Remember all that talk of broken business models, junking stations and fading to black unless Ottawa forces big cable to Save Local TV? Seems so quaint, so very 2009, doesn`t it now?
Well screw the CRTC. Canadian TV executives–who now work for Canadian cable companies–are once again in LA with freshly filled bags of money to throw at Warners, Disney, Paramount, Fox and Universal.
Tuesdays stop was at ABC/Disney, which saw little action from Canadian show buyers last year. This year, the Mouse House has some buzz-worthy shows, including the Mad Men-ish stewardess romp Pan Am, a remake of Charlie`s Angels and Last Man Standing, a new comedy starring Tim Allen. Their female skewing lineup will be like crack for CTV, where Desperate Housewives is down to its last barrel of Botox.
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| Angels! Get away from that Netflix buyer! |
On a cold and rainy day in LA, the Bell/CTV posse was spotted stepping out of giant black SUVs en route to Tuesdays ABC screenings. Forget talk of austerity now that the so-called bean counters are in charge–Bell has a team of 10+ working the TV market according to TVFMF`s spies in LA correspondents. Compare that to the lean, mean, Shaw/Global gang of four. The four Rogers/Citytv show buyers also arrived in style in a black SUV, but at least they were driving it themselves.
All the traditional Canadian network buyers are apparently having fits that the Americans let a new player into the room–Netflix. The Netflix show buying hottie is turning heads for several reasons. The big beef is that the video on-demand service gets a free ride–no office in LA, no benefits to pay into the Canadian system, no taxes. Why isn`t the CRTC doing something about this!! There outta be a law to keep these interlopers in check. What kind of world is it where these shifty weasels can buy all the American fare they want, jam it all into their schedules shoving Canadian content into off season ghettos and laugh in the face of the CRTC? Why those dirty, lousy, con arti…uh, er…oh yeah. Never mind.
The old guard has reason to be freaking out at Netflix reaching into their till. In the short time they`ve been operating in Canada–since September–the service has already amassed 800,000 subscribers, accounting for about 10 percent of the country’s broadband subscribers. Are they going to get first peek at Pan Am?
