Kate Taylor Tackles Canada's Culture for Eh or Nay.

KATE TAYLOR spent a year as an Atkinson Fellow looking into Canadian Culture, for an extended series of articles now available on the Toronto Star website.

I'm not returning to blogging, not anytime soon, anyway, but I've been waiting awhile for Kate to post her findings, so I wanted to call your attention to it.

An example:

if place generates self-respect, so does culture. In his 2008 book A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada, the philosopher and novelist John Ralston Saul accuses Canadian elites of harbouring colonial attitudes, always looking over their shoulders to check what is being done in the mother country, or now the United States.

His is a damning and painfully perceptive account of the mindset of those Canadian media leaders whose claims to cosmopolitanism are merely cover for a lack of ingenuity at home. It’s a phenomenon that manifests itself every year at the commercial broadcasters’ “upfronts,” the presentations of their new seasons to advertisers and the media.

At the CanWest upfront in June, for example, executive vice-president of content Barbara Williams trumpeted what shows she had just bought in L.A. and boasted of no less than 15 prime-time hours of simulcast American dramas. The commercial broadcasters’ business model is based on simulcasting U.S. shows, but the idea that such coattail-riding is worth bragging about strikes me as sad.

Canadian governments have embraced the notion that cities and communities need to be creative but, to judge from their funding, they don’t seem to have given much thought to who is going to do all this creating. Meanwhile, Ottawa’s talk of a digital economy focuses on technology rather than content. If we want a creative economy, we had better start by figuring out how our creative industries are going to survive past next year.

On their blogs and their fan sites, young, wired Canadians show great confidence as potential creators. But if the only place for professional creation is abroad, the only acceptable references either generic or American, we will be forced to deal with not just a continuing brain drain as the new generation of so-called prosumers follow the natural talent flow southwards. More worryingly, those left behind will only be the wannabes, the might-have-beens, the losers.

Bracing and honest, Northern Lights is great reading.  One more list worth breaking out:

Nine myths about Canadian culture

1. Fiction: Canada is a small country and a small market.

Fact: Canada is the 14th largest economy in the world, and English Canada is home to an estimated 26 million people. The cultural firmament is full of examples — Danish film, Quebec TV — where smaller populations sustain local content. English Canada’s challenges have to do with the cultural and physical proximity of the U.S., and with the country’s geographic spread.

2. Fiction: Canadians just don’t want to watch Canadian TV shows.

Fact: If that were true, Canadians would be the only people in the industrialized world who preferred American shows to domestic shows of comparable quality. U.S. shows do consistently outrank Canadian shows in ratings, but they have significant advantages over Canadian shows. Simulcasting means American shows appear twice on the dial. Canadian shows tend to be relegated to times when fewer people are watching, and they usually offer half the number of episodes, making it more difficult to build audiences. Nonetheless, Canadian shows do score with audiences: CTV’s Flashpoint, the highest-rated Canadian drama last season, drew an average of 1.5 million viewers.

3. Fiction: Canadian shows would get the ratings if they were any good.

Fact: After the U.S. and the U.K., Canada is one of the most significant exporters of TV programming in the world. Canadian shows regularly appear on U.S. specialty channels and European networks. CBC’s Being Erica is seen in 21 countries including Turkey, Poland and the U.S.

4. Fiction: They are shoving Cancon down our throats.

Fact: Canadian content regulations in radio and television have ensured there are Canadian choices that would not otherwise exist, but Canadians also have easy access to most American television, as well as all U.S. movies, music, books and magazines.

5. Fiction: Canadian movies are just bad.

Fact: How would you know? When have you ever seen one? It is estimated that Canadian films account for only 3 per cent of screen time in Canadian cinemas.

6. Fiction: The CBC is lavishly funded by the taxpayer. . .

Fact: At $33 per citizen per year, the CBC is one of the worst funded public broadcasters in the industrialized world. Only the United States and New Zealand pay less per capita for public broadcasting. Routinely cut and seldom increased, the CBC’s parliamentary appropriation, in today’s dollars, is worth $500 million less than it was in 1991.

7. Fiction: . . . unlike the commercial broadcasters, who have to survive without any government money.

Fact: There is no such thing as a free market in Canadian broadcasting. The commercial broadcasters are protected from competing American signals by regulation and also receive government subsidies for their Canadian programming in the form of tax credits and grants provided to TV producers.

8. Fiction: You can’t regulate the Internet; the CRTC might as well close up shop.

Fact: It’s not just the censors in Beijing who are looking at a national government’s ability to exercise some control over the Internet. In the United States, the broadcast regulator is attempting to establish rules for net neutrality; the Australian government upholds obscenity laws it created for the Internet in 1999. The question for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is whether any kind of Canadian content regime on the Internet would be fair or effective.

9. Fiction: Canadian ownership is key to providing Canadian content.

Fact: The link between domestic ownership and domestic content is weak, depending more on producers’ business models than their patriotism. For a Canadian-owned broadcaster, it is easier to make money airing U.S. shows than producing Canadian ones. On the other hand, it is possible to make money on Canadian books and music, two areas where foreign companies do produce Canadian content.

Again....well, well, well worth reading.  Kate Taylor's full series can be found here.

Stop The Presses

APPARENTLY, JOURNALISTS ARE making the switch to writing dramatic TV.  It's a trend and everything.  Who knew?  Heh.

Director David Wellington throws out the word, “orpie” (his slang for dialogue that looks good on the page, but will likely sound awkward coming out of an actor’s mouth). Show runner and head writer Tassie Cameron thinks a particular scene could use a “save the cat” moment (in other words, a script device to endear a particular character to viewers). Another writer, Semi Chellas, pipes up that a proposed plot twist is “mutant subtext” (a term she coined to mean something in an episode that seems random).
At the far end of the table, Ellen Vanstone, a long-time journalist and the co-creator of the ABC/Global show Rookie Blue, which debuts on Thursday, listens to the weird lingo with a huge grin on her face. “What I love about scriptwriting,” says the National Magazine Award-winner, “is the jargon and linguistic shortcuts used to get an idea across quickly.”
And it’s precisely the staccato exchange of ideas in this room that persuaded her to join the rush of television and print reporters and editors to TV and film scriptwriting to pay the bills and challenge themselves in a different creative genre.

Long as they get the show & the time right, right kids?  Rookie Blue, Thursday 9pm, ABC/CTV.  Global

Guest Blog: Rob Wades Into The Shit

I'M STILL UP to my neck in professional & organzational, well, shit -- but further to the below, it looks like the day late & dollar short Canadian media finally caught up to Lindsay Blackett story.  (And Tv, Eh's Diane Wild has a must read eyewitness account that better contextualizes what the guy said.  I still think he misspoke, but there you go.)

Much of my pique, and yeah, it's pique, and sure, maybe it's a bit precious is the frustration that comes from this guy seeming to voice an opinion that is demonstrably false. Yet it IS a millstone that we deal with each and every day.  Last night I was out with my friend Mark, who created Flashpoint with his wife.  There's no arguing that that's the most successful Canadian show going right now. Yet somewhere in Canada, somebody's calling it Shit.  Mark told me a story about being at the airport heading out to Calgary for the Gemini Awards, and people recognizing Enrico Colatoni & Hugh Dillon and it being cool, until the Trailer Park Boys showed up in character and the departure... lounge...went... bananas.  I've seen that myself.  It's great to see. A Canadian show that undoubtedly connects with Canadians, just like Corner Gas did, and there are all sorts of people who'll line up to say it's shit.  We can't have an honest conversation when we have to wade through basic, ill-informed, self-hating douchebaggery like that.  But whatever.

