Kathy Avrich-Johnson is President/Producer of Canadian Accents Inc.

I participated, with one of my partners, in the Comedy Exchange to LA. My partners and I were looking for a way to introduce our production company to the US market when we came upon the Comedy Exchange. Knowing we required introductions to make any meaningful connections, the Exchange provided an entrée without committing or trying to secure a manager, agent or lawyer.

As a Canadian having worked in the film and television business for more than twenty years, including negotiating deals with Americans on numerous occasions, I thought I had a reasonable understanding of the workings of the US business. However, you don’t really get a full picture of a market without working directly in it for several years or taking a crash course with MediaXchange. After the week’s meetings, getting a range of perspectives from the various players we met with, a much clearer understanding of particular quirks or peculiarities of the American business emerged. A few of the things we came to understand:

Independent producer: we learned this term is an oxymoron in television in LA. “Pod” deals (I believe what we formerly heard of as “housing” deals) arise out of the different financing model that has existed in US (and certain other countries). The networks will usually pay about 75% of the production cost of a series. Except for low cost (read, cheap) lifestyle or reality programming in Canada – the broadcasters pay a much smaller fraction of production costs. People in LA have been marvelling at Lions Gate’s amazing new financing model in which they seek to lay off the deficit by pre-selling the show to other territories. This has always been the Canadian model! We have to raise financing from 2 or 3 or more sources and often have to pre-sell rights. That’s often why we Canadians are in L.A.

The most surprising thing I learned was that some of the studios and production companies, which are probably wholly-owned subsidiaries or arms of networks, may have little more than a first look deal with their parent companies. This relationship varied from close-knit (NBC and its studio) to passing acquaintances (Fox Network and Fox Studios, Fox 21) with others falling somewhere in between. The studio would bring a project to the network on a first-look basis but often have to go to another network to sell it. In that, the studios or housed production companies are closest to independent producers except that they usually have their overheads covered!   

Comedy

We heard repeatedly that comedy was struggling in the US. The long running huge breakout sitcoms like Friends and Everyone Loves Raymond haven’t happened lately. The mantra was “formats”. Although there was some original stuff being done – no one seems to be able to give anything any breathing room to find it’s audience. A show makes it in the in the first week or so or it’s toast. We were in LA just prior to the launch of the much anticipated show The Winner. It died almost before we returned home.

A few years ago you couldn’t get arrested with an improvised show. Then came Curb Your Enthusiasm and a lot of reality shows and everyone is talking unscripted. Full improv (which we were selling) was still pretty iffy. We were encouraged lately by the respectable launch of Thank God You’re Here (Australian format, licensed by NBC – more traditional improv).  We’ll see if they order any more than the pilot plus 6 episodes.

We were assured repeatedly that sitcoms aren’t dead – they are just waiting to break out again.

Many people in LA were very interested in Canada’s latest (and rare) comedy success Little Mosque on the Prairie. One of our partners is a regular on the show. Canada has had a lot of domestic success in topical sketch comedy which doesn’t have a long shelf life or travel too well (This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Air Farce, The Mercer Report). Canada’s had really only one real ongoing success in recent years on the sitcom front – Corner Gas. For my taste there have been a number of shows that are funnier. Perhaps it’s too urban. Clearly I’m not the arbiter of what Canadians think is funny. In any event Corner Gas is in its fourth season and going strong. You would think with that and Little Mosque that all Canadians lived in small prairie towns. They don’t.

In any event, format-wise, Little Mosque is a very traditional sitcom. It made a huge splash because its main characters are Muslims in a small town in the prairies and it touches on (pretty gently), being Muslim in a secular or non-Muslim society. CBC, the broadcaster, reportedly spent two-thirds of its entire marketing budget on launching and promoting the first 8 episodes. There is no real edge to the show but it’s cute. The producers and broadcaster are supposedly going to get edgier or perhaps just sharper writing. I can’t quite imagine this show, even in its current incarnation, on US television, the same way I can’t imagine a US icon (like Canada’s best known historian Pierre Berton) showing us all the art of rolling a joint (which he did not that long before he died) on national television.

CBC has ordered another 20 episodes but on all other fronts the message at the net is “avoid risk”.

There is very little drama, including scripted comedy coming out of Canada these days. A change in federal broadcast regulations led to a sharp downturn in spending on drama a few years ago and the broadcasters have all embraced the cheaper reality, lifestyle and edutainment programming.