DRIVING AROUND CENTRAL Florida last week was a bit of an unsettling experience. A few of years ago, everywhere you looked there were blue tarps, and smashed trees, and the occasional FEMA trailer -- legacy of a recent hurricane.
This time, the signs pointed to the financial tsunami that hit Florida harder than a lot of other places in the U.S. Foreclosure sales, unemployment stories, storefronts left fallow and vacant, and even boarded up walkaways -- where people flew their underwater mortgages, seemed to be everywhere.
Nothing caught my eye more, however, than the liberal sprinkling of men standing on Street Corners, waving signs for a retail chain. "This location: 70% off! Closing Sale! Everything including the fixtures!" I counted four or five of them, advertising different locations where Everything Must Go, during my week away. It was a sobering antidote to the Black Friday hype.
I'm the first to admit that my mind for business has never been a steel trap. I think back to high school and my Intro to Business class. I don't remember a thing about it -- except for the teacher holding up a computer punch card, and soberly intoning, "no matter what happens, you're always going to need to know how to use these."
Seven days in the sun and the American mediascape, looking back on things here, following the testimony of this group or that group at the CRTC just made me realize with full force how much the supposed Captains of the Industry here are a bunch of old white guys waving punch cards.
First, let's talk about Hulu.
Like a lot of Canadians, I've experienced Hulu only sporadically. (The site is geo-blocked from Canada.) Now, even most of the proxy server workarounds you once could use to see content don't work. They never worked that well anyway -- as the processing power the proxy sucked up made the video you'd watch stutter if you were on anything other than a screaming fast computer on a wicked fast broadband connection.
But last week, I got the full Hulu. Late night, catching up on Modern Family, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Family Guy -- and a score of other shows. A couple of streamed ads. Perfect playback, even on the "light" connection where I was staying. It worked great. Give me a Boxee or Apple TV interface to my TV -- or hell, WiFi enabled TV, and I am over the moon and don't need another thing to get all the tv I want. And the only reason I want to make that jump to the TeeVee is demographic -- teens and twentysomethings are just fine leaving it on the computer.
A massive library of current content. Ready right now. Whenever I want. New eps posted the day after they first air. Without fail. Robust interface and playback. Wicked.
Meanwhile, back in Canada, representatives of the broadcast networks, in pushing their "value for signal" -- made the following suggestions: they want to extend the Simultaneous Substitution policy so that they can now "delete" programs that they buy the rights to, if they play on a U.S. channel at a different time. So if you're a cable subscriber, you should get used to seeing a lot more blue screens and "this program not available" warnings. Hmm. There's value for you.
Well, no matter. Maybe you could watch online too. Rogers just announced a Canadian Hulu, right? Oh. Uh. Except it only works if you're a Rogers subscriber. And there's not a lot of content. And like the clunky on Demand channels where programs disappear without rhyme or reason, the interface is kind of lame. So, uh, it's not like Hulu at all, really.
So it's like the comparison of broadcast websites all over again? With the Canadian offerings shoddy, scattershot, hard to navigate poor shadows of the American versions?
Yup.
Hmm. Let's explain that "value for signal" again?
But let's not be churlish here. it's not just the broadcasters who've been running annoying ads for months. Let's look at the Cable side.
Bright House Networks is the cable provider in Central Florida. The picture is sharper and clearer. There are no artifacts. The HD channels "pop." TCM is a revelation -- I never realized how compressed and shoddy the quality of the signal I was getting from Rogers was. Plus, when you call Bright House, they're efficient and friendly. You book an appointment, you get a two hour window and they're always there. They're pleasant to deal with, and customer focused.
I don't know a single person in Canada who would use that phrase to describe their cable or satellite provider.
What else? Ah yes. There's the matter of the digital transition. The U.S. has more or less completed the transfer of signals to the digital spectrum. Those analogue frequencies are being auctioned off. Everything's proceeding apace.
In Canada? One by one the broadcasters revealed that they don't really have much of a plan to make the transition, and that there's no way they're going to make the 2011 deadline the CRTC set. The deadline they've known about for years.
So there's going to be a delay in auctioning that spectrum here. So innovations in telephony, more communications choices for Canadians... none of that is going to happen here yet. Hurry up and wait.
So the Canadian picture seems to be: poor BDU service & innovation, substandard on demand delivery, bad pictures, bad customer service, bungled "Hulu-like" service launches -- everything, in fact, relying on the protections afforded by the fencing of the CRTC, while not living up to any promises or responsibilities under the Broadcast Act.
Broadcasters solutions to the new reality that people want to be able to watch programs when they want, how they want? Lock down and restrict them more.
Who are these guys?
I don't mean to be impertinent, but it strikes me that there might be somebody you guys could talk to to get over this hump you all seem to be having with thinking outside the box a little bit, as the world you've known comes down around you.
Maybe you could talk to us.
Creatives.
Crazy idea, I know. But think about it. A few years ago the knock on Canadian shows was that they looked cheap. And they were cheesy. And slow.
So we had crews that busted their ass and upgraded their skills. D.O.P.'s raised their lighting game. Now, you rarely see the kind of flat, Shoppers Drug Mart lighting you used to see on Canadian TV. Instead, there's the brilliant and vibrant frames you see on Flashpoint, or The Border, or Being Erica.
Writers heard the knock of the slow moving story -- and many of us committed to our craft, studied, and worked to try and figure out a way to come up with excitingly paced stories that can still deliver at a lower budget. Do we always get there? No. But we get there a lot more often than we did. We saw the need, and we changed. We also looked at the structure of how things worked and said, "well, if you want something that has pacing and where the creative fires on all levels, you have to empower us a bit." So we slowly began the process of educating a reluctant industry here about what a Showrunner is, how it works in the U.S. system, and why it has a better chance of delivering your audience a vibrant product than the bad old way of doing things.
There's been lots of pushback on that, of course...but there are also lots of veterans who've stuck around here who are more than capable of taking on that role. We just need to get to the point where they hire them off the top -- not once the show is already in chaos in production.
There were other changes too. A recognition of the importance of source music, of faster editing and more dynamic shooting. Producers and writers on the other side of the aisle studied the lessons of Reality TV, and changed the kinds of shows they pitched. Quietly, around the margins, Canada became a place that does great lifestyle and reality shows.
I also watched HGTV when I was in Florida. And I saw, literally, that half the shows on the air there are made here. That doesn't get written about a lot. But it's true. There's also an explosion in animation, in tween shows, in children's. Quietly, around the margins, creatives who live the most precarious of existences here have looked at the challenges of the market over the last decade -- the collapse of first-run syndication, squeezed license fees, the rise of internet-ancillaries -- and tried to adjust our way of doing things.
It's not perfect. We're not there yet. There's deadwood and nepotism and people who shouldn't be doing what they're doing, sure. But at the same time, there is Battle of the Blades, Flashpoint, Corner Gas, Dragon's Den... I could go on... while broadcasters get up there in Gatineau and proffer no new ideas and refuse to even acknowledge the new world they're already living in -- the post Hulu, TV Everywhere world that there's no going back from -- Canadians are watching homegrown programs in numbers not seen in years.
And events like a FIVE MILLION audience for the Grey Cup game show that -- whatever the broadcasters want to claim -- that there is a hunger out there for something to watch that isn't just a rebroadcast of a U.S. show. Canadians will watch them if they're good.
The problem is, of course, that our partners up to now have had a vested interest in, well, making sure they're not too good. And even when they are, claiming that they don't make money.
It's pretty ironic, in fact, that just about the only part of their business these guys have mastered as well as their American counterparts seems to be the "Hollywood Accounting" part.
The comparisons and contrasts from my week in Florida were eye opening in the extreme. But it wasn't until my last night that it all came together -- when the power went out.
Day after Thanksgiving, seven p.m. Whoosh. Total darkness. Too early to go to bed. What to do?
Rummage through the hurricane kit. Find the batteries for the radio. Put 'em in, and tune the dial...
...And there, in the dark, for forty minutes or so, we listened to the clear, bemused voice of Ira Glass and This American Life.
A couple of great stories -- about Poultry and the Supernatural. A hiliarious anecdote about an Orthodox Jew who goes to heaven only to find out that God is, in fact, a huge chicken. And the archangel Michael's job is to feed him and keep his cage clean. "All that praying, all that suffering, and for what? God is a chicken!"
"Not A Chicken. Just... chicken."
See, I'm really not doing it justice. And that's the point. Reaching back to an earlier form, the rules are different, the delivery different, but what was there, gloriously alive and vibrant and entertaining -- was the story. The story will survive, no matter what form or challenge we throw at it. For those of us whose business is story, that's got to come as a comfort, no matter how backward and antiquated and maddeningly out of touch the captains of the industry seem, it's we, who have rolled with the punches and changed what we do already over the last few years...it's we who will survive.
So maybe the business mind isn't the be all and end all. Because a business mind that can't see the change coming and get on board isn't going to be around much longer.
Don't believe me?
Man I wish you could have seen those guys on the corner. 70% off. Everything Must Go! Fixtures Too! This location only.
This location on Hiawassee, or International Drive, or South Conroy, or Colonial...
This location only.
Everything must go.
Blockbuster Video.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
So Where Was I?
WELL, I WENT away wanting to hear from some of the newer voices and we've done that marvellous well. I don't agree with everything they've written, and I chuckle a bit at some of what's NOT said... never mind, the blurt of truth will come with time ... but I want to extend warm thanks to my guest editor for the week, Brandon Laraby, who approached the task with his usual zeal and enthusiasm.
Brandon is seriously everything I love about Canadians in one clean cut & polite package. Will one of you please give him a decent earning-learning opportunity already?
Also, great thanks to Brandon's passel of guest contributors for the week. Several of them have their own blogs about the agonies and ecstacies of the biz. (A click on their names will take you there.)
Thanks go to:
Nathan Estabrooks, Mary Pedersen, Peter Rowley, Elize Morgan, Richard Baldwin, and Stephanie Law -- with another big shout out to the Den Hoochie Mama to end all Den Hoochie Mama's, Karen Walton, whose Ink Canada Facebook group continues to serve as a scratching post & gathering place for many people just trying to orient themselves in the Canadian Film & TV industry.
I've returned, well, not exactly refreshed...there's a bunch of gunk in my stupid ear. Stupid ear infections. Stupid weird susceptibility...but I've got a revision of a pilot well in hand to keep me busy, new pitches polished to diamond-like status, and a brand new project to research and explore...
...on that score. I've started writing about the new project in a separate file. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet. It's more of a diary to myself about the process so far... it may come time to share some of that here, or I might well keep it separate to some point in the future.
Which is to say that with the number of things engaging my time right now, we might take DTOS down a notch so that it's not updated daily. I seem to have hit a wall in that there are at least five or six posts that I intend to write... the post-it notes with their gentle reminders mock my Imac screen... but they're not particularly ... fun ... posts, so it's kind of hard gathering the gumption to write them.