What I really wanted to do was promote this comment from my friend Rob Sheridan.  I think it says what I haven't seen anybody else saying about this thing -- including me.  So take it away, Rob.

 Feels like we're being a little hypocritical jumping on this guy but I'll get to that in a second. The annoying part of what he said, for me, is this whole business of asking "Why aren't broadcasters picking up more Canadian content? Because Canadian content isn't what it should be."

Assuming he's referring to Canadian broadcasters, we all know what's wrong with that argument and why it's ridiculously simplistic. The financial incentives aren't there and they make more money on U.S. programming and they're not investing enough in talent or production because they view Canadian programming as a mandate of their license and little more etc. etc. So laying all the blame on the creatives is obviously a stupid thing to say and he should know that.

But what everyone seems so up in arms about is the "shit" comment. C'mon. This guy's not saying anything I haven't heard nearly every single writer and actor I know say at some point in private, either over drinks, or around the writer's table, or between takes, or at a WGC party. Seriously. It's a national fucking pastime. We all do it.

This show is shit, that movie was shit. Who decided to make that shit? How did that shit get funded? I can't believe that guy keeps getting shows/movies. He's shit. Hey, how's that show you're working on? It's okay, but I'm worried it might be shit. How's that show you created? I don't know yet. I'm hoping I can make it good, but a million things could go wrong, and it could be shit.

Shit is like gravity. Shit is the baseline. We're always trying to do slightly better than shit. Because no matter what country you're in or if you're writing movies or plays or novels or TV shows or albums, it's really, really hard to make something that isn't shit. It requires a lot of time and effort and talent and money and sometimes a couple of those things are in short supply for reasons this dude has clearly chosen to ignore, but that doesn't mean he's wrong.

There's lots of shit out there. Canadian shit. U.S. shit. UK shit (see Stephen Fry's comments at BAFTA). I'm always amazed if I do anything and can look at it when it's all done and go "hey, you know, some of that wasn't shit." There isn't a day goes by when I don't worry that I'm not shit at what I do. I'm sure there are lots of folks who think I'm entirely justified in that.

Is this healthy? Maybe not. Probably it's a better thing to build each other up instead of tearing each other down, and usually after our second cup of coffee or a couple of drinks, when we're feeling more generous we do just that. But would we really be worse off we weren't all at least a little harder on our own shit?

Anyway the guy didn't even say that everything was shit. He said "so much shit." True, when asked for specifics he could only say Heartland which is indeed a little self-serving given that, oh, look, it shoots in his province.

We all know we've made some great television and movies in this country. There are plenty of unbelievably talented, hard-working people working at the top of their game. I won't trot out the titles. The same dozen or so movies and shows tend to come up in these arguments and I agree with them. They're not shit. Not at all.

But we have made a lot of shit, too. As I said off the top, a lot of the reasons for that are beyond our control as creatives, and I totally get why it's infuriating that one of the guys at the top of the funding system doesn't seem to get that. The U.S. have made an awful lot of shit, too. The hit and miss ratio may even be more or less the same, but they get away with it because volume is a lot higher and there's rarely public money involved.

We need more investment of money, not less. But throwing money at it alone isn’t enough. We need to train talent and retain talent and give enough care and incentive so that every gifted writer and actor and director and producer and crew member in this country knows they are surrounded by people who are also the best at what they do, and were given the resources to do it.

We need to make more shows, not fewer, even if it means smaller episode orders with slightly lower budgets. A network that only produces one or two homegrown shows a year is naturally going to want to get their hands all over those shows – they have plenty of time and reason to do so. More shows with less at stake might mean that those networks could back off a bit and allow those shows to breathe a little, be what they are, good or bad. The batting average might end up the same but the better shows are going to have a real voice, and probably a real audience (As Steve Smith used to say about his first pitch meeting with CHCH: "Gimme enough money that I can do something, but not enough that you care what it is.")

More shows also mean more opportunity. For young writers to staff, to grow, to be promoted, to learn about how a TV show gets made. Those people will then hopefully go on to create not-shitty shows of their own one day, as opposed to the current system, where more often than not we hand out development deals to untested writers and then assign experienced showrunners to “story edit” their projects, which generally speaking won’t get made anyway. Because if you’re 23 and you’ve never worked on another person’s show, the show you’re creating has a decent likelihood of being… well, shit.

But even my little farm system-utopia idea won’t make a lick of difference if, when those people are experienced enough to become showrunners, we don’t actually let them run the show. We all know that the word showrunner gets bandied around a lot in Canada, but that we rarely fully embrace the model, so that the showrunner is often reduced to the role of “head writer” and does not, in fact, have final say on the script, the costumes, the editing, the anything, and must instead collate input from all manner of non-writing producers. I’m not talking about collaboration, which is healthy and important, I’m talking about the right to say “no” when it counts.

We all bitch about this. Everyone agrees on it. And we know that on those rare occasions where showrunners actually run the show, the show is often good, and when they don’t, the show is often less good. Sometimes a lot less good. Sometimes even… shit. So what are we up in arms about, exactly?

The problem with this guy is that he sees the symptom but he completely misdiagnoses the disease. Which, given his position, is highly regrettable. But I just don’t think we should be babies about this. Yeah, the bad man said a mean thing. Okay. But really, deep down, we all know his biggest mistake was saying it in public, instead of doing it the only proper, decent way we can respect: Behind our backs.

 Oh so THAT'S how you're supposed to do it?  Well aren't I the king of the douchebags.  Shit.

Thanks Rob.  Seacrest out.

Shit My Crazy Alberta MLA Says

I HAVE HAD roughly eleventy-billion emails from people in the last hour and a half or so asking for my reaction to remarks made by Alberta's Minister of Culture yesterday on a panel at the Banff TV Festival.

Remarkably (or not so, if you follow Canadian media) a Google News search of the minister's remarks a few minutes ago turned up nothing.  That's more than 24 hours after the remark was made.

Nary a word on the Google, more than 24 hrs later. 

If something happens in Canada & the Canadian Media doesn't cover it, are they doing their jobs? Or just waiting for Mary Hart to break the story?

Globe & Mail, CP, nada.  Nobody has covered it.

A friend of mine who works at CBC Radio (which will be going with the story at least locally, soon) forwarded me the clip & script for the soundbite that got people talking.  Here it is:

Some startling remarks made by Alberta's culture minister are creating a bit of a stir.
 Lindsay Blackett was part of a panel at the Banff World Television Festival on Monday.
 The panel included Canadians who've become Hollywood stars -- people like Eric McCormack from the series, "Will and Grace."

 The conversation was meant to discuss an actor's journey from small town Canada to the big leagues of Hollywood.

 But it turned to bashing the quality of Canadian television.

 And Blackett was one of the critics.

