Brands are increasingly shifting their ad spend from broadcast to digital platforms because a) more detailed measurement is available from those platforms than from broadcast and b) because audiences are increasingly shifting their viewing to digital platforms, many of which either allow the audience to skip ads (PVR) or strip the ads out (Netflix, Shomi and CraveTV).

So what to do to capture those online eyeballs?  For a few years now brands have been experimenting with branded entertainment or branded content.  Content can be any non-ad content created around a brand, such as a recipe or web series, while entertainment is specifically scripted content like that web series.  TV people, particularly web series producers, have in turn dabbled with financing from brands resulting in a few crossovers such as the web series “Carmilla” funded by Kotex and produced by Shift2, a division of Shaftesbury.  Many more are contemplating this funding model.

Recently I attended the BCon Expo conference put on by Brunico to bring together brands, agencies and creative to discuss best practices in branded content, to get a better idea of what was going on in this branded content world.  It was eye-opening to watch marketers discover concepts of storytelling that have been known to any form of media content creator since well, forever.   Examples:

• If the characters are relatable, the audience will watch
• Begin strong
• Have a fresh concept
• Get good at content creation and then optimize the platform (or in other words, adapt the content to the platform)

It seems to me that the advertising industry needs to talk more to people in the television and digital media content industries instead of trying to invent the wheel all over again.

The conference did present an example of that kind of collaboration. Shift2 talked about their latest web series employing what I think of as the “Carmilla” model.  Shift2 convinced the Royal Bank of Canada that a web series was the best way to reach millennials and created the 20 episode web series “V Morgan is Dead”.  Similar to “Carmilla”, “V Morgan” is first a drama series aimed at engaging its audience rather than selling to them.  The sales pitch is delivered with branded extensions on other platforms.  RBC conducted research which demonstrated to them that the strategy worked by driving traffic to RBC sites and increasing brand awareness within the audience.  Unlike “Carmilla” though, which has been renewed twice, RBC has not yet decided if it was successful enough of an experiment to warrant a renewal and a second season.

It is not yet clear whether this model is limited to the millennial demographic or can perhaps be replicated in the kids market or even older adults.  Over lunch brand marketers who I talked to were definitely interested in exploring the model but questioned whether branded entertainment could drive purchase decisions as well as increase brand awareness.

This kind of cross-pollination is of concern though to the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office (“CAVCO”), which has been seeing a trend of more and more branded content on broadcast television.  When does a sponsored television show stop becoming entertainment and instead is advertising, and therefore ineligible for tax credits?  CAVCO has launched a public consultation for assistance with guidelines to ease the process and review for both CAVCO and producers.  In another consultation they are also exploring whether online distribution of linear productions can be a trigger for tax credits (currently a production must be licensed by a broadcaster or theatrical distributor), which would open up web series to the question of entertainment or advertising, in at least certain circumstances.

I’ve been to a lot of Prime Time in Ottawa conferences and frequently the hard road that is Canadian media causes a lot of pessimism, particularly when you put a lot of hard-working producers in a room.  There was definitely some of that but there were some stand out speeches and panels that caused vibrations of optimism throughout the two days.

Last summer the CMPA appointed Reynolds Mastin as its new CEO after Michael Hennessy retired.  There are few people as well liked as Reynolds in this industry but his opening speech made fans of even the casual observer. Reynolds made it clear what kind of a CEO he is going to be and where he wants to take the CMPA.  He fixed the name.  It was Canadian Media Production Association but everyone constantly incorrectly called it Canadian Media Producers Association – and that’s what it now is.  Then he came out swinging on two major issues.  He called for the CRTC to compel Netflix to provide data (which they refused to do at the Talk TV hearing) so that good public policy can be made to ensure the choice of Canadian content on OTT platforms.  He called for a full public hearing on the Shaw-Corus merger to ensure that the public gets the best deal possible.  Reynolds made it clear that his job is to represent his members, even if that means upsetting a few sponsors.  I strongly encourage you to watch the speech on their YouTube channel:

That speech got people excited, which was the best way to start a conference.  There were mixed reviews to the opening keynote from John Penney, Chief Strategy Officer at US broadcaster Starz.  These sorts of forecasting speeches can be difficult.  Those in the room who are on top of developments in the media industry find it old hat while those who spend less time thinking of these things are excited and inspired.  Penney’s message was that the future was going to lead to mass personalization (everyone getting their own content stream based on their preferences) and the challenge was to figure out how to monetize that.  For some reason broadcasters seem to prefer this push of content, perhaps because they think they can control it, but I object to anything that prevents me from browsing for content. I’m looking for curation, and guidance but not lack of control.  Maybe that’s just me.

