Winnipeg’s ability to serve as TV production hub hampered by lack of direct flights to U.S.

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This article was published 09/10/2015 (4000 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the TV series Fargo begins its second season, wistful notions of the acclaimed FX drama being shot in Winnipeg really are quite far gone.

But for the local film- and TV-production community, Fargo is still the Big One that got away — a constant reminder of the delicate nature of location-shooting negotiations and of how Winnipeg’s position as a smaller and relatively isolated city with few direct flight connections to U.S. cities will continue to make it difficult to attract major TV-series projects. 

When it was being developed as a TV series in 2013, Fargo’s producers looked north of the border for a shooting location that would match the bleak and wintry North Dakota/Minnesota landscape featured in the story, while allowing access to the benefits of exchange-rate savings and tax-credit incentives afforded by filming in Canada.

In the end, it came down to a choice between Winnipeg and Calgary. Calgary has several daily direct flights to and from Los Angeles; Winnipeg has none.

Fargo is shot in Calgary.

“Fargo is a perfect example of what can happen when there isn’t a direct flight,” says Nicole Matiation, executive director of On Screen Manitoba, the province’s media-production industry association. “Every time a production is looking at Manitoba (as a potential shooting site), they’ll be considering the location, of course — can they get the images they want? — and the financials — is the tax credit going to make enough difference to make it worthwhile to bring the production into Manitoba? — and then they’ll be looking at the inconveniences, like the lack of a direct flight.

“If you’re moving cast (members) back and forth from L.A. and, for example, they can’t get home for a holiday weekend, or have a very complicated way of getting home, it’s just one more thing that has to be negotiated. So in terms of marketing Manitoba as a place where filming can happen efficiently, smoothly and to a very high standard, (the lack of direct flights) creates a bit of an obstacle in that conversation. We know that there have been productions that, as it was with Fargo, it was a contributing factor in choosing to not come to Manitoba.”

Fargo may be long gone, but there has seldom been a better time than now for Manitoba to be attracting TV and movie productions. The combination of the province’s tax-credit program — among the most aggressive in the country, it offers up to a 65 per cent refund on Manitoba labour expenditures — and a Canadian dollar that’s trading at near-record lows against U.S. currency makes choosing a north-of-the-border location pretty much a no-brainer for Hollywood-based producers.

Toronto and Vancouver continue to be extremely busy shooting-location centres for U.S. producers, to the point some have started looking at other Canadian cities as options that will afford their shows a fresh set of cityscapes and green spaces. For example, the producers of the new ABC drama Quantico (which also airs on CTV) chose Montreal as their Canadian location stand-in for New York City and the rural Virginia home of the FBI’s training academy.

But despite the opening in 2011 of the expansive new terminal at Richardson International Airport — part of a $672-million expansion of the facility — the number of major U.S. cities served by non-stop flights to and from Winnipeg has not expanded beyond the traditional hub centres of Chicago, Denver and Minneapolis. Both L.A. and New York — America’s two entertainment-industry capitals — remain at least one plane change away.

Kim Todd, president of Winnipeg-based Original Pictures and the Canadian-based producer of Fargo’s Calgary production, says the importance of a direct link to L.A. has only been reinforced by that show’s experience while shooting the first two seasons in Alberta.

“(Winnipeg) made a very good presentation, and everyone agreed that Winnipeg, creatively, was a great place to shoot Fargo,” says Todd, who was involved in the effort to lure the series to Manitoba and so impressed Fargo’s L.A.-based producers they invited her to join the series as a producer when it landed in Calgary.

“But the direct flight was very definitely a factor, and it became obvious when we shot in Calgary how many times it would have been a problem had we done it in a place that didn’t have a direct flight.

“The shuttling of cast and executive producers and publicity people from Los Angeles to the set was constant. Even our stars — Colin Hanks had a new baby, so he had to get back to L.A. whenever possible, and Billy Bob Thornton had to fly out to go do a cameo in someone’s movie for three days and get back to us quickly. There was actually one time when we had to charter a plane to L.A. for a publicity event because the direct flight wasn’t fast enough for our turnaround. … You can’t understate the importance of that proximity and the ability to get back and forth.”

From the air-industry perspective, however, the absence of regular non-stop service between Winnipeg’s Richardson International Airport (YWG) and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is a simple matter of numbers. Simply put, there isn’t enough demand, or regular passenger traffic, between the two cities to justify regular direct flights.

Without such regularly scheduled service, landing a major U.S.-network series might remain a pipe dream for the local production community.

Todd says it’s possible Manitoba will have to settle for more of the less prestigious and decidedly more modestly budgeted kind of TV and movie projects it currently attracts.