 (and we apologize for the quality of this clip)

 in: I sit here
 runs: 23 sec
 out: what it shoudl be
 
<<<<I sit here as a government representative for film and television in the province of Alberta and I look at what we produce ... and if we're honest with ourselves .... I look at it and say why do I produce so much shit? Why do I fund so much crap? Why do we do it? Why are broadcasters not picking up more Canadian content? Because Canadian content isn't what it should be.">>>>
 
 Blackett later backtracked a bit by saying Canadians make great programming -- and he pointed to the CBC program, "Heartland," which is made in Alberta.

That's a helluva clip. Yet it didn't make anybody's news. It showed up NOWHERE until today.

Calgary North MLA Lindsay Blackett. Is it just me,
or should we get this guy partying with Michel Arpin, stat?

This is one piece of the puzzle that serves to answer Mr. Blackett.   Our concentrated, spoon fed, report every last bit of LiLo but none of what happens in our own cultural backyard media, sucks.  To be honest, though I'd dearly love to get further into it, I'm going to hold my fire for a couple of days.

Because I'm in the middle of something that will perhaps serve as another part of the answer to Mr. Blackett.  Not the answer anybody wants to hear, necessarily,  but an answer that should be pretty familiar to anybody who's been paying attention to Canadian Film and Television for the last thirty five or so years.

My favorite part though is that even when the guy backtracks, the only show he comes up with is the one that films in his riding.  Asshat.

Which reminds me...a tiny little bit of  homework.  Brush up on the meaning of this word here. And some of its wider implications.

And if you want a slightly lighter take on this fucked up bullshit from "MLA Who Doesn't Even Realize He's Part of The Problem", may I guide you to  the always amusing Mike's Bloggity Blog. 

Right now, I'm gonna get me a drink and try to wash the stink off.

FOX North? Oooh! Wow! Puh-leeeze.

YOU CAN TELL that they're scraping the barrel for Canadian news (because you can't report too much on the fact that Toronto is already a fucking detention camp because of this stupid G20 meeting, because nobody outside Toronto cares because it's Toronto) by the fact that the ridiculous "Sun TV" "we're bringing right wing news to Canada!" story is getting so much play.

The whole thing is risible, and it's shocking that no one's calling them on it.  Well, there's Brioux, and the slightly less fulminated Howard Bernstein, but like most media stories in the Great White North, this one's being allowed to waft hither and thither without much of a reality check.

As Howard put it:

So far very few right wing media organizations have succeeded in Canada. The National Post can barely give their newspaper away. Alberta Report faded away. Sun Newspapers (owned by Quebecor) have been losing money and laying off staff for two years. So where is the market? It might be the talk radio crowd. They seem to gravitate to the wild right but every poll of their listeners has shown them to be older, lower income and lower educated. Not the crowd that the advertisers are looking for.
The bottom line for me is that the Canadians I know, even the very conservative ones, tend to be more moderate in their ideas and their expectations. In the land of “sorry” I am not sure that media crazies will be a welcome addition. Quebecor’s track record for picking winners in English Canada is a poor one. I expect we are getting our shorts in a knot prematurely.

The fact is that even in Canada's fractured parliamentary landscape, 4 out of 5 parties that people vote for consistently are left of BOTH the Republican and Democratic Parties in the United States.  Break down the, oh, be nice and call it 40% of the populace that would EVER watch this news channel (very few of whom are already watching FOX News -- the channel does hash tags here) and how many are non-old angry white guys who advertisers don't care about?

Brioux busts the Category 1 thing wide open, and points out the inconvenient truth that an effective news channel requires money, which is something that Quebecor is allergic to spending.  Oh, and let's go there again: they have failed at EVERY SINGLE THING they've tried to put on the air in English Canada.

Mondoville also broke down an interesting point that if this was a viable alternative, there's at least five cable channels on the air right now that would have tried it already.

Kory Tendollarshoes is sure entertaining -- and I'd love to see some livening up of news panels & coverage in this country. And lets hope that the spectre of this never gonna hunt dog might do it.

But wow. The day Canadians open their cable bills and read that they have to pay a dollar a month more for a third national all-news channel -- and this one's like FOX news?  Oh man, I'd hate to be manning the phones that day.

This is a supremely silly story.  It's not even 'truthy.'  You'd have to be a brain-dead idiot with no understanding of either the country you live in, the media landscape or the fundamentals of business to even entertain it as a viable notion.  Can we all just stop with the handwringing and move on?

On The Strangest Sea

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me

-Emily Dickinson

WOODY ALLEN famously titled one of his collections of written essays, "Without Feathers," and that's a hipper usage than I can probably muster today.  But there's always been something about that Dickinson poem to me, something that keeps bringing me back to it at certain times, or during certain trials.

I think one of the reasons why I like it so is because it tells me that hope, besides being free, is generous if you let it, and can survive whatever kicks you choose to throw at it. The secret is to let that little bird in.

In that spirit then, a few stories today that could conjure the usual clouds of creative cynicism, but won't. Not today. Today let's look on these items and try to hear the song without the words.

Hollywood realizes that safe sucks.  Nikki Finke has an interesting story about studio heads scheduling meetings with agents to try and figure out where the hell to go next. The retrenchment that's gone on over the last couple years hasn't been just about the economy, though the over-reliance on sequel-bumping & TV show remaking is tied up in that.  There's also a lingering anger & resentment left over from the last WGA strike. Hollywood's uneasy relationship with that dificult and whiny & prickly class, scriptus writerus, fed a lot of fantasizing over the last little while -- from the idea that Leno could work at ten to the multiplexes would still burst with gelt no matter what crappy, half-assed spectacle you threw up there.  Well, with the box office off so much, it seems like maybe there's finally a move to listen to some new ideas:

"I have three heads of studios coming into my office. They're completely at a loss about what to do," one top tenpercenter put it bluntly. So what are the agents going to tell the studios? Here are our writers, here are their pitches and treatments and scripts, here is the originality you should be making instead of numbing predictability. Like, duh. Could this be an opportunity for creativity? That's what a major producer told my colleague Mike Fleming yesterday: "this sluggish summer might be a blessing in disguise for talent and producers who want to take risks but have been hamstrung for the past two years by studios that have been operating in retreat mode, and looking for the safest bets possible.

We'll see if it materializes. It depressed me a bit to see that Splice didn't catch on in its theatrical run -- but the horror market has been so dumbed down & Sawporned that maybe expecting more was ambitious.  I bet Splice will do great on Video.   For my part, I read the articles like this one tracking the up-and-coming promotional efforts around Inception with great interest.

About a month and a half ago I i.d.'d this as the only film that was likely to get me into a theater this summer. If it does well, maybe we'll see more movies with smarts & thrills.  And that's good for both audience & creators.

Good Looking Cops Having Sex? I'm in!

Meanwhile, here in Canada, Canwest Global sent out a press release alerting people that they were going to really, really, really promote the heck out of Rookie Blue,  in advance of its premiere June 24th. (Simulcast on ABC in the USA.) They've got a website with flash & whistles, even a special game you can play.

Complementing the vast off-air, on-air and digital media elements of the campaign are promotional rookie cards – a collectable item featuring glossy photos and key facts about the series’ rookies. These cards will be distributed in a targeted fashion to consumers, advertisers and press in the weeks ahead.

In tandem with the marketing efforts, Global’s comprehensive publicity campaign involved an original press kit in the unique form of a police academy notebook distributed to print, online, radio and broadcast outlets across the county. Additionally, the network is actively leveraging the homegrown cast with a number of targeted publicity tactics including an integrated press junket to build awareness of the series and the up-and-coming stars.