The next panel threatened to totally undermine not only excitement but any optimism about the future.  The annual Media Leaders panel featured Heather Conway from CBC, Barb Williams from Shaw, Steve Denure from DHX and Tracey Pearce from Bell.  I don’t know what was going on with Heather Conway but the phrase most tweeted about what she had to say was ‘doom and gloom’.  Content prices are getting crushed, consumer prices for tv services will all go up with pick and pay, there is no original content on OTT services, we don’t know how lucky we have it now . . . It was hard to hear our public broadcaster be so negative.  It was a relief to hear Steve Denure’s unbridled optimism for the financial opportunities that exist with digital platforms from creating low cost content for YouTube to getting another season for Degrassi from Netflix after Nickelodeon cancelled it.  Shaw and Bell were somewhere in the middle – cautiously optimistic.

It led me to think about last year’s media panel where the most optimistic person was Michael MacMillan from Blue Ant Media.  There are parallels here.  Both Michael and Steve have been around this business a long time.  They head small multiplatform media companies that create, broadcast and distribute.  They are smart enough and nimble enough to see the opportunities where they are and move there.  I hope Bell, Shaw and particularly CBC are paying attention.

The rest of the day was hit and miss.  I can only comment on the breakouts that I attended but they were definitely uneven.  I was surprised by the Discoverability panel because most of the panelists seem to have a different definition than I did (and those I talked to).  As Kevin Wright tweeted, “Is Discoverability the digital word for marketing?”  Most of the panelists talked as if discoverability was about selling their content to the audience.  Only Janet Brown of FilmBuff, a U.S. digital platform for indie film, talked about discoverability being finding ways to get the audience to discover something that they didn’t know they wanted to watch.  It’s a difference between pushing your content or empowering the audience to pull it.  It will be interesting to see which definition the CRTC will be focused on in their Discoverability Summit.

I found the Business Plan workshop useful as well as a great opportunity for two companies to get expert advice on their business plan development.  Though the companies were an aboriginal cinema business (Bandwidth – great name) and an interactive digital media company (Relish Interactive), the advice given transcended the kind of business and was applicable to whatever kind of company you may be trying to grow.   It’s also good to deal with specifics for an hour in the middle of a day of big picture thinking.

I cannot refer to big picture thinking without mentioning the other highlight of the day, Minister of Heritage Mélanie Joly in conversation with Reynolds Mastin.  What a delight.  If you keep in mind the Heritage Ministers of the last ten years (Bev Oda, Josée Verner, James Moore and Shelly Glover) you will have a better understanding of why Joly was treated like a rock star by the room.  First, she showed up voluntarily for the opening cocktails the night before and even made an appearance at the William F. White’s post-cocktails party.  In her chat (and it was a chat not a written speech given to the Parliamentary Secretary to present at the last minute) she came across as smart, charming, funny and invested in the arts and culture sector.  She promised to revamp the policy framework to take into consideration the digital shift (which has been needed for years!), announced the signing of a revised Canada-Ireland co-production treaty and talked about not only reinstating PromArts and Trade Routes but updating them for digital strategies.  The whole room became fanboys and fangirls.  It was kind of like how you react when you finally get a good boy/girlfriend after an abusive relationship.  The only downside is that we now have huge expectations from our Minister.

The day ended with a conversation between David Purdy, new of Vice Media and Val Creighton of CMF.  Some of you might remember that Marcia Douglas and I were attacked by elements of the twitterverse when we live tweeted Purdy asking the government to block VPNs since they allow access to Netflix U.S. (undermining his then boss Rogers’ Shomi service).  We were a little nervous about what Purdy might say this time but he stayed on message.  He talked about what Vice Media is looking for (lots of content but you better be under 30 if you’re going to pitch them) and how it is intending to grow (go global!).  So if you were under 30 that would have been an optimistic speech but pessimistic for the rest of us.