In fact, my ambivalence about the blog has grown quite a bit in the last while, for a variety of reasons...pretty much in step with my feelings about the more unsavory aspects of the industry in this country. Unfortunately, it's a product of the way that I was raised and socialized that I just naturally want to try and believe the best about people, their intentions and their characters. I may be cynical, but as is so often the case, that cynicism comes from a place of bruised idealism.
2009 has given me a lot of evidence to show that there are many here who just don't operate from the same level of engagement and integrity. I know. I know. Am I actually saying that there's dishonesty and pettiness in the entertainment industry? Shocked! Shocked!
Whatevs.
Turning the keys over to those with their hopes not quite so bruised was great therapeutically. And here's the part where I repeat my offer, that if you're someone who'd like to prep a guest post for this blog, I'm always ready to receive them at this address.
Posts can be attributed, or use a pseud. Your choice.
Okay. Back into the dive. See you in December. (Ack.)
Brandon is seriously everything I love about Canadians in one clean cut & polite package. Will one of you please give him a decent earning-learning opportunity already?
Also, great thanks to Brandon's passel of guest contributors for the week. Several of them have their own blogs about the agonies and ecstacies of the biz. (A click on their names will take you there.)
Thanks go to:
Nathan Estabrooks, Mary Pedersen, Peter Rowley, Elize Morgan, Richard Baldwin, and Stephanie Law -- with another big shout out to the Den Hoochie Mama to end all Den Hoochie Mama's, Karen Walton, whose Ink Canada Facebook group continues to serve as a scratching post & gathering place for many people just trying to orient themselves in the Canadian Film & TV industry.
I've returned, well, not exactly refreshed...there's a bunch of gunk in my stupid ear. Stupid ear infections. Stupid weird susceptibility...but I've got a revision of a pilot well in hand to keep me busy, new pitches polished to diamond-like status, and a brand new project to research and explore...
...on that score. I've started writing about the new project in a separate file. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet. It's more of a diary to myself about the process so far... it may come time to share some of that here, or I might well keep it separate to some point in the future.
Which is to say that with the number of things engaging my time right now, we might take DTOS down a notch so that it's not updated daily. I seem to have hit a wall in that there are at least five or six posts that I intend to write... the post-it notes with their gentle reminders mock my Imac screen... but they're not particularly ... fun ... posts, so it's kind of hard gathering the gumption to write them.
In fact, my ambivalence about the blog has grown quite a bit in the last while, for a variety of reasons...pretty much in step with my feelings about the more unsavory aspects of the industry in this country. Unfortunately, it's a product of the way that I was raised and socialized that I just naturally want to try and believe the best about people, their intentions and their characters. I may be cynical, but as is so often the case, that cynicism comes from a place of bruised idealism.
2009 has given me a lot of evidence to show that there are many here who just don't operate from the same level of engagement and integrity. I know. I know. Am I actually saying that there's dishonesty and pettiness in the entertainment industry? Shocked! Shocked!
Whatevs.
Turning the keys over to those with their hopes not quite so bruised was great therapeutically. And here's the part where I repeat my offer, that if you're someone who'd like to prep a guest post for this blog, I'm always ready to receive them at this address.
Posts can be attributed, or use a pseud. Your choice.
Okay. Back into the dive. See you in December. (Ack.)
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Wrapping it up
Well, stick a fork in'er, I'm done.
I really want to thank Denis for loaning myself, and a whole bunch of us newbie writers, his podium this week.
Denis, I hope you find yourself coming back into the fray a touch more tanned, rested and relaxed than when you left.
CRTC-wise... well, in true TV-like fashion, it turns out that it all boils down to a whole lot more 'hurry up and wait' for us on the sidelines.
December 14th's going to be the next get together in Gatineau -- where everyone gets the chance to finalize their statements and clarify 'what they actually meant' when they were there last time.
But as far as things go on my end, I think that these past weeks were worth it on the whole.
All ear-bleeding and soul-crushing banality aside, I think what I've learned from these hearings is that this is a fight worth fighting.
Truth be told, in the end, I found myself somewhat inspired by the hearings.
This week we had the Chairman of the CRTC say – openly, at several different presentations -- that the 1999 decision was a "mistake".
A “mistake”.
Now there are a million different cynical ways to look at that I'm sure “no shit, Sherlock” is probably high on the list -- but I think I'd rather stop and recognize the fact that one single word just vindicated countless people across the board; People who stood there, at those 1999 hearings and fought passionately -- calling, almost shot for shot, what would happen if that ruling went through.
So, yeah, I'd like to think it's a good thing.
Progress.
From our CRTC...
Wouldn't that be cool?
Thanks everyone for a great week!
Cheers,
Brandon
I really want to thank Denis for loaning myself, and a whole bunch of us newbie writers, his podium this week.
Denis, I hope you find yourself coming back into the fray a touch more tanned, rested and relaxed than when you left.
CRTC-wise... well, in true TV-like fashion, it turns out that it all boils down to a whole lot more 'hurry up and wait' for us on the sidelines.
December 14th's going to be the next get together in Gatineau -- where everyone gets the chance to finalize their statements and clarify 'what they actually meant' when they were there last time.
But as far as things go on my end, I think that these past weeks were worth it on the whole.
All ear-bleeding and soul-crushing banality aside, I think what I've learned from these hearings is that this is a fight worth fighting.
Truth be told, in the end, I found myself somewhat inspired by the hearings.
This week we had the Chairman of the CRTC say – openly, at several different presentations -- that the 1999 decision was a "mistake".
A “mistake”.
Now there are a million different cynical ways to look at that I'm sure “no shit, Sherlock” is probably high on the list -- but I think I'd rather stop and recognize the fact that one single word just vindicated countless people across the board; People who stood there, at those 1999 hearings and fought passionately -- calling, almost shot for shot, what would happen if that ruling went through.
So, yeah, I'd like to think it's a good thing.
Progress.
From our CRTC...
Wouldn't that be cool?
Thanks everyone for a great week!
Cheers,
Brandon
Friday, November 27, 2009
Keep your stick on the ice!
Nathan Estabrooks is an Ottawa-based screenwriter, artist and rabble-rouser. Apparently he's also mere moments away from being a Dad.
Keep your stick on the ice!
Remember that? Whether skating around a rink or chasing an orange ball down a street, it doesn’t matter. We all know what it means. It’s a Canadian-ism. It’s a cultural touchstone. It’s something that ties us together and makes us who we are. Something we all own. Just like those airwaves we all own.
But if that’s true why do only a few get to use them?
This summer a friend of mine went around shopping a cable-only project. Everybody loved it. We all thought it was time to pop a cork and celebrate...but then at the last second she was told that because the parent OTA is in such dire straits, they’d have to back out. In the meantime she should go home, hold her breath and come back in 2011.
I assume there are a million stories like that...and always will be. But what was the hardest to take about the whole thing it was that the decision was made by some huge corporate entity looming off over the horizon. It wasn’t that the network didn’t think the series was golden. It wasn’t that they didn’t think it was worth a pilot. It was that their hands were tied.
So what does she do now? Sit on her hands and wait? We toyed with the idea of doing it ourselves... and still might...but if she does that, why try and go back and put it on TV? Why not just go right to the intertubes?
Do emerging writers have options?
Hell yes. Tons of them. Thing is, almost none of them with conventional media.
Do I blame the CRTC? No not really. “It do what it do.”
And maybe that’s not so bad. We may still be a corporate afterthought, but at least we’ve got a DIY way to get the stories out. And really I guess that’s all I want. Somebody to listen to my wacky stories. Does it matter if it’s on TV or on the intertubes? No not really...though my mom would fersure find it more exciting if it was on TV and not that newfangled intertubes.
I kinda see it as a new beginning for Canadian stories.
Look at it this way - Canadians love Canlit and Cancon music right? Fair statement no?
Why? I think it’s simple...I think it’s because they’ve been given lots and lots of access to it! They get to pick and choose what they like and what they don’t like.
Right now, the complaints I hear from my brother and sister isn’t that there’s a Cancon rule...it’s that there isn’t enough CHOICE when it comes to Canadian stuff. So how do you get more choice in a market consolidated and debt leveraged over its head?
Dunno, I guess ya just go your own way and do it yourself.
Thanks to Dennis and Brandon for the soapbox. It was an honour.
-----
Keep your stick on the ice!
Remember that? Whether skating around a rink or chasing an orange ball down a street, it doesn’t matter. We all know what it means. It’s a Canadian-ism. It’s a cultural touchstone. It’s something that ties us together and makes us who we are. Something we all own. Just like those airwaves we all own.
But if that’s true why do only a few get to use them?
This summer a friend of mine went around shopping a cable-only project. Everybody loved it. We all thought it was time to pop a cork and celebrate...but then at the last second she was told that because the parent OTA is in such dire straits, they’d have to back out. In the meantime she should go home, hold her breath and come back in 2011.
I assume there are a million stories like that...and always will be. But what was the hardest to take about the whole thing it was that the decision was made by some huge corporate entity looming off over the horizon. It wasn’t that the network didn’t think the series was golden. It wasn’t that they didn’t think it was worth a pilot. It was that their hands were tied.
So what does she do now? Sit on her hands and wait? We toyed with the idea of doing it ourselves... and still might...but if she does that, why try and go back and put it on TV? Why not just go right to the intertubes?
Do emerging writers have options?
Hell yes. Tons of them. Thing is, almost none of them with conventional media.
Do I blame the CRTC? No not really. “It do what it do.”
And maybe that’s not so bad. We may still be a corporate afterthought, but at least we’ve got a DIY way to get the stories out. And really I guess that’s all I want. Somebody to listen to my wacky stories. Does it matter if it’s on TV or on the intertubes? No not really...though my mom would fersure find it more exciting if it was on TV and not that newfangled intertubes.
I kinda see it as a new beginning for Canadian stories.
Look at it this way - Canadians love Canlit and Cancon music right? Fair statement no?
Why? I think it’s simple...I think it’s because they’ve been given lots and lots of access to it! They get to pick and choose what they like and what they don’t like.
Right now, the complaints I hear from my brother and sister isn’t that there’s a Cancon rule...it’s that there isn’t enough CHOICE when it comes to Canadian stuff. So how do you get more choice in a market consolidated and debt leveraged over its head?
Dunno, I guess ya just go your own way and do it yourself.
Thanks to Dennis and Brandon for the soapbox. It was an honour.
In Which Our Heroine Dreams of Meeting a Hero at the CRTC
Mary Pedersen was pursuing a Masters in Creative Writing when she got her first production job on the Sci-Fi series, Starhunter. Mary sold her first spec script to Starhunter that same season, became Junior Story Editor on the series, and co-wrote a second episode. Her original family drama series, The Mighty Madigans, is now in development with Halifax Film and CBC. Her blog, Ruts and Grooves, explores the intersection of screenwriting craft and having the bejeezus scared out of you by the job of writing.
I've wanted to be a television writer for ten years, but the best, most defining thing that happened to my writing happened in the last two years, when my project went into development. The opportunity raised the stakes for me, and now I want to say to all new writers - take your passion and your dream and find ways to raise the stakes for yourself.
