Mad at 40 000 Feet

I KNOW THAT one of the things that makes humans prickly and maddening is the tendency to elevate anecdotal experiences to the level of something greater, more sweeping, and more important than the cold hard evidence might suggest.

So, uh...I hope you'll forgive me now for doing that very thing.

Last night I flew back from Calgary, where I spent the weekend visiting friends. These friends, very sweetly, had inquired on my behalf to see about getting AMC so I could watch Mad Men. No dice, of course. It's not offered on Bell Expressvu.

AMC in fact, is not available in a whole lot of the country. And no Canadian network saw fit to purchase the rights to Season 3 of Mad Men. CTV ran the first two seasons in a rather desultory fashion, but since the numbers weren't boffo out of the gate, passed on the 3rd season.

We've talked about some of the weird realities of TV in the midst of the great implosion before. But Mad Men is a particularly maddening fulcrum. It's an old-fashioned kind of show, paced and even shot in a style that's out of step with today's world. It's a show that bucks the prevailing trends in so many ways -- even down to the makeup of its writing staff.

It's a show that has a massive, much bigger impact on the culture than its numbers would normally suggest. It managed to establish -- instantly -- a strong brand identity for AMC that brought that channel firmly into the 21st century as a quality series destination. To watch the show on AMC is to understand, finally, the endgame of demographic targeting. The ads are all high end -- Lexuses, big brands -- Tiffany kind of stuff. Once upon a time these brands would spend freely and had enough clout to either advertise very selectively, or to scattershot everywhere. Nobody can afford that anymore. But advertising on a low-rated show is still cost effective if that small audience makes over 100K a year -- and that, my friends, is the Mad Men audience on AMC.

And just as the 3rd season starts, there are signs that the perennial low-rated tag -- the last slam against the show -- might be fading, too. Ratings for the premiere were up -- dramatically up. Close to 3 million may not seem like a lot, but there are shows that the American Networks are putting on now that are pulling close to that. For a cable channel to get that is ... well, still pretty astounding.

Here in Canada, of course, there is none of that, since nobody picked up the show. So what happens when unavailabilty meets a highly desirable audience?

Well, in a word -- weirdness. ITunes Canada announced earlier this week that it would be selling Mad Men immediately after its AMC broadcast. I checked at about 2AM ET Monday morning, and it wasn't yet up. But when I got up -- there it was. I dutifully slapped down my $2.49 (on my credit card,) downloaded it, and transferred it to my Ipod Touch.

American readers might be scratching their heads right now -- because none of this seems very unusual. Mad Men has always been available the next day on Itunes.

The point is that in Canada, it's a break in the dam of an artificially skewed and restricted market. Until recently, it wasn't uncommon for one of our broadcasters to buy a series just to keep on the shelf so that another broadcaster couldn't get it. Protected by regulation that allows them to selectively block U.S. signals when they're running the same show, Canadian channels have evolved to a place where they cherry pick the best of American network creati

vity, and slap it up on the air. It was literally a license to print money.

But now here comes Mad Men. A show that's of the moment, and might be catching fire. It's a brand establisher and a brand enhancer. Could this be the show that paves the way for paid downloading? That makes it palatable for the higher end of the audience segment? Because the people who buy Lexuses aren't, I believe, the people who'll spend a lot of time futzing with torrents and conversion programs, and what have you. Oh, and they're also the ones who'll probably be buying all those web-enabled TV's first -- so the whole "watching it on your computer" stigma's going to disappear, too.

You might laugh, but one of the odd things about the implosion of the music industry was the increase in the amount of quality music for the thirty to fortysomething market. It makes sense, when you think about it. We're the only ones still buying CD's.

Anyway, it's certainly too soon to tell. But there may just come a time where CTV or Global wishes they'd ponied up for that 3rd season, to delay the opening of Pandora's box.

Anyway, flash back to last night. I'm on Westjet Flight 158 to Toronto. I forego the seatback TV, take out my Ipod Touch, plug in the headphones, and settle in to watch the Mad Men season 3 premiere. I was glad to have spent the money, to have it to watch. I thoroughly enjoyed it -- propping up the 3 inch screen on top of the seat in front of me. After it ended, put the Ipod touch away, took out a book -- and switched the headphones to my other Ipod. (I know, I know -- shutup.)

A couple minutes later I felt a tap on my shoulder. A guy one row back had seen what I was watching. And he saw that I wasn't using the Ipod anymore.

