Ferns puts Banff behind him, and moves into pitching, producing and training

A decision to forge ahead with the News World event in Dublin, Ireland was likely the downfall of the Banff Television Foundation, says its former president and CEO. Pat Ferns tells Canadian Communications Reports that a toe-to-toe competition with the European Broadcasting Union and its competing event was a doomed fight that was the beginning of the end for Banff’s pre-bankruptcy management. "We took over an event called News World, and a breakaway group sponsored by the European Broadcasting Union (developed their own conference). The fact that there were two events going on split the market," he says. "(The EBU-sponsored event was) bigger and they survived, and we were smaller and that’s really coming on the start of what hit us badly in 2003. That was the first time our revenue was down, and we were going into the new year with a deficit. It was a very good event, but financially it was a disaster." He adds, "I think that in marketing terms, we were probably under-resourced. New events for us had to make money in year one. Most businesses have a bit of working capital to help them through start-ups, but there was no margin of error for us. And News World clearly was an error." Along with taking on News World, the foundation also inked a deal with TechPEI to manage nextMEDIA, a conference for the interactive media, and established the inaugural World Congress of Arts Producers held in Ottawa from November 5-8 last year (CCR, Nov. 14/03). That arts conference will be held in Vienna this year, and is being managed locally. As well, the foundation ran the World Congress of Science Producers on contract, and the World Congress of History Producers (see related article in this issue). Ferns also notes that while the pursestrings were becoming tighter, his relationship with the chair of the foundation wasn’t "as close" as it had been with previous chairs he had worked under. He feels a contributing factor was strain between himself and chair, Loren Macwhinney, formerly VP of Canadian production at CanWest Global who was recently let go from the company (CCR, Oct. 7/04). "Human relations go two ways, and I’ll have to take my share of responsibility for that," Ferns notes. "But if you get it (the relationship with the chair) right, you can do tremendous things, which we demonstrated (under previous chairs)," he says. Now, with his own production company established, Ferns has nothing but good wishes for the new organizer of the Banff Television Festival – Achilles Media headed by Robert Montgomery – and says he will be back on contract at the 2004 edition to run the Canadian documart pitching session there. Pitching will be one focus of Ferns’ new company, Ferns Productions Inc., established since his move from Banff to Victoria. He will also run a pitching session in Israel next April, and this December will be in China doing a documart at the Guangzhou International Documentary Festival. Ferns is also re-entering the producing business. He has a deal with Towers Productions Inc. of Chicago to help internationalize its production. He will help producers find international funding, or international producers find Canadian money for factual programming. Further, he is working with Vancouver-based Novalis Entertainment on a yet-to-be-named drama project that is a literary adaptation. Ferns is also getting involved in training and is developing leadership courses, similar to that of the Alliance Atlantis Banff Television Executive Program, for the Asian market. He says he has no plans to stop working. "I think I’ll work until I drop. Maybe I’ll ease off a bit as time goes on, but I’m really relishing being back in the thick of things," he says. He has fond memories of his time at Banff, and sees elevating the Banff Television Festival to an international level as being one of his greatest achievements there. "It was a unique blend of business opportunity and creative inspiration, and I think the two are closely linked. I think that bringing people to Banff away from the rest of the industry gave them a chance to reflect, but it also forced them into new relationships and new ways of doing things," he notes. "I think a little village on a mountain in Alberta became a brand known around the world. Are you going to Banff, is not like saying are you going to Toronto? Banff became the Banff Television Festival. I think we built a worldwide brand with quality using a team of people who weren’t up on the industry. They were people hired locally, and we trained those people so that they were the best in the world at what they did." He hints, however, that he doesn’t feel that he was treated properly near the end, particularly with the bankruptcy papers filed that included criticisms of his relationship with his staff and his spending habits (CCR, April 22/04). Ferns isn’t complaining about life after Banff, but he is less than pleased with the way the bankruptcy of the Banff Television Foundation was handled. "I was under instruction not to talk about events while I was employed there and I honoured that. But I was surprised about the route that they ultimately took," he tells Canadian Communications Reports. Ferns adds that he naively thought that he might be part of the restructuring following the financially difficult times, noting that he and the board were developing a model for new management and infrastructure. "I told people whom I was employed by that I wouldn’t speak about things while I was employed by them, and I thought it was a two-way agreement, but obviously I was mistaken. I kept my word. They weren’t necessarily fair," he states. "I was entrepreneurial, I was ambitious and probably overly optimistic. But everything was approved by the board."

Ferns puts Banff behind him, and moves into pitching, producing and training

News | 11/08/2004 5:00 am EST

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