To the Honourable Dianne Cunningham Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Queen’s Park I take pleasure in submitting the Annual Report of the Ontario Educational Communications Authority (TVOntario) for the fiscal year April 1, 2001, to March 31, 2002. This is done in accordance with Section 12 (1) of the Ontario Educational Communications Authority Act. This Annual Report outlines the milestones for the year 2001–02, during which we continued to provide TVOntario’s educational resources through broadcast and other technologies. In this year we created more curriculum- linked programs and refined the services of our E-Learning Centre to provide educational aids for children and adults, and information on educational resources for career options throughout Ontario. I invite you to review the 2001–02 educational programming and e-learning accomplishments in the pages that follow. Isabel Bassett Chair and Chief Executive Officer Ontario Educational Communications Authority Table of Contents Page 2 A Message from the Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Isabel Bassett Page 4 E-Learning Centre, Sarah Irwin Page 6 English Programming Services, Beth Haddon Page 10 French Programming Services, Claudette Paquin Page 13 TVOntario Awards Page 14 Community Outreach Page 16 Revenue & Development, Bob Baker Page 18 TVOntario Stars Page 20 General Operations, Lee Robock Page 22 OECA Board of Directors TVOntario Planning and Priorities Group Executive Management Committee Salary disclosure Page 23 Management Responsibility Report Auditor’s Report Page 24 Financial Statements Where education matters – on air, online 1 Where education matters Isabel Bassett Chair and Chief Executive Officer Mandate A message from the Chair and The Lifelong Learning Challenge Our Revenue and Development Chief Executive Officer Fund – TVOntario’s partnership department has continued in its TVOntario’s mission is to support with Ontario institutions and the efforts to improve TVOntario’s lifelong learning in Ontario by This has been a year of progress private sector – is developing self-sufficiency by increasing providing quality educational for TVOntario. As we continued skills upgrades courses for work- our Membership numbers and programming services in English to fulfill our educational mandate, places across the province for revenues. They have also made and French using television and we completed the second year of delivery to students next year. tremendous inroads into the other communications technologies. a three-year business strategy that corporate sector by developing focuses on making lifelong learn- This means that anyone in In 1970, TVOntario was estab- partnerships to underwrite our ing available to all Ontarians. Ontario can achieve a high school lished as the Ontario Educational children’s outreach programs diploma through the ILC. They Communications Authority. As Last year we ensured that all of and our educational Web sites. can look to Eureka! for free help defined by our mandate, TVOntario our children’s programming and with homework. They can discover I am pleased to welcome Sarah initiates, produces, and provides much of our adult prime time pro- what high school, university Irwin, our new Managing uninterrupted programming and gramming were linked to the K–12 courses, and apprenticeship Director of E-Learning to the access to interactive media curriculum. In addition to these programs are available in Ontario TVOntario management team. resources that educate, inform, links, in 2001–02 Saturday Night at to lead to their career goals with She joins Beth Haddon, Managing and enrich all Ontarians. the Movies and the Studio 2/Munk CareerMATTERS. And then they Director of TVO, and Claudette International Centre Going Global TVOntario is committed to educa- can enhance their career skills Paquin, Managing Director of specials were an integral part of tional strategies that incorporate through the LLCF program. TFO, along with Lee Robock, university credit courses. and support quality lifelong learning General Manager and Chief At TVOntario, this is our definition opportunities for adults and children, This year we streamlined our Operations Officer, and Bob of convergence, for, in addition using the power of educational tele- E-Learning Centre to include Baker, Managing Director of to our educational Web sites, vision programming and the recent only those products that serve Revenue and Development. we have the benefit of the air- developments in e-learning. This is a useful and necessary purpose waves on TVO and TFO to bring In the pages that follow, you achieved by linking our educational in Ontario’s education system. Ontarians educational and enrich- will find a review of the year’s television programming to the In keeping with TVOntario’s ing programs, which in turn are activities for each individual Ontario curriculum, by developing mandate to be an adjunct to complemented by their own Web programming and revenue area, skills training products, and by the province’s formal education site activities. The