Day 2 was much more optimistic and interesting and suggested options for my Netflix list, which was its own version of discoverability.  There was a terrific panel on International Production with execs from TV2 in Denmark and NRK in Norway.  They talked about protecting the creative and sacrificing financing if it means watering down the creative.  They have had very successful productions that were created specifically for their market but because of the focus on creative excellence did very well internationally.  Titles like Borgen, Lillyhammer and the show that sent everyone searching until Kevin Wright found it on Netflix Canada – Heavy Water Wars – have done very well telling domestic stories.  We tried to find The Legacy but it doesn’t appear to have been licensed in Canada (yet?).  Corrie Coe and John Young used Orphan Black as an example of a show that was created for a specific domestic audience (Space) but has done very well internationally.  Young alluded to challenges when dealing with other financiers (i.e. Syfy) but in that case they’ve been successful.  Corrie also shared an optimistic stat.  Her goal for Canadian dramas is now audiences of 1.5 million (what she referred to as Saving Hope numbers) when she used to be happy with 750,000.  This is a mark of a successful industry and we should be proud.  So we don’t need to move to Scandinavia to create compelling domestic content that sells around the world – right?

The conference ended with a bang of optimism with a closing keynote from Kenyatta Cheese.  Besides having a very cool name, he supports online fan communities (like Orphan Black and Doctor Who) by providing them with content and he gives great talk about it.   His phrase is ‘the Audience has an Audience’ which basically means that the online fan community creates content and experiences that other fans engage with so a smart strategy is to support those communities to help your show grow.  While consumers do want control over when and where they watch a show they do not want to watch alone so turn to online fan communities.  If any producer ever wonders if there is value in supporting fans he gave the selling point – in the U.S. Orphan Black doubled its viewing audience season over season in part due to the online fan community telling all their friends that they needed to watch this cool show and giving examples of why.

To get more of the full picture of Prime Time, check out my Storify of the tweets:  https://storify.com/klashton/prime-time-in-ottawa-2016.  If there were no tweeters it didn’t mean that it was a boring session, but sometimes it did.

Next year’s Prime Time will be February 1 – 3, 2017 but in the meantime there will be a Prime Time Any Time day during the Academy’s Screen Week (March 7 – 13^th).

Is there a road, a path, dare I say it, an information highway to discoverability?  With a multitude of channels and platforms, how can producers and broadcasters make sure that audiences can find their program and that audience members can find the programs they want?  The CRTC is trying to figure this out with their Discoverability Summit to be held next May in Toronto.  The first of two lead up events happened yesterday in Vancouver (the second, in French in Montreal, happens December 3, 2015).  “En Route to the Discoverability Summit:  Content in the Age of Abundance” was live streamed for those who couldn’t get out to Vancouver or hadn’t known about it.  I livestreamed it and I’m going to share my overall thoughts with you.

Tony Chapman, marketing expert and frequent speaker, gave the keynote.  As you would expect from a marketing guy, the talk was all about the power of brands and a shift from brands going through broadcasters to the consumers, to going directly.  Gary Maavara of Corus asked Chapman for specific advice for broadcasters.  He said Corus should delete one of their U.S. programs, take the money and commission three programs from teams of Canadian producers and brands.  The brands would then distribute the programs globally.  To me, that sounds like the brands are the owners and the producers are service producers.  That would not be good for the independent production sector.  I don’t see the upside for broadcasters in doing that either, unless they had a share in the global revenues.  And I’m not sure what that would mean for the content, if it became a glorified product sales tool.  There are good examples of branded content (i.e. “Carmilla” and Kotex) but being limited to product promotion does tend to stifle creativity.

That conversation set the theme for the session as the roundtable (Sara Diamond of OCAD, Tessa Sproule of Vubble, Ling Lin from YouTube Canada, Nathan Wiszniak of Spotify, Ashkan Karbasfrooshan of WatchMojo and Moyra Rodger of Magnify Digital) also spent a lot of time talking about the disintermediation of the content supply chain (to use marketing-speak). The new paradigm is apparently the content producer (either funded by brands or a self-funded YouTube creator) reaching the consumer directly.

