Further to Itunes TV in Canada

THIS IS GOING to read as rather arcane -- but nonetheless I received today a pleasing statement from my good friends at the Writers Guild of Canada, who point out that on the issue of digital downloads in this country, on Itunes, Canadian writers are already further ahead than their U.S. counterparts...

For the first time, iTunes is offering a download-to -own television program service in Canada. Included in the selection are popular Canadian shows like “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” “Corner Gas” “Rick Mercer Report” and “Degrassi: The Next Generation.”

iTunes has licensed these programs from the original Canadian broadcasters. The flow of revenue for use of these programs is governed by the terms of those licence agreements as well as the WGC collective agreement – the Writers IPA. In addition to other payments under the collective agreement, writers have a royalty formula calculated on Distributors’ Gross Revenues when a conventional TV show is delivered over any platform, including online. Digital downloads may be included in an original licence between the independent producer who owns the program and the Canadian broadcaster, for which the broadcaster has paid a licence fee. This licence fee forms part of the writer’s royalty formula. In some instances, the independent producer may have negotiated an additional fee from the broadcaster for download to own use, like iTunes, in which case those additional revenues will also flow into the writers’ royalty formula.
If the producer has been able to retain the rights for digital downloads and licences such use to an online service, the producer is also acting as a distributor and this money will also go into the writer’s royalty formula.
In any case, the digital distribution of made for t.v. programs always results in revenue flowing into the writer’s royalty formula.

And yeah, it is called a "royalty formula" because in Canada, writers retain authorship. Plus, animation is covered in Canada. and note the use of "distributor's gross revenues," which is one of the sticking points in the American negotiation.

I sometimes hear carping about the Canadian agreements -- sometimes even on this blog...but you see, it's never simple. There are things in the Canadian agreement that Americans don't have, either.

H/T To WGC for their statement

Itunes Canada and The TeeVee

I THINK WE may have just reached a "silver" moment in the life of this blog. (Indicating the inevitable decline after the "Golden" Age.) Peculiarly, no less than four people emailed me about this, asking why I hadn't written about it yet.

The answer was I wanted to see the presentation and availability for myself.

So now I have, and yup, it's true. TV shows have finally been added to the Canadian Itunes Store.

If you sign in and go to the TV shows tab, you'll see a smattering of Canadian offerings.

CBC's represented currently by the Rick Mercer Report, Little Mosque, that reality show with the Amazing Race dood, and the other one with the Dragons.

CTV has the youth-targeted Instant Star and Degrassi: The Next Generation, as well as Corner Gas and the very-worthy Robson Arms.

The NHL currently has a lineup of 5 anemic "Stanley Cup Classics" games. Wow. That's a long way from NFL.com.

Comedy Central offers The Sarah Silverman Program, South Park, and Drawn Together...a trifle odd, since those shows are licensed to Comedy Network here. I wonder how the "who gets a cut" thing works?

To be clear, yup, on the Canadian shows -- Canadian writers aren't compensated either. But since we don't have a residual system, it's not really that comparable to the fight the WGA is going through -- at least not til the next contract it isn't.

Interesting by its absence: any shows from Global, and underperforming shows like Whistler that might attract a download or two.

Of course, you have to wonder why the CBC hasn't added Intelligence (since the DVD's are so far away) and buzz shows like 22 Minutes. This could also be a place to put well-regarded and little seen stuff like St. Urbain's Horseman, which I really did want to see, but didn't get around to watching before it slipped off my PVR.

What will be really interesting to see is if any of the Canadian nets take a page from the American channels, and build word of mouth by making free pilot episodes available for a few days before the broadcast as a "preview" - or even for a few days after as a way to "check out what you missed."

It's yet another way to reach that younger audience everyone seems to be courting. With their big January launch looming, will CBC be clever enough to move promo into the 21st century? Maybe sneak The Border or MVP onto Itunes?

Let's see.

Prediction: the biggest impact initially will be American Degrassi fans trying to get ahold of Canadian accounts so they can get the show without the move-around mentality of The N.

No. I don't know how you do it. Please don't ask.