award-winning outlining our priorities, our offering a range of educational programs, our products are all tfo.org/bisou and tvokids.com targets, and our achievements. interactive online resources to interconnected and provide a sites are two examples. support Ontario’s education system. continuum of learning. To reinforce the focus on our The Eureka! Ask a Teacher free educational mandate, our English homework online service is avail- language network, TVO, created able five nights a week and also an enriching series of educational provides help with the provincial shorts and developed the inform- competency tests in literacy ative parenting series Planet and math. Parent. We continued to focus on The Independent Learning Centre Ontario-wide issues on Studio 2 came under the auspices of and More to Life, and brought the TVOntario at the end of this fiscal innovative Big Ideas, an intellectual year. The ILC provides Ontarians alternative, to our Sunday after- with the opportunity to acquire noon schedule. a high school diploma through Our French network, TFO, devel- distance education. This most oped a range of in-house produc- certainly puts TVOntario in the tions that focused on the cultural education business. life of our Franco-Ontarian com- TVOntario’s CareerMATTERS is a munity, most particularly through comprehensive Web site offering Panorama-Arts. We extended our job descriptions, and a list of the line of new media products and educational courses required to CD-ROMs, developed the innova- achieve any number of careers. tive Biographies Web site, and presented a series of professional development workshops for teachers. 2 TVOntario Goals for 2002-03 The final year of our current three-year plan builds on the success of the 2. Improve our self-sufficiency through the development of new past year, increases our focus on education, and sets out clear priorities revenue streams, leveraging opportunities, and partnerships. to reinforce and better publicize our educational mandate. The Board We intend to increase earned revenues to 36% of total revenues in of Directors is already engaged in a planning exercise to map out the 2002–03. A critical portion of this goal will be met by expanding the priorities for the next three-year plan, one that starts in 2003-04 and total Membership base to 95,000 members from the current 87,580. takes us to year 2005-06. The TVOntario Foundation will launch a $10-million campaign in This is what we aim to achieve in 2002–03. September 2002, and Sales and Licensing will explore new opportunities for licensing our products in digital format. 1. Reinforce the emphasis on formal education in lifelong learning through our broadcast and new media products and markets to provide 3. Develop a corporate culture that is efficient, entrepreneurial, the best quality educational and curriculum-based service to Ontario. and dedicated to the provision of the highest quality service. Our goal is to deliver more useful and necessary educational products It is our intention to position the workforce to meet the challenges both on air and online that support Ontarians in the province’s educa- brought by new technologies and changes in the workplace through tion system. We aim to make all Ontarians more aware of TVOntario’s training, succession planning, and skills development. value to them as an educational resource. We are increasing the number of programs on the broadcast schedule that are linked to the Ontario As part of the capital renewal project, we will complete the upgrade curriculum and expanding collaboration between our broadcast and to the post-production plant to prepare the organization for technical e-learning divisions to promote our educational products in both areas. convergence. We also intend to conduct a thorough “needs assessment” of the state of the organization’s business systems with a view to And, we aim to ensure that all program services, from conception to revamping those most critical to supporting the current and future completion, adhere to TVOntario’s corporate vision as a unique adjunct needs of TVOntario. to the province’s education system. As you can see, we are committed to a strong and vital organization On TVO this will mean a stronger focus on children’s programming that is an important adjunct to the Ontario education system. based on the Ontario K–12 curriculum, a fine-tuning and refocusing of all our adult in-house programming to provide useful and necessary Our goal is to provide essential educational services that enhance knowledge about Ontario issues, events, and people from an Ontario the quality of learning for the people of Ontario. perspective. Where feasible, we will introduce more formal educational programming and partnerships with academic institutions, as we are now doing with Going Global at the Munk Centre. On TFO we will continue to support the French-language cultural and educational needs of the Franco-Ontarian community by providing Isabel Bassett high quality, engaging, and informative programs tied directly to the Chair and CEO Ontario curriculum.