Tune in to a Canadian TV show successfully exported to the U.S. – an Orphan Black or a Flashpoint, for example – and it might be tough to tell those series take place in Toronto.
Characters on Orphan Black have flashed Canadian currency. Flashpoint has name-checked some Toronto streets. Beyond that, the shows seem to take place in any generic North American city.
But Brian Hamilton, a principal and executive producer at Vancouver-based Omnifilm Entertainment, said over-the-top services (OTT) like Netflix are “waking up” North American audiences to more global stories.
“We need to develop content that is locally specific,” he told attendees at the Vancouver International Film Festival’s October 3 Industry Exchange. “The notion of Canada having a specific worldview is something we should take note of [in the entertainment industry].
Global streaming services are now popularizing subtitled imports depicting everything from a fictionalized Danish parliament to near-future tales in which Russia invades Norway. Capitalizing on the rise of OTT is going to be a challenge for some in the business, according to producer Marc Hustvedt, the Industry Exchange keynote speaker.
Canada’s Shomi, a joint venture between Shaw and Rogers, announced last month it would shutter its OTT service November 30. Meanwhile, OTT services like Netflix and Amazon Prime are notoriously opaque about their viewership figures and demographics, making it a difficult for producers to know exactly what they should be pitching to these services.
“The problem is we don’t really know much about your customer,” said Hustvedt, the founder of Supergravity Pictures.
He urged producers to collect as much consumer data as possible, citing a report from brand researchers Wildness suggesting 70% of Generation Z consumers (those born after 1995) prefer streaming services to broadcast or cable TV.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s (CBC) Chris Harris, an executive producer at the public broadcaster’s digital division, said during a later panel that the new generation’s appetite for digital requires a new approach.
“We know more and more they’re going to online platforms. Just taking your linear [traditional TV] content and putting it on digital isn’t the way to reach new audiences.”
He added the CBC has shifted its OTT strategy over the last seven years, developing digital-first content like short-form comedies that are distinctly Canadian.