“While I think a series is not off the table, I do think the smart money is to focus on what comes regularly to Winnipeg, which are middle-budget movies — often direct-to-DVD or low-budget features, or TV movies (for such studios as) Hallmark and Sony, which are in the $5-million budget range,” she explains.

“Those movies look for the best (financial) incentives and don’t have the luxury, given their budgets, of saying ‘Our director would rather live in Toronto because he knows the city.’ They don’t have the luxury of putting other priorities above the financials, and because they’re one-offs that happen in a limited period of time, the flight is less of a problem because you’re not shuttling people back and forth, back and forth for six months. … It isn’t TV-series-or-nothing; there is very definitely a market in which Winnipeg can pull in production from other parts of the world.”

Lobbying efforts to entice an airline to establish regular non-stop service between YWG and LAX have been going on for much more than a decade. The goal was nearly realized in 2005, when WestJet announced it would begin twice-weekly direct flights between Winnipeg and L.A. — perhaps a result of the province’s large and aggressive trade mission to L.A. in 2003, led by then-premier Gary Doer, aimed at establishing links between Manitoba and California’s huge and diverse economy.

The focus of the trade expedition was not just on the movie and TV business; its emphasis was on opening new markets in a wide range of business sectors, from stage, screen and sound to Manitoba-grown produce and locally distilled spirits.

At the time, Doer illustrated the importance of the California market by noting Manitoba exports more to the Golden State than to China and Mexico combined.

Less than a week before wheels-up on the first direct YWG-LAX flight, however, WestJet cancelled the initiative, calling the move a “business decision.”

Without that direct link, travellers headed for southern California must make at least one stop along the way, changing planes in a major connecting hub such as Calgary, Toronto, Chicago, Minneapolis or Denver.

The absence of a direct airline connection between Winnipeg and L.A. is indicative, of course, of this city’s status as an air-travel destination in more general terms.

The Winnipeg Airports Authority has Los Angeles on a wish list of new direct-flight destinations, as California’s largest city ranks No. 28 as the most frequent final destination for passengers leaving Richardson International Airport.

That said, there are six other final destinations without direct flights that are even more popular for passengers leaving Winnipeg: Halifax (No. 14), Victoria (No. 16), New York City (No. 19), Manila (No. 21), Kelowna (No. 22) and Hamilton (No. 27) all rank ahead of Los Angeles, according to the WAA.

This is important because passenger traffic is the most important factor airlines consider when they’re considering adding new direct flights between cities.

Other factors include the availability of aircraft of the right size, the price of fuel, the U.S.-Canadian exchange rate, the strength of the economy in new potential destinations, the availability of crew accommodations and the expense associated with landing at an airport — all of which determine whether or not a prospective flight can be profitable.

The Winnipeg Airports Authority is constantly running numbers of its own in an attempt to place the city on airlines’ radar.

“What we do us run the analysis for any of the top markets we feel might be able to have direct service. And it’s not what we feel; it’s what the numbers tell us,” says Pascal Bélanger, vice-president and chief information officer at the Winnipeg Airports Authority.

While the WAA occasionally works with airlines to reduce landing fees for limited periods of time, the agency is no fan of subsidies to lure flights that are not warranted by passenger traffic.

“If the flight is not good enough to stand up by itself, why should we or anyone backstop it if it’s destined to fail? If you know it’s going to be a losing proposition, why would you do it?” Bélanger asks.

When subsidies end, incentivized flights disappear, leaving airlines and airports to explain the loss of service — and leaving cities with a poor reputation with other airlines, he says.

As a result, subsidies usually cannot convince an airline to give up a profitable, existing route for a new, riskier one. “Given that airlines don’t have hangars full of unused aircraft, it really has to be a great opportunity,” Bélanger says.

As a result, neither the city nor the province are entertaining subsidies for a Winnipeg-Los Angeles flight.

“We can’t put any money toward subsidies at all,” says Chantal Sturk-Nadeau, vice-president of Economic Development Winnipeg.

“The Manitoba government doesn’t run airlines,” adds Ron Lemieux, the provincial minister responsible for tourism and culture.

He says he understands the Winnipeg film industry desires an L.A. connection, but noted the province already helps it out by maintaining provincial tax credits already phased out by provinces such as Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia.

He also says no one in the film industry can cite an example of a production other than Fargo that has not come to Winnipeg because of the lack of access to a direct fight.

“I haven’t heard one,” he says. “Not a one.”

Matiation counters Fargo was merely the highest-profile production to cite flight access as a factor.

