Actor Missy Peregrym and Matt Gordon are pictured in a scene of "Rookie Blue." What does it take to make a hit TV show in Canada? The question was put to five "hitmakers" Wednesday in Toronto at the 14th annual Innoversity Summit. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ho, Ken Woroner

What does it take to make a hit TV show in Canada?

The question was put to five "hitmakers" Wednesday in Toronto at the 14th annual Innoversity Creative Summit. The two-day symposium offered TV and film industry professionals and those looking to get into the business a chance to network, gain wisdom from keynote speakers and drill deeper into issues such as diversity, funding and accessibility.

None of the panellists had any secret formula for creating a hit TV show — as John Lennon once famously quipped, "If we knew that we'd quit the group and become managers" — but they shared insights into their own paths to network glory.

Stephanie Morgenstern with her writing partner/husband Mark Ellis created "Flashpoint." Their new show, a true-life Canadian spy drama tentatively called "Camp X," premieres in February on CBC.

Morgenstern says "Flashpoint" was basically an accident. The drama, about an elite Toronto police unit, was originally pitched as a two-hour TV movie. Inspired by a real police shooting, it stemmed out of a desire to explore the aftermath of the incident for the officer who pulled the trigger.

"Flashpoint" was among the first of the "co-pros," network dramas airing on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. Morgenstern recalls the notes from executives at CBS were distinctly different from CTV's suggestions. American network programmers couldn't understand at first why all the fuss over a police shooting.

Ron E. Scott wears several hats as the co-creator, executive producer, director and writer of "Blackstone." The edgy drama, set at a fictional native reserve in Alberta, returns for a fourth season Nov. 11 on APTN.

Scott inherited the Alberta-based project, which also started as a two-hour TV-movie idea. Season 4 will deal with many ripped-from-the-headlines stories, including the plight of missing and presumed murdered aboriginal women.

Scott drew on his Metis heritage to shape and craft "Blackstone." The cast is almost exclusively aboriginal, with actors hailing from across Canada. The writers' room is also filled with aboriginal voices.

The issue of diversity is central to the Innoversity mandate. It is often a hot-button issue in the United States, where in recent years there was much criticism about the lack of visible minorities on network offerings. ABC, in particular, stepped up this fall and introduced several people of colour as main players on shows such as "How to Get Away with Murder" and "Black-ish." Programmers Stateside this fall have also pitched shows featuring Latino actresses, especially on "Camilla" and "Jane the Virgin."

In Canada, where fewer shows are produced each year, diversity seems less of a hot-button issue. Still, some at the Innoversity sessions asked, "Where is our Shonda Rhimes?"

Rhimes has emerged as the most powerful drama provider on U.S. television. Thursday nights on ABC, she produces the entire prime-time slate, from "Grey's Anatomy" to "Scandal" to "How to Get Away with Murder." In a recent cover story, The Hollywood Reporter dubbed her broadcast TV's "saviour" and crossed out "female" and "black" in describing her as TV's most powerful producer.

Tassie Cameron, co-creator and showrunner of "Rookie Blue," says she's proud of the diversity of her cast. Where Canada has made more strides, she feels, is in providing opportunities for women. She recalled being the only woman in the writers' room a dozen years ago when she got her start contributing to the short-lived CBC drama "Tom Stone." Cameron says she had no qualms using her gender to fill a quota back in her day and now swings the door wide open for women in the mainly female "Rookie Blue" writers' room.

Cameron is part of generation of women who hold key roles in Canadian television. She partnered with Morwyn Brebner on creating "Rookie Blue." Brebner went on to create CTV's "Saving Hope." The two dramas are one-two in ratings as Canada's most-watched domestic scripted shows, pulling close to 1.6 million viewers per week.

Brebner's writing room also boasts at least a 50-50 male-female split. Like Cameron, she regrets not having more people of colour on her writing staff, and expects the pool of writers to draw from to become more diverse.

Diversity remains a challenge in finding Canadian directors, says John Weber. The president of Take 5 productions joined the other "hitmakers" not as a writer/creator but as an executive producer on international hits such as "Vikings," "The Borgias" and shot-in-Toronto American network shows such as "Beauty and the Beast" and "Reign." He's happy to get director Sudz Sutherland any time he's available.

Both Brebner and Cameron were writers on "The Eleventh Hour," a short-lived CTV drama about news reporters. That series was co-created by two other women, Semi Chellas and Ilana Frank. Cameron, who has spent six years running "Rookie Blue," is teaming with Chellas — hot off "Mad Men" as a writer/producer — on a future drama for NBC, one of two projects she has in development.

All of the Innoversity hitmaker panellists stressed the importance of authenticity and passion in pitching TV shows.

"Write something from the heart," said Brebner.

Cameron agreed, explaining that while she had never been a rookie cop, she remembers all too well the feeling of being a rookie writer, of feeling like a fraud and having to prove herself-and that helped fuel her vision for her series.

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Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2014