CHUM hoping to use channel brands to boost box office fortunes of feature film

CHUM Ltd. is the first to take advantage of changes in Telefilm Canada guidelines that allow broadcasters to become involved in feature films. The Toronto-based broadcaster is contributing about 20% of the budget for the $5-million sci-fi film Decoys, which was shot in Ottawa and is due for theatrical release later this summer. CHUM will use its conventional and specialty television channels such as Space to promote the feature and in return secures the broadcast window for the film. While Canadian producer Tom Berry will own Decoys, CHUM has the right to produce a related MuchMusic-branded movie and CD, which it will own. "It will be interesting to see how it works with the CHUM channel brand behind the film. So far it has only been CHUM (that has taken advantage of the Telefilm rule changes). But we've told all the others, 'come on in the water's fine,'" Telefilm Canada executive director Richard Stursberg tells Canadian Communications Reports. "I think some of them (broadcasters) will be looking to see what the nature of CHUM's success is." He says the changes were made in an effort to reach the government's target of increasing the screen time of Canadian productions to 5% of overall theatrical releases in Canada (CCR, Oct. 13/00). "It's in everybody's interest to strengthen Canadian box office, and the reason for that is because when a film does well theatrically, it does well on video, on pay and on conventional (TV)," Stursberg notes. "You'd think that if all the people had gone to see it at the theatre, they wouldn't want to see it on TV, but the reverse is absolutely true." At a session during the Banff Television Festival last month titled State of Television: National Cinema - Box Office or Broadcast?, Paul Gratton, VP and general manager of CHUM specialty channels Space and Drive-In Classics, explained that success in the United States led CHUM to giving it a try north of the border. "One of the things that struck me was almost on a guaranteed basis was that some of these specialty channels in the United States were being successfully leveraged, mostly by Paramount Pictures, to obtain surprising box office breakthroughs on films that were not apparent hits. I'm thinking particularly of MTV," he said. "You can see the effect of the branding and the marketing. And so we approached Telefilm with the notion of supporting certain targeted releases by branding and promoting them on some of the specialty channels within CHUM. We were also, I think, inspired by the success of Men With Brooms..." Massive marketing of the Robert Lantos-produced movie, including spots during the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s coverage of the Salt Lake City Olympics, helped propel it to an opening weekend theatrical box office gross of $1.04 million last year (CCR, March 15/02). Shooting of Decoys has been completed, about 25% of the special effects have been done in post-production, and a wide theatrical release is anticipated at the end of August. "It's a very good time for us to promote movies in television land," Gratton says. "It probably won't win Oscars, but we think it will sell tickets (partly due to) the push of not only Space but the entire CHUM organization." He adds, "From CHUM's point of view, we've been heavily engaged in re-licensing feature films for some years now. And so probably more than any other English-language Canadian conventional broadcaster, we're really committed to having really successful theatrical feature films. Our success in TV is related to how well they do at the box office." CHUM president and CEO Jay Switzer tells CCR that the younger viewer base of Space and MuchMusic is the key core movie-going group. "The theatrical release will be supported not only by hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional air time but by connection with our brand, by all of our channels above and beyond Space. …If we're going to get up to 5% of box office, broadcasters have to play an important part in that marketing."

CHUM hoping to use channel brands to boost box office fortunes of feature film

News | 06/30/2003 4:00 am EDT

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