WHY YES, I AM having focus issues today. Gawrsh, how can you tell?
Jill Golick weighs in with a short piece today on the paucity of follow-through by Canadian broadcasters on their series offerings.
In her case, she picks on Canwest over Global and Da Kink in My Hair, but to be fair, neither of the other major broadcasters, CTV or CBC, do much better.
In short, here's the number one disconnect in the world of Canadian TV, 21st Century style. TV Guide or listings magazines have gone the way of the dodo in record time. Absolutely everybody under the age of about 40 now finds out program info either from some sort of on-screen menu system on their TV or through the web. For the USA, you can go to Zap2it or Futon Critic, but the best way to find out is to go to the network site itself. There, besides streaming clips or downloads, wallpapers, docs, special web content and what have you, you're going to find the synopsis and info that you need. Updated faithfully.
In Canada, smaller network advertising budgets are made even less effective by a haphazard strategy for getting info up on the website and keeping it updated. Back when TV listings books were the rage, you could usually count on the Canadian programs getting shafted. Half the time because they were moved to and fro or pre-empted at the last minute depending on which simulcast was being chased. But the rest of it was timeline stuff. They just wouldn't get the proper listings stuff in on time.
That continues into the digital age. More than fifty percent of the time, when it's a Canadian program on my onscreen PVR menu, if the description of the show (beyond the title and the rating) comes up at all, it's usually a generic series description and not a specific episode description. The info isn't set up on time.
If there is a web page for the show, the info -- next episode, episode descriptions, pictures, whatever other stuff you might have, is usually updated haphazardly. The next page is not programmed and ready to go live after the end of the broadcast of the previous week's show. Information is wrong, or missing. Typos and misspellings are frequent. Cast information, information on the music in the show, credits, synopses, photos -- all the stuff show fans are accustomed to being able to access now -- none of it is availabe.
And like Jill points out, if there is a program forum, nine times out of ten it's a ghost town without any official person designated to answer questions. If you do manage to attract fan attention, it quickly withers because they realize nobody's paying attention.
There's one other major structural thing that excacerbates this whole problem: The Bell Fund.
The Bell Fund is a web/multimedia fund that you can access to partially fund a website for a TV show. The fund has way more projects trying to get funding than it has money to give out. (By about a three to one margin.) The fund also tends to favor out-there weird promotional websites that have some sort of new technology hook....webisodes or some sort of game or virtual space, or proprietary engine with all this wonderful ancillary content. You can see current examples for Canadian Shows like Being Erica or ZOS.
What is often buried in this stuff, is the stuff that viewers actually want when they hear about a new show: meat and potatoes stuff like broadcast times, streams, downloads, and info. Sure, you can go on the virtual journey or share your stories or open your virtual locker or take part in a virtual interrogation or milk a virtual unicorn or something, but when is the fucker on? That's harder to find.And that's if you GET the funding. Remember, the fund is way oversubscribed. So what sometimes happens is that you get a super-flashy bells and whistles Mr. Kite Magorium Emporium Website Special for your first year, and then that disappears -- or sits unloved or un-updated for months and months afterward.
Then it comes to Season 2. And you have the big comedown. My Ex-show had that this year. The Comedown involves the network off supporting another show, maybe one in its first season. (Remember, there are limited budgets, and Mommy has to feed the baby first.) So instead of animated dragons or hello kitty lite brite scalable profiles and virtual avatars that smack your ass and call you judy, you find yourself begging the network webmaster to change the card on the site that still says, "Season Two will return in Fall 2008!"
In the case of The Ex-show, the network still holds the website, but updating is slow. So the new site -- such as it is, doesn't launch until the day of the broadcast. (And other shows on the same network have their premiere dates come and go before the site is changed.)
Again, they're all like this. No company's better than any other at this stuff. They all kind of suck at it. It's low priority, and the attention to detail on a weekly basis is close to nil.
From that bottom, as the show wears on, you realize that neglect before the first episode was actually the high point. Now, it's a sad and unloved death march to try to get even the simplest things changed: is the synopsis up? Is the episode title right? Have they posted the pictures from the ep? All that basic, meat and potatoes stuff doesn't get done unless you harass, harass, harass.
You might be lucky, like the Ex-show, and have a savvy volunteer that keeps things moving on Facebook or tries their damndest to get the things updated on time. But it's not automatic, and it's never easy.
It's quite a comedown from those heady first season website dreams. Of course, by then the web firm is on to the next Bell Funded project. It's sink or swim time, boys. And as is our custom in the Canadian industry, we usually just sink.
What there isn't, is a recognition on the part of the network that the firmament has shifted. Your website working with up to date program information when viewers want it is part of the cost of doing business.
Except here it's not.
They don't want to pay for it. They don't accept the responsiblity of doing it right. You hear tons of promises, which never materialize, and nobody particularly cares or thinks they're responsible.
And then they go to the CRTC and say the only way to save their business is to get carriage fees.
I've been listening to Web and interactive people make promises about how the synergy between TV and the Web will work since 1994. Seriously. Fifteen years.
The problems now are exactly the same. Nothing's gotten better. The Bell Fund, nice an idea as it is, does nothing to change that. We ignore the meat and potatoes.
And then wonder why we don't get a million viewers for our shows.
If I did my job like this, in every one of the episodes that has my name under the written by, at about the 3/4 mark, actors would just turn to camera and stare, open-mouthed, for three minutes. Maybe somebody would fart.
But hey, the Bell Fund deadline's coming up! Get those applications ready! Oooh, a virtual Rock'em Sockem Dress up your virtual avatar in cheese and crinoline alternate reality roleplay with remixable clips and flash-animated build your own comic book random plotline generator, with exclusive documentary two way Ichat connectivity, XBOX-live hookup capability and echoes of MUD's running on the Grand Theft Auto engine? How delightful!
When's the show on again? And who's the hot chick who plays the scientist?
Oh. Okay.
Thanks anyway.
Wonder what's on FOX?
By the bye, ZOS airs Mondays on TMN and Movie Central. Being Erica is Monday at 9pm on CBC. Da Kink in My Hair returns to Global Feb. 12. Check the volunteer-run, no Bell Funding TV-eh? site for details.
