Canadian programming is cost competitive, but public subsidy remains essential to Canadian TV

Nordicity study prepared for CBC/Radio-Canada finds that public subsidies are essential to stimulating the production of Canadian television programming that can potentially compete with American programming

OTTAWA — January 25, 2008 — CBC/Radio-Canada released a study today prepared by Nordicity Group Ltd., in which Nordicity analyzes the need for government subsidies to stimulate the production of Canadian television programming.

In the study, entitled “Canadian Television: Why the Subsidy?” Nordicity benchmarked the television production costs in Canada to those in Australia, France, the United Kingdom (U.K.) and United States. It found that Canadian television production is cost competitive with its peer countries; the average cost of producing a television drama in Canada’s English-language market is on par with that in France and the U.K.

Nordicity then compared the average production costs for Canadian television programming in various genres to the domestic and international revenue potential of that programming. While some individual Canadian television programs are profitable, Nordicity found that on a system-wide basis, Canadian television programming cannot be profitable on an ongoing and permanent basis without government intervention, including public subsidies.

Nordicity’s analysis found that the annual financial shortfall in the Canadian television production sector was approximately $1 billion in 2006.

CBC/Radio-Canada filed Nordicity’s study along with its regulatory submission to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission as part of the Review of the regulatory frameworks for broadcasting distributions undertakings and discretionary programming services.

A copy of the study can be downloaded from Nordicity’s web site.

Nordicity Group Ltd. (nordicity.com) is an independent consultancy providing business-strategy and policy-analysis services to the creative and telecoms sectors. Nordicity helps businesses and governments around the world make strategic decisions, and address regulatory and policy issues in the creative and telecoms sectors. Nordicity has offices in Toronto and Ottawa, Canada; and London, UK.