Oh, one more thing. 1.99 pricing. Good for Itunes.

A promising start, to be sure...but still, baby steps.

Inexplicable Cultural Trend Watch, Edition 428

OCCASIONALLY ON THIS blog I refer to some strange quirks of the Canadian media and sometimes people take me to task for them. So I offer the following with a single question. You can feel free to answer in the comments below.

Here's the question. Ready?

Why is this news?

TORONTO - Millions of Americans caught Dan Levy and Jessi Cruickshank, co-hosts of MTV Canada's "The Hills: The After Show," for the first time Monday night as part of the season finale festivities for the wildly popular MTV reality show - and some of them weren't impressed.

Cristina Kinon, TV critic for the New York Daily News, described the pair as "annoying" as she referred to them as "those after-show fools" in the tabloid on Tuesday.

"(They) really have no idea what they're doing and aren't funny at all ..." Kinon wrote, comparing them unfavourably to American MTV hosts.

Others in the blogosphere were equally unkind.

Comment Moderation is Back On

AH THE GREAT internet. The bad apples simply can't take care of themselves. Thanks to an extremely inappropriate post, I've re-enabled comment moderation.

Now, what this means is you go to blogger.com and sign up a username and a password in order to comment. Or you can go to google.com and sign up for a google account. It takes two minutes. I know it says you have to create a blog, but you don't. You just click OK on that step, follow through and you'll be able to post comments anytime you feel like it. But they'll be accountable, at least to your handle.

You can never leave the anon. on very long. Ah, the world.

CBC to Haddock: Mommy Has Other Kids, Too.

I'VE UPDATED my entry below about Intelligence to include a link to the Tyee's letter from Jeff Keay from CBC, talking about the show.

As I've said to several reporters who've raised the issue with us (presumably in response to Chris's attempts to negotiate through the media his relationship with the CBC:

We have not yet made a decision as to whether we'll continue with the show; when we do, Chris will be the first to know. That's precisely as it should be.

We're happy to see Chris remains a passionate supporter of his show, which we happen to think is pretty good. We're disappointed he feels he's not being adequately promoted (but at same time doubt there's a producer in the history of show business who thinks their program HAS been adequately promoted). And with all due respect to Chris, his is not the only program in our schedule that requires promotion. I can tell you that the program has received significant promotion in both its first and second seasons. It will continue to do so through its season finale;

Given that our promotional budgets (regrettably) are not infinite, we have put a plan in place that matches resources against our various programs in ways that will generate the most impact (i.e. in specific targeted markets) and that ensure that we're taking a strategically planned approach to our overall schedule. We're happy to report that it's working.

Whereever you come down on the issue, I'm with the CBC on one thing on this: this is not something that should be playing out in the media. There is precious little space available in our American dominated mediasphere for stories on Canadian shows as it is. Sucking the air away for a process story about a producer's griping is a bit unseemly.

Stories about spies praising the show, on the other hand -- that's kinda cool.

Checking in with the Mosque at Christmas

IF YOU WERE one of the two million who initially checked out Little Mosque on the Prairie for the curiosity factor, and one of the million two or three who've drifted away since, this week is a good time to check back.

Wednesday night at 8pm on CBC, two back-to-back special episodes offer strong evidence how Mosque has found its feet this season. There's sweet family stuff, for sure, but also some solid comedy storytelling -- and a confidence of presentation that was often missing from the first season's eps.

In the first season of Mosque, they'd occasionally offer up Muslim-centric situations that could be funny - like a debate about whether to have a barrier in the mosque or a search for Muslim swimming gear - but weren't. It's almost like gold stars were due just for putting it on screen, and there wasn't a lot of room left for funny.

The subtle but important evolution of the show is put to good use in the two special episodes, Eids a Wonderful Life, and 5 Year Plan.

In the current iteration of Mosque, the main characters are good natured, well meaning townspeople who face the problems we all face -- and who just happen to be Muslims.

Believe it or not, that's a very important difference. It winds up making the show more inclusive, and welcoming all at once.