All creative and media plans were developed in-house through the Canwest Creative Agency and Media Strategy teams.

I guess Global's still smarting a bit from the pasting they took in the articles on their upfronts last week. Oh sure, one could point out that it isn't actually too newsworthy for a putative media company & TV network to try and self-congratulate for doing what is normally considered, uh, part of the job, but hey, it's Global promoting a Canadian series and spending money to do it!  So Shhhh, naysayers. Listen. Listen for the bird.  Ahhh.  See, doesn't that sound sweet?

The air may be lousy with cop shows, but Rookie Blue has always struck me as a savvy pitch -- Grey's Anatomy, but with cops.  That sounds fun and frothy & summery.  The scuttlebut and whispers in the industry say that when ABC tested the show, it did really, really well.  I'll be tuning in.  I hope lots and lots and lots and lots of people do the same, and Global gets giddy on the thought that maybe their CanCon could make money for them.  Oh little bird, sing your song. Sing the fuck out of it.

"If you tell me TV is dead one more time,
I'm gonna kick you in the Rundle."

Finally, there's Banff. Oh, sure. Once upon a time, when Pat Ferns was in charge it seemed to be more about the content & less the deal -- and deals actually got done there instead of just being announced there -- but Ferns kind of ran the fest into the ground.  Still, every year it seems to be more about visiting U.S. creators & less about creativity -- and now that it, like every other conference in the world, has been swallowed by the Convergence Traveling Digital The Future's Coming TV Is Dead Honky Tonk Roadshow, the expecations are even lower. I'm still hoping that along with all the self-evident tweets from #banff2010 (ably ripped on by Jim Henshaw here) there might be one, teeny tiny morsel of creative juice, one tiny new idea that gets reported back that makes me think, "ah yes, that festival is good for something other than clean mountain air."


Oh little bird, flap those wings harder, fly faster...sing louder -- cause I'm working real hard to name that tune.

Or, in the case of Banff, somebody could just, you know...shoot the bird.

Hey Canadian Nets, Can We Be Upfront?

I FELT SORRY for Barbara Williams.

I really did.  She had a job to do -- a very specific job, which was to present the new fall offerings from Global Television in a positive way to entice advertisers.  It's a presentation that requires charm & clarity of message.  If you read any account of the U.S. network upfronts, which generally happen in the middle of May, you can see how it's done.  A stage managed parade of "it's never been better."  The brain might know that a year from now, 90% of these new shows you're talking up will be lying dead, broken, ignored, unloved, canceled -- but you will it not to show that.  Instead, you smile.  "Things have never been better."

Oh that was tough the last couple of years, to be sure.  Advertising was down, audiences were still eroding, everyone was abuzz about piracy, the internet, cable cannibalization of network numbers, the scourge of Tivo...not to mention the bankruptcy of GM, the world's largest advertiser, and that unbelievably stupid Leno-at-10pm turd.

But this year? Advertising's up.  They're back. They're looking to spend money.  The data on PVR's isn't so bad.  People still apparently appointment view. There's life in the old network girl yet!

But at Global's presentation of its fall schedule, something was definitely off.

Was it the protestors outside from ACTRA?  A few dozen of them, saying what they say at every one of these things -- "we should tell our own stories," etc.

It can't be them.  Can't be! I mean, ACTRA's been protesting like that for years. They did it in front of the upfront at the Elgin. They've done it ... well, they've done it A LOT.   Eric Peterson, God love him, he always shows up. And sometimes Paul Gross is there.  If you spot Wendy Crewson at one of those things, you get to yell, "bingo!"

Yet, lo and behold, and a wag of the finger to all you Eeyores out there who insist there's no point tryin' anything -- this time, that protest worked...

If the press is anything to go by, I mean.

In article after article after article -- Global's launch message was muddied, shoved aside, and forced to share the spotlight with some very unusual creative-driven questions:  "why does the spending on U.S. programming go up every year?" "Why does your big splashy fall schedule only have one homegrown show on it?" "Why should we be excited by a warmed-over rehash of shows we get on the U.S. networks on our cable dials already?"

When you're talking through the smile of "things are going great," that's just not the message you want to have out there. So what happened?

Well, I submit to you that finally, the Broadcasters brought this on themselves. And Global bore the brunt by going first, and not being ready with an integrated counter message. The combination over the relentlessly partisan rah rah "Save Local TV" campaign, combined with the CRTC hearings and scrutiny over their business models has finally filtered through to the journalist class.

Instead of viewing the economic downturn of 2008 as a cyclical bump in their business, the Canadian nets pounced and called it a "permanent downturn" and used it to hysterically call for all sorts of relief -- Fee For Carriage, and of course, a reduction in CanCon.

But, see, you can't square that with the upfront mentality, especially when all signs point to a resurgence in ad spending.  And there is the inconvenient fact that the U.S. spending still went up when they were crying poor.  With those numbers floating out there, and the whole bad taste from the "Save Local TV" imbroglio still brewing, it was bound to create a climate where people took a harder look at what the business model of Canadian TV really is.

And when you do look at it, it's pretty indefensible. It's lazy. It's parasitic and it trades only on the creativity of another nation.  Even the CRTC knows it -- though they do try to bury their own reports when they come out and say it.

The other piece of blowback could be called, "the Corner Gas/Flashpoint effect."

Now that some of those homegrown shows are starting to get good, it's a natural thing to ask, "well, why aren't there more of them?"  Why DO the Canadian nets insist on doing only the bare minimum that they are dragged kicking and screaming into doing?  From a consumer standpoint, what is the value of having networks that only replicate the U.S. schedules?

When Barbara Williams stood on the stage earlier this week, what she didn't realize is that she was standing on the wrong side of the Tipping Point.  She faced a "friendly audience" at the CRTC when she presented there last year about the network TV problem (so friendly that the CRTC redacted all her testimony, creating the odd spectacle of a commission that's supposed to protect consumer's rights in the broadcast sphere holding secret hearings)  but the combination of bad theatre over the local TV thing, the mounting questions, years of ACTRA protests, the wall-falling nature of things like Hulu, the Net, Torrents and iTunes have all coalesced.   These questions over CanCon, and what are you doing, what are you MAKING for viewers? They are never going away again.  They are a permanent part of the conversation now.

The truth is, Global is making homegrown shows.  More than perhaps they've ever done before.  They have a simulcast coming up with Rookie Blue in a couple of weeks. They have greenlit pilots, and ordered series. But they're so used to not talking about any of that that Barb Williams only got to bring it up in response to questions about the lack of CanCon, and the ACTRA protest -- which immediately made them sound defensive.  Because it WAS DEFENSIVE.

CTV read those tea leaves clearly, and did a serious adjust in time for their upfront presentation yesterday.  Among the self-congratulatory email releases was one frontloading just how much they were doing in terms of CanCon.  And you know what? They deserve the lap.  I, and many others, may have differing things to say about a slate that includes Flashpoint, The Bridge, The Listener, Dan For Mayor, Hiccups, Degrassi and all -- but they all got renewed yesterday.  Some of them are even drawing numbers.  CTV supports them with advertising.  They play some of the same games at the CRTC, to be sure, and they're certainly not busting down the doors to bring you CanCon this fall -- but the truth is, they deserve their victory lap. They've done the work. And they were ready with the release to shine a light on what they have.  I'm sure the fact that it also allowed them to tweak their rival Global played a part in it, but you know, whatever.

