Broadcasters offered ads for home-spun drama by Gloria Galloway

OTTAWA -- Canadian broadcasters will earn the right to air more advertising by producing more English-language drama and persuading more people to watch it, the head of Canada's broadcast regulator said yesterday.

"A healthy and successful Canadian broadcasting system must, in my view, include popular drama programs that reflect Canadian society," Charles Dalfen, the chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, told the Canadian Association of Broadcasters 2004 convention.

While some "voices" had argued that licensed broadcasters should be forced to air a minimum number of hours of Canadian drama, Mr. Dalfen said he preferred an incentive-based program.

The imposition of an obligation to broadcast Canadian drama "would certainly have been easier to implement and monitor," he said, "but our view was that regulation will only get us so far."

Under the new CRTC program, the right to broadcast between 30 seconds and eight minutes of advertising will be earned for each hour of original Canadian drama aired, depending on the level of Canadian participation in the production and other factors.

If broadcasters increase the audience share for Canadian drama by a pre-determined amount, they will be able to increase the total amount of advertising they broadcast by 25 per cent.

And if they increase expenditures on the production of Canadian drama, they can broadcast another 25 per cent more advertising.

"I am optimistic about the future of English Canadian drama, and with good reason," said Mr. Dalfen, who pointed to Nielsen data that show the CTV sitcom Corner Gas was in the No. 11 spot among regularly scheduled Canadian programs this fall.

"Keep it up," he urged, "and let's all have all the major broadcast groups achieve similar success,"

The CRTC chairman said another program will soon be introduced for French language broadcasters which, given its relative success, will have different objectives.

"We know that it is under pressure from less expensive but very popular reality-type programming," he said.

Mr. Dalfen began his speech by outlining some of the challenges that have faced the CRTC this year. They include a controversial decision to keep the Italian state broadcaster RAI International from the roster of Canadian cable channels while approving distribution of Arabic-language Al-Jazeera.

"We're not used to having the Commission be the subject of front-page headlines or demonstrations on Parliament Hill," said Mr. Dalfen.

"Ensuring respect for the equal rights of Canadians . . . may mean limiting the content of programming.

"Support the creation of Canadian programming may require restricting the choices of foreign services available to viewers."

The convention, which attracted more than 600 delegates from the broadcast industry, also heard from other leaders in Canadian culture, including federal heritage Minister Liza Frulla and former Ontario premier Bob Rae.

During one panel, speakers discussed new developments in Canadian advertising, from branded content to the way digital video recorders are changing the way people watch television.

Panelists said the new technologies represent an evolution, rather than a revolution in the advertising landscape.

Gary Miles, chief executive officer of radio for Rogers Media, said that despite these new delivery systems, content remains the most important part of the equation.

Panelists also discussed whether the rise of subscription-based services like satellite radio or movie channels would make it easier for affluent consumers to avoid advertising altogether.

"These people watch less TV, so it's difficult to get hold of them, but they're still consuming mass media properties like everybody else, so it's still possible to reach them," moderator Jeff Spriet said after the panel.

Mr. Spriet is president of Toronto-based chokolat, a advertising company specializing in branded content.

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