CRTC encourages French-language TV production with extra ad time
By Adnews Staff
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced a series of incentives yesterday intended to boost the amount of original drama broadcast on French-language television stations. Under this incentive program, broadcasters will be permitted to air an extra two-to-three minutes of advertising for each hour of original French-language Canadian drama aired during peak viewing times. The higher the production budget of the drama, the more advertising minutes the broadcaster will receive. Programs that do not draw on the Canadian Television Fund will be eligible for an addition four minutes of ad time. The extra ad minutes can be used anywhere in the broadcaster's schedule. The maximum number of advertising minutes per hour will be 14 for broadcasters participating in the program, rather than the usual 12. The CRTC will analyze the results of the incentive program annually. The commission instituted a similar incentive program for original Canadian English-language drama programming in November 2004.