In the first episode, Eids A Wonderful Life, Sarah (Sheila McCarthy) is missing a few of the trappings of Christmas that she's been without since she married Yasir and converted to Islam. Simultaneously, we learn that this year, the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha falls close to Christmas. The mosque plans its annual Eid dinner the same night as Rev. Magee's Christmas Carolly Ring Ding Sing a Long.

There's a fight over parking. And Rayann and Sarah get a little carried away with trying to spruce up the Eid dinner with some Christmas decorative touches.

In the other plot, Layla and Babur quarrel when Layla is asked to read from A Christmas Carol at her school holiday concert. Babur suggests they inject a story of Eid, and the eager-to-be-inclusive Principal (Patrick McKenna, in a funny turn) jumps at the idea.

Even the character of Fatima -- who I was lukewarm on back in January, does nice work with a special little co-star.

What's nice about the episode is the way it deals with some pretty universal themes -- the way that non-Christians sometimes feel looking at all the pomp and accoutrements of the Christmas celebration, and how little quarrels become big ones. And it's not like there are Muslim jokes missing. Amar gets a joke off about who would have thought that Christians and Muslims couldn't live side by side in peace. (He's talking about Parking,) and in the Babur and Layla subplot, they have a lot of fun (but respectful fun) about the difficulties of dramatizing a Muslim story when you can't depict the prophet on stage. (It's funnier than it sounds.)

Sure, there are a couple of sweaty jokes -- like the machinations needed to get Babur into an outfit where he looks like Santa (entirely by accident,) but on the whole, it's a feel good half hour that will make you laugh a little and smile a lot.

As I said on Q last week, one of the things I love most about Canada is that we're so inclusive, we'll do a Christmas special for people who don't celebrate Christmas. And that's true, far as it goes. The better Christmas treat is that what started out as a show about how Muslims were different and viewed differently, has become a show about a community -- where the people at the centre of that community are utterly recognizable, though they have slightly different beliefs.

In the end, everything comes together and there's even a touch that seems cheesy, but so isn't. Go on. I dare you not to feel warm when you hear "Peace Train." Let that bounce around on several levels.

The second show, 5 Year Plan, involves everyone's reminiscences of what they were doing five years ago. We get to see Amar as a lawyer in Toronto, living with his overbearing parents (and we get a taste of a great Bollywood style dance number that I wasn't going to mention, except it's in the commercials.) We see Babur newly arrived in Mercy, and a visit from his estranged wife that will determine whether his daughter gets to live with him. Like the first episode, it's warm and surprisingly touching. You could watch this show with your kids. I would watch it with my kids. Of course, that would mean having to go out and get some kids, and that's probably a little too ambitious just for an hour of television.

Check in with Little Mosque. The characters have settled in, there's a confidence in the storytelling, and the show really has come a long way. I rate it a bit of a Holiday treat.

Although I could have used more of the Elf with the eyepatch.

And I Was With You, Right Up Until You Brought the Nazis Into It

So where does the WGA strike stand right now? Not in a good place. The AMPTP walked out on negotiations Friday, after wide speculation that they would engineer a way to do just that all last week.

It's hard not to be a conspirian and to read the tortured, half-hearted negotiating as treading water at the table and then doing something to try to turn public opinion. It wasn't about a real negotiation. It was all kabuki, about managing their bad press.

Over on United Hollywood, WGA member Marc Guggenheim posted a pretty clear precie of the first month of negotiating, and the games that are being played by the AMPTP:

On October 31, 2007, the day the WGA’s contract with the studios was set to expire, the AMPTP issued the following statement to the WGA:

We’ve been working hard to come up with a package in response to your last proposal. But we keep running up against the DVD issue. The companies believe that movement is possible on other issues, but they cannot make any movement when confronted with your continuing efforts to increase the DVD formula, including the formula for electronic sell-through.

The magnitude of that proposal alone is blocking us from making any further progress. We cannot move further as long as that issue remains on the table. In short, the DVD issue is a complete roadblock to any further progress.

Read that last sentence again: “[T]he DVD issue is a complete roadblock to further progress.”