“Fargo was a somewhat more public process, in terms of the decision-making, than it generally is for productions,” she says. “So it was very easy for us to document that it was a direct-flight issue. The problem is that there are many other films and shows that have looked at Winnipeg that we hear are making a decision based on that (flight issue), but are not willing for us to speak about it by attaching it to specific titles. We know that they’re considering that every time they look at Winnipeg as a location, and when they factor in the added bother and potential cost of not having direct flights, we know that that’s contributing to the decision to not come.

“It’s a bit tricky… we know that’s what happening; this industry tends to be a bit secretive.”

Belanger says no single industry in Winnipeg is large enough to warrant a direct flight to any destination, let alone the modest film sector. 

“I don’t know of any business, just about anywhere, that’s big enough to warrant a full operation on a daily basis. I’m not aware of any industry — even aerospace, which is diverse here — that can do that,” he says.

“The fact we have Boeing here — does that mean we should have flights to Seattle tomorrow? No.”

Nonetheless, the WAA is hopeful direct flights to New York City and L.A. will materialize on their own in the coming years, based on passenger traffic. WestJet service between Winnipeg and London, he notes, has materialized organically.

One direct flight per week to London’s Gatwick Airport will commence next spring, primarily due to WestJet’s decision to devote four aircraft to Gatwick service from six Canadian centres.

Despite the seemingly long odds against the establishment of a direct YWG-LAX connection in the near future, the local film industry isn’t giving up on its lobbying efforts.

“I think we have a sense that there’s a realistic understanding of the potential that the direct flight to L.A. represents,” says Matiation. “I think often, with these sorts of things, a big piece of the picture is timing — timing from the airlines’ perspective, timing from various industries’ perspective, and lining up opportunities with that. I think maintaining these discussions and seeing this potential is what will get us closer to this goal.”

On the question of subsidies, whether from the province or the airports authority, Matiation says they are a factor that must be considered.

“My understanding is that’s basically how the airline industry works, right?” she says. “It’s a combination of investment on the part of private industry and government, through a variety of different channels. There can be sound reasons for incentivizing airlines to be more active in this market, and that’s a conversation that involves many partners.

“I would say that it’s not about subsidy, it’s about investment, and if there’s going to be investment in this, it would have to come from both public and private sources… Our job, from an industry-association perspective working with various partners, is to illustrate as clearly as possible the business case for taking a look at a direct flight.”

Among those adding their voices to the call for a YWG-LAX link, and more direct flights to and from Winnipeg in general, is Gail Asper, president of the Asper Foundation and the driving force behind the establishment of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

In letters penned to the presidents of both Air Canada and WestJet last month, Asper calls the lack of direct flights “unconscionable” and suggests the airlines’ indifference to the Winnipeg market will hamper the CMHR’s ability to fulfil its potential as a tourist destination.

“I would have thought that a Canadian airline, which has been so helpful in helping to establish the museum, would do everything in its power to ensure that people from all over the world can arrive in Winnipeg as quickly and efficiently as possible,” the letter says. “Americans in particular have shown a great interest in visiting the museum, but find the daunting and convoluted travel options to be deal-breakers.”

For her part, Todd says the presence of an acclaimed and successful major U.S. series such as Fargo can have a tremendous impact on a local film and TV production community.

“It’s a game-changer,” says Todd, who was onstage in L.A. last fall with the rest of the cast and crew when Fargo collected the Emmy Award for outstanding miniseries. “On a provincial level, for the recognition of the industry and the quality of work they can do, it’s outstanding. Everyone gets to put that on their resumé, totally legitimately — that’s the work they did, up there on the screen, winning those awards. That’s really important. You can have a bunch of people who are capable of winning an award, but if you don’t get the opportunity to work on an award-winning show, it doesn’t come.

“And in terms of personal and professional development for the crew, it’s also a game-changer. The thing about producing a show like Fargo is that you take everyone’s ability and push it right to the edge, in a good way… You take everything to the very limit of what you can do, creatively and financially, and get everything on the screen. That attitude, and the inspiration and rejuvenation it causes, really is a game-changer.”

Todd agrees the dream of a direct-route connection between Winnipeg and L.A. should be kept alive, but noted it may take a broader approach, such as the one employed during that 2003 trade mission, to bring the YWG-LAX quest to fruition.

“Is it realistic? I don’t know,” she says. “I know that the movie (and TV) industry on its own can’t justify a direct flight to L.A… (but) there are clearly several industries with close ties to Los Angeles, so it would seem that there might be an alliance of Winnipeg businesses that could really thrive with a direct flight. Maybe that might generate the business that the airlines would need to justify the flight. You know what they say: If you build it, they will come.”

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca