B.C.'s film and TV industry has faced a number of recent and unprecedented challenges that continue to impact local producers and businesses.
Growing reliance on social media platforms, labour strikes across the border and content disputes in Canada have had a noticeable impact on the sector, raising the question of what the future looks like for British Columbia's creative sector.
“TV and film are on the decline; people are simply watching more and more non-curated content, like streamers on Instagram, Tik Tok and other social media channels,” Big Time Decent Productions Inc. president and executive producer Matthew Shewchuk told BIV.
“That's definitely taking away market share in terms of capacity to generate money through advertisers.”
Such social media platforms are noticeably drawing consumers away from TV and silver screen content, he added.
Big Time Decent is a Vancouver-based full-service production company founded in 2020 that produces original content for Netflix, Hulu, The History Channel and other platforms.
Some of their most popular shows include Rust Valley Restorers, Backroad Truckers and the upcoming show Yukon Rescue.
In light of the continued rise of social media content, Shewchuk said he’s been branching out into YouTube original content over the last two years, and learning about monetization and how to lower his costs.
“I have now discovered that you can't really have seasoned documentary guys on a YouTube shoot,” he said. “You have to be creative and find great, young up-and-comers that can shoot on a phone or on a little camera.”
Partnering with the cast from Rust Valley and starting the Rust Bros YouTube channel was eye opening for him, as he had more time on his hands to shoot and establish a workflow for editing, he added.
Instead of spending thousands of dollars a day for a documentary crew, YouTube allowed him to be self-sufficient.
“Some advice we got from people that were on YouTube was posting every day,” he said. “With the popularity of Mike and the guys, once monetization opened up, we started making money.”
“If you can get your costs out, have good sensibilities and find the talent, it’s like the music industry all over again from back in the day.”
The accessibility and affordability of platforms such as YouTube is what makes them so attractive—and hard to compete against.
But that popularity has also flooded the platform with millions of channels.
“One trend I'm seeing is that movie theatre box office numbers are going down,” he said. “Another trend is everyone’s getting a channel. The 10-year-old kid doing a spicy Doritos challenge, he's got a channel, so you have to sift through that for the quality.”
Another event with rippling effects on the B.C. film and T.V. industry were the 2023 Hollywood strikes over regulations for streaming platform residuals, the use of AI and better working conditions
The Writers Guild of America and the SAG-AFTRA strikes resulted in the loss of 45,000 jobs and an estimated US$6.5 billion to the economy of Southern California, according to Deadline.com.
“Those strikes really put a dent in the volume of TV shows and movies being shot in Vancouver,” Shewchuk said.
The Canadian film and television industry—anchored by Toronto and Vancouver in equal measure—does a lot of production service work for international companies.
After dual Hollywood strikes halted productions for about 150 days, B.C. Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport Lana Popham said hiring in the industry was down by more than 80 per cent at the end of 2023, underscoring the serious effects U.S. labour action had on the 88,000 people working in the province's industry.
Nevertheless, activity seems to have recovered slightly since then, with a stable climate for documentary reality TV and with room for improvement in scripted TV, according to Shewchuk.
Looking ahead, the future looks bright as the market continues to settle, he added.
“I think it's looking good for B.C.; it’s a very strong base of talent, and known for having great crews,” he said. “More and more Netflix shows are getting shot up here; they really trust everyone.”
But it's not all smooth sailing. Bell Media recently filed an injunction seeking to block Rogers from broadcasting Warner Bros. content once the latter becomes the rights holder next January.
According to Bell, their contract with Warner Bros. states they are entitled “to at least a two-year window to adjust” if the licensing-agreement is not renewed.
If granted, channels like Discovery, Animal Planet, HGTV and The Food Network will be unavailable to the public for at least a two-year period.
The dispute has created uncertainty for production studios across Canada.
“It's affected the industry in terms of where it’s going to land; who are we going to be pitching to?” Shewchuk said. “If Rogers retains Discovery and they have to produce new Canadian content, I’ll be pitching to them. If Bell retains it, we are also going to pitch to them.”
The next hearing regarding the dispute is scheduled to take place on September 13.