A roadblock. Gee, I suppose the WGA should take the DVD issue off the table.

So that’s what it did.

Cut to 29 days later -- when the AMPTP finally got around to making its first economic proposal, which they have entitled the “New Economic Partnership.”

What’s that you say? Hasn’t the AMPTP been negotiating with the WGA since July? Hasn’t the WGA been on strike for 24 days? Haven’t hundred of people lost their jobs? And the AMPTP is just making an economic proposal now?

Yup.

But that’s not the kicker. The kicker is that the NEP was vague (purportedly $130 million dollars for an unspecified term) and incomplete -- it didn’t include a proposal on the critical issue of Electronic Sell Through (downloads, think iTunes). But that’s alright, the AMPTP promised, we’ll get the EST half of the proposal to you on Tuesday.

Maybe the AMPTP tried sending their proposal through telepathy, because the WGA negotiators didn’t receive it. Perhaps they’ll get it on Wednesday.

Nope.

Thursday? Nope.

Friday. Surely, the AMPTP would make its Tuesday proposal then. Unfortunately, by five PM, they hadn’t.

“That’s alright,” one can imagine the WGA negotiators thinking. “Maybe they’re OCD and feel like they should present their Tuesday proposal on a Tuesday or something.”

Nope.

Instead of delivering the Tuesday proposal, or any proposal on Friday, the AMPTP delivered a statement which noted in pertinent part, “Instead of negotiating, the WGA organizers have made unreasonable demands that are roadblocks to real progress.”

Waitasecond.

I thought DVDs were the roadblock. Now you’re telling me there are others? Well, heck, the WGA should take those off the table, too. Just like they did with DVDs. Then maybe we could get on with some real negotiating -- after we've given them 95% of what they want without getting a single concession from them on anything, and having been left at the table after they walked out on us.

Remember kids, it's all about the internet -- the "too new" medium where nobody's making any money yet.

Riiiight.

(I left out the last bit of the post, referred to in the title, where Neville Chamberlain was name-checked. Really, guys, the war metaphors aren't helping. You're writers. Can't you find a better trope?)

Intel from an Unusual Source

IF YOU'VE READ this blog for any length of time at all, you'll definitely get the sense that there are a couple of competing streams that our homegrown TV is up against.

The first is a lingering sense that it's not any good. Such is the domination of Canadian airwaves by U.S. product, that it's hard to find homegrown shows, and even harder to keep them in their timeslots.

Then there's the notion of promotion. There isn't any. Promotional budgets are scant. The Canadian privates rely on piggybacking on the U.S. promo, and the CBC only has enough juice to pick a few shows each quarter.

And then, there's that malingering sense of whingeing and entitlement. People who complain about their reviews. Reviews that let homegrown stuff off too early, or the corollary -- reviews that reflexively judge Canadian stuff by a harsher yardstick. The combo of the two makes for that strange feeling that anything you read is unreliable.

And then, unfortunately, there is the carping. Sometimes, people will carp about their shows being treated badly. This is en famille stuff that shouldn't be in the news -- there's little enough ink devoted to our shows in the first place. Our family squabbles shouldn't suck the air away from that.

Chris Haddock has been engaged in an increasingly bitter feud with the CBC over the treatment of his series Intelligence, this season. As the ratings have dropped, Haddock has been everywhere, accusing the CBC of dumping his show on an icefloe to die.

While I sympathize with his frustration, and even agree with some of his points, I don't think airing the laundry out has helped Intelligence, which concludes its second season with two hours tomorrow on CBC.

What I do know is this: in much the same way that critics everywhere praise The Wire, Intelligence is a show that is not done.

The Wire is changing the way that a lot of people think about HBO and Television, even if it's never had the same audience response as The Sopranos or Six Feet or even Deadwood. What it lacks in viewers it more than makes up for in sheer, plate tectonic moving virtuosity.

