Rights, Responsibilities, and Jim Shaw's Checkbook Tantrum

This started as a comment response, then metastisized. I'm rewriting an outline right now so it's not going to be particularly edited. Forgive me for that.

Oh, one more thing. Watching Vancouverites drive in snow is like watching a line of fat kids in a swimming pool try to do the butterfly. I say both these things from painful personal experience.

In response to my pass along about the WGC's response to the AA/Canwest deal, Diane brought up this article, which flipped across the transom today:

OTTAWA - Calgary-based cable-TV executive Jim Shaw says he will no longer send his firm's contribution of about $56 million to Ottawa this year to support the Canadian Television Fund.
Shaw, CEOof Shaw Communications, says until the fund is restructured, he will withhold the five per cent of his company's revenues that legislation stipulates be used to support the production of Canadian TVshows...

``Over the past 10 years,''his letter states, ``Shaw has contributed over $350 million in direct subsidies to the Canadian production industry.''

Shaw goes on to argue that the ``CTF has become nothing more than a means of subsidizing broadcasters, pay and specialty services and independent producers to produce Canadian television programming that few watch and has no commercial or exportable value.''

The CTF was created in 1996 with a mandate to produce ``high-quality culturally significant Canadian television programs in both official languages.'' It also has an annual budget of $250 million a year _ $100 million of which is provided by the federal government.
That leads directly to another of Shaw's beefs.

He is particularly rankled that 37 per cent of the CTF's revenues are set aside annually for the CBC _ something he declares ``should be ended immediately'' in light of the fact that ``CBC already receives over $1.2 billion from Canadian taxpayers in the form of grants and mandatory subscriber fees.'

When I was a little kid, the thing that my Dad drove into my head over and over (and over, and over) was the balance everyone had to face between their rights and their responsibilities. He always made sure to let you know that he saw these two things as linked, and that you didn't get to have one without the other. You can't talk about your rights, if you aren't willing to fulfill your responsbilities.

Among the many dishonesties of the Bush adventure in Iraq was the fact that it became a deliberate strategy to sell the war to Americans based on fear, but to make sure that you didn't ask too much of them. So the tax cuts could stay in place, of course...and there didn't need to be a draft, to spread around the burden. Americans really weren't asked to sacrifice anything specific. That's why it took 3 years for them to turn against Bush an the war.

Well, the rights and responsibilities thing has also seriously gotten out of whack in the Canadian broadcast sector.

Jim Shaw's obviously a curmudgeon with a beef, but my feeling is that he's using the cudgel that he has to try and force a discussion. I could be wrong, but I'm going to hope that he actually wouldn't throw current programs out of whack to make his point. But you have to admit, it's a great stunt to get people listening.

So what's he doing?

Well, for one thing, I happen to not think he's wrong about the CBC and the CTF. I think that the entire issue of what we want the CBC to be, what its purpose is, and how it will accomplish that, needs to be discussed openly, and some binding recommendations need to be made to refocus and reframe the corporation. The CBC has a lot of competing demands put on it. Its mission is diffuse and unfocused. Even the greatest cheerleaders admit that it's asked to do way too much, without a clear plan or stable funding. But I think his point - that a corporation that gets lotsa dough from one place shouldn't get it from another -- well, there's nothing inherently ridiculous about that. He's got a point.

But-- and this is a big but --if it doesn't get CTF money, then where does it get the money from? For years, they've cut CBC's grant without spelling out what's expected of it, and accountability is lacking because it's run as a bureaucracy and not a business. Fiefdoms rule and plans -- expensive ones -- are made and then abandoned without benchmarks or a plan of victory. (You thought the Bush comparison off the top was superfluous, didn't you? Take that, bitches!)

Three years ago the CBC wanted to have a daily serial. So they commissioned a couple. By the time they were done, they were dumped on the air with no promo and left to wither on the vine. Why? New chiefs. New fiefdoms. More money down the drain.

Should the CBC have commercials? Should they do sports? Should they do lots more drama? Should they do cultural programming? Should they try to get ratings, or should they be an antidote to the American offerings of the Canadian private broadcasters?

I have views on all these things. I'm sure Jim Shaw does too. I have a stupid blog. He has that $56 million check he writes once a year. Who's got trump?

Money talks -- everywhere. If Jim wants to stamp his feet, good on him. Because shit needs to be said. And you know what? Maybe Jim's dead wrong and the CBC should get CTF money. But let's talk about it. Because - and here's the real point - the system aint working well right now. If we actually talked about it, well, maybe it would turn out that Jim's dead wrong. Then, suck it up buttercup and write your check. But the reason why he's stamping his feet is because our entire industry is based on looking the other way. Now Jim's gonna take his checkbook and go home. Awk-ward.

The rest of it, I think, is open to discussion too. The private broadcasters in this country do pay too little even when they do make shows. The license fees are too low. In a real sense, the CTF has become yet another source of welfare for businesses that are very profitable -- profitable enough to spend 2.3 billion dollars on mergers. (By the way, that's about THREE HUNDRED 6 part TV series like Across the River to Motor City.) In other words, say it with me now-- they're very quick to claim their rights, and have been extremely effective in denying their responsibilties.

They're so confident of this, that the head of their lobby group can deride having to spend money on Canadian TV altogether, even though they get breaks on things like cable substitution and a protected market. They can even have the stones to get up there before the CRTC, cry poor, and demand cable fees for broadcasting U.S. shows to you that you get anyway on the U.S. channels.

You don't think that has something to do with Jim Shaw's tantrum? You bet your sweet bippy it does.

Remember -- the discussion is never going to take place if we leave it to pols. Because there are no votes in Canadian TV. (Beyond we who make it, I mean.) It's not an issue that's on the radar, for all the reasons that we've talked about on this blog, and Tv, Eh? and in John Doyle's column in the Globe a million times.

Canadians are wonderfully patriotic. They don't want to be like Americans. They just want to watch every piece of shit on American TV, for free, like they're Americans. Is that inconsistent? Hell yeah it is. Let's talk about that, too.

Jim Shaw may regret opening the whole can of worms by putting down his pen, but fuck it. It's past time. This shit's broken hard. Let's talk. But let's talk about all of it. And this time, maybe the papers won't punk out like they did at the CRTC hearings.

UPDATE: one of the things about writing something fast is sometimes you reread it later and realize, mmm...I left something out. And it's this: I've met exactly two people in my life who worked at the CTF. And they both worked very, very, very hard, and believed in Canadian TV powerful much. And if Jim Shaw actually does follow this thing all the way through, and doesn't cough up the money, then -- and this is the point that maybe didn't come through -- he's a dink. Fullstop.

(this post was also edited to correct a math mistake above)