Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 06/99) - Independent Northern producers have just under a month to pull together proposals for a new 13-part half-hour television series.

CBC North, included in a broad commitment the CBC made in recent Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearings, is aiming to increase its regional non-news programming.

Our regional network has officially put out a call for proposals.

"What's significant about this, and important from my point of view is that the North's included," says CBC North's regional director Marie Wilson.

"So many times these days in the CBC decisions get made on the basis of population base and potential reach and so on. I think the fact that we're included is a very good statement about recognition by the national public broadcaster that we do represent in this region a unique part of our country."

For anyone thrown into a panic about the looming deadline of Dec. 31, Wilson says, "What we're not asking people to do is come up with a detailed plan and all the commitments in place."

"We want a creative idea, that has some merit, and we want some sense of their ability to pull together a business plan that's going to hold."

While intended to fall into the art and entertainment category, the series can be anything from comedy and musical performance to a documentary series or any new experimental series. The only limit is the producer's imagination

"We could have narrowed it down, we could have said 'we want performance programming' or 'we want something that's song and music'... but our thinking was that if we keep it broad, people will undoubtedly come in with ideas we'd never thought of."

One important criteria for producers is that their idea must reflect the North. A possible bonus is that the series might get national exposure.

"For programming series that are seen by the network to be very successful, or have potential for further growth and development, then there is potential for bringing them onto the (national) network."

Proposal must be submitted by noon on Dec. 31, 1999, to CBC North in Yellowknife. The proposals that are chosen will be provided with $10,000 to $15,000 for development.

"The project that is chosen for production can expect a licence fee from CBC North of at least $15,000 per half hour."

Wilson emphasizes the production is not intended to be a huge multi-million dollar drama project.

Independent producers from the NWT and Nunavut, as well as those from the Yukon and Nunavik, will be eligible for consideration.