1. Audiences and Economic Indicators
SPOTLIGHT ON CANADIAN
DOCUMENTARIES
April
Prepared for the Documentary Policy Advisory Group

2. Canadian Documentaries:
Economic Indicators:
Revenue earned
Gross Sales
Advertising
Jobs
Reaching Audiences:
Theatres
Non-Theatrical
Television

3. Economic Indicators

4. Recoupment as a Percentage of Commitments by Sub-format
Revenue Earned
Sample size is limited:
Telefilm share of revenues after distribution advance, commissions & expenses
To do: expand sample and develop trends
Recoupment as a Percentage of
Commitments by Sub-format
Fiscals to
9.4%
11.0%
17.6%
Documentary
Drama
Variety & Per. Arts
Children & Youth

5. Recoupment as a Percentage of Commitments by Sub-Format
Revenue Earned
Fiscals to
3.2%
4.6%
10.9%
Mini-series
One-off
Series
Recoupment as a Percentage of
Commitments by Sub-Format
In the Documentary Genre:
Series have the highest revenues returning 11% of total commitments

6. Telefilm-Financed Documentaries Recoupment Revenues Generated
Revenue Earned
Telefilm-Financed Documentaries
Recoupment Revenues Generated
44% of documentaries supported did not return any revenue
2% of documentaries supported account for 45% of total revenues
Fiscals to
372
301
160 15
Revenues
Returned No
$1,000
Less than
$100,000
$1,000 to
or more
$100,000

7. Total Sales for 35 Projects
Gross Sales
Sample size is limited to:
35 top performing documentaries in ’98-99 from Telefilm & NFB
Typically a 5 year revenue cycle
Total sales after financing = $5 million
70% of after-sales were in international markets
To do: expand sample and develop trends
Total Sales for 35 Projects
Canadian
Sales
30%
Foreign
Sales
70%
*Most profitable documentaries from – 23 Telefilm and 12 NFB projects; 20 One-offs, 2 Mini-series and 8 Series

8. Canadian Pre-Sales vs. Sales
Gross Sales
Canadian Pre-Sales vs. Sales
By Sub-format
25.1%
49.9%
65.5%
74.9%
50.1%
34.5%
ONE-OFF
MINI-SERIES
SERIES
Pre-Sales
Sales
For these 35 projects in ‘98-99:
Series were best able to put pre-sales into the financing
One-offs had the hardest time making pre-sales

9. Documentary Sub-format
Gross Sales
Canadian vs. Foreign
Pre-sales & Sales by
Documentary Sub-format
For these 35 projects in ‘98-99:
The majority of all sales occurred in Canada, particularly for series.
One-offs had the greatest share of their total sales from foreign territories
SERIES
71.97%
28.03%
MINI-SERIES
66.25%
33.75%
54.01%
45.99%
ONE-OFF
Canadian
Foreign

10. Canadian Pre-sales & Sales by
Gross Sales
For these 35 projects in ‘98-99:
The most important market segment was television representing 88.2% of all pre-sales and sales.
No other market segment came close.
10.0%
1.7%
0.1% TV
Institution
Home Video
Theatre
Canadian Pre-sales & Sales by
Market Segment
88.2%

11. Telefilm Canada The National Film Board
Gross Sales
For 35 projects in ‘98-99
Canadian Pre-Sales & Sales by Market Segment
Telefilm Canada The National Film Board
Theatres
0.4%
Institution
51.4% TV
37.9%
Home
Video
10.2%
1.8%
98.2%

12. Advertising
Rates: Based on survey* of available inventory with a cost and an audience estimate by program for the period of April 9 through to June 30, 2005
Range of Rates (30 sec spot) for Canadian Documentaries
Compared to other programs
$360.00
$21,620.00
$38,970.00
$76,990.00
Documentaries - High end of range
Corner Gas
Law & Order SVU
American Idol Finale
Range of Costs per Thousand Viewers (CPM) for Canadian Documentaries
$12.69
$40.32
$57.40
Documentaries – High end of range
CSI
The OC
Benefits of Branding: CPM ranges from $4-$12 for documentaries with higher end charged by specialty services with brand in documentary.
*17 broadcasters surveyed including CBC.

13. Advertising Revenues
21.49% 3%
Specialty
Services
Conventional
Networks
Estimated Portion of Advertising Revenue generated by documentary programming
*Subset of commercial broadcasters only, not including CBC

14. Jobs
The production of Canadian documentaries generated approximately 12,900 full-time equivalent jobs in
The figures for show a decrease from the previous year
Full Time Equivalent Jobs
2,700
3,500
4,500
6,700
7,400
8,800
5,400
5,000
4,300
5,600
7,200
4,200
4,600
5,500
8,600
7,900
7,000
9,100
11,700
10,900
12,000
14,300
14,000
12,900
96-97
97-98
98-99
99-00
00-01
01-02
02-03
03-04
Direct
Indirect
Total

15. Reaching Audiences

16. Documentary Box Office &
Theatres
Trends
Documentary Box Office &
Number of Releases
An extreme jump in feature documentary box office occurred in Up 428% from previous year.
Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, accounted for 40% of B.O. in 2004
Market share for feature documentary has gone from < 1% of overall B.O. to 1.2% of B.O. in 2004.
Documentary
Box Office
($000s)
Number of
Documentary
Films Released
30,000 70
25,000 60
20,000 50 40
15,000 30
10,000 20
5,000 10
2002
2003
2004