There is not a doubt in my mind that Intelligence is our Wire. It is a show that rewards careful viewing. It is a show that is quietly inspiring a generation of younger TV writers who want to seize the showrunner reins and do quality, nuanced work in this country -- NOT have to head to the U.S. like the generations before us. It is a prescient view of the toxic relationship between source and handler, and the need for 'humint' that, I think, will still stand years from now as an extraordinary document of this time, a brave show that cast a jaundiced eye on a very important and shady aspect of our relationship with the Americans, and our relationship with our own government.

In sophistication, in execution, and in scope, Intelligence ranks up there with British miniseries like State of Play, Prime Suspect. The show is not without its flaws, but those flaws are pale indeed when stacked against the show's importance for Canadian screenwriters and the medium of Canadian television. You want to know what the Canadian point of view is? There it is. Skeptical, unsentimental, and adult when it comes to issues that matter. That is the show's legacy.

If, as expected, the show is cancelled sometime after tomorrow, it will not be the end. The first season is finally going to come out on DVD next year. The second season will probably follow. And people will pore over those DVDs for the next several years and marvel at the Canadian show that got it so right, and wonder why we couldn't get more Canadians to watch it.

For a "professional" view on Intelligence -- here's an endorsement that should give you a jolt. Try one from an ex- U.S. spy -- the guy who was the inspiration for the show Burn Notice, Michael Wilson (NOT the former Tory Finance Minister)

Away from the technology, intelligence thrives – indeed relies – upon deception, manipulation, and betrayal. To take an example, in the U.S., we have the case of Valerie Plame, an intelligence officer working counter-proliferation: keeping hostile actors from acquiring terrifying new weapons. There is no more trying beat to walk and by all accounts, she was exemplary. Chosen because she was pretty, blonde and intelligent, Plame was trained and then slotted into a "non-official cover" role to get men to betray themselves and their interests. Consider that she was a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and you'll have an appraisal of the toxic culture that outed her.

When working covertly, the way a case officer does, you have to find a way to meet your targets and work them. Large men of military bearing need not apply. Plame was given a commercial cover that would put her into rooms of men who, frankly, wished to bed her. Not only did she get in the room, she had a way (as long as nobody ever did manage to bed her) to get men to talk to her, even compete to top each other for her attention. She worked them by making them work themselves.

The act of blowing her cover not only took Plame out of the game, but exposed the tradecraft of her cover, how she operated, what she was asking about, any of her contacts. Pulling apart the Plame story on the outside became a roadmap for "hostiles" to look for other potential officers; pulling apart the damage on the inside became a roadmap of how to prepare a new one. Meanwhile, there's a gap between now and when a similarly prepared officer might be ready to accomplish something.

Intelligence has taken you into this world – building trust with questionable people, engaging in deception and manipulation to encourage betrayal. It's tough to get someone to sell themselves out, but that's what officers do to agents (as assets are known).

Intelligence's Jimmy Reardon (Ian Tracey), the drug kingpin, can provide essential information and insight to Mary Spalding (Klea Scott), who is not just his handler but the head of the operation. Of course, Reardon is being gunned for (rival mobs, law enforcement, and this season, the CIA), just as Spalding is by co-workers like Ted Altman, her own bureaucracy (if only that glass ceiling were bullet-proof), and the CIA.

The inherent conflict between handler and asset in Season One of Intelligence was in the dynamic between Jimmy and Mary, both trying to use the other, both trying to maintain their own agenda.

You won't need a spoiler alert for this next bit about Season Two, but Mary is about to be thrust onto the horns of a moral dilemma: do your job as a handler and protector of your country, but deal with the human cost of having that upper hand.

That's a pretty heady thumbs up. Canada, you've got one chance to give those numbers a goose, Monday night on CBC. No sense lamenting it as the TV equivalent of the Avro Arrow three years from now. Intelligence needs you to vote with your remote.

EDIT: In the interests of balance, here's a response from Jeff Keay at CBC on the network's handling of Intelligence. The one point I can quibble with here is the contention that CBC continued to promote Intelligence in season 2. That certainly did not seem to be the case -- but, everything else he says really can't be countered. It simply solidifies the point I've made above -- this shouldn't be being fought about in the media.