Meanwhile, there are the others.  You know a few years ago when I had a show on Citytv -- I wasn't even invited to the upfronts.   Don't boohoo for me, Argentina -- I'm not so special...nobody with a Canadian show was.  And in the Rogers-era, so far there's no evidence that that's changed.

Last night, you could read tweets from the CTV party by the co-creator of Flashpoint.

That's the new world, kids.  The conversation is different now.

So congrats to ACTRA for keeping the heat on, and WGC for doggedly getting those U.S. spend numbers out there, over and over -- and anyone who raised a finger to raise the alarm. The message has finally trickled down.  What happens next?

Well, that's up to them.  I dream of the day when these guys realize -- as CTV has started to -- that maybe pushing your CanCon just a little is good business, too.   That celebrating Canadian talent only after you've forced them to move to the USA is a bit perverse.  That if you're the CBC, you can fade a lot of built-in goodwill by floating a fall schedule with nothing new.  That burying stuff on the specialties & Fridays & Saturdays in the winter in favor of shows -- 90% of which won't live the season -- isn't the best foot to put forward.  That if you're the Movie Channels -- Astral & Corus-owned, and you push your CanCon like you push stuff from HBO and Showtime -- that you gain respect.

Most of all, I dream of the day when the Canadian nets -- all of them -- realize that the shows they make themselves are part of the story they have to tell at the upfronts...not merely the tax on their business they have to endure.

You want a party free of protestors, and headlines that are on message? That's what it's going to take.

I hope Barbara Williams gets lots of good headlines when Rookie Blue premieres. After the rough ride she had this week, she deserves them.

No News is Just No News

WE LIVE IN a bit of a fraught media moment.   There are new rules on copyright coming -- rules that might unnecessarily shackle consumers and content creators at the behest of large corporate conglomerates.  After crying poor because of the recession & stating that there wouldn't be a huge spending spree for U.S. shows this year, it looks like the Canadian nets went down and did exactly that.  Meanwhile, the pushoff of license renewals means that Canadian creatives won't have any sense of what we're making for about another year, as lawyers everywhere tread water and try to find loopholes in the new Canadian television policy.

In the meantime, homegrown gossip mavens send out breathless press releases about dubious scoops.  The number two private network in the country has just been taken over by a large cabler. The same large cabler has successfully reconfigured the CMF so that the board members are all cable cronies.  Creatives need not worry, they say, you will be heard -- in the same fabulous, paternalistic way as always, I suppose.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are on the warpath about...everything, really, but let's just call it the CBC for now.

There are questions, and lots of them, about media concentration, the future of homegrown broadcasting, how consumer choice should shape the industry going forward ...

... not to mention things like, well, the fact that they're talking about a National Digital Strategy five years too late; the people who seem to have the ear on the government on that file are the same snake oil salesmen I've been hearing bleat since my days pre-dot.com crash covering the street for Media Television... oh, and nobody but my friend Howard Bernstein seems to be able to lay out a cogent explanation of the ongoing troubles with Canadian Local TV.

And nobody knows who, or how, Canadian networks are going to make the transition to full digital broadcasting.  (The U.S. stations by the way, are mostly done.)

Canada is the second largest country in the world by land mass, yet it's small in population. Spread out. We are wracked by regionalism, resentments rooted in geography that go back to our founding as a nation.  Not fighting at your birth means, maybe, that you push the big fights further down the road. But at a time when we need local voices & local coverage, we have less than ever. We have some of the most concentrated media in the world.

One story can show you what happens when you have a concentrated media and no valve.  Jim Henshaw wrote about this the other day, but if you'll indulge me a moment, I will recap it in short for those who may not be from my corner of the country.  The Province of Ontario's Attorney General was involved in a vehicular accident a year ago in which a bicycle courier was killed. There is surveillance footage showing the car speeding away.  There were also unsavory details that came out about the courier -- his alcohol level, previous altercations with motorists, etc.  Point is, the courier's dead. And now, because an outside prosecutor brought in to hear the case decided there was not enough evidence, there will be no trial for Michael Bryant.

This may have been the right call, for all I know.  I know that the details about the courier gave me pause. I've ridden a bike downtown, and been scared by crazy drivers -- but I've also been a driver desperately looking for bicycles and incensed when a rider flouted the rules of the road; riding unsafely, running lights, going the wrong way up a one way street and a hundred other moves.

But what's happened now is that there is no satisfaction on either side. Evidence will never be heard. We will never settle this as a society. It will always remain there, hanging, the two factions convinced they're right, a vague queasy sense of a backroom deal, and many people feeling like that deal robbed us of a public airing; of justice.

There's a lot of that in Canadian society.  I remember learning about the Family Compact in my Canadian History.  Like Tammany Hall in NYC, the Family Compact was the group of families who ran everything for their own benefit here in the early days of Upper Canada.

It was a set of controls made all the easier by the docile nature of the Canadian.  Slow to provoke, slow to object -- given to grumbling mightily but never organizing or really doing much of anything.  (Save the occasional rebellion or General Strike, I mean.)

Well, here we sit now in an age of communications uncertainty. Foreign ownership, editorial independence, Canadian voices -- all of this is up for grabs right now.  And it's not really being written about.

A strong rumor from many sources indicated that in the runup to the "Save Local TV" "TV Tax" last time,  a certain Canadian paper with broadcast interests had a standing policy that the discussion of the issues of Fee For Carriage be restricted to the Business Pages.  The Arts pages were not to be used to discuss the issues arising from the debate -- lest they rile up those excitable creatives & people who care about culture.  And lo, they were not used for that purpose. And that part of the debate was never joined.  It stayed a nice, hermetically sealed business story.

Even papers like The Toronto Star, with no major broadcast interests, gave the issue short shrift. Who is reporting on media issues, whether from a creative industry or consumer side?  A few blogs. A few paid industry newsletters that never trickle down to the public. Nobody else.

Then, last week, a wonderful piece of doublespeak flew into people's inboxes.  It seems in order to serve us better, Playback, the publication that served as the putative "industry paper," for the Canadian TV industry, had folded its print version, and would henceforth publish only electronically.  This would allow for more immediacy, or something.

Playback has gone through a rocky road through the years, from being a rag that published stuff you mostly already knew to having occasional flashes of insight or good writing & reportage.  Mostly, though, it's always been a reliable repository for the fawning "tribute to" this or that issue -- somebody in the club who's retiring, meeting a career milestone, grabbing a gold watch or something.  It's not rare to see a single-sourced story in Playback -- nor is it particularly odd to see a rewritten press release served up as news.

What was interesting in the runup to their announcement, though, was Playback didn't cover what I would say was the real story: the fact that when they folded the paper, they laid off a significant portion of their staff.  About 20 people, including the editor.

Now you can play any game you want talking about how they're going to do more with less -- but we both know that's not how it works.

And though I looked, I didn't really see any coverage of Playback laying off their staff in any of the nation's newspapers.

So there are all these questions, all these issues going forward in Canadian broadcasting.  It's a strange time.

And I guess you better hope that all us free bloggers keep writing about them, because aside from some expensive subscription-only newsletters with narrower focuses, you're not going to read any day to day journalism covering the beat.

