Is This TV necessary?
by licensed television critic Farrell ChildeSeptember 21, 2005
The chief effect of the current lockout of employees of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation seems to have been the transformation of the CBC into a British network. The highlights of current CBC programming are Coronation Street, the British Antiques Roadshow, "documentaries" about Coronation Street, the BBC News, and Coronation Street. Our tax dollars at work, supporting CBC managers who seem manifestly not to be at work. They're just sitting back and counting the savings from not having to fulfil their mandate, like that bit about their programming being predominantly and distinctively Canadian.
Of course, the British version of the CBC seems to be arousing about as much interest among the anglophone populace as the old "Canadian" one, which means next to no interest at all. This fact has been adduced as evidence of the irrelevance of the CBC, and it is hard to argue with.
However, the people adducing this fact seem to assume that the rest of Canadian television is relevant, and that private television is doing a worthy job serving the Canadian public. Well, let's see if anyone would notice if the private networks disappeared.
What does private broadcasting offer Canadians? A look at the prime time schedules of the major private broadcasters shows that what they overwhelmingly offer is American programs. For example, in weekday prime time (8 pm to 10 pm), Global offers 0 (zero) hours of Canadian programming and CTV, now that Canadian Idol is finished, offers one hour. So all of 5% (five per cent) of the weekday prime time programming by the two largest private networks in our neck of the woods is Canadian. The rest of their schedules is filled with programs like Law and Order: SVU, Numb3rs, and House. If we look outside prime time, we find that CTV's late night show is a show about American politics! Yes, The Daily Show is one of the best shows on North American television, but it's a quintessentially American show.
If we look at the schedule of Global's little brother, CH TV, a private outlet which has long been important in central and parts of western Ontario, we find not only that none of the weekday prime time programming is Canadian, but that their evening news commentary (offered outside prime time) is American! Yup, they run Dateline NBC and 20/20 as their contribution to the discussion of important Canadian social issues. Tom Cherington would have something to say about that, I'm sure.
Two other private outlets in Toronto are City-tv and Sun TV (formerly Toronto 1). City does provide an hour of Canadian content in the ten hours of weekday prime time, a sci-fi show called The Collector. Sun TV? – nada, or as we say in Canada, rien, rien du tout.
But wait! There is a private outlet which runs 75% Canadian content in weekday prime time! It's…Omni!! Now, in another article here we gave Omni a lot of stick, but we'll give them credit for their Canadian programming, which in weekday prime time on their two channels consists of the news in Italian, the news in Cantonese, and South Asian News Hour. The last show is the only one I understand, and it seems pretty Canadian to me. The Italian and Cantonese shows are also clearly Canadian news shows.
So what's Omni's secret? How can it churn out all this Canadian content when media giants like BCE and CanWest Global, owners of CTV and Global TV, can only summon up an hour of Canadian programming between them? Could it be…that Omni has to run Canadian programs? Well, yes. It could be. Omni isn't allowed to run American shows in prime time. Live Canadian television is a cheap, effective, and informative way to fill airtime. Forcing the big boys to contribute to Canadian culture as well, though, obviously seems inadvisable to the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission.
So most of private Canadian broadcast television exists chiefly to run American programs. This is true outside prime time as well, as you can easily verify by consulting the television listings. Private Canadian broadcasters broadcast American shows even though they are already broadcast into Canada by American stations. American programs are freely available to most Canadians by antenna, since most of us live near the American border. They're on cable, too. If the private Canadian broadcasters disappeared we wouldn't be deprived of American programs. How do the Canadian broadcasters make a buck, then?
Well, they've been given a virtual monopoly by the CRTC. Most Canadian households get their TV on cable, and the CRTC rquires that cable companies substitute the Canadian broadcast of an American show for any American broadcast of that show occurring at the same time. So the Canadian stations broadcast their shows at the same time as the American networks, and the only Canadian content we get is the station or network logo in the bottom right corner of the screen. The Canadian private broadcasters are adding no value to the broadcasts, but thanks to restraint of trade by the CRTC they get to coin money for not adding value.
Private Canadian broadcast television is largely an exercise in helping friends of the government make money from providing a redundant service to a captive audience. The giants of Canadian private broadcasting, men such as John Bassett or Israel Asper, weren't exactly politically unconnected. Their networks have benefited from CRTC regulations which amount to approval of a cartel. Advertising money is diverted by government fiat to Canadian parasite networks rather than to the people who took the risk of developing and producing the shows.
Furthermore, we are forced to support these private broadcasters by paying for unnecessary service. For example, cable companies outside Toronto are required to carry City-TV and CP24 on basic cable, so in London, Ontario you get to pay part of your cable bill for constant coverage of Toronto traffic and for Toronto news shows. And all of us in Toronto are required to pay for Sun TV, a service which couldn't make a red cent if it wasn't for the requirement that it be on cable. Originally owned by Craig Communications and known as Toronto 1, this station quickly went belly up after being approved. Now it's in the hands of Québecor and broadcasting hour upon hour of humdrum foreign programs.
I agree that on the whole CBC television is pretty bad. But when it comes to the hours during which most Canadians watch television, it used to run Canadian programs, and will run them again when the lockout is over. It will run Canadian programs most of the rest of the time, too. The CRTC, however, has decided that the private broadcasters' role in promoting Canadian culture is to be to flood the airwaves with American content rather than to improve the quality of Canadian programs by providing competition. You might think our politicians would be as interested in attacking that idea as they are in attacking the idea of public broadcasting, but I guess they figure it might hurt the value of their shares.
Is This TV Necessary? © John FitzGerald, 2005
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