However, there were no answers to the question of the day, which is how will consumers find the content that they want in this new universe?  It was clear that everyone is struggling with this problem but there were no new solutions presented (sorry but ‘transmedia’ and ‘gamification’ are not new ideas, particularly when the terms are misused).  I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen that I want a site or an app that will tell me where to find the programs that I want, whether they are on broadcast or iTunes or Shomi or CraveTV or Netflix.  I am tired of bingeing a show on one platform only to find myself a season behind and not know where to find the next season.  Apparently there’s a word for what I’m looking for – universal search.  We have all agreed that it is needed but no one has yet figured out how to do it.

I found it very odd that the CRTC would host a session that said that the future of content was going to bypass the broadcasters.  Based on the responses from Bell Media in the Q and A I think they were too.  They see themselves and their brand as a necessary filter or guide in the very crowded content universe and until I get my universal search app I think that’s going to be true.

We should hear details on the next stage in this process, the Discoverability Summit, in the coming weeks.  We’ve been promised a unique and international event.  Stay tuned.

There are a lot of issues at play in this federal election but we know that readers of TV, eh? are particularly interested in federal government support of Canadian culture and specifically Canadian television.  The following outlines and compares the major party platforms (to the extent they exist at the date of posting) on Canadian culture.

Note that I have pulled the platform promises from the party announcements (with links) and added any additional information that I could find.  I’ve added in clarifications from the NDP and Liberals (no response to my enquiry to the Conservatives) and as well things that were said by Andrew Cash (NDP) and Stéphane Dion (Liberal) at the Screen Industries Debate held October 7, 2015 in Toronto (there was a last minute cancellation from the Conservative representative). I have submitted a few follow up questions to the Liberals and the NDP and will update this post when I receive answers.

Conservative Party

There have been no party platform announcements on Canadian culture from the Conservative Party.  The closest thing to a platform announcement was Stephen Harper’s video promising to not tax Netflix or similar streaming services and claiming that the Liberals and NDP would do so.

Fact Check – neither party has taken the position that Netflix should be taxed but have at the federal Heritage Committee supported Netflix providing more data such as the number of Canadian subscribers and number of Canadian programs in their catalogue (the data they refused to give the CRTC).  This was repeated by Stéphane Dion at the debate and Andrew Cash raised the need to ensure fair payment to creators from OTT distribution as an issue but neither went so far as to endorse a ‘Netflix Tax’.

NDP

The NDP recently released their culture platform.  It is not fully costed but includes:

• $60 million over 4 years to Telefilm and NFB and Canada Council
• loosen rules to obtain Canada Council
• income tax averaging for artists and cultural workers
• promote work internationally through cultural attaches at embassies
• $10 million digital content fund to fund content to celebrate 2017
• reverse $115 million cuts to CBC and guarantee multi-year stable funding for the CBC (five years was suggested by Andrew Cash) and an independent process for appointing board members
• Review the Broadcasting Act as part of a National Digital Strategy (this is not in the platform but was mentioned by Andrew Cash in the debate and by my recollection is the first and only time anyone has mentioned National Digital Strategy during this campaign)

Questions:

• What is the breakdown of the investment in Telefilm, NFB and Canada Council?
• What kind of rules need to be loosened to increase access to Canada Council?
• Why is there no increase in the federal government contribution to the Canada Media Fund, which funds television, convergent and digital content. The CMF has not had an increase since its predecessor was founded in 1996 (other than digital content funds being reallocated from Telefilm to CMF in 2010).  Note that when asked this question, Andrew Cash mentioned looking at decoupling the digital media requirement from television funding through the CMF, which could potentially have a significant negative impact on the Canadian digital media industry.
• What is the logic behind income tax averaging for artists and cultural workers and not all freelancers?
• Why is the digital content fund limited to content to celebrate 2017 and not a permanent or ongoing fund?