I'm passionate about TV. I remember, at seven years old, fighting my Dad for the privilege of watching Eight Is Enough. He'd have preferred to ban television from the house. I bonded with my younger sister over LA Law. I loved Chuck, admired Leon, wanted to be Carrie, and itched to strangle Olivia as Street Legal joined LA Law to solidify my lifelong affection for legal procedurals.
Later, I dissected Peter Berg's short-lived Wonderland and obsessed over NYPD Blue. (Most of the "memorable quotes" on the show's IMDB page were lovingly contributed by me. Before I had children, of course.) Today, the excitement with which I greet new episodes of Glee and Being Erica is unseemly.
I'm a tv nerd.
And so to be a television writer - to create for others the kind of stories that have brought me so much delight - is my dream. I don't hold that dream up to be any more important than anyone else's. Yet - it is important.
In the past ten years, I've thought a lot about the wisdom and folly of holding out for a dream. Especially living not in LA or New York or even in Toronto or Vancouver, but in Halifax, a place that makes roughly one drama series every decade.
It might have been wiser to move away. Or easier and less foolhardy to settle. To take an office job, maybe for a big corporation, or in the government. To forget creating, and be content with watching someone else's stories. But instead, often perilously poor and for no reason except that faith seemed better than hopelessness, I clung to my dream with an obstinance that surprised me.
When I had children, it became simultaneously harder to continue, and more impossible to quit - I didn't want them to grow up with someone who hadn't followed through.
Someone said that a pro writer is an amateur who didn't quit. I'm still not sure that I will be a pro, but something as important is happening. I'm watching a dream - that sweet, uncomplicated, naive vision - transform into reality, which is messier but loads more satisfying. The process is painful and it feels risky. But it's paying off. I have more substance than I did before, and a little more confidence. I know myself better. The decision to aim high is itself defining, and the journey is as important as the destination.
For much of the time I've been on this journey, my husband supported me - out of faith in my emerging ability, and out of love that exceeded financial anxiety, although some days just barely. So let me tell you a little about this guy, the love of my life. He likes to say provocative things like: “Why can’t I use the same sponge on the floor and the dishes?” Or: “Canada should just join the United States.” I mean, can you believe it? Canadians would never stand for it.
Except when it comes to entertainment. Nowhere is the absorption of Canada by the US more apparent than in the film and television industry. Some would have us believe that getting our entertainment delivered to our door by the United States doesn't hurt us. It's just entertainment, and there are a lot of things more important in the world than that. Yet - it is important.
Have you noticed how many of our pop culture references are American?
And it isn't just entertainment. So many of the news links traded around among Canadians on Twitter and Facebook are American. We can all summon ire about Sarah Palin at the drop of a hat - why don't we have our own vapid, over-exposed dilettante to deride and fear with such passion?
Canadians might be forgiven for believing that it's because we're just less interesting than Americans, less dramatic, less foolish and less heroic. The stereotype goes that we are more bland and more virtuous than Americans. Moosepucky. It's because not enough people are getting paid properly to tell our stories.
The people at the CRTC aren't the only ones with a hand in fixing this problem - they're just today's best opportunity. How they respond will tell us about how our society deals with with big ideas and passions and risk. It will tell us about our nation's character.
Are we really so mild that we'll let our corporations mistake audience viewing habits for a willingness to sell our cultural soul, one episode of "Entertainment Tonight Canada" at a time? Do we want our children to grow up feeling second-rate, with their noses pressed up against the television screen of someone else's life, with their country telling them that unless their passion is for staying rich or playing hockey, no one here will care?
The corporations have exposed their weaknesses. Canada's creatives have brought passion, skill, ambition and obstinance to the table. For me, for my kids, for our industry, and for anyone in this country with any kind of dream - for our very character, I hope the CRTC will respond by raising the stakes.
* * * * * *
I've wanted to be a television writer for ten years, but the best, most defining thing that happened to my writing happened in the last two years, when my project went into development. The opportunity raised the stakes for me, and now I want to say to all new writers - take your passion and your dream and find ways to raise the stakes for yourself.
I'm passionate about TV. I remember, at seven years old, fighting my Dad for the privilege of watching Eight Is Enough. He'd have preferred to ban television from the house. I bonded with my younger sister over LA Law. I loved Chuck, admired Leon, wanted to be Carrie, and itched to strangle Olivia as Street Legal joined LA Law to solidify my lifelong affection for legal procedurals.
Later, I dissected Peter Berg's short-lived Wonderland and obsessed over NYPD Blue. (Most of the "memorable quotes" on the show's IMDB page were lovingly contributed by me. Before I had children, of course.) Today, the excitement with which I greet new episodes of Glee and Being Erica is unseemly.
I'm a tv nerd.
And so to be a television writer - to create for others the kind of stories that have brought me so much delight - is my dream. I don't hold that dream up to be any more important than anyone else's. Yet - it is important.
In the past ten years, I've thought a lot about the wisdom and folly of holding out for a dream. Especially living not in LA or New York or even in Toronto or Vancouver, but in Halifax, a place that makes roughly one drama series every decade.
It might have been wiser to move away. Or easier and less foolhardy to settle. To take an office job, maybe for a big corporation, or in the government. To forget creating, and be content with watching someone else's stories. But instead, often perilously poor and for no reason except that faith seemed better than hopelessness, I clung to my dream with an obstinance that surprised me.
When I had children, it became simultaneously harder to continue, and more impossible to quit - I didn't want them to grow up with someone who hadn't followed through.
Someone said that a pro writer is an amateur who didn't quit. I'm still not sure that I will be a pro, but something as important is happening. I'm watching a dream - that sweet, uncomplicated, naive vision - transform into reality, which is messier but loads more satisfying. The process is painful and it feels risky. But it's paying off. I have more substance than I did before, and a little more confidence. I know myself better. The decision to aim high is itself defining, and the journey is as important as the destination.
For much of the time I've been on this journey, my husband supported me - out of faith in my emerging ability, and out of love that exceeded financial anxiety, although some days just barely. So let me tell you a little about this guy, the love of my life. He likes to say provocative things like: “Why can’t I use the same sponge on the floor and the dishes?” Or: “Canada should just join the United States.” I mean, can you believe it? Canadians would never stand for it.
Except when it comes to entertainment. Nowhere is the absorption of Canada by the US more apparent than in the film and television industry. Some would have us believe that getting our entertainment delivered to our door by the United States doesn't hurt us. It's just entertainment, and there are a lot of things more important in the world than that. Yet - it is important.
Have you noticed how many of our pop culture references are American?
And it isn't just entertainment. So many of the news links traded around among Canadians on Twitter and Facebook are American. We can all summon ire about Sarah Palin at the drop of a hat - why don't we have our own vapid, over-exposed dilettante to deride and fear with such passion?
Canadians might be forgiven for believing that it's because we're just less interesting than Americans, less dramatic, less foolish and less heroic. The stereotype goes that we are more bland and more virtuous than Americans. Moosepucky. It's because not enough people are getting paid properly to tell our stories.
The people at the CRTC aren't the only ones with a hand in fixing this problem - they're just today's best opportunity. How they respond will tell us about how our society deals with with big ideas and passions and risk. It will tell us about our nation's character.
Are we really so mild that we'll let our corporations mistake audience viewing habits for a willingness to sell our cultural soul, one episode of "Entertainment Tonight Canada" at a time? Do we want our children to grow up feeling second-rate, with their noses pressed up against the television screen of someone else's life, with their country telling them that unless their passion is for staying rich or playing hockey, no one here will care?
The corporations have exposed their weaknesses. Canada's creatives have brought passion, skill, ambition and obstinance to the table. For me, for my kids, for our industry, and for anyone in this country with any kind of dream - for our very character, I hope the CRTC will respond by raising the stakes.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Jeff Zucker, Managing the Margins and Why Content Is King
Originally from Vancouver, Peter Rowley got his start writing for the theater while studying at the University of British Columbia. After a narrow escape from law school, Peter submersed himself full time in the film and television world, first by interning with Keatley Entertainment, and then spending two years working as part of the development team at Screen Siren Pictures. Peter completed the Canadian Film Centre’s CBC Prime Time Television Program in 2009. You can read more of Peter’s thoughts on the film industry at http://petertypingfaster.wordpress.com/
We're going to start off with a little bit of travel through both space and time. Where to? Why the good ole' National Broadcasting Company down in the U S of A.
Now everyone needs to understand that the NBC of today bears little resemblance to the NBC of the late '80s early '90s. Really the two couldn't be more different. The NBC of today is David going up against Goliath...without a sling. Or even a rock. NBC is Samson, without his hair.
I'm going biblical because it's just that bad.
How did NBC fall so low? This was the network of Must See TV. This was the network that came in first place every week for an entire year (the 88-89 season if anyone was wondering), a feat no other network has come close to repeating. This is the network that brought us Cheers, ER, Seinfeld, Friends, Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, etc, etc.
What the hell happened?
Really it's pretty simple. They stopped trying to come up with new ideas.
The reality of being a broadcast network is you always need new shows in the development pipeline. A TV show has a limited life span, and you have to have something to plug in once it's gone. If you don't, you're in for a world of hurt.
And NBC has been hurting for a while now.
Things really went sideways when Jeff Zucker was named President of NBC. Zucker came from a production background (he was the youngest Executive Producer in the history of The Today Show), but the skills required in that line of work aren't the same ones needed to develop new hit shows.
Rather than pursue an aggressive development slate to fill the holes left by shows going off the air (Seinfeld, Friends, etc), NBC relied on stunt programming (Fear Factor) and throwing obscene amounts of at old shows (Friends, ER) to keep them around "for just one more season." The fact that these programs were either way off brand, or had already gone past their creative "sell-by-date" never seemed to matter.
Even worse than the above were the scheduling tricks that started to crop up throughout NBC's primetime lineup. Of course I'm talking about the "Supersized Era." Instead of developing a new comedy, NBC started tacking on an additional fifteen minutes to two existing comedies (usually Friends and later The Office) and plugging the gap that way.
The downside was huge. Tacking another fifteen minutes onto a comedy often made it less funny (just throw in the deleted scenes!), the time changes would wreak havoc with peoples VCRs, and it pretty much just annoyed everyone.
But it was cheaper than developing a new hit show, which ultimately meant that NBC was making more money. During the first three years of Zucker's tenure as President of NBC (2000-2003) operating earnings for NBC went from $532 million to $870 million.
NBC's business strategy became about managing the margins rather than providing a superior product.
The idea behind managing the margins is pretty simple, and goes a little something like this.
To increase profits you either:
A) Raise the prices of a good sold
or
B) Reduce the costs of a good sold.
NBC went with the latter.
A thirty second spot on a hit show (lets say a Lost or a Grey's Anatomy) costs more money than a thirty second spot on a moderately rated show (say a Numb3rs). By developing hit shows you're effectively raising the prices on your goods.