Don't you feel well served?

The Bridge finally goes Stateside

JULY 10 on CBS. Flashpoint returns to CBS June 4. And Rookie Blue goes to ABC June 24. So we'll finally have three Canadian produced series on U.S. Nets at the same time.

Depending on the reception, this might cement the whole "Canadians fill the summer strategy." Or maybe it'll start the backlash. Considering the kinda cavalier way FP was treated, there's so much more potential down than up that all the hoopla over this model two years ago seems kind of silly now.

Then again, anybody still remember crime time after primetime on CBS?

- sent from iPad, nerds.

Find That Moose & Beaver in Your Script & Hit "Delete."

IN THE DISCUSSION on the CBC post below, Deborah Nathan & a couple of other commenters raised the issue of content guidelines.  Deborah wrote:

The CAVCO rules state a "Canadian citizen" not resident. So they are perfectly within their rights to court any Canadian who lives anywhere in the world.

Get the CAVCO rule changed if you want to stop this practice.

I'm more concerned about the practice of Americans being deemed as Canadian so they can front a show here. And the practice of camouflaging an American series as a coproduction so it receives full 10/10 status and tax credits.

I would also like to see changes to the definitions that gets rid of the parochial nature of creating drama here - as in a Canadian setting, speaks to Canadians. Really, I think if the networks want to be part of productions like the Borgias and Camelot, we should be allowed to pitch such projects, too. After all, what is British or American about the Borgias? Yet those two nations can see the value in a drama about that family. 

First of all, I never claimed that CBC doesn't have the right to look for talent where they want, merely that they are seeking green pastures while doing a not-very-good job of tending the garden they already have here.  The thrust was the "if you're in L.A. you're A-list" mentality.


Secondly, CAVCO is a tax credit scheme. I think it would probably be difficult to impose residency requirements.  And there are certainly beneficial effects with having service productions able to access tax credits.


But let's move onto Deb's central point, because it's one that I've heard a lot of people make over the last few months.


The idea that shows must be "primarily set in Canada" and "reflect Canadian themes" has been contentious for a long time. It's one of the reasons, in fact, that Canadian Sci-Fi was so hard to do. The WGC got an exemption to this for Sci-fi awhile back.


But a lot of people seem not to know is that the hated guidelines have also changed, with the transition from CTF to CMF.  I turned to WGC Director of Policy Kelly Lynne Ashton for help with this one.  The new guidelines read: 

The project speaks to Canadians and is primarily intended for a Canadian audience.

(Emphasis added by me.)  As you can see, the stipulation about setting and themes is gone, and is replaced by the much broader "primarily intended for."  So The Borgias might still be a tough sell for 10/10, but a Canadian WWI or WWII movie that takes place entirely in Europe, or a movie about two Canadian guys around L.A. a la Passenger Side, or even my own ministeries Across The River To Motor City, becomes a lot more doable. 


And the old knock about having to throw in a few moose and beaver, thankfully is no more, too.


The WGC kept on the CMF all through the consultation process to make sure that this looser definition wasn't further watered down by allowing less than a 10/10 production, so light industrial shows that don't use any above-the-line Canadian talent couldn't qualify.  And the "primarily intended for" is a valve so that, say, CBS couldn't partially finance a cop show set in Chicago but shot here.  But it's a way better definition, especially paired with continued 10/10 protection.


As for the "deeming Canadian" practice, the WGC continues to monitor projects & keep an eye on it.  They're aware of the problem and have managed to walk back a number of these attempts.


I look forward to hearing from Deb about how none of this is enough, and how working for these things has actually made us weaker.

Never Learn Anything Ever

I'M BACK IN a writing room again today...first time in awhile, and the familiar tingle is a great accompaniment to the morning Cup o'Joe.  Nothing can spoil this mood that...what's that? CBC News!

Damnit! 

CBC Goes Searching for Talent, in the States
 

The CBC is heading to south for a talent scouting trip.
The Arts and Entertainment and Factual units are looking for pitches for new shows and series, and they’re hitting the road to do it. First stop was Vancouver yesterday, then on to L.A.  ”We are open for business. We are the only people who make Canadian prime-time series and we’re looking for the best of the best,” Kirstine Stewart said to the Toronto Star yesterday.

I don't even have the energy for the long screed on this one.

It is an article of faith in Canadian Television that every generation of network executive, or production company executive must make the same mistake, over, and over, and over.

So let's review.


When Canadian talent "goes to the States" it is for the possibility of vastly greater opportunities & paydays.


If you hit, and receive those paydays, you cannot afford to work for Canadian money anymore.  The difference is vast.  Oceanic.

Come To Think of It, I've Never Seen Her Birth Certificate...

I'VE SERVED for two years on the Writers Guild of Canada National Council, and was recently acclaimed to a second term.  Today the new executive convened for the first time with an important task: to select a new President to help guide the organization through the next two years, and advise the hardworking Executive Director, Maureen Parker, and her tireless staff.

I'm very pleased to say that by unanimous consent we selected somebody with her eye planted firmly on the next frontier of opportunity for writers: the digital realm.

Many of you will already know Jill Golick from her blogging & her extensive work in new media creation.  There are great challenges ahead, and Jill's well poised to help us meet them.

Over at her place, you can read her first thoughts on the challenges ahead directly.

It's a new day.

Justified Craft, Breaking Away, & Car Living

MEANWHILE, BACK IN the subject of TeeVee...

The Globe has a nice profile today by Stephen Cole of Elmore Leonard where he rhapsodizes about how thrilled he is with what Graham Yost has done with the character of Raylan Givens in Justified.

The trick to storytelling, Leonard believes, “is leaving out the parts readers skip.” That’s something Justified, which airs in Canada on Super Channel Monday nights, manages with economy and wit, he says. The story of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a Stetson-wearing lawman who returns to Harlan County to deal with a messy past, manages to pass Leonard’s creative checklist.
“Last night’s show was terrific,” the writer says. “Action all the way, good story, suspense .... The funny stuff was funny.”

“I got a whole bunch of his paperbacks and handed them out to writers,” Toronto-born Yost says. “We wanted everyone to get the rhythm and feel of Elmore Leonard.”
Yost literally handcuffed writers to Leonard by having inspirational bracelets made up that read WWED – “What would Elmore do?”
“I gave ’em to my kids and grandkids,” Leonard laughs, adding that whatever Yost did, his actors captured Leonard’s sound.

Part of what I love about Justified is that it manages to create its world so effortlessly & instantly, but then goes around and breaks all the rules of what you're supposed to do to establish a TV series.   They go to L.A. in the 3rd episode.  L.A.!  I mean, who does that? Changes locale in ep 3?

They also did a nice slow burn building up the Daddy character as a formidable foe, then introduced him as a character who seemed weak and past his prime (though still capable of some real kicks.)

I am completely addicted to this show, which makes up for...


Breaking Bad.  I know, I know, I read the tweets & the interviews saying that the show is bananas now, but, as suspected, losing all sympathy for Walt just sort of drained my desire to watch the series. Something's gotta go.  While I like my antiheroes, I guess I just don't like things quite so nihilistic.  Hey, if I want nihilism, I look in the mirror.