Liberal Party

The Liberal culture platform has a bit more detail as culture has been included in their fully costed plan:

• reverse $115 million cuts to CBC and top it up an additional $35 million per year, create a new strategic plan that incorporates the new funding and takes into consideration the new digital world, the CBC board to have merit-based and independent appointments
• double Canada Council from $180 million to $360 million
• Telefilm and NFB each receive an additional $25 million per year
• Restore Promarts and Trade Routes cultural promotion programs and increase funding to $25 million each year
• Increase funding to Young Canada Works for the next generation of museum staff
• Invest in cultural infrastructure
• Review the Broadcasting Act to update it for new technologies
• Ensure that the mandated Copyright Act review takes place in 2017 (there is a concern that the Conservative Party will not implement the review or may short change it)
• Allocate some of the promised funding for training to mid-career training for media professionals to help them adapt to new technologies
• Advance 75-80% of the tax credit payments to improve cash flow and reduce interest costs

Questions:

• The last 4 points were from Stéphane Dion at the debate. I am trying to get clarification (and confirmation) of the last point in particular as it would be a huge cost savings benefit to the Canadian film and television production industry.
• Why is there no increase in the federal government contribution to the Canada Media Fund, which funds television, convergent and digital content. When Stéphane Dion was asked this question at the debate, his response was that there had been no agreement by stakeholders appearing at Heritage Committee hearings on what the CMF needed.  It could be more money but it could be guideline changes.  He felt the need for more industry consultation before making a proposal.  It could be that the parties are waiting for Heritage’s internal review of the CMF before making any commitments.  I was also advised by a party spokesperson that the focus was on replacing Conservative budget cuts and the CMF had not been cut.
• Does the Liberal Party have any plans for a National Digital strategy?

Green Party
The Green Party culture platform has a lot of ideas but no costing associated with it:

• Increase funding to all of Canada’s arts and culture organizations including the Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm Canada, orchestras, theatres, and publishers. The goal will be to make increases in this sector commensurate with increases in support over the years for other sectors such as transport, energy, and health care;
• Provide stable base funding for the CBC so it can continue to provide quality Canadian content television and radio programming in both official languages to all Canadians;
• Restore CBC international short-wave service;
• Reverse the CBC application and CRTC approval for commercial advertising on CBC Radio 2;
• Reverse cuts to suppertime news and local programming in CBC and Radio Canada;
• Ensure that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) reserves more bandwidth for independent and non-profit stations;
• Enact legislation that requires cinemas and video chains to have at least 20% Canadian content;
• Restore and improve arm’s length principles in the governance of arts and cultural institutions and agencies under federal jurisdiction. In keeping with such a position, we believe that the heads of Canada’s cultural organizations such as the CRTC, Canada Council, CBC, and Telefilm Canada should not be appointed by the political party in power but by an arm’s length committee made up of competent people representative of the various diverse stakeholders in Canadian society;
• Seek greater support and adequate resources for arts grants programs;
• Seek increased funding incentives for artists and art events to tour Canada’s rural regions;
• Provide protection for indigenous intellectual and artistic property rights;
• Increase support for community arts programs and facilities across Canada by establishing stable base funding at a set percentage of the federal budget;
• Equalize federal funding for arts and culture among provinces, territories, and municipalities to make it consistent with the provinces and municipalities that have the highest current standards;
• Provide incentives to all provinces and territories to restore and improve arts and culture components in schools and extra-curricular activities, not only in urban but also in rural areas;
• Extend income tax relief and incentives to artists (on the very successful models established by Ireland and the city of Berlin).

Questions:

Well, lots of questions starting with a costing but in particular:

• Why is there no increase in the federal government contribution to the Canada Media Fund, which funds television, convergent and digital content. The CMF has not had an increase since its predecessor was founded in 1996 (other than digital content funds being reallocated from Telefilm to CMF in 2010).
• Does the Green Party have any plans for a National Digital strategy?
• Will increases to CBC funding make up for the service cuts that the Green Party wants to reverse?
• How will increased bandwidth for independent and non-profit stations (whatever that means) ensure more independent and non-profit stations exist?
• Some provinces use provincial funding to incent productions to come to their province instead of another and therefore develop a local industry. The Green Party equalization strategy will prevent that.  Was that intentional?

