 2008.
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