The flip side is cutting costs. The only way to cut costs is by reducing production costs. Instead of producing five scripted shows, you produce five hours of The Jay Leno Show. You sell a thirty second spot for a fifth of what you'd get on a half-way decent scripted how (yeah...not even kidding), but since it only costs pocket change to produce five hours, you still come out ahead.
And that's the Zucker model. Managing the margins. Screw quality, lets just shovel the cheapest crap we can down the audience's throat and hope they don't notice the difference.
Plan for the short term and screw the long term consequences.
The only problem is it doesn't work. The audience noticed.
NBC is getting drubbed. The Jay Leno Show has underperformed, doing so badly that its been beaten in recent weeks by Sons of Anarchy, a show that airs on basic cable. Advertising revenues have been depressed across the board. With no one watching NBC's ten o'clock programming, they've been unable to effectively promote other programming that still has a chance at success.
Its been an unmitigated disaster. The only thing keeping NBC afloat is Sunday Night Football and a prospective buy out by Comcast. In ten years the strategy of managing the margins has destroyed the most successful broadcast network in history.
So what's the lesson?
In my mind it's pretty simple. It's a lesson that I'm always amazed people seem to forget, and it's one I can sum up in three words.
Content Is King.
Viewers don't care what your bottom line is. Viewers care about the quality of show you air. They want to be entertained. They want to be challenged (but not too much). They want to see something fresh, something that they haven't seen before (but not too fresh, or too unfamiliar). If you deliver that, then they'll show up in droves.
To quote a great article from New York Magazine "If creaky old NCIS can draw 20 million viewers, imagine what the combination of money, creativity, smart casting, production values, and an innovative broadcast-network programmer could do."
It's a nice thought, isn't it?
Now up at the top I promised that if you stuck with me long enough, I'd tie it all back to the Canadian business. I don't want to break my promise, so let me try to do that.
Last Friday I had the pleasure of shooting the breeze with Mr. DMc himself, and eventually the conversation turned towards the "why's." Why is it so hard to get something truly original off the ground in Canada? Why don't we have a Canadian version of The Wire? Why aren't we willing take a risk on a potentially great show? Why? And eventually I blurted something out.
"It's like everybody who runs a network here is Jeff Zucker."
((Denis attributed it to a "smartypants emerging Canadian writer" on twitter, but that's neither here nor there.))
And while I initially said it out of frustration (and a couple of pints), the more I think about, the more I think there's a core of truth to it.
Canadian broadcasters have based their entire business model around managing the margins. Cut production costs, spend as little as possible, don't worry about the quality of the programming, and watch the proceeds roll in (even if they roll in in smaller and smaller Brinks trucks).
But look where its gotten NBC.
It's time Canadian broadcasters woke up and started planning for the long haul. You can't keep clinging to a dying business model. It's the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand and praying for the best. It's not going to work.
What is going to work is Content. Content is King. Content is our Savior.
The WGC commissioned a study showing that Canadian TV makes money. Canadians have shown that not only are they willing, but they actually WANT, to watch Canadian programming (Battle of the Blades was doing 1.8M viewers easy, Heartland consistently nets 1.2M viewers, Flashpoint brings in 1.6M viewers, etc). TMN and Movie Central have been rapidly approaching HBO / Showtime quality with series like Durham County and ZOS. The point is this.
WE CAN DO IT.
We can generate quality content. We can generate content that Canadians want to watch. And we can do it while making money. And you know what? I have no doubt that we WILL do it.
Maybe I'm just an optimist, but if I am, I wouldn't want to be any other way.
-----
I know what you're thinking. What the hell does any of that have to do with the current CRTC hearings? Well, the short answer is: Not a hell of a lot. But, stick with me a while, and I'll tie it all back, if not to the CRTC specifically, at least to the Canadian Film and Television Industry in general.We're going to start off with a little bit of travel through both space and time. Where to? Why the good ole' National Broadcasting Company down in the U S of A.
Now everyone needs to understand that the NBC of today bears little resemblance to the NBC of the late '80s early '90s. Really the two couldn't be more different. The NBC of today is David going up against Goliath...without a sling. Or even a rock. NBC is Samson, without his hair.
I'm going biblical because it's just that bad.
How did NBC fall so low? This was the network of Must See TV. This was the network that came in first place every week for an entire year (the 88-89 season if anyone was wondering), a feat no other network has come close to repeating. This is the network that brought us Cheers, ER, Seinfeld, Friends, Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, etc, etc.
What the hell happened?
Really it's pretty simple. They stopped trying to come up with new ideas.
The reality of being a broadcast network is you always need new shows in the development pipeline. A TV show has a limited life span, and you have to have something to plug in once it's gone. If you don't, you're in for a world of hurt.
And NBC has been hurting for a while now.
Things really went sideways when Jeff Zucker was named President of NBC. Zucker came from a production background (he was the youngest Executive Producer in the history of The Today Show), but the skills required in that line of work aren't the same ones needed to develop new hit shows.
Rather than pursue an aggressive development slate to fill the holes left by shows going off the air (Seinfeld, Friends, etc), NBC relied on stunt programming (Fear Factor) and throwing obscene amounts of at old shows (Friends, ER) to keep them around "for just one more season." The fact that these programs were either way off brand, or had already gone past their creative "sell-by-date" never seemed to matter.
Even worse than the above were the scheduling tricks that started to crop up throughout NBC's primetime lineup. Of course I'm talking about the "Supersized Era." Instead of developing a new comedy, NBC started tacking on an additional fifteen minutes to two existing comedies (usually Friends and later The Office) and plugging the gap that way.
The downside was huge. Tacking another fifteen minutes onto a comedy often made it less funny (just throw in the deleted scenes!), the time changes would wreak havoc with peoples VCRs, and it pretty much just annoyed everyone.
But it was cheaper than developing a new hit show, which ultimately meant that NBC was making more money. During the first three years of Zucker's tenure as President of NBC (2000-2003) operating earnings for NBC went from $532 million to $870 million.
NBC's business strategy became about managing the margins rather than providing a superior product.
The idea behind managing the margins is pretty simple, and goes a little something like this.
To increase profits you either:
A) Raise the prices of a good sold
or
B) Reduce the costs of a good sold.
NBC went with the latter.
A thirty second spot on a hit show (lets say a Lost or a Grey's Anatomy) costs more money than a thirty second spot on a moderately rated show (say a Numb3rs). By developing hit shows you're effectively raising the prices on your goods.
The flip side is cutting costs. The only way to cut costs is by reducing production costs. Instead of producing five scripted shows, you produce five hours of The Jay Leno Show. You sell a thirty second spot for a fifth of what you'd get on a half-way decent scripted how (yeah...not even kidding), but since it only costs pocket change to produce five hours, you still come out ahead.
And that's the Zucker model. Managing the margins. Screw quality, lets just shovel the cheapest crap we can down the audience's throat and hope they don't notice the difference.
Plan for the short term and screw the long term consequences.
The only problem is it doesn't work. The audience noticed.
NBC is getting drubbed. The Jay Leno Show has underperformed, doing so badly that its been beaten in recent weeks by Sons of Anarchy, a show that airs on basic cable. Advertising revenues have been depressed across the board. With no one watching NBC's ten o'clock programming, they've been unable to effectively promote other programming that still has a chance at success.
Its been an unmitigated disaster. The only thing keeping NBC afloat is Sunday Night Football and a prospective buy out by Comcast. In ten years the strategy of managing the margins has destroyed the most successful broadcast network in history.
So what's the lesson?
In my mind it's pretty simple. It's a lesson that I'm always amazed people seem to forget, and it's one I can sum up in three words.
Content Is King.
Viewers don't care what your bottom line is. Viewers care about the quality of show you air. They want to be entertained. They want to be challenged (but not too much). They want to see something fresh, something that they haven't seen before (but not too fresh, or too unfamiliar). If you deliver that, then they'll show up in droves.
To quote a great article from New York Magazine "If creaky old NCIS can draw 20 million viewers, imagine what the combination of money, creativity, smart casting, production values, and an innovative broadcast-network programmer could do."
It's a nice thought, isn't it?
Now up at the top I promised that if you stuck with me long enough, I'd tie it all back to the Canadian business. I don't want to break my promise, so let me try to do that.
Last Friday I had the pleasure of shooting the breeze with Mr. DMc himself, and eventually the conversation turned towards the "why's." Why is it so hard to get something truly original off the ground in Canada? Why don't we have a Canadian version of The Wire? Why aren't we willing take a risk on a potentially great show? Why? And eventually I blurted something out.
"It's like everybody who runs a network here is Jeff Zucker."
((Denis attributed it to a "smartypants emerging Canadian writer" on twitter, but that's neither here nor there.))
And while I initially said it out of frustration (and a couple of pints), the more I think about, the more I think there's a core of truth to it.
Canadian broadcasters have based their entire business model around managing the margins. Cut production costs, spend as little as possible, don't worry about the quality of the programming, and watch the proceeds roll in (even if they roll in in smaller and smaller Brinks trucks).
But look where its gotten NBC.
It's time Canadian broadcasters woke up and started planning for the long haul. You can't keep clinging to a dying business model. It's the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand and praying for the best. It's not going to work.
What is going to work is Content. Content is King. Content is our Savior.
The WGC commissioned a study showing that Canadian TV makes money. Canadians have shown that not only are they willing, but they actually WANT, to watch Canadian programming (Battle of the Blades was doing 1.8M viewers easy, Heartland consistently nets 1.2M viewers, Flashpoint brings in 1.6M viewers, etc). TMN and Movie Central have been rapidly approaching HBO / Showtime quality with series like Durham County and ZOS. The point is this.
WE CAN DO IT.
We can generate quality content. We can generate content that Canadians want to watch. And we can do it while making money. And you know what? I have no doubt that we WILL do it.
Maybe I'm just an optimist, but if I am, I wouldn't want to be any other way.
The Blame Game
Elize Morgan is a recent CFC TV grad, and the proud owner of a wandering soapbox that sometimes gets the best of her. Elize also grew up on Canadian television that was not the Littlest Hobo – though she's sure the pup doesn't have fleas anymore – and thinks it's time to bring it back.
Sometimes it does include the CBC. Sometimes it includes fucking. Mostly, it generates a cursory brush off to the Honourable James Moore.
This time was no exception.
But the PM's “Correspondence Officer” (now, granted, perhaps CBC and CRTC looked “close enough” in the form letter submission gambit) throws back “CBC”. The CRTC, like the CBC, is everyone else's problem. Kind of like the debt issue most of the networks have found themselves in.
To be honest, is there any surprise that the CRTC would ignore the continued petitions - if the government can't figure out the difference between the CRTC and the CBC they've got nothing to worry about.
And the networks themselves are set to be prime if history repeats itself.
But with the CMF coming in to replace the CTF and Canadian New Media Fund, it's no wonder the networks are concerned.
Because while the TV Writer Strike down south meant that our North-South hits like Flashpoint started – down south it was the start of figuring out this weird Internet thing. And this, of course, isn't their fault - there's no promotional money in Canada, so why spend money on it?
