One of the perennial complaints in the industry (which Chris Haddock alluded to in our conversation) is that the promotion is abysmal. And it is. But our commenters (and a few others who emailed me and didn't want to leave a comment) seem to have a big old problem with the CBC's efforts to promote its stuff, specifically.
Chet started the ball rolling:
I probably watch more CBC than anyone who isn't on their payroll. I've seen all kinds of promos for their new season, but I've never seen "Intelligence" mentioned even once. I assumed they were holding it back until January or after the playoffs. If it wasn't for Doyle, I would never have known it was on tonight.Scott picked up the...uh...Torch:
The CBC brass desperately wants to bury this show so they can then point at the ratings and use them as an excuse to cancel it. They're not even being subtle about it.
I don't want to kick the CBC but honestly...And our good friend Dixon brought it home:
I write and edit for a gay magazine in Toronto and thought I'd throw a little love their way for 'Torchwood.'
I had to talk to numerous people and jump through several hoops before I was finally passed along to the outside PR company that, quite frankly, can't care less about the show.
The show debuts Friday and I haven't seen a single ad, even though CBC was a co-producer on the thing! I shouldn't be surprised but I am.
I have to side with the other 'bitchers'...if it wasn't for you or Diane, I wouldn't have known 'Intelligence' 2 begins tonight (or the Torchwood debut for that matter). But it's all the same old Canadian mumblemutter about promotion, or lack thereof. I had no idea 'Whistler' 2 aired on Saturday night either...until I flipped past it by accident. And we all saw how Global buried The Best Years in the spring/summer.Now, separate and apart from this general problem with Canadian lack-of-promo, I think the CBC stuff is a little different, for a couple reasons.
But I did have lunch with the kids at Burger King recently...and couldn't miss that 'Heroes' Season 2 was premiering 'Only on Global' as the promo was plastered on every cup and wrapper. Um...it's not 'only' on Global...it's on NBC - Global just gets to simulcast and ad substitute and 'say' it's their show...but you all already know that.
First, you and I pay for it. In taxes. You pay for a great show like Intelligence. It's a shame that they're not very good at telling you how and when to see it.
It may be that I'm cranky right now, (Scratch that, I'm definitely cranky right now. I haven't eaten and got very little sleep last night, and sat through a meeting and six hours on set today, and now I've just spent two hours formatting and writing up a feature on Little Mosque that will run tomorrow and Wednesday) but this just seems extra wrong.
I did a podcast interview with Chris Haddock, and spent an hour transcribing it for this site. That interview was set up because a helpful P.R. person from Haddock's company made it happen. I pushed to interview the two writers from Mosque. I've heard, anecdotally many times from people like Diane that the CBC is atrocious at getting back to you with promo requests. Now it's their premiere week, and where are the ads, where is the promo?
Edit: this was posted as a comment to this message, but it deserves a bump up -- because if anything, it's worse than I thought. Over to Diane:
A year and a bit of doing the TV, Eh site and I have not once received anything from CBC. The producers of Intelligence and 22 Minutes, for example, send me information directly from their own production companies (Haddock and Halifax Film). There's other stuff to complain about with the private broadcasters, but CBC is the lone network that will not send me information.
Last year, the CBC fired its publicists and hired a company called Media Profile to outsource their P.R. and Media requests. Everyone predicted this would be a disaster. It has been. Everybody knows it.
I said as much on the TV panel I was on in Banff last June. Afterwards, the head of CBC English Media Relations, Jeff Keay, came up to me and gave me his card and said if I ever had problems getting info from anybody at CBC, give him a call.
I haven't. I try to do my little part here. But if you're frustrated at not being able to find out anything about CBC programs, maybe it's time to email Jeff Keay, and tell him that Media Profile doesn't work, and that CBC needs to do a better job of promoting its shows. Hiring a publicity staff and spending some money on ads might be a start.
10 comments:
A year and a bit of doing the TV, Eh site and I have not once received anything from CBC. The producers of Intelligence and 22 Minutes, for example, send me information directly from their own production companies (Haddock and Halifax Film). There's other stuff to complain about with the private broadcasters, but CBC is the lone network that will not send me information.
Not that I'm bitter. Much.
PS Did you see the Playback article today? Intelligence returns, quietly. Fred Fuchs had this to say:
Fuchs admits CBC hasn't invested a lot in promoting its returning shows. "But we did make a deal with Showcase to air season one. This is unusual, we usually hold back longer before sub-licensing," he says.
So that's OK, right? Who cares if anyone knows it's on and can watch it, as long as they can sell it to another station.
Remind me again how CBC is different from the privates?
By the way, to be fair, I haven't contacted Jeff Keay either. On the other hand, I do this as a hobby, and this is their livelihood. I shouldn't be the one begging.
Unnerving.
This is just a predictable consequence of exec. suite gamesmanship. The current regime at CBC are not going to dedicate much of their limited resources to shows for which they can claim no credit. Thus they spend big on Mosque, Tudors and The Hour (and The One) and little on Intelligence, Mercer and 22. This happens all the time in corporations with week governance i.e. figure head directors. The CBC board is disengaged from day to day operations and almost totally ineffectual so the executive is free to place its own interests ahead of what may be the larger interests of the corporation. It happens all the time.
'Haddock says he's not going anywhere. "I'm here to stay, but my question is, how long are we going to be run by the hall monitors of the old guard, who take casual cynical swipes at a thriving industry?" He refused to clarify or expand upon this remark, however.'
What does that mean exactly?
Well Jesus Will, if HE refused to elaborate, then I'm sure not going to.
Kidding.
I have no clue. I could guess, but they'd be guesses.
See? He does like to leave things open ended.
BTW -- the season opener of intell all finished and stuff was way more exciting than HEROES.
hehehe
Yeah, 'Intelligence' smoked right along...and I'm quickly tiring of 'Heroes'.
I lost faith in Heroes after the time traveling what characters were where and survived afterward fridge logic and am ready for a sophmore slump, a la LOST. I was happy with the emotional level and "cliche" issues other people had with the finale of Heroes, just not with the discrepencies between the present and future that should have led to characters being dead in the future and not present in Hiro's future jumping.
My wife was surprised that I was more excited about Journeyman and wanted to watch it first on the PVR.
Which brings me to the question on whether the Heroes time traveling discrepencies were fridge logic. . .and if contradictions or little narrative details in Journeyman (like the brother not bringing up the 20 dollar bill left in the past) don't get addressed, is that fridge logic or things that could ruin the show? Am I overthinking on those? At the same time, though, with time travel, there's so much room to allow for narrative discrepencies. . .argh!
To add my two cents about Intelligence...
I was in a screenwriting class this summer and a man from CBC spoke to us about what CBC was looking for in terms of dramatic content. We talked about the shows that were on now, and upcoming. I piped up about Intelligence because he didn't mention it. He quickly pointed out that Intelligence was an "exception" and he would speak to it later in our conversation. He didn't come back to it right away, so I grilled him a bit.
I think it is one of the most interesting shows CBC is producing in terms of gritty adult content. Too bad it doesn't fit the "family drama" audience that they are so desperately trying to get back.
They may completely miss the mark on this one if they don't give it some life. Too bad really.
Thus 220 and the exit. Like it was planned?
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