"Uh," he said, feeling a little awkward, I guess, "Listen, is there anyway I could borrow it? I really, really want to see that premiere."

I smiled, said sure, and passed it over. The guy was so excited, he bought me a drink when the cart came around. Factor in the course of that inflight drink, and I have now, essentially, made a profit on my Itunes purchase of Mad Men.

I can safely say I've been flying with that Ipod for about two years now -- and nothing like that has ever even vaguely happened before. It made me feel like there is definitely something going on.

Flash to today, and the implications of this story (found via Jaime Weinman.)

Oscar winner Holly Hunter ("The Piano") has earned an Emmy nod for each of the first two seasons of "Saving Grace." But today, TNT announced that the crime drama will solve its last case next summer. The cable network will push back the previously announced winter run of the remaining six shows in Season 3 of "Saving Grace" and Fox will film just three more episodes to tie up loose ends. While TNT wanted to continue with "Saving Grace," Fox decided to end production on the show after disappointing overseas and DVD sales

The tail has begun to wag the dog.

All those American nets have their production companies, and the calculus of what makes a show a hit is completely off now. Friday Night Lights? Family Guy? What makes you continue a show? What makes you stop it?

It's fluid, and it's fast moving, and the Canadian networks are in no way prepared for any of it. Of course, neither are the producers, or anybody else.

DVD sets with features of Canadian shows are often poorly distributed afterthoughts. (Corner Gas and Trailer Park Boys are probably the best exceptions.) Most of the time, distribution -- both in DVD and film -- is a joke in this country. Itunes and VOD offer a possible way out of a historically Mickey Mouse approach. Does anyone have the guts to take the chance and step up?

It's generally acknowledged that the reason that 24 became a hit for FOX was because they brought out the first season in the summer before Season 2 started. People rented or bought, caught up, and by the time Season 2 premiered, the show came back a hit.

Contrast that with a worthy Canadian show like Intelligence. There's a show that could have really benefited by having a DVD in the pipeline before the second season. But it was not to be. They blew the release window, for whatever reason. Well, actually, wait a minute. Chris Haddock actually spelled out the reason in an interview with me:

We’ve been trying to get theAmerican distributor – we ‘ve got an American company that’s been putting the DaVinci show out on DVD and they look at Canada as a small market but we’ve been trying and just pushing, pushing to try and get them to make the investment in the first season. We won’t have it out when we hoped we’d have it out – this summer, because in their mind Canada’s just too small a market to put a rush on it. It’s a struggle. If we had the ability as CTV did to put a lot of coin behind it like Corner Gas, boom there they were with the set…it really does help. It’s a good support system. Unfortunately we don’t have the resources at the CBC to do that.

Haddock's as savvy a writer/producer as this country has. And the guy knows how to push. He knew the importance of timing the DVD set, but still couldn't get it done.

Now it's a couple years later -- the evidence is clear that you have got to have this stuff thought about upfront, and it's still not part of the calculus -- not really. The Canadian way of just doing everything to get the show made, and making the DVD an afterthought -- has to end. As the Saving Grace example proves -- it's not ancillary anymore. Everything's up for grabs.

Sure, there's still the catch 22 of you can't get anyone to buy something they haven't heard of, and they won't hear of it 'til it gets written about.

But it's not too much of a stretch to see a time when some enterprising American studio looks at a prestige product and does math and figures out that they can ride the hype and promo in the U.S.A. -- and maybe selling it to a foreign broadcaster isn't the most profitable route.

And then the networks here are screwed, because they have no Plan B.

Well, I suppose they could get serious about trying to make their own stuff -- and have their own quality shows to market. But that requires a culture where talent matters, and where you can recognize and develop quality material because you recognize what goes into it.

And we're pretty thin on the ground on that.

Anyway, again, I have no idea where any of this ends. And in the Canadian tradition, I'm sure there are a hundred people out there who could tell you how that would never work in Canada, and why they can't do it, and why nobody should ever even try. That is, after all, the Canadian way.

But the guy or girl who figures out a way to make it happen? The person who decides for one final moment, to be leading and not trailing edge -- who puts together a plan that combines all the things that are going on in the various rumbling, crumbling corners of the TV business -- That's the person who gets rich. Maybe a new media risk taker might save some old media dinosaur. Maybe not.

All I know is, looking down from 40 000 feet, and with all the bullshit that creatives have to face in this country, I have to say that I was so very relieved on one front: I'm glad I'm on my side of the line, and not theirs.

Cause there's turbulence ahead. Don't say nobody saw it coming.