So instead of doing the normal thing, the business model might imply, the networks continue to ignore the requirements to even place the content online for people to see in easily found spots. But promoting the local content - to increase revenue, isn't exactly a normal part of making TV here.
Interestingly, I had a conversation with a producer a few months back and he said, easily, the biggest problem with Canadian TV and film was that “it has horrible writers.”
To which I countered with One Week - which had been in box office for more than a few weeks at that time. He agreed that yes that was an exception.
And this exception is what we generally have to be happy with – the “few” exceptions. I responded in kind – I suggested that perhaps the issue in Canada wasn't poor writing but lack of promotion. That with ample promotion films and television would generate an audience.
And you know what? He agreed.
Perhaps the CRTC should add one more regulation to the gambit – a requirement to promote the Canadian Content that so often gets ignored because it changes date, time slot or gets completed pile-driven (pile-drove?) down to the ground in amongst the Houses, Glees, and Grey's Anatomys of the world.
-----
November 17, 2009To get to the point of how much our erstwhile government cares about the industry of television and film, I felt it might be prudent to share a response to a letter I sent to our beloved Prime Minister. I do e-mail the office every so often to share my slightly less-than-Conservative view points.
PM Harper,
I am a writer in the TV industry in Canada. I tell you this because not only do I care deeply about the Canadian television landscape, but because the CRTC ignores the plight of the greater industry and listens, instead, to corporations at in camera meetings that have all of their information redacted after the fact. I write because protected industries are making it impossible to even have local news
anymore because so many of them overreached. I write because the CRTC aren't protecting us - the people of the country - and doing what they promised they would do.
Sincerely,
Elize Morgan
Sometimes it does include the CBC. Sometimes it includes fucking. Mostly, it generates a cursory brush off to the Honourable James Moore.
This time was no exception.
November 19, 2009You'll note that the subject of the e-mail was CRTC.
Dear Ms. Morgan: On behalf of the Prime Minister, I would like to acknowledge receipt of your recent e-mail correspondence regarding the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). You may be assured that your thoughts on the CBC's contribution to Canadian culture have been carefully reviewed. As the issue you have raised falls within the portfolio of the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, I have taken the liberty of forwarding your e-mail to the Minister so that he may be made aware of your views. Thank you for writing to the Prime Minister. For more information on the Government's initiatives, you may wish to visit the Prime Minister's Web site, at www.pm.gc.ca.
L.A. Lavell
Executive Correspondence Officer for the Prime Minister's Office
Agent de correspondance de la haute direction pour le Cabinet du Premier ministre
>>> From : Elize Morgan
Received : 17 Nov 2009 10:22:06 AM
>>> >>> Subject : the CRTC >>>>
But the PM's “Correspondence Officer” (now, granted, perhaps CBC and CRTC looked “close enough” in the form letter submission gambit) throws back “CBC”. The CRTC, like the CBC, is everyone else's problem. Kind of like the debt issue most of the networks have found themselves in.
To be honest, is there any surprise that the CRTC would ignore the continued petitions - if the government can't figure out the difference between the CRTC and the CBC they've got nothing to worry about.
And the networks themselves are set to be prime if history repeats itself.
But with the CMF coming in to replace the CTF and Canadian New Media Fund, it's no wonder the networks are concerned.
Because while the TV Writer Strike down south meant that our North-South hits like Flashpoint started – down south it was the start of figuring out this weird Internet thing. And this, of course, isn't their fault - there's no promotional money in Canada, so why spend money on it?
So instead of doing the normal thing, the business model might imply, the networks continue to ignore the requirements to even place the content online for people to see in easily found spots. But promoting the local content - to increase revenue, isn't exactly a normal part of making TV here.
Interestingly, I had a conversation with a producer a few months back and he said, easily, the biggest problem with Canadian TV and film was that “it has horrible writers.”
To which I countered with One Week - which had been in box office for more than a few weeks at that time. He agreed that yes that was an exception.
And this exception is what we generally have to be happy with – the “few” exceptions. I responded in kind – I suggested that perhaps the issue in Canada wasn't poor writing but lack of promotion. That with ample promotion films and television would generate an audience.
And you know what? He agreed.
Perhaps the CRTC should add one more regulation to the gambit – a requirement to promote the Canadian Content that so often gets ignored because it changes date, time slot or gets completed pile-driven (pile-drove?) down to the ground in amongst the Houses, Glees, and Grey's Anatomys of the world.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
'The 1999 decision was a mistake.'
Uh... what?
Could you say that again? (actually, he did, again... today at the ACTRA presentation!)
If there's anything that can be hinted at as a 'win' out of these CRTC hearings it's that quote right there. A simple thing, something said almost as an aside.
But out of the mouth of Chairman Von Finckenstein himself.
Of course, the question quickly became 'why not go back to the way things were before 1999's decision?' -- which was sort of disappointing, considering Konrad's opening speech was explicit in stating how this hearing was not about 'looking to the past'.
But hey, take your victories where you can.
That being said, now that it's out there, where we go from here?
Well, having been watching the hearings as both BDU and Broadcaster stood there dumbstruck when asked for 'new ideas' -- fighting tooth and nail to avoid having to talk to one another -- I was heartened to see that the WGC showed up with a plan.
A plan that was actually hammered out beforehand; An agreement for a framework between the WGC, the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (“CFTPA”), Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (“ACTRA”) and the Directors Guild of Canada (“DGC”) -- a 'coalition', if you will.
Clearly they aren't afraid to talk to one another... (just sayin').
Anyways, it's a proto-plan, for sure; There'll need to be tweaks and negotiations and such over time... but it's an honest-to-goodness plan.
It's a plan that's complex as all hell -- which I think is warranted, the problems that afflict our system are not 'simple' -- but it also makes a lot of sense.
To try and sum it up -- as a rookie who's only starting to grasp the ramifications of it all -- the plan asks for specific CPE's (remember your decoder ring) to be set up for Canadian Drama, Documentaries and Children's Programming. The CPE's would be required for all Broadcasters and would be proportional to the company's profits, so that each is making the best possible contribution to Canadian programming without actually being bogged down by overarching regulations that they may not actually be able to meet.
It also would implement an 'exhibition requirement' for Canadian Drama which would mean that those made under this plan would have to be broadcast over the air within 2 years (thus, given an actual chance to build an audience).
In short: No more 'buying-shows-just-to-shelve-them-and-keep-them-away-from-the-competition' kind of stuff.
Also, it would allow for flexibility on the Broadcaster's end in the way they schedule programming and in 'total hours produced across station groups'. Essentially meaning that they can exhibit the show wherever they want as long as it's broadcast on conventional stations at some point.
Anyways, I've done the reading -- and a lot of it's sent my head spinning, but if it all works out in some semblance of the plan laid out here... well, it could be a good thing.
BUT don't take my word for it. I'm a newb and a whole lot of this is new potatoes to me.
Do the reading yourself, draw your own conclusions: The breakdown/primer is Here. And the heavy-duty reading (the whole kit and kaboodle) is Here.
What can I say? I'm intrigued by your product and would like to hear more.
Cheers!
Brandon
Could you say that again? (actually, he did, again... today at the ACTRA presentation!)
If there's anything that can be hinted at as a 'win' out of these CRTC hearings it's that quote right there. A simple thing, something said almost as an aside.
But out of the mouth of Chairman Von Finckenstein himself.
Of course, the question quickly became 'why not go back to the way things were before 1999's decision?' -- which was sort of disappointing, considering Konrad's opening speech was explicit in stating how this hearing was not about 'looking to the past'.
But hey, take your victories where you can.
That being said, now that it's out there, where we go from here?
Well, having been watching the hearings as both BDU and Broadcaster stood there dumbstruck when asked for 'new ideas' -- fighting tooth and nail to avoid having to talk to one another -- I was heartened to see that the WGC showed up with a plan.
A plan that was actually hammered out beforehand; An agreement for a framework between the WGC, the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (“CFTPA”), Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (“ACTRA”) and the Directors Guild of Canada (“DGC”) -- a 'coalition', if you will.
Clearly they aren't afraid to talk to one another... (just sayin').
Anyways, it's a proto-plan, for sure; There'll need to be tweaks and negotiations and such over time... but it's an honest-to-goodness plan.
It's a plan that's complex as all hell -- which I think is warranted, the problems that afflict our system are not 'simple' -- but it also makes a lot of sense.
To try and sum it up -- as a rookie who's only starting to grasp the ramifications of it all -- the plan asks for specific CPE's (remember your decoder ring) to be set up for Canadian Drama, Documentaries and Children's Programming. The CPE's would be required for all Broadcasters and would be proportional to the company's profits, so that each is making the best possible contribution to Canadian programming without actually being bogged down by overarching regulations that they may not actually be able to meet.
It also would implement an 'exhibition requirement' for Canadian Drama which would mean that those made under this plan would have to be broadcast over the air within 2 years (thus, given an actual chance to build an audience).
In short: No more 'buying-shows-just-to-shelve-them-and-keep-them-away-from-the-competition' kind of stuff.
Also, it would allow for flexibility on the Broadcaster's end in the way they schedule programming and in 'total hours produced across station groups'. Essentially meaning that they can exhibit the show wherever they want as long as it's broadcast on conventional stations at some point.
Anyways, I've done the reading -- and a lot of it's sent my head spinning, but if it all works out in some semblance of the plan laid out here... well, it could be a good thing.
BUT don't take my word for it. I'm a newb and a whole lot of this is new potatoes to me.
Do the reading yourself, draw your own conclusions: The breakdown/primer is Here. And the heavy-duty reading (the whole kit and kaboodle) is Here.
What can I say? I'm intrigued by your product and would like to hear more.
Cheers!
Brandon
Is It The End Of The World As We Know It? I Feel Fine . . .
Born in Missouri, emerging Canadian writer Richard Baldwin won the Langston Hughes Award for Creative Writing (Poetry) in 1998 and published "Along an Edge" in The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association's Star*Line magazine (Jan/Feb 2007). Richard is currently developing STUFFED!, an original television series about unemployed puppets. For samples and Richard's production blog "Into the Stuffing" visit westofwonderland.com.
The CRTC is in talks about the state of Canadian television, and I'm hopeful - but probably not for the reasons you might think.
The broadcasters and cable companies generally seem to want two things: looser (or at least no tighter) rules on Canadian content, and to bicker over fee-for-carriage. This is the umpteenth time they've discussed these issues, and they will continue to discuss them for some while longer--And why shouldn't they? As TV distributors in Canada, looser content regulations mean they can spend more funds on American exports and then piggyback on US marketing dynamos to leverage their protected markets. If your only concern is to distribute (not necessarily create) TV for profit, this is very smart business.
But it's only very smart business while the business model works. That model is on the edge of a great big crash--(which I think explains the kerfuffle over fee-for-carriage, by the way). The Internet is come calling to the television industry, and everybody better listen up--Canadian broadcasters most of all.