I will also say with some relief that I screened the first episode of HBO Canada's's new show from George F. Walker, "Living in Your Car," (which Canadians can watch online here) and enjoyed it -- with a couple of lingering questions.  I was not a big fan of either This is Wonderland or (especially) The Line, so I'm delighted to say that the pilot for LIYC is brisk & snappy.  It's actually a pretty textbook example of how to introduce a lot of backstory in a smart & funny, breezy way. 

The lead, John Ralston, is enjoyable and charismatic.  I don't know what kind of pop new Walker collaborator Joseph Kay (who created the show with Walker & Dani Romain) brought to the table, but the feel of this show is much more current than the last couple.  I just am not sure, like Breaking Bad, if it's going to be a series with the kind of legs to keep me hooked.  As played in the pilot, the Ralston character is charismatic but not a bit sympathetic. I'm going to need a reason to care about him in subsequent episodes. Still, it's another strong case in the argument that Canada's premium pay services are following their American counterparts by churning out the most consistently engaging and interesting homegrown shows.

I just hope we're not treated to a scene of a woman in a slip in a motel having a long argument with somebody anytime soon.

Writer Make Good

MY FRIEND Rob Sheridan wrote a lovely first person account of his career rise in the National Post.  Now imagine what would happen if Canadian papers thought to profile more actors, writers & directors BEFORE they left for the USA?  Hmm?

I'd always talked about making a go of it in Hollywood, but had never really tried. I sent out some scripts, took some meetings. Ten years earlier I had gotten so many rejection letters; now the same agencies were pitching me. I had a good meeting at Warner Bros. and my agent at William Morris helped negotiate me an offer on a blind pilot script deal. That means they're hiring me not for a specific idea, but on the strength of my work that they've read. It means I'll be playing in a bigger field.
I tend to spend so much time worrying about doing a good job that I'm not real good at allowing myself the opportunity to enjoy a moment. Last night, however, I was at a Beverly Hills restaurant, drinking a martini and my cousin was encouraging me to bask in my success. I'm trying to enjoy this, but generally speaking, I'm thinking about the work ahead.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=2971398#ixzz0mnmRIfPv

Numbers Are For Mugs, See?

EARLIER THIS WEEK, I sat in a sunlit boardroom on the 32nd floor of the Toronto Four Seasons hotel and held my fate in my hands.  It was black, very light, just a couple of ounces, really... and you could slide it into a slot on this device that looked like a card shoe and it made a satisfying "thunk."

That "thunk" was the sound of perceptions changing.  And though it scared me a little, there was also a certain comfort in it.

Ratings are always a fraught subject for anyone who works in Television -- but even moreso in Canada, because the distorted way in which they are used.

In the U.S., ratings data serves a simple purpose -- measuring audiences in order to be able to ascertain how valuable the ad space around those shows is.  That's it.  You know who's watching, when they're watching, and for how long -- and you can turn that information into money.

In the haggling around the money we've come to some interesting accomodations & conclusions in the last little while -- and exploded some myths.  First, despite the hype, way more people are watching shows off air than you'd think.  PVR's have not swallowed viewing altogether.  Also, people watching playback off a PVR usually watch the same night -- and lo and behold -- watch a surprising number of the commercials.  "The Sky is Falling" makes a very dramatic article lede in a newspaper, but the prognostications of imminent network death are a bit premature.  Yes, the model is breaking down. Yes, something else is eventually going to replace it.  But no, we're not talking weeks, months, or even a couple years here.   This system might hang on for another decade, for all we know.

Stretch it to fifteen, and I'm out of the business, most likely, so I'm not quite as down with the abject panic as I might have been last year at this time.

In Canada, however, the ratings data takes on another dimension, because it gets wrapped up in politics.

There's the amusing side -- CTV & Global regularly fire out releases trumpeting the triumph of this show or that show they run; and inevitably they're U.S. programs that they had no hand in making.

Over the last couple years we had the hopeful sign of a couple releases going out to trumpet the premiere numbers of Canadian shows.  Global was thrilled about those premiere numbers for The Guard -- until they settled.   Which is the more relevant number? The 2 Million who tuned in for Little Mosque on the Prairie's premiere? Or the 4 to 500 000 left watching now in Season 4?

Where things get complicated in Canada is ratings data being used to prove a political point. The numbers get poured into all sorts of containers that weren't designed to hold them.

CBC tries to point to their ratings as being way up from a few years back to prove that they're serving Canadians and are more relevant than they've been for years -- and critics of the CBC point to an individual show's (or group of shows) performance against House to try and prove that nobody watches CBC.  CBC is up in viewers.  CBC is losing, and can only draw 600 000 or 700 000 against 3 million on CTV and therefore should be taken out behind the barn and Old Yeller'd or something.

Private stations take the tack of deliberately burying shows in bad timeslots with no promotion so that they can take that lack of ratings gusto and use it to prove to the CRTC that 'nobody wants to watch Canadian shows.'

Nobody's immune from this kind of gaming -- certainly not Creatives.  You have people regularly patting themselves on the back for "huge season average numbers" based on a couple of huge numbers with great lead-ins and a collapsing back half.  You can trumpet your numbers all you want, but if you lose 65% of your lead in, isn't something up?

Not if nobody points it out, there isn't.  You're a success -- and the numbers prove it!

Jim MacLeod, the President of BBM Canada, very graciously walked us through the new methodology of the PPM and how it works earlier this week.  A lot of it has been reported elsewhere before:  the new devices are individual & passive, meaning instead of having to enter in a code to record what you're watching, you just wear it.  It also operates by picking up a code embedded in the audio signal of a program every four seconds. The signal's just outside the range of human hearing.  This change of methodology has, since the rollout last year, resulted in some surprising gains in TV viewing numbers.    Co-Viewing is way up.  You have adults watching a lot more children's programming with their kids, and shows that appeal to a family audience, like Heartland, have seen their numbers go through the roof.

The nice thing about the audio code thing is that it makes it easier to track all sorts of things -- when you played back a recorded show, if you watched the commercials, and even if the show you were watching was from your local feed, or a timeshifted earlier station.  (And the implication is also a window into Bit Torrent use...I imagine if your PPM 'hears' you watching a recording of House from Denver when you're in, say, Nepean, and it knows some kind of chicanery was going down.)

It also allows them to better track and record at-work and out-of-home TV viewing.  At work? Surprisingly high.  Also, out of home viewing tracking is why the numbers for things like Idol & big live sports games are so steroid pumped.

The final numbers on the U.S.-Canada Olympic Hockey Final, by the way?  84% of Canadians watched.  Eighty-four.  That's just crazy.

BBM provides its data to subscribers on a daily basis, with final reports issued periodically. To the public, it issues a list of the Top 30 programs of the week, just like in the U.S.  You can see that data here.

The problem with that list, of course, is that because of the nature of our colonized broadcast landscape, it's mostly U.S. shows.  You're very rarely going to find any Canadian shows in the Top 30, and most of the time if you do, it's reality, news, or sports.

But How Was It, Really?

YOU CAN READ all about the winners of the 2010 Canadian Screenwriting Awards here, but c'mon... how was the party? 

Packed in like newts, nobody shut up til Peter Mitchell quieted them down with a hilarious & digified speech, and host Deb Digiovanni hosted like a champ.   Oh and I finally got to talk to (sigh) Geri Hall.

But never mind me. What did y'all think?

