Producers leading the migration to high-definition, CFTPA survey says

A recent Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA) survey measuring producers’ activities and views regarding high-definition television production shows the majority of Canadian producers are delivering content in HDTV format, and some of that is going to broadcasters that don’t have the capacity to actually air it in HD. Specifically, 66% of survey respondents said they are currently producing HD content, and 62% of those producers are being asked by broadcasters to deliver their HD content in down-converted standard-definition format. "That demonstrates to us that the broadcasters don’t have the window or the exhibition technology to actually air the program they’re buying in HD," says Mario Mota, the CFTPA’s senior director of broadcast relations and research. The CFTPA’s survey results were filed as an appendix to its submission to the CRTC on Public Notice 2006-72, a call for comments on a request by the Governor-in-Council to prepare a report examining the future environment facing the Canadian broadcasting system. While the results are surprising, Mota says they shouldn’t be considered quantifiable: only 67 CFTPA producer members completed the survey, and Mota adds that those who were most likely to complete the survey are mid-sized to larger producers who would have the capacity to produce in HD. Additionally, only 45% of the respondents who are producing HD content did more than $2.5 million in HD production in 2005. That being said, results showing two-thirds of the industry getting involved in HD production are promising, even when taken with a grain of salt. Says Mota: "These people are finding ways to do it even though the funding isn’t quite there…. making a conscious choice to find the money somehow to make it happen, because they realize that programming is going to have a longer shelf life." He adds that broadcasters are also ordering content in HD that they aren’t capable of airing yet because they plan to be HD-ready while they still hold the broadcast rights. John Panikkar, co-founder of High Fidelity HDTV, says the CFTPA’s results don’t surprise him as this pseudo-stockpiling of HD content has become a growing trend in the industry. "A number of companies I know very well are saying, ‘We have to do HD if only to future-proof what we’re doing,’" he says. As a licensee of four all-HD channels, Panikkar says finding Canadian HD programming has become easier even over the past six months. "The challenges are still there of course, but the reality of HD production now is there’s really an almost non-existent or negligible cost premium to produce in HD over standard definition," he says. Panikkar told Canadian Communications Reports in July that HD camera prices had dropped by 60% to 80%, bringing production costs more in line with producing SD content (CCR, July 20/06). Indeed, only 6% of the CFTPA’s survey respondents said the cost of producing content in HD is prohibitive, while 39% said it is reasonable and 55% said it is expensive but manageable. Producers who are finding a way to deliver HD content are doing so through higher broadcast licence fees (58%), by funding it themselves (48%) and foreign pre-sales (42%). And perhaps the most promising result of all is that 87% of the producers who are not currently producing HD content plan to be doing so within the next two years. Panikkar says that judging from the producers he’s talked to, falling costs have made HDTV production more of a reality, if not a necessity. He sums up the prevailing attitude among producers thusly: "I’ve got to produce in HD to future-proof my product, and if it doesn’t cost all that much more, if anything more, than I’d be crazy not to do it."

Producers leading the migration to high-definition, CFTPA survey says

Broadcast | October 11, 2006

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