Local antihero by Etan Vlessing

by Etan Vlessing

TORONTO – Ian Morrison, lobbyist for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, is a fierce advocate of Canadian programming in a country where private broadcasters routinely use public money to buy U.S. network fare and TV producers secure generous subsidies to make Hollywood-style dramas for the international market, often with U.S. partners.

"These (government) dollars should be used to improve the Canadian industry. They're funneled instead into world programming," Morrison complains.

The impression of audiences worldwide that successful made-in-Canada series are U.S. product does not impress Friends, whose lobbying, research and polling efforts are funded by some 50,000 Canadian TV viewers. The group was initially formed to save public broadcaster the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. from savage budgetary chops.

A veteran lobbyist and executive director of the Canadian Association of Adult Education before forming Friends in 1985, Morrison says his eyes are on the homefront, not Hollywood. "Our purpose," he says, "is trying to increase and enhance the quality and quantity of Canadian television."

But Morrison has since become a thorn in the side of private broadcasters, especially when Friends last year convinced Canada's TV regulator to make public confidential data that indicated spending by commercial networks in Canada on U.S. shows was outpacing spending on homegrown shows.

The CBC is supposed to gain the most from Friends' proxy work, but even the public network has had to tamp down Morrison's enthusiasm. Morrison and the current CBC president, Robert Rabinovitch, had a public falling-out when Friends last year campaigned for more local and regional CBC programming and less Toronto-centric shows.

Friends proved a risk, too, for CanWest Global Communications Corp., the private national network whose founders, the Asper family of Winnipeg, hired an investigator to dig up dirt on Morrison and used their newspaper chain to discredit his lobbying efforts.

Morrison insists he is not against Hollywood or the free market. Instead, he wants to hold private broadcasters to their promise to show a certain amount of Canadian content as a condition of license. "The Aspers' problem isn't with Friends. It's with the government of Canada because the law says the system must be Canadian," Morrison says.

What's more, Friends refuses to blame Hollywood for the failure of private broadcasters here to showcase Canadian programs.

"It's up to Canadians to look after their own house. Blaming others is not effective," he adds.

Friends also faults the Canadian government for reducing financial support for the CBC by diverting tax dollars to private broadcasters through a maze of subsidies, tax credits and grants.

In the end, that private broadcasters consider him a self-appointed nuisance hardly bothers Morrison.

"There's a certain fun in this. It's easy to sleep at night," he insists.

© Hollywood Reporter