“Complex, contradictory, labyrinthine.” A television critic’s take on the plot line of 24 or The West Wing? Nope. That’s a frustrated industry executive speaking in a recent newspaper article about the business of TV production in Canada – a system that many now believe is “broken.”

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Erica Benson broadens her role in becoming VP of programming for Alliance Atlantis Communications’ Life Network and Discovery Health Channel. She was most recently VP of programming for Discovery Health. She joined Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting in September 2000 as director of original production for Showcase.

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McQueen sides with CBC on airing of Hollywood movies
Broadcast veteran Trina McQueen says that the CRTC should reconsider its decision to forbid the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) from airing first-run Hollywood films to help enable the public broadcaster to maintain its spending on Canadian drama. In her report Dramatic Choices: A Report on Canadian English-language Drama that was released by the CRTC on May 23, she recommends that the CBC commit to maintaining its level of drama expenditures at $62 million per year. Part of that money, she theorizes, could be raised through advertising and large audiences garnered during the broadcast of Hollywood blockbusters. The CBC has applied to the CRTC for a licence amendment that would allow it to continue to broadcast those movies. Its current condition of licence requires it to cease broadcasting hit movies after Sept. 1, 2003 (CCR, May 23/03). McQueen also recommends that the CBC, along with other broadcasters, be allowed to air an extra minute of advertising during each original hour of 10 out of 10 Canadian drama and one repeat.

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