After over 3 years something new for Moment of Truth!
IN DECEMBER 1964 a new television soap opera called "Moment of Truth" made its debut with á big splash. The NBC television network in the United States proclaimed a firm 26 -week purchase of the Canadian made series, and almost immediately announced the program was sold right out to network affiliate stations. The sale was hailed as a quarter -million dollar Christmas gift to Canadian talent. It was applauded by Canadian commercial producers and advertisers as the icebreaker for future Canadian independent production efforts. An agency TV buyer was quoted as saying, "The day has arrived when our obligation to sponsor Canadian content programming can be considered positively rather than negatively." That was the story up till Christmas 1964.
Then on December 28 the CBC network started airing Moment half -an -hour daily five days a week. Before long the daytime serial was doing well as a network spot carrier. In fact there was only one thing wrong with Moment's success story - Robert Lawrence Productions (Canada) Limited, the show's Toronto -based producer, apparently wasn't making a dime on it. And to be more exact about it, John Ross, RLP president, claimed all indications pointed to a highly measurable loss. Why? With all those sales shouldn't Moment have been strutting like a fat -cat? It seems not.
And one of the reasons for the grotesque situation wasn't complicated at all - it's just that the CBC wasn't paying for the show. The Corporation apparently intends to, starting April 1, and will pay up in terms Ross calls satisfactory and generous. But Ross says, "Even if the CBC had bought it from the beginning, we couldn't produce it for that." Evidently the only hope for a reasonable profit on Moment lies in renewal of the existing 26 -week NBC contract and an extended CBC run. The amortization of pilot costs and heavy initial production expenses takes that long, in Ross' view.
FOCUS ON PROBLEMS
One of the vital jobs Moment of Truth has done is to focus a glaring light on problems facing independent television producers in Canada. RLP'S "success" has dragged the question of any independent's ability to go it alone on major TV productions and make money, out of the area of speculation. It has plunked the issue on firm ground, for once. Ross says an independent can't make it independently, period. He considers subsidization "absolutely essential". (If the CBC buys a show at a price higher than potential commercial revenues, that's a form of subsidization. The Corporation regularly aids Canadian talent by producing shows at costs of $50,000 an hour and up, selling them to commercial sponsors at a fraction of true cost.)
It was back in May 1964 that RLP "put it on the line, crossed its fingers" and gambled $30,000 to produce a pilot for Moment. After selling the show to NBC Ross noted, "It's amusing in a way, because the odds are so greatly stacked against you." Before long RLP moved toward what it felt to be the next logical step for a Canadian -made, Canadian talent show - airing on the CBC. As it happened, the only way RLP could get the program on the national network was "under an arrangement whereby we participated in the network's portion of ad revenue," says Ross. (He believes the Corporation takes half the network spot dollars. Local stations get the other half.) RLP's sales representative, All -Canada Radio & Television Ltd., pressed the CBC to buy the program. But it was no dice. Ross feels authority in the Corporation was spread too thin (before the CBC's recent executive realignment), so no one was in position to make a decision. "They all liked Moment of Truth," he says. But they figured I suppose that with the total number of dollars they had to spend, they didn't want to spend it on daytime television." RLP contended daytime shouldn't be discounted. "The CBC's final comment when I was there (at a meeting in Ottawa) was 'We have no money'. I didn't believe them at the time, but now they've made it public I guess it must be true," Ross adds.
RLP's target in the CBC talks was hung on a figure of approximately $7500 for each episode of Moment. (Ross believed $7500 was about the lowest figure the CBC could spend producing a half hour of its own.) Scaled down to allow for Moment being daytime TV, and not high -Canadian -culture ("I've never said our show was like the Second Coming, or fabulous or wonderful," Ross insists), $7500 became a take-off point in RLP's thinking.' Ross felt, and still believes that the CBC shouldn't be called on to back every program idea dreamed up by independent producers - "The program has to be something more than self-indulgence."
COMMERCIAL WITH A BIG C "I'm in the commercial business with a big C", he says. "Everything has to be considered ing the ground of quality -level suitable for national broadcast, he explains. "You can apply this test to Moment of Truth because it's stood the test of a foreign sale," he continues. "And you should be able to ask the CBC to support you if the program has stood the test elsewhere." He thinks RLP took on its fair share of risk by getting the program produced, sold and on the air, making it possible for RLP to turn to the CBC with a proved -out product. "At no time did we ask the Corporation to gamble with us. At no time did the taxpayer have to gamble. "The CBC could at least have indicated interest in supporting us," he states. (The Corporation has pledged support, from April 1 as noted above.) But what happened to the prediction that the Canadian obligation to sponsor Canadian content programming could now be considered positively?
RLP's lengthy struggle for support of its Canadian talent opus leaves John Ross in some doubt. In fact he admits expressing his misgivings to a US producer who wondered if there was any future for an independent producer wanting to develop something up here. What have they done for you on this show, except criticize?" is the way the American put it.
AGONY OF UNCERTAINTY
Asked if his negotiations with the CBC have been satisfactory Ross replies, "Of course not," although the dickering seems to have led at last to an acceptable financial arrangement. Ross believes if others are to escape RLP's agony of uncertainty, "the first thing the CBC has to clarify, not only for Robert Lawrence Productions but for everybody, is its attitude, They've got to define it." The question in Ross' mind is, "Do they want independent Canadian production or not?" As an afterthought he adds, "The NBC, CBS and ABC networks have made a great success of their businesses by producing as little as possible themselves." Stuart MacKay, principal figure in All -Canada's negotiations on behalf of RLP, says, "We've been trying to see it half -way," and get the CBC to do the same. "In the beginning they told us - 'Look here, we don't have any money. Are you prepared to gamble with the Corporation?" MacKay concludes, "That's not a solid base for a production house."
By
Paul Raven ·
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