WTF? OPF (Other People's Foolin')

YOU KNOW ONE of the sucky things about being a writermole is that when the weather turns and the spring comes, you must stay inside lest the frolic take your fancy. So it is that I'm reading and re-reading scripts, having a call, and getting ready to revise a freelance draft that missed le mark, while sipping Pellegrino with lemon and feeling the Sun Beat through the solarium window. It's not being outside, but it's a pretty good second. I feel like a cat.

Anyway, another break and lo and behold, some other people's pretty funny April Fool's jokes.

Did you know that the UK Paper The Guardian is soon going all-Twitter? Or what about this fantastic on Dashboard TV service?

Meanwhile, Bill Brioux thinks Obama should solve the CBC crisis by firing the middle managers (not a bad idea.) Alex has got a modest new proposal from Konrad, Google -- who LOVES its April Fool's jokes, introduced CADIE -- a sentient computer that gets better when you hit her homepage... and then there's the Hotelicopter.

Of course, in many ways, the BBC's spaghetti harvest is still the grandaddy of them all.

Oh, and the snow in Vancouver today was not an April Fools joke. Still, let me the first Torontonian to say...ahem... HAHAH!

Anybody else got anything awesome, put it in the comments below.

What A Fool Believes

FIRST OFF, AS far as I know, CTV is not buying Global, and there is no imminent rise of CTV Canglobemedia in the offing.

But this morning's little April Fool's debacle, meted out in little controlled bursts, offers, I think, a few teachable moments in relation to screenwriting.

First, though, a personal observation. I remember when I first hit school after we moved to Canada, when April Fool's Day came up, I was bewildered by the insistence that the whole thing was supposed to end at noon. Teachers would be adamant about the fact...something that if you played a joke after noon, then you were the fool, bub.

I've spent a little over twenty years now thinking that's bullshit. Something the teachers made up to snap the lid back on the chaos and get control of their classrooms.

So this morning I'm trying to decide when to pull the pin on the whole thing -- and I do a little research. And what do you know? Apparently, in certain nations such as the UK and Canada, the tradition is indeed that the jokes end at noon. Why was I so skeptical of the fact? Because in OTHER nations, such as the USA and Ireland, you're fair game for the whole day. So how's about that?

Now...what we can learn from the April Fool's Joke and apply to the Craft of Screenwriting?

• Basic plausibility allows you to slip in the ridiculous; just like a spoonful of sugar making the medicine go down.
  
  The idea of Naked News replacing a National Newscast is pretty out there. But with the chaos and sturm and drang going down right now in Canadian media, the idea that Canwest and CTV might merge doesn't seem that far out of whack. It's a testimony to how ridiculous our media situation has become. You know, I type this right now and for all I know, hell, there could actually be talks going on. Would it really surprise you?
  
  The X Files got five good years (and another 3 besides) out of this kind of thing.
  
  
• Let the rope out slowly.
  
  Weaving a tale, laying a trap -- requires patience. Laying those cards down early is key. I actually paved the way for my post this morning with another post that seemed totally plausible. So plausible that more than a few people who cottoned onto the joke of the CTV Global merger still speculated as to what the "real" announcement at 5:30 would be.
  
  
• Details, details, details.
  
  The little things are always what sell it. BSG worked because it seemed to get some basic military stuff right. The terms, the actions, the jargon "felt" right. Similarly, E.R. raised the bar forever as to what you needed to know to sell a medical show. If you go back now and watch a medical show from the 70's, it's laughable. You understand everything the Doctors are saying. When's the last time that happened in real life? So I mixed in reality about the Minister making his visit to Flashpoint, the lobbying that's been done over the last little while, and mixed in references to stages being erected and traffic being snarled, and real-life details like people who actually want to buy some local stations and return them to the community. Drilling down to the detail makes your fiction sing.
  
  
• There's always a spoiler.
  
  This is useful mostly when it comes to notes. A lot of new writers I know are so in love with their material that they're completely unprepared to accept any criticism. It's one of the reasons I don't read new scripts anymore unless I'm being paid to do it. But just as damaging are the outliers who'll take your stuff in a direction that it shouldn't go because they won't play the game. If you have a reader who has no concept of willing suspension of disbelief, then you're going to get notes that want you to explain everything. Including terribly unimportant things.
  
  In this case, I had to hold back several comments from people who wanted to immediately spoil the joke. Part of this is the culture of the 'Net...all the commenters who want to be !First! to say something. It makes me a little sad on the April Fools' tip. I remember childhood, pre-internet, when part of the fun was really not being sure for a long time -- maybe even a whole day -- whether what you heard was a joke or not. For all we've gained in our speeded up world, I think we've lost something there.
  
  
• Reward your audience.
  
  In the end, I decided to add the joke about the immediate reduction in CanCon request because, well, we all need a bit of gallows funny, right? In the end you need to give the audience the release they crave -- an ending that makes sense, a payoff of some sort. I hope my silly little joke did that for you.
  
  Of course, as my friend Mattypants put it, I could be here a year from now talking about CTVCanCorus AstralRogersGoogle GlobeEastWesNorthSouthMedia.
  
  Although if that's the case, I'll probably be sleeping on someone's cot down in Silver Lake. Maybe Encino.

Thanks to Jim and Dix for playing with me....Have a good day!

CTV and Global Climb Into Bed

WOW. IN HIS inimitable way, Jim Henshaw actually tipped this last night when he broke the story that the assets of the Naked News were being transferred to Canwest Global for integration into its news structure.

