The television industry in Quebec has always fared better than that of English Canada, but the difference between the two solitudes was particularly notable last year. While 29 Quebec productions exceeded one million viewers, barely 2 Canadian shows crossed this symbolic bar in the English-speaking market, which is four times more populous. Shunned by the public, Anglo-Canadian television can still count on greater public funding: an injustice in the eyes of Quebec producers.
“There is an injustice compared to the success that Quebec television receives. It is also an injustice in relation to the volume of production. With half as much money, Quebec produces almost twice as many hours of television,” says Hélène Messier, president and CEO of the Association québécoise de la production media (AQPM).
Mme Messier thus refers to the report released last week by the Canada Media Fund (CMF), one of the leading funders of the country’s television industry. Year in, year out, the FMC grants approximately two-thirds of the television portion of its budget to English-speaking productions; a third to French-speaking broadcasts. However, this distribution does not take into account the fact that many more series and variety shows are produced in Quebec than in English Canada.
Consequence: the envelope granted to French speakers is divided between more projects. In 2022-2023, French-speaking producers had on average almost four times less money from the CMF to produce an hour of television than their English-speaking colleagues.
“The number of productions in Quebec has declined in the last year, and this will continue. We have no choice: costs are increasing, and funding is not keeping up. People might say that it’s normal, that if we have less money, we just have to produce less, so there will be more money visible on the screen. But I don’t think that way. The success of Quebec television is also because we manage to fill our screens. Producing a lot allows you to showcase new talents, emerging directors and up-and-coming actors in smaller productions,” says Hélène Messier.
The CEO of the AQPM does not fail to remind the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau that it had committed, during the last electoral campaign, to ensuring that the FMC grants 40% of its funding in the future. its funds for production in French, rather than a third. Two years later, this promise is still awaited.
Two worlds apart
Some funding for the Media Fund comes from cable companies, but the federal government remains the largest contributor. The FMC then distributes these sums between the different variety, fiction, youth and documentary projects. It does not cover certain television genres, such as sports or news.
It is unclear which shows financed by the Fund performed the best during the television year that has just ended. However, we can read in its most recent annual report that barely two English-language productions that received assistance from the FMC exceeded one million in audience ratings during the 2021-2022 season. One of them is the show broadcast on New Year’s Eve on CBC. The other is in fact a Quebec production, the medical series Transplantwhich is shot in English in Montreal and stars Laurence Leboeuf, among others.
“It has always been difficult to carve out a place on the English side. American shows are much more present on television channels. This is not a new phenomenon. There is not the same attachment that Quebecers have with their television,” points out Mathieu Chantelois, first vice-president of public affairs at the FMC.
English-speaking productions still obtained worse results than during the 2020-2021 season, when five of them at least managed to cross the million threshold. Conversely, 29 French-speaking productions, or 8 more than the previous year, attracted more than a million viewers on average during the 2021-2022 season.
Unsurprisingly, the broadcasts of December 31 were the most watched with, in the lead, the Bye Bye, seen by more than five million people, a level unimaginable elsewhere in the country. Among the other projects to stand out that year: the comedy Happiness (2.1 million average audience), the variety show Masked singers (1.9 million) or even the daily District 31 (1.8 million).
The future: export
Generally speaking, viewing of traditional television tends to decrease with the emergence of platforms. But the figures from the Media Fund, which count catch-ups, remind us that Quebec television retains a strong power of attraction, as already indicated a few weeks ago by data published by the firm Numeris.
However, the profitability crisis is very real, maintain the producers. Not only does French-speaking television benefit from less generous public aid, but it also has to deal with the disengagement of broadcasters. These account for nearly 45% of its financing, but this share is decreasing, with broadcasters being hit hard by the drop in advertising revenue, as evidenced by the recent cutbacks at the TVA Group.
In English Canada, producers compensate by seeking new sources of financing abroad, notably through the sale of concepts and original shows, which remains marginal in Quebec. “Millionaire ratings in English Canada have always been extremely rare. The success of a show is measured more on sales, or even pre-sales. The show has not yet been broadcast and has already been sold in three or four countries. It is also starting in Quebec, but it remains rare. This is what we must focus on and give ourselves the means, because it could represent an immense source of financing for our television,” underlines Mathieu Chantelois.