EDMONTON, CANADA — When one hears the term “Canadian beaver,” one can be forgiven for thinking of the four-footed rodent that is this country’s national symbol. But if Edmonton’s Real Productions has its way, people will soon be associating this term with a far more luscious variety of furriness. The reason: Much to the amazement of many in Canada’s government-regulated broadcast industry, Real Productions has succeeded in winning official approval to launch Northern Peaks, a 24-hour digital cable/satellite adult channel. More strikingly, 50-percent of Northern Peaks’ content will be produced in Canada itself; a fact that astounds those who see this country as a cold, sleepy wasteland.“It was about a 10 month process and involved a great deal of information exchange,” says Real Productions’ president Shaun Donnelly. “The CRTC (Canada’s version of the FCC) was very thorough in its inspection of our application and supporting documents.”
Real Productions has been bucking Canada’s sleepy stereotype since being founded in 2001. Starting out with a series of pro-am movies produced using local Canadian talent and sold by mail order, “The company has since produced more than 200 full-length adult movies and has more than 30,000 mail order customers,” Donnelly says. “We’ve been in U.S. mail order almost from the beginning but what really made a big mark for us was our television series Make Me a Porn Star. The series aired on cable networks worldwide including Granada in the U.K. and Starz in the U.S. and generated a great deal of interest in our movies. The series success spawned several other TV series for us including the hit Playboy TV series The Boy Nexxt Door.
Ironically, it wasn’t Real Productions itself that decided to go after its own TV channel, but rather a major Canadian cable TV company “interested in offering their customers a unique Canadian adult service,” Donnelly explains. “Knowing we had the largest library of Canadian content in the country, it made sense for them to approach us. What interested us most was the opportunity to produce original programming – -along the lines of Make Me a Porn Star and The Boy Nexxt Door — without having to sell a network on the idea. We’ll be the network.”
To stock this network, Northern Peaks has come up with a number of new adult TV shows. They include Kinky in the Kitchen, where a real chef appearing on what she/he thinks is a legit cooking show will face their female assistant spilling food on her clothes; giving her an excuse to gradually take them all off. If the chef stands their ground, she/he will next be faced with a walk-on dominatrix named Kinky who will abuse him/her verbally – “Whip those eggs the way I’d like to whip your butt,” says the Northern Peaks’ program description. “If the chef still doesn’t walk off, the dominatrix and the hostess will engage in a sex scene on the counter. The unwitting chef is now preparing his/her favorite receipt in the midst of a porn shoot!” Other planned shows are Blue Revue (a promotional talk show), Jizz Quiz (a sex game show) and Red Light Districts (travel). “Most will be produced in-house but we will also be licensing content from a variety of Canadian, U.S. and International producers,” says Donnelly.
As for production facilities? “Because we shoot in cities right across Canada, we’re more of a location company,” he points out. “It would not make financial sense to open studios in a dozen different cities. So we end up shooting mostly in hotels and private residences. Still we have a small 4,000 square foot studio in a trendy part of Edmonton as well as a private location in Las Vegas.”
“There are no talent agencies in Canada so all the girls we shoot with we have to find ourselves,” he adds. “Having said that, it has become increasingly easy to find talent. The TV shows help — we get a lot of exposure — as well as the fact we’ve been around almost ten years now.”
At press time, Northern Peaks was busy trying to get an actual slot on Canadian cable/satellite TV. As a digital channel, it will not be broadcast over-the-air, and will only be seen by subscribing adults. “We’re currently in negotiations with five of the six national carriers,” Donnelly says. “We are hopeful we’ll secure a carrier by the end of the year and begin broadcasting by summer of 2009… We have plans to launch an IP channel concurrent to the cable channel, which will generate additional revenues on-line.”
Will Canadians actually pay to watch their own homegrown porn? Judging by the public’s reaction to the channel’s licensing, the answer would appear to be “yes.” “The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,” he says. “I have received about 1,200 e-mails and only one has been negative.”
“There have been a handful of negative newspaper articles but it is interesting to note actual reader feedback,” Shaun Donnelly observes. “In the Edmonton Sun, 47-percent of those polled said they’d be willing to appear in an adult movie — not just watch but actually appear in one! In the Winnipeg Sun, 57-percent of those polled said they would subscribe to Northern Peaks. In one issue of the Calgary Herald we were called an abomination by one columnist, while another credited us with reducing the rate of sexual assaults in the city. I guess all I can say to that last one is ‘you’re welcome!’”
“As for our long term hopes and aspirations, we really just want to keep doing what we’re doing,” he concludes. “That is, continue to produce quality adult movies in Canada while at the same time producing cable television programming about some of the really colorful characters we meet doing the former. Northern Peaks will simply give us another forum to deliver this content to adults who wish to view it.”