We all know that the Internet provides 'boundless opportunities': anyone and their brother can make a television show in their basements . . . though without a lot of hard work and dedication they won't be able to market it thereafter. The Internet doesn't sound so powerful when put that way, does it? No, indie TV isn't very dangerous to traditional distributors yet--and it may never make much of a dent if big market forces can push their way into Internet distribution hard and fast enough. The danger to Canadian TV distributors is how, by moving the attention of a vast number of people from one distribution medium to another, the protected Canadian market is entirely removed. When a kid from Iqaluit can communicate in real-time video with one from Lima or Hong Kong, don't expect Canadians to watch channels that specialize in, essentially, same-moment 'reruns' of American TV shows.
I'm hopeful for Canadian TV distribution because I believe that eventually the broadcasters and cablecos will either have to
a) give up their old business model and embrace the one thing that makes them distinctive: Canadian content, or
b) be replaced by Internet distribution companies, some of whom will see the market sense in focusing on Canadian-made production.
I must admit, however: That's a long-term hope. In the short term (maybe the next five to ten years) the distributors can struggle to keep the old model from sinking. And they can take us all along for the ride . . . until we can find our own ways off this particular Titanic.
Still I'm even more hopeful for Canadian TV creators. Sure the recession means it's lean times all around, but there really is more opportunity now in television than there has been since the 70's or even before. Jobs in the present system may be harder to find, but now is the time to begin building a new system. Even if big market forces break open Internet distribution in the next couple years, no one knows the rules; we have an unprecedented opportunity right now to write rules of our own.
But we've got to eat. How do you make a living on Internet-distributed TV? So far there are no real answers to this question, but we can conjecture based on where other industries have succeeded on the Internet. A successful Internet-distributed TV series will likely need:
Content that's inexpensive to produce, with consistent and frequent updates. I would recommend adding on a weekly web comic to keep the page updated regularly between intermittent video episodes--At least until the funds are available to shoot and post more often.
Word-of-mouth advertising after very long periods of production. If blogs can often take up to five years to catch on then we need to imagine at the very least two+ years for a TV series from new creators to grow an audience. It may be better to build a creator-focused website rather than a series-focused website if you work on multiple projects--That way the various projects will draw on each others' audiences.
An expectation that you're producing to a niche market. Very few shows are going to pull in massive numbers any longer, on broadcast or otherwise--But a smaller, properly targeted audience is likely to be much more faithful in the long run. How do you target this audience? Make things you love, then target the people who are most likely to appreciate those same things. People like yourself.
Avenues for a personal connection to your audience. A blog, Facebook group, Twitter page or a comment section on your central website can each help. Your audience must become a community if it is to become a truly devoted following. And what better reason to form a community than to connect with others who love the same sorts of things that you do? Just make sure you actually use the social networking machines that you set up; if you're just going to lurk on Twitter it's best not to advertise that account on your website, or you might discourage more people than you'd bring in.
Selling merchandise and tickets to live events. DVDs and T-shirts are likely to net you more money than advertisements, at least until the big companies understand Internet advertising better. Live events do really well for most indie musicians, so if you can find a way to run improv or staged 'episodes' for your series why not see where that might take you?
The 'will to succeed'. Cheesy, but true; if you want to make a difference in this industry then you can't let anything stop you. This also means that if you go to Telefilm or whoever and you don't get funding for a project, find ways to do the project anyway. There are people just south of you doing what they love, and they're not waiting for grants. Of course first and foremost you also need:
Good quality content, and luck. But who doesn't?
No one can say for sure what will get an Internet series up and profitable, but then again no one really knows what makes any particular broadcast TV series profit while others fail. What we can be sure of is: On an Internet show you are much more in control of the content and direction than you are when distributing through a network.
Please don't misunderstand me--I'm not recommending that anyone put all their eggs in the same Internet basket. But if like me you're small fry at the moment in TV Land then you have very little to lose by trying to develop an Internet portfolio. I mean, really, how much money are we certain to make in a screwed-up economy while working for dinosaurs? How much money--and control over your own destiny--do you stand to lose by not doing for yourself?
Let the behemoths fight over issues that won't matter in five to ten years. If they hire you, great--we all need to eat--but while you're looking for work why not take some time and try making a difference to television's long-term future?
I'm hopeful - who's with me?
-----
The CRTC is in talks about the state of Canadian television, and I'm hopeful - but probably not for the reasons you might think.
The broadcasters and cable companies generally seem to want two things: looser (or at least no tighter) rules on Canadian content, and to bicker over fee-for-carriage. This is the umpteenth time they've discussed these issues, and they will continue to discuss them for some while longer--And why shouldn't they? As TV distributors in Canada, looser content regulations mean they can spend more funds on American exports and then piggyback on US marketing dynamos to leverage their protected markets. If your only concern is to distribute (not necessarily create) TV for profit, this is very smart business.
But it's only very smart business while the business model works. That model is on the edge of a great big crash--(which I think explains the kerfuffle over fee-for-carriage, by the way). The Internet is come calling to the television industry, and everybody better listen up--Canadian broadcasters most of all.
We all know that the Internet provides 'boundless opportunities': anyone and their brother can make a television show in their basements . . . though without a lot of hard work and dedication they won't be able to market it thereafter. The Internet doesn't sound so powerful when put that way, does it? No, indie TV isn't very dangerous to traditional distributors yet--and it may never make much of a dent if big market forces can push their way into Internet distribution hard and fast enough. The danger to Canadian TV distributors is how, by moving the attention of a vast number of people from one distribution medium to another, the protected Canadian market is entirely removed. When a kid from Iqaluit can communicate in real-time video with one from Lima or Hong Kong, don't expect Canadians to watch channels that specialize in, essentially, same-moment 'reruns' of American TV shows.
I'm hopeful for Canadian TV distribution because I believe that eventually the broadcasters and cablecos will either have to
a) give up their old business model and embrace the one thing that makes them distinctive: Canadian content, or
b) be replaced by Internet distribution companies, some of whom will see the market sense in focusing on Canadian-made production.
I must admit, however: That's a long-term hope. In the short term (maybe the next five to ten years) the distributors can struggle to keep the old model from sinking. And they can take us all along for the ride . . . until we can find our own ways off this particular Titanic.
Still I'm even more hopeful for Canadian TV creators. Sure the recession means it's lean times all around, but there really is more opportunity now in television than there has been since the 70's or even before. Jobs in the present system may be harder to find, but now is the time to begin building a new system. Even if big market forces break open Internet distribution in the next couple years, no one knows the rules; we have an unprecedented opportunity right now to write rules of our own.
But we've got to eat. How do you make a living on Internet-distributed TV? So far there are no real answers to this question, but we can conjecture based on where other industries have succeeded on the Internet. A successful Internet-distributed TV series will likely need:
Content that's inexpensive to produce, with consistent and frequent updates. I would recommend adding on a weekly web comic to keep the page updated regularly between intermittent video episodes--At least until the funds are available to shoot and post more often.
Word-of-mouth advertising after very long periods of production. If blogs can often take up to five years to catch on then we need to imagine at the very least two+ years for a TV series from new creators to grow an audience. It may be better to build a creator-focused website rather than a series-focused website if you work on multiple projects--That way the various projects will draw on each others' audiences.
An expectation that you're producing to a niche market. Very few shows are going to pull in massive numbers any longer, on broadcast or otherwise--But a smaller, properly targeted audience is likely to be much more faithful in the long run. How do you target this audience? Make things you love, then target the people who are most likely to appreciate those same things. People like yourself.
Avenues for a personal connection to your audience. A blog, Facebook group, Twitter page or a comment section on your central website can each help. Your audience must become a community if it is to become a truly devoted following. And what better reason to form a community than to connect with others who love the same sorts of things that you do? Just make sure you actually use the social networking machines that you set up; if you're just going to lurk on Twitter it's best not to advertise that account on your website, or you might discourage more people than you'd bring in.
Selling merchandise and tickets to live events. DVDs and T-shirts are likely to net you more money than advertisements, at least until the big companies understand Internet advertising better. Live events do really well for most indie musicians, so if you can find a way to run improv or staged 'episodes' for your series why not see where that might take you?
The 'will to succeed'. Cheesy, but true; if you want to make a difference in this industry then you can't let anything stop you. This also means that if you go to Telefilm or whoever and you don't get funding for a project, find ways to do the project anyway. There are people just south of you doing what they love, and they're not waiting for grants. Of course first and foremost you also need:
Good quality content, and luck. But who doesn't?
No one can say for sure what will get an Internet series up and profitable, but then again no one really knows what makes any particular broadcast TV series profit while others fail. What we can be sure of is: On an Internet show you are much more in control of the content and direction than you are when distributing through a network.
Please don't misunderstand me--I'm not recommending that anyone put all their eggs in the same Internet basket. But if like me you're small fry at the moment in TV Land then you have very little to lose by trying to develop an Internet portfolio. I mean, really, how much money are we certain to make in a screwed-up economy while working for dinosaurs? How much money--and control over your own destiny--do you stand to lose by not doing for yourself?
Let the behemoths fight over issues that won't matter in five to ten years. If they hire you, great--we all need to eat--but while you're looking for work why not take some time and try making a difference to television's long-term future?
I'm hopeful - who's with me?
18 to Life
Don't know if you've seen the trailer for this show yet, but yeah... wow, it's earned my eyes for the pilot and an episode or two.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Canadian Screenwriting Awards Deadline
is next Tuesday, December 1st.
So... yeah, just a reminder to grab your nomination/entry forms while you can.
Best of luck to all who're being nominated!
So... yeah, just a reminder to grab your nomination/entry forms while you can.
Best of luck to all who're being nominated!
CRTC And The Future Of Cancon
Stephanie Law is an emerging screenwriter & playwright whose play CANCER & CARNIVORES, won York University’s President’s Creative Writing Prize in Playwriting. A second play, GIRLS OF KENSINGTON, was featured at the Factory Theatre’s CrossCurrents Festival in 2006. She is a former member of fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company’s playwriting unit, and Theatre Revolve, a multidisciplinary arts program for young women focused on collective collaboration. Stephanie received her B.F.A. Honours in Film Production and Screenwriting from York University, and was recently chosen for the CFTPA National Production Program. She is currently the Development Coordinator at Triptych Media and Union Pictures in Toronto, and is actively developing two feature scripts of her own: a ghetto zombie horror comedy, and a live-action/animation family film set in enchanted China.
When I started thinking about this post, I wanted to write something that would lay out the issues in a way that my parents or brothers could understand. I didn’t want to go on and on about how my future and career as a writer in Canada were at stake, because I was afraid the whiners and trolls would seize the opportunity to point out that I was being selfish, and that their tax dollars should go to better things than ensuring that I have a job. But then Brandon told me to not give the complainers anything to complain about—just write from the heart—honestly and truly—and make sure that this is what I want to say.
So I scrapped that original post.
Canadian stories are not a burden. They are a treasure to be discovered—by the kid next door, or that kid in Hong Kong. It is a privilege to be able to express our stories when journalists and writers around the world are imprisoned, tortured, or exiled for daring to do the same.