17. Average Feature Film Shelf Life
Theatres
Trends
Average Feature Film Shelf Life
(in weeks) 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
2002
2003
2004
Documentaries
Fiction
Feature documentaries are remaining in theatres a lot longer
By contrast fiction films have a shorter shelf life.
Feature Documentaries average 5 screens per film
Fiction Films average 60 screens per film
Average b.o. per screen is similar

18. Theatres Canadian Documentaries
Similar to overall documentary growth, Canadian-made feature documentaries exhibited a startling growth in box office for 2004 ($145,000 to > $2Million)
The Corporation represented about $1.5 million or 75% of the Canadian documentary box office
Canadian Documentary Box
Office ($000s)
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
2002
2003
2004

19. Theatres Canadian Documentaries
Canadian feature documentaries reached 8% market share of all feature documentaries.
Canadian fiction features reached 4% market share of all fiction feature films.
Canadian feature documentaries contributed 5% to the overall BO earned by Canadian feature film
Canadian Feature Film
Share By Genre -2004 8%
($2,113,585) 4%
($39,286,854)
Canadian share of
Canadian share of
all Feature
all Fiction Feature
Documentaries
Films

20. Theatres
The Top Five Documentaries still on screens in Canada in 2004:
Fahrenheit 911 – Released 2004 – Total Box Office: $18,242,989
Bowling For Columbine – Released 2002 – Total Box Office: $5,244,872
Super Size Me – Released 2004 – Total Box Office: $2,064,476
The Corporation – Released 2004 – Total Box Office: $1,511,731
NASCAR: The Imax Experience – Released 2004 – Total Box Office: $1,225,625
Fahrenheit 911 was the highest grossing feature documentary of all time
The Corporation is a Canadian-produced documentary. It was the number one Canadian documentary as well as the second highest grossing Canadian-made film overall for 2004
The highest grossing French-language Canadian documentary was Ce Qu’il Reste de Nous. It took seventh place overall with over $300,000 at the box office

21. Non-Theatrical
Non-Theatrical Markets – Up to Early 1990’s - Generalized
Multimedia
Home Video
Colleges &
Universities
Schools
Libraries
Social
Business &
Services
Industry
Agencies
Community
Associations
Health
Educational
& Specialty TV
Non-theatrical Market – Early 90’s to Present - Specialised

22. Non-Theatrical
Diverse audiences are being reached at home, at the workplace and in the educational milieu.
Example: The National Film Board
Libraries - over the last five years - 1 million loans and rentals with 90% being documentaries
Educational milieu- almost 400,000 documentaries sold
More is research required to measure this consumption in the future

23. Television
Overview
All genres including sports, news, entertainment, etc.
Canadians consumed over 14 billion hours of television during the first half of the broadcast season
Of all that viewing, a slim majority (52%) was to foreign programming
Data challenges
Share of all TV Hours Tuned
Foreign-
Productions
52%
Canadian-
48%
Source: BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26, Broadcast Year

24. Television Recent Audience Indicators
Share of All TV Hours
(Week —2004 Season)
Canadians consumed about 784 million hours of documentary programming during the first half of the broadcast season
This accounts for about six percent of all tuning
Docs 6%
All Others
94%
Source: BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26, Broadcast Year

25. Share of All TV Hours Tuned to
Television
Recent Audience Indicators
Share of All TV Hours Tuned to
Documentaries
(Week —2004 Season)
Of the 784 Million documentary hours consumed 533 were in English and 251 in French representing roughly:
5% of overall English viewing
6% of overall French viewing
English and French Canadians consume documentary programming at similar levels
French
32%
English
68%
Source: BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26, Broadcast Year

26. Programming Hours tuned
Television
Recent Audience Indicators
Share of Documentary
Programming Hours tuned
(Week —2004 Season)
Although overall foreign television production is consumed more than Canadian production, in the case of documentary programming television viewers prefer home-grown products
Canadian documentaries account for more than 60% of all documentary tuning on television
Foreign
39%
Canadian
61%
Source: BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26, Broadcast Year

27. Prime Time Television Trends
English-Language
Documentary Programming
Supply vs. Viewing (hours/week/person)
Supply
Viewing
French-Language
1996/97
1998/99
2000/01
2002/03
More than double the documentary programming is available to prime time viewers :
English hrs/wk
French hrs/wk
Consumption is not increasing:
English 9 hrs/wk
French 11 hrs/wk
Source: CBC Research/Nielsen Media Prime Time

28. Prime Time Television Trends
Canadian Documentary Programming
Supply vs. Viewing Canadian Share of Hours Tuned
In the English market, Canadian share of supply has increased marginally to 50% while share of viewing remains around 30%.
In the French market, the Canadian share of supply and viewing dropped sharply in 1998 and has levelled off since at about 60%
English-Language
1996/97
1998/99
2000/01
2002/03
Supply
Viewing
French-Language
1996/97
1998/99
2000/01
2002/03
Source: CBC Research/Nielsen Media Canadian SHARE of Hours/Week/Person Prime time

29. Television Recent Audience Indicators
Sub-Format Share of all Viewing to
The on-going series sub-format accounts for the majority of hours tuned to documentary programming
However, the distribution of TUNING almost exactly matches the distribution of AVAILABILITY which suggests that the sub-formats are equally appealing to Canadians
Canadian Documentary Programming
Miniseries
One off 4%
14%
Series
82%
Source: BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26, Broadcast Year

30. Television Recent Audience Indicators
CUMULATIVELY, on-going series account for the most viewing, but one-offs and mini-series tend to have higher SINGLE-VIEW AUDIENCES.The top five single-airing audiences for documentaries were all one-offs or mini-series.
Source: BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26, Broadcast Year