Great Event. What I liked: a) Amazing food, thank god, due to (b) Awesome open bar that (c) Stayed open/free after the ceremony. Loved Shelley Eriksen's speech about Peter Mitchell [Where she explained that "he does not hate you, he is just socially awkward"]- very lovely, not to mention Emmy/Oscar-worthy. My only complaint was the volume - it was almost impossible to hear anybody, but hey, that's apparently what the kids like. I just think next time it should maybe be held in a forest.   ANNE FENN

Thought the show was terrific, even though longer than it has been.  But that was our fault, we wrote too much.  Deborah de Giovanni was killer.  So much energy!  Lowlight -- still how much people talk during the awards.  Highlight -- John Krizanc.  His acceptance speech nailed the irreverence (how's that for Canadian understatement?) we aimed for when these awards were first created.   CHARLES LAZER

It is great just to be nominated, but it is a little disappointing not to win.  I always seek comfort in quantum physics which posits that, in a parallel universe, I did win, while in another parallel universe I was too busy defending the princess against an invading army of nazi dinosaurs to even worry about it.  DENNIS HEATON

Who dosed John Krizanc with sodium pentathol before he got to the podium? God damn Miss Eriksen gives good speech and congrats to Pete Mitchell - so deserved that award.  MATT MACLENNAN 

Highlight:  discovering that @wcdixon doesn’t just live between the bits and bytes of the Internet Lowlight:  discovering that not everyone thought ‘and the minister tweets’ was as funny as I did KELLY LYNNE ASHTON (WGC Director of Policy) 

It's clear the recession has still got its hold on writers, judging by the number of people cadging cigarettes last night instead of carrying their own. And I have to say I miss the good old days when there JUST WEREN'T THAT MANY PEOPLE.  Are we all really competing with THAT MANY PEOPLE?  That being said, I thought the cheers for nominated writers were heartfelt and heartwarming.  Great to hear our own applauding our own.  And hey, brave of Shelley Scarrow to admit to all our fears when she accepted her award.  Highlight for me, though, had to be Pete Mitchell getting the mentorship award.  Long overdue - even if the award's only lasted a few years.  SHELLEY ERIKSEN


Heather Conkie wins Showrunner of the Year– first woman to win ever!  She was Dear Aunt Agnes!! (the 3 people I was standing with didn’t know what that was, but some random guy at the bar said, “yes! I loved that show!) ALEX HOUSE


Among many, some highlights include Heather Conkie taking home the Showrunner Award  [For Heartland, a show that in its 4th season pulls close to 2 million viewers every Sunday night on CBC] Shelley Scarrow's speech and dress, Debra DiGiovanni's hosting and material co-written by Steve and Daniel Shehori, Shelley Eriksen's introduction to Pete Mitchell, and Pete Mitchell's advice on managing a writing staff and, inadvertently, marriage: give [them] space [to do their thing].

Lowlight: it's the same drill every year but so many writers talking through the awards to honor writers in an industry where we complain about our voices not being heard.  I kept this short because you asked for 25 words or less (as if!) but I could go on. The biggest highlight is and always will be connecting with writers I mostly only see on these occasions unless I'm fortunate enough to be working with them.  KAREN McCLELLAN

From Peter Mitchell to Heather Conkie's exceptionally graceful speeches about how much they've learned from the writers they've worked with, the importance of mentorship in this industry is something that can easily be glossed over, so it was brilliant to see it celebrated. Oh, and the cupcakes and free booze were nice.  ELIZE MORGAN


Once again I had a blast. The WGC National Forum and Writers Guild Awards party was like my Martin Blank high school reunion in Gross Pointe, but without the awkward and messy pen kill by the lockers...though I was tempted to take out Mitchell just for being so awesome. And I learned to accept 'Hey I know you from the internet!' as my thang. And was really happy to see Rob Cooper win for his Stargate Universe script. Congrats and cheers to all. WILL DIXON

Lowlight -- I didn't get to chat with you. Shithead.  CYNTHIA KNIGHT 


Alrigthy then.  That's a wrap.  Feel free to continue it in the comments below. 





  

A Sher Thing.

IT'S  A FUNNY thing when you're sitting there in your WGC meeting, hearing the latest sturm and drang, and the vibrating of your iPad alerts you to a happy little story like this in the Hollywood Reporter.

Rob Sheridan lands Warner Bros. TV pilot deal

Lands blind pilot script deal for a six-figure package

By Etan Vlessing

April 16, 2010, 11:23 AM ET

TORONTO -- Canadian screenwriter Rob Sheridan is partnering with Warner Bros. Television to develop a comedy.

The blind pilot script deal will see Toronto-based Sheridan, whose writer, story editor and producer credits include HBO Canada's "Less Than Kind," the CBC's "Little Mosque on the Prairie," and CTV's "Corner Gas," land a six-figure package and move to Los Angeles this summer to start developing a half-hour comedy series.

"WBTV have produced some of my favorite television comedies and I think together we'll be able to create something special," Sheridan said.

Rob is one of my bestest writer peeps. We met at the Canadian Film Centre about -- oh my God it's nearly ten years ago now.  (He was 14.  You're welcome, Sheridan.)  Rob is a meticulous & dedicated comedy writer, and above-average commiserator.  His dedication to his craft is unparalleled. He's very funny.  He's exactly the guy that should have a six figure blind script deal.

So, further to a column by Jim Henshaw here, and my own recent lament here, I ask you, gentle reader, what does it say that while Rob was being written up in the Hollywood Reporter, I was hearing about the new "Canadian Content" on CTV -- The Borgias, follow up to The Tudors, about an Italian noble family.  (No Canadian writers.)  or CBC's upcoming Camelot. (No Canadian writers.)

These shows will get tax credits because maybe there's a few Canadian actors in supporting roles, and they manage to satisfy the co-production treaty requirements by doing post here, for instance.

But let's not kid ourselves. 

I've worked with Rob on a couple of his development projects.  They were funny.  They didn't go. I've read his spec scripts. Hilarious.  He won a Screenwriting award for a Corner Gas he co-wrote a couple years back.

I can tell you with all authority that Rob, while hilarious and morose and yes, single, ladies, I'm just saying -- is no funnier today than he was yesterday.  Yet today I know in my heart he is more desirable to Canadian producers or Canadian networks, because he's going away.  Probably for good.

And that's fucked.

Rob never got a blind pilot deal here, though you'd have had to be blind not to see the guy had chops.

In fact, he'd probably be the first to tell you that he's sure that half the producers in this country would never have heard of him.

Well, Rob, your friends -- over 57 of them at last count had posted bittersweet congratulations on his Facebook page in just a few hours -- we always knew you had the funny in you.  We'll be sad to see you go -- but happy that your talent is getting its due. May it be the start of great things.

Now if you don't mind, I think I'm going to go somewhere and get me a nice glass of bourbon.

UPDATE:  It has been pointed out to me that Rob DID get a blind pilot deal -- from a very, very, aggressive and interesting prodco that's part Just For Laughs, Part Muse.  Kudos for them, -- but hardly surprising as they operate in Quebec, where they respect talent.   And no uptake from Cdn nets.  But I did not in anyway mean to diminish their effort.  More of that, not less, and with timely intent, keeps talent here.

But whatever. I still feel like King Canute ordering the sea to turn back.