It Might Make Money

I can’t find the full report anywhere, but the Writers’ Guild of Canada, the Directors’ Guild, AFTRA and other Canadian entertainment advocates co-commissioned a study to demonstrate that Canadian programming can make money for broadcasters. (This ties in with the WGC’s presentation before the CRTC today, arguing in support of the proposed rules that would require parity in spending on foreign and domestic shows.) The summary is a little vague because, as it says, the broadcasters don’t actually release much data on how much money they are or aren’t making. But this makes some sense:

It reflects the fact that broadcast groups repeat Canadian programming multiple times across not only their conventional TV but also their specialty TV platforms.

In a world where most networks are part of a family of channels, including cable channels, the amount of money the show takes in on its first broadcast is only part of the story; there’s a whole world of repeats out there to help it pay for itself, and the existence of these home-grown shows helps pay for the cable channels (by supplying them with inexpensive, easily-obtainable content).