I’m not going to lie. The issues regarding the CRTC hearings, net neutrality, fee-for-carriage, and the future of Canadian programming are overwhelming—there’s just so much and too much to take in. Some days, I find it’s easier to get riled up about the latest TTC fare hike than the latest excuses from Broadcasters, and Cable and Satellite Companies as to why they should be exempt from Canadian programming. There’s just so much pettiness and posturing that it’s enough to make me want to wash my hands of it all.
Truthfully, I remember nothing of what Canadian drama was like before the 1999 CRTC decision to relax the rules regarding what constitutes Canadian content. All I know is that the inclusion of reality TV and entertainment magazine shows marked the decline, and some argue death, of Canadian drama. I don’t know what that world 'before' looks like.
Today’s emerging and veteran Canadian screenwriters are dreaming about—and fighting for—a wonderful utopia that I can’t even bring myself to believe in until I see it-- up there for real on the big or little screen.
So why do I write? Why do I continue pursuing a screenwriting career that, if the Broadcasters and Cable and Satellite Companies have their way, won’t even be an option for future generations in Canada?
Because I’d like to think that one day, my cousins in China could turn on their TV and watch a Canadian show, and tell me about all the little differences I never noticed between Canadian and American teens. I’d like to think that one day I could write a story, an episode dedicated to my grandmother—the strongest person I know-- and all the sacrifices she’s made in her life so that her family could have a better life in this country. I’d like to think that better life includes the right to tell our stories, to not be ashamed or apologize for them, or to have to justify their existence in dollars and cents.
For those who would rather see their tax dollars not be wasted on things like Canadian stories, please ask yourself, are you really willing to give up this most precious of gifts?
-----
When I started thinking about this post, I wanted to write something that would lay out the issues in a way that my parents or brothers could understand. I didn’t want to go on and on about how my future and career as a writer in Canada were at stake, because I was afraid the whiners and trolls would seize the opportunity to point out that I was being selfish, and that their tax dollars should go to better things than ensuring that I have a job. But then Brandon told me to not give the complainers anything to complain about—just write from the heart—honestly and truly—and make sure that this is what I want to say.
So I scrapped that original post.
Canadian stories are not a burden. They are a treasure to be discovered—by the kid next door, or that kid in Hong Kong. It is a privilege to be able to express our stories when journalists and writers around the world are imprisoned, tortured, or exiled for daring to do the same.
I’m not going to lie. The issues regarding the CRTC hearings, net neutrality, fee-for-carriage, and the future of Canadian programming are overwhelming—there’s just so much and too much to take in. Some days, I find it’s easier to get riled up about the latest TTC fare hike than the latest excuses from Broadcasters, and Cable and Satellite Companies as to why they should be exempt from Canadian programming. There’s just so much pettiness and posturing that it’s enough to make me want to wash my hands of it all.
Truthfully, I remember nothing of what Canadian drama was like before the 1999 CRTC decision to relax the rules regarding what constitutes Canadian content. All I know is that the inclusion of reality TV and entertainment magazine shows marked the decline, and some argue death, of Canadian drama. I don’t know what that world 'before' looks like.
Today’s emerging and veteran Canadian screenwriters are dreaming about—and fighting for—a wonderful utopia that I can’t even bring myself to believe in until I see it-- up there for real on the big or little screen.
So why do I write? Why do I continue pursuing a screenwriting career that, if the Broadcasters and Cable and Satellite Companies have their way, won’t even be an option for future generations in Canada?
Because I’d like to think that one day, my cousins in China could turn on their TV and watch a Canadian show, and tell me about all the little differences I never noticed between Canadian and American teens. I’d like to think that one day I could write a story, an episode dedicated to my grandmother—the strongest person I know-- and all the sacrifices she’s made in her life so that her family could have a better life in this country. I’d like to think that better life includes the right to tell our stories, to not be ashamed or apologize for them, or to have to justify their existence in dollars and cents.
For those who would rather see their tax dollars not be wasted on things like Canadian stories, please ask yourself, are you really willing to give up this most precious of gifts?
Monday, November 23, 2009
I Wonder If There's A Way To Make It Work?
One thing I've realized, after having watched a week's worth of the CRTC hearings in action, is that there really seems to be no definitive 'answer'.
No one solution that'll make everyone happy.
Truth be told, if there's one thing I've become certain of it's that whatever the outcome, it'll be Utilitarian, at best.
Which is why I have a sad feeling that today's presenters, from our Northwest Territories and Nunavut, will end up getting the short end of the stick.
You see, even though our BDU's claim to be running with their bandwidth topped out, little communities of Canadians are still finding themselves... well, left behind.
And that's where James Arreak, President of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut comes in.
He, along with several other representatives from our Canadian Territories, came to ask for what would seemingly be a simple thing: 'must-carry' status for their legislative feeds on the satellites in their area.
See, up in the Territories it turns out that the population -- a robust 75,000 or so -- is quite interested in and involved with their legislative process (we're talking like 80% turnouts at elections).
In fact, the population is so interested that the Legislative Assembly has been taping their 2-hour sessions, translating them into all 11 of their officially recognized languages and playing them on a loop.
They're doing their part... and then some.
They're pumping the signal out on their own, as best they can -- on C-Band and Over The Air, even put it online for those lucky few with the bandwidth to spare. (most can barely check email with the archaic system in place).
But it's just not enough.
Many are still left out... and so they ask their duly elected representatives to take their request to their providers, asking for them to carry it on Satellite - for those too far out or otherwise unable to get the signal.
Yet when they do, they're told there's just no bandwidth left.
And so they travel two thousand Kilometers to stand before the CRTC and make a 10 minute presentation.
After all the BDU's have lined up to say 'we've got nothin' in terms of bandwidth and funds.
After so many have already lined up to say 'what about us'?
Still, they gave it their all.
I sat there today, watching their presentation unfold -- a group of people trying to do right by those who've elected them. I watched them and I felt it.
Of all the people I'd seen come by and talk about raw deals and their struggles, here was the real thing. A community of Canadians looking to keep it together, to communicate and represent and preserve what they have.
What can I say? I was impressed.
And I'd like to think that it'll all work out for them.
I'd like to think that their bold trip down here to face the bureaucracy head on will pay dividends.
I'd like to think there'll be a slow-clap waiting for them as they return in time to see Satellites in the area start streaming down 'the Canadian Territorial Legislative Channel' or something.
Yet I know that it's not going to happen.
They were thanked for their presentation, asked a few brief questions and then quickly sent on their way with some words about maaaybe sending a commissioner or two up there to check out their problems.
Huh.
You know, they say you can tell a lot about someone by the way they treat the little guys.
And watching those people shuffle off said it all.
No one solution that'll make everyone happy.
Truth be told, if there's one thing I've become certain of it's that whatever the outcome, it'll be Utilitarian, at best.
Which is why I have a sad feeling that today's presenters, from our Northwest Territories and Nunavut, will end up getting the short end of the stick.
You see, even though our BDU's claim to be running with their bandwidth topped out, little communities of Canadians are still finding themselves... well, left behind.
And that's where James Arreak, President of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut comes in.
He, along with several other representatives from our Canadian Territories, came to ask for what would seemingly be a simple thing: 'must-carry' status for their legislative feeds on the satellites in their area.
See, up in the Territories it turns out that the population -- a robust 75,000 or so -- is quite interested in and involved with their legislative process (we're talking like 80% turnouts at elections).
In fact, the population is so interested that the Legislative Assembly has been taping their 2-hour sessions, translating them into all 11 of their officially recognized languages and playing them on a loop.
They're doing their part... and then some.
They're pumping the signal out on their own, as best they can -- on C-Band and Over The Air, even put it online for those lucky few with the bandwidth to spare. (most can barely check email with the archaic system in place).
But it's just not enough.
Many are still left out... and so they ask their duly elected representatives to take their request to their providers, asking for them to carry it on Satellite - for those too far out or otherwise unable to get the signal.
Yet when they do, they're told there's just no bandwidth left.
And so they travel two thousand Kilometers to stand before the CRTC and make a 10 minute presentation.
After all the BDU's have lined up to say 'we've got nothin' in terms of bandwidth and funds.
After so many have already lined up to say 'what about us'?
Still, they gave it their all.
I sat there today, watching their presentation unfold -- a group of people trying to do right by those who've elected them. I watched them and I felt it.
Of all the people I'd seen come by and talk about raw deals and their struggles, here was the real thing. A community of Canadians looking to keep it together, to communicate and represent and preserve what they have.
What can I say? I was impressed.
And I'd like to think that it'll all work out for them.
I'd like to think that their bold trip down here to face the bureaucracy head on will pay dividends.
I'd like to think there'll be a slow-clap waiting for them as they return in time to see Satellites in the area start streaming down 'the Canadian Territorial Legislative Channel' or something.
Yet I know that it's not going to happen.
They were thanked for their presentation, asked a few brief questions and then quickly sent on their way with some words about maaaybe sending a commissioner or two up there to check out their problems.
Huh.
You know, they say you can tell a lot about someone by the way they treat the little guys.
And watching those people shuffle off said it all.
The Plan
Hey folks!I'm Brandon Laraby and Denis has entrusted me with the keys to this place for the week.
Now, I know it's not my soapbox (man, this thing's got stairs and everything!) but I promise I'll love it like my own.
That said, for those (most) who don't know me, I run a lil' blog over yonder about my efforts to break in to the Canadian TV writing business. I'm also a Junior Editor over at a place called Ink Canada -- a very cool community of writers started by the amazing Karen Walton (think: Ginger Snaps, Queer As Folk, etc). It's a fantastic place to hang out, meet fellow writers and learn stuff about this crazy business. If you haven't been, you really should go.
But not just yet.
See, our trusty broadcasters and BDUs have come together to complain (once again) to the CRTC about how broke they are. Oh, and how being forced to make Canadian content is a death-sentence for their beleaguered industry.
Well, that, and something about Local TV -- which, sadly, I didn't even know they were still making (outside of local news, I mean).
Truth be told, the last 'local' TV show I sat down to watch involved a very young Tom Green, a bag full of human hair and a jar of Vaseline...
So, yeah.
(Incidentally, for those looking to get their bearings -- on the CRTC stuff, not Tom -- there's a great article Here).
Anyways: The Plan.
I've asked some fellow newbie writers to chime in with their musings on the whole CRTC situation; Wondering how/if/when/where/etc it'll impact them and, if so, what they're going to do about it.
Thus, over this next week, I'll be posting their thoughts/feelings/rants and such interspersed with a few questions/quips/meanders/warblings of my own.
And yeah, that's it. The plan. Simple and effective with a bit of room to breathe... I hope.
In other, related, news: I've been monitoring the CRTC hearings lately and, for those keeping themselves glued to CPAC (show starts at 9am, bring your own toaster-strudel and Twitter-feed), you'll want to hang around tomorrow afternoon for the WGC.