Turns out there was more than a grain of truth to that. But it's only the first wave. Global will be rebranding its 11pm newscast as Global National Naked News in an attempt to compete with the talk shows on the other nets, and specifically Jon Stewart on CTV.

That's a deal that's supposedly been in the works for a long time. But it's been supplanted in recent weeks by the financial woes and sturm and drang over the network trouble.

If my sources are right (and I have several in both companies) today at 5:30, Ivan Fecan and Leonard Asper will meet on a stage at Queen and John street to announce that Global and CTV are merging.

The new company, CTV CanGlobemedia, will own several stations that compete in different markets, which the CRTC has up til now considered a no-go (they forced CTV to sell the Citytv stations to Rogers when they took over CHUM, remember.) But the prescence of Moore at today's presser suggests that those kinds of regulatory hurdles have all been worked out. I guess they had a lot to talk about in those dozens of lobbying meetings before the CRTC in the last few months.
CTV CanGlobemedia is also going to announce a massive rebranding for its two national networks, CTV and Global, and here's where the big gamble comes in. There's going to be a shuffling of U.S. program assets between the two stations. The 11 o'Clock Global National Naked News is going to be the flagship of the new network, which is being called "Global Dude."
"Global Dude" is going to focus all of its promotional, programming, and advertising might on male-centred series, specifically those that appeal to the 18-49 male demo that has flown conventional TV in droves over the last few years.

Low cost, guycentric Comedy Network shows like Keys To The VIP and The Jon Dore Television Show should find new audiences and new exposure on Global Dude, along side some of the "tougher" crime and guy shows: The Unit, Criminal Minds, 24, Dollhouse, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, and two of the three CSI's.

CTV CanGlobemedia is also close to a deal where they will be simulcasting shock jock Howard Stern's morning Sirius Radio show five days a week from 7-10 am on Global Dude.

The third CSI, CSI: Miami, is being retained on the CTV network because of its high proportion of female viewers. CTV's U.S. program offerings are going to be aligned along a concerted and concentrated effort to appeal to Canada's female viewers. Global shows such as 90210, Brothers and Sisters, Bones, Project Runway Canada and The Office, will join CTV's heavy female favorites American Idol, Grey's Anatomy, Gossip Girl, Private Practice and the like.

Supposedly the sticking point that might have sunk the whole deal was both networks fighting over HOUSE. It's not clear who got that show. HEROES will go to Showcase.

Expecting a huge outcry from competition watchdogs and the like, CTV sweetened the pot by agreeing not to close the two local stations it announced it was closing last month. And the merged company will immediately offer stations in the money-sinkhole E! and A channel chains to community groups like the one being headed up by CHCH booster Donna Skelly.

It's thought that this is the sweetening the Government needed to sign off on pressuring the CRTC to rubberstamp the deal. The CRTC wanted to hold Hearings, but Moore indicated that Heritage was prepared to overrule whatever process the CRTC instigated to make the deal happen.

So today at 5:30, Moore will get up on the stage, flanked by Asper and Fecan, and say that they've saved local Television. Then, for the entertainment portion, Rockers Nickelback --- fresh off their massive Juno win, will perform a set said to "embody the spirit of 'Global Dude,'" followed by sensitive singer-songwriter Serena Rider and Nelly Furtado, who will "kick it for all the CTV girls." The event will be co-hosted by Rick the Temp, whose soft eyes make him a natural on his new home on CTV, beside Ben Mulroney, and Tanya Kim and Leah Miller, who'll apparently be hosting a new Friday night Wrestling show for the boys on Global Dude.
The show will also feature the first Live Remote from the Global National Naked News Team. They're going to have to figure that out by next winter.

CTV CanGlobemedia is expected to immediately petition the CRTC for a reduction in its CanCon obligations.

Beware the Moores

A COUPLE WEEKS AGO, The Honourable James Moore, Canadian Heritage Minister, made waves when he visited the set of CTV/CBS' Flashpoint. The meeting with the stars and writers was pressed into service by Heritage to make a special announcement, which turned out to be the creation of the new Canadian Media Fund, which is slated to replace the Canadian Television Fund in 2010.

Well, hang on to your hats, because Moore's canceled his schedule today and now there's supposed to be another big press avail and announcement in Toronto.

Toronto's Port Authority were contacted last week about using the old Rochester Ferry Terminal for the announcement, but that plan was discarded quickly, and no one gave a reason. That ferry terminal, of course, has served for the last two years as the backdrop and set for my ex-show, The Border. I don't know whether it's logistics that sunk the Ferry Terminal idea or something else.

Maybe whatever Moore's planning, the backdrop of a CBC show wouldn't be appropriate with all the stuff over the cuts still fresh. It's a pretty rainy day in Toronto, so their Plan B doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

Supposedly now the whole thing's going down at the old CHUM building at John and Queen around five-thirty p.m. If you go by John and Queen right now, John Street is blocked off between Queen and Richmond street, and a stage is being hastily erected like they do for the Muchmusic Video Awards.

A friend of mine who works as an editor in the building also told me that bigwigs have been going up to the big executive suite on the fifth floor since about 8am -- including Ivan Fecan and Leonard Asper from Canwest. This sounds like it's something a little more than just strategy for the upcoming OTA hearings.

Shoes Dropping

LOT OF CHATTER coming out of Canwest yesterday about possible BIG CHANGES afoot. Apparently some major meetings going on. Now I hear from somebody I know inside the old AA building at Bloor and Church that this morning there was a group of "heavily made up women with cheerleader looks" waiting at 15th floor reception. They were all ushered into a big boardroom for a meeting, very hush hush.

Whatever can it mean?