Alliance Atlantis/Goldman Sachs Deal Threatens Canadian Film and Television Industry

After decades of struggle, a vibrant internationally acclaimed film and television production industry has finally been built in Canada. The main hurdles have been American distribution companies that for financial and cultural reasons are just not interested in Canadian films no matter how good they are, and the economics of Canadian television production which, in the face of an endless supply of cheap and heavily promoted American programming, makes Canadian programs a heavy financial burden – again, with few exceptions, no matter how good those programs may be.

Despite these problems, government money and regulation, coupled with the Herculean efforts of Canadian producers, have produced a library of popular and potentially very profitable film and television products – films such as The Trailer Park Boys, Bon Cop/Bad Cop, Crash, and TV series such as Due South and Traders. Now, however, that $2.5 billion of Canadian investment is on the verge of passing into foreign hands and its potential profits filling the pockets of foreign shareholders, people who have no interest in creating more Canadian media products. As critics rightly point out, this deal contravenes ownership rules and mocks content regulation, and should be stopped on these grounds alone.

But the real problem is that this media treasure trove is passing deeper and deeper into the hands of large private corporations --corporations whose overriding interest is profits for shareholders, not the ongoing production of Canadian programming. Given that these products are at least in part generated by public funds, why doesn’t the public retain rights to them? That way, the profits derived from them might help fund the development of public and community media that really have the interests of the public at heart. Clearly, it’s time to extend the dimensions of public ownership, time for Canadians to take control of the property created by the public purse so that they might reap the financial and cultural rewards of their investment.

Read more about why this deal is bad for both the Canadian public and media:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070625.walliance25/...