It is interesting to compare the language of the NDP and Liberal platforms.  The NDP platform emphasizes artists:  “In this election, only the NDP can be trusted to invest in CBC, to invest in Canadian content, and to support Canadian artists.”  On the other hand the Liberal platform talks about culture as an economic generator of middle class jobs:  “A Liberal government will reinvest in our cultural and creative industries, to create jobs, grow the economy and middle class, and strengthen our rich Canadian identity.”

However, I despair that both the Liberals and NDP continue to think that a film and television industry cares about Canada Council grants since the Canada Council funds artists and specifically NOT “work created for the cultural industries of commercial film and television”.  I know that I’ve tried to explain this to MPs and party staffers from all parties and I haven’t been alone.

I would also like to point out that the Liberal Party appears to have relied heavily on Heritage Committee appearances and submissions to know what the industry thinks and is advocating.  It is easy to dismiss these committee appearances as a waste of time because little is done (particularly in the last couple of years) as a result of their hearings but clearly they are a significant way for parties (as well as the government) to gather information.

I will update this post as and if I gather more information.

UPDATE:  The Canadian Media Production Association compiled their own list of party promises including a lovely and handy one page chart here.  Also, the NDP have released a fully costed platform and you can find the costing for the cultural promises on page 70.

Yesterday the Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications released its report on the CBC: Time for Change: The CBC/Radio-Canada in the Twenty-first Century. Despite its title, it seemed mired in the Nineteenth Century.

Well, maybe the mid-Twentieth.

The report described the current challenges that the CBC and all of Canadian broadcasting is facing with the advent of services like Netflix and YouTube but offered no suggestions for how the CBC could better embrace the digital age. There were some good suggestions on eliminating waste, reducing salaries and selling off real estate (which at times came very close to micromanaging) and a worthwhile discussion of governance which correctly objected to the CEO of the CBC reporting to the Prime Minister’s Office and not the Board (though it failed to point out that under the Conservative government the CBC’s Board has become a patronage appointment so does not have the expertise to oversee a broadcaster).

However, the core message was that the CBC should be broadcasting what the private broadcasters will not – Canadian historical dramas, nature documentaries, amateur sports such as university athletics, performing arts with an emphasis on symphonies, and Reach For The Top. Yes, it specifically suggested Reach For The Top, a show that the CBC broadcast from 1966 to 1989.  Old White Guy TV*.

Before you get up in arms, I love Canadian historical dramas and nature documentaries, but broadcasts of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Reach For The Top are not going to increase CBC’s market share nor will it engage younger, diverse, urban audiences. The CBC needs to be relevant to a wide range of Canadians.

There is no vision in this report. The Committee complained that the Broadcasting Act mandate for the CBC was too broad but its only recommendation for amendment was to include a specific reference to airing more historical drama and Canadian feature film.  It did not explain why only those two genres needed to be singled out. It complained that the Broadcasting Act did not contemplate the 21^st Century and needed to be updated but gave no guidance on what revisions needed to be made. It complained that witnesses kept saying that the CBC was underfunded, demonstrated that in inflation-adjusted dollars government funding is at its lowest in the past 25 years, but then suggested that new funding models, including telethons and corporate sponsorship, should replace the shortfall.

Over the years there have been many studies of the CBC. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage conducted a study in 2008 on the CBC that contained a number of very good recommendations, including a memorandum of understanding between the government and the CBC that would set out specific goals and make sure that the CBC was sufficiently funded to meet those goals. The study also looked at digital media, diversity, Canadian programming, governance and accountability. The government declined to implement any of the recommendations.

Is the Senate report more in line with the Conservative government’s position on the CBC? Likely. Should we be worried? I don’t think so. For one thing, we do have an election this fall and nothing will be done before then or, if a minority government is elected, after then. As well, there is very little in this report that Conservative MPs have not said before (except maybe Reach For The Top, that’s new). For example, they have been advocating for a PBS-style funding model for years.  The reality is that many of these recommendations would not be popular with their constituents, who do not want to sit through a telethon to be able to watch Coronation Street.

Yes, it was a wasted opportunity but honestly do we need another study that the government will ignore? Or do we need political will and vision at both the government and the CBC to work together to provide Canadians with the public broadcaster that we need and deserve? Yeah, that.

*With apologies to Senator Betty Unger, the one woman on the Senate Committee.