They're scheduled to be last up at bat so here's hoping they get a few good swings in and really leave the commishes with something to think about during the fitful night's sleep to follow.
('Cause, really, if I had to listen to this sort of stuff every day, all day... yeah, I'd be having nightmares -- probably being chased by the giant CTV ball, Indiana Jones-style or something...)
Anyways, long-story short: It's going to be a busy week. We've got lots on the menu from some fine folk and they're all working for the chance to tell their stories on that wicked lil' box in your living room.
Don't worry, they're nice.
Cheers!
Brandon
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Handing Over The Keys
IN NOVEMBER 2007, the WGC held a rally in solidarity to support the members of the Writers Guild of America, who had just gone on strike mainly over the issue of payments and residuals in new media. The strike was still bitter and new, and tangentially related to Canada. Whatever gains made wouldn't accrue immediate benefits to Canadian writers, who belonged to an entirely different guild. But the general health of writer opportunities in the U.S. did, and does, have a general effect, not just here, but all around the world, where foreign screenwriters also marched in solidarity.
The industry here was at a funny turn. In just a few weeks, Flashpoint, (in no small part because of the strike) would become the first Canadian produced drama to appear on U.S. TV since Power Play -- which only aired a couple of episodes a few years before, and even then, on U.P.N. It had been even longer since the days of Due South, and the Crime Time block on CBS.
But what I mostly remember about that day was that it was frickin' cold. So Cold. We marched -- about 150 of us -- outside the Sony Centre for the Performing arts, since Sony was one of the companies driving the AMPTP strategy -- and hell, we had to walk somewhere.
There were a lot of big Canadian TV and film types there that day. I missed David Cronenberg in his jaunty toque, but there were writers from just about every show I'd watched or admired in the last twenty years, and a whole bunch I didn't even know. In between chanting slogans, I would hear stories of the early days of TV in Canada. I moved here in 1977, so I didn't have the reference points of Mr. Dressup or Friendly Giant or some of the early comedies or panel shows -- or even the local TV programs that lit up Canadian homes. So it was a bit of a learning curve for me, too.
The best part -- always the best part when it's a bunch of writers, was the after, as we landed in at Shopsy's to get warm. There were laughs and stories, and then I met a guy named Brandon Laraby.
Brandon worked at the same TV station that I'd worked at for years before making the break and committing myself to my writing career full time. He was young and idealistic, but determined. And he had a lot of questions. I described that first encounter at Shopsy's thusly:
Well, now it's two years later. The stuff that was being fought about at the CRTC is being fought about again. And Brandon still hasn't run out of questions. He's still writing, still trying to break in, still trying to get better at what he does, and to educate himself about the ins and the outs of the industry here.
I sometimes shake my head in wonder at guys like Brandon. I spent a good ten or twelve years working in something tangentially related to what I wanted to do before having the courage to make the jump to writing. When I did so it was with much to learn still ahead of me (a process that's ongoing,) but at least I'd seen and heard enough from the industry to know the score a little bit.
Young women and men like Brandon, today, have the ever-growing ubiquity of the internet and Google at their fingertips to be able to see, and taste, and feel how unjust and ridiculous the prospect of creative work in Canada truly is. A bunch of white guys sit in a room in Gatineau and the net result is people saying that if you want to get something on Canadian TV, your best bet is to immigrate. Except with staffs being cut left and right down in L.A. and the whole business in the doldrums, it's not even a time for that right now.
Meanwhile, the new PPM data and ratings show Global audiences up 56% and CTV up 31% -- but the sky is still falling. There is no good news in Canadian tv, ever. Give us money and reduce our obligations. No matter what the occasion, the song remains the same.
It must be a crazy thing to wrap your head around, when you're young -- the time when you're supposed to be idealistic and enthusiastic about a great many things.
So while I turtle and revise and take a break from all this, I decided this week it was time for you to hear some of those voices. Brandon Laraby runs his own blog now, but for this week I've asked him to curate a series of posts from people like him, who are just starting out, and who have the temerity to wonder if their TV screens have any room for stories told by people who grow up here.
So there it is. A bit of fresh Dead Meat for the Sticks this week. I leave you in Brandon's capable hands. He'll be writing posts himself and introducing you to a few other voices. And I'll catch you on the coin flip.
The industry here was at a funny turn. In just a few weeks, Flashpoint, (in no small part because of the strike) would become the first Canadian produced drama to appear on U.S. TV since Power Play -- which only aired a couple of episodes a few years before, and even then, on U.P.N. It had been even longer since the days of Due South, and the Crime Time block on CBS.
But what I mostly remember about that day was that it was frickin' cold. So Cold. We marched -- about 150 of us -- outside the Sony Centre for the Performing arts, since Sony was one of the companies driving the AMPTP strategy -- and hell, we had to walk somewhere.
There were a lot of big Canadian TV and film types there that day. I missed David Cronenberg in his jaunty toque, but there were writers from just about every show I'd watched or admired in the last twenty years, and a whole bunch I didn't even know. In between chanting slogans, I would hear stories of the early days of TV in Canada. I moved here in 1977, so I didn't have the reference points of Mr. Dressup or Friendly Giant or some of the early comedies or panel shows -- or even the local TV programs that lit up Canadian homes. So it was a bit of a learning curve for me, too.
The best part -- always the best part when it's a bunch of writers, was the after, as we landed in at Shopsy's to get warm. There were laughs and stories, and then I met a guy named Brandon Laraby.
Brandon worked at the same TV station that I'd worked at for years before making the break and committing myself to my writing career full time. He was young and idealistic, but determined. And he had a lot of questions. I described that first encounter at Shopsy's thusly:
Classy act award goes to Brandon, a guy who's trying to break in who bought coffee for Peter and Jim and breakfast for me. Smart guy, Brandon. No flies on him.
(Of course we rewarded him with hair curling stories about the real industry. That's right, kids. The Too Hot For TeeVee truths that never even make it into this blog. Not in a million years.)
It was at that little table that we tried the best we could to reach for the metaphor for our little industry. For as much as things look shakier for the WGA right now -- it could always be worse. You could be in Canada. Sometimes it's all about just reaching for the right metaphor:
"It's worse than hurry up and wait."
"It's more like a race...but, it's a bad race..."
"A race between between a snail and a turtle."
"No...not a turtle."
"A retarded chicken."
"A headless, retarded chicken."
"Perfect."
"That's the Canadian industry right there. It's like a race between a snail and a headless, retarded chicken."
Solidarity forever, Bitches!
Well, now it's two years later. The stuff that was being fought about at the CRTC is being fought about again. And Brandon still hasn't run out of questions. He's still writing, still trying to break in, still trying to get better at what he does, and to educate himself about the ins and the outs of the industry here.
I sometimes shake my head in wonder at guys like Brandon. I spent a good ten or twelve years working in something tangentially related to what I wanted to do before having the courage to make the jump to writing. When I did so it was with much to learn still ahead of me (a process that's ongoing,) but at least I'd seen and heard enough from the industry to know the score a little bit.
Young women and men like Brandon, today, have the ever-growing ubiquity of the internet and Google at their fingertips to be able to see, and taste, and feel how unjust and ridiculous the prospect of creative work in Canada truly is. A bunch of white guys sit in a room in Gatineau and the net result is people saying that if you want to get something on Canadian TV, your best bet is to immigrate. Except with staffs being cut left and right down in L.A. and the whole business in the doldrums, it's not even a time for that right now.
Meanwhile, the new PPM data and ratings show Global audiences up 56% and CTV up 31% -- but the sky is still falling. There is no good news in Canadian tv, ever. Give us money and reduce our obligations. No matter what the occasion, the song remains the same.
It must be a crazy thing to wrap your head around, when you're young -- the time when you're supposed to be idealistic and enthusiastic about a great many things.
So while I turtle and revise and take a break from all this, I decided this week it was time for you to hear some of those voices. Brandon Laraby runs his own blog now, but for this week I've asked him to curate a series of posts from people like him, who are just starting out, and who have the temerity to wonder if their TV screens have any room for stories told by people who grow up here.
So there it is. A bit of fresh Dead Meat for the Sticks this week. I leave you in Brandon's capable hands. He'll be writing posts himself and introducing you to a few other voices. And I'll catch you on the coin flip.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Value for Sunning
WELL, I'M OUT of here for a week. Lighting out to Sunny Florida.
Next week we've got something special planned. Hope you'll be able to make it back for a few new voices in this space.
I'll see you sometime after the Grey Cup.
Go Stamps!
Next week we've got something special planned. Hope you'll be able to make it back for a few new voices in this space.
I'll see you sometime after the Grey Cup.
Go Stamps!
News As The Canary
INTERESTING ARTICLE IN Playback:
Interesting, why? Well, for all the fooferal over Local TV mattering, we know that Canada's private broadcasters have spent years consolidating and cost cutting in the regions, and pursuing a strategy that said that only ever-increasing spends on U.S. programming could save them.
Now they're before the CRTC, begging for money. Yet a station that's gone aggressively local has seen dividends from it. Anomaly? Fluke? Maybe. But I have yet to see a satisfactory explanation from anybody on the broadcast side why they have such trouble making money off their local newscasts, when that's the profit centre of most local stations in the U.S.
It points, unfortunately, to the sobering conclusion that maybe -- just maybe -- they're not very good at running their businesses?
The same argument is made about CanCon -- the "non-local" part of the homegrown spend, that these nets are always trying to get reduced. This week, we've heard network reps stand up there and say that Corner Gas never made CTV money, and that CanCon can't make money -- falsehoods that were proved so by a Nordcity study released by Canadian Producers and the WGC earlier this year.
When Norm Bolen, the new head of the Canadian English Language Producers Association, the CFTPA appeared before the CRTC yesterday, he came with that same message: maybe it's time to actually commit to making things.
You don't often hear about it, but the kinds of lifestyle programming that crops up on so many of those specialty channels aren't just filler -- they're leaders. In fact, if you look at a channel like HGTV, many of their homegrown shows are, in fact, the big drivers not just on the Canadian HGTV -- they're the backbone of the American version of the services, as well.
Now there's Flashpoint, consistently drawing nearly 2 million viewers. Heartland on CBC is in the same territory. Canadian produced tween and animation programs buoy services like YTV, and export to both acclaim and cash.
The business model for Canadian OTA networks is bruised and broken -- but there is evidence from CHCH to Flashpoint to their own specialties, that actually committing to trying to do more than one-minute more that they're required to could point a way toward viability. Certainly more than the drunken-free-for-all American program spending -- with CTV instantly thrown into precarious straits and Canwest on the edge of the abyss.
It requires a big change of thinking -- and there's no question that the will is not there. They had it very good, for a very long time....little effort, write a check, let the money roll in. But that's gone now. And sure, there's denial and wanting to grasp and no taste for trying something riskier -- there's no will to actually try making comedy and drama. But what if there was? What if they stopped paying lip service to their obligations and actually tried to market and make shows that their customers liked?
They said local was impossible. Yet CHCH is popping champagne corks. PPMs say the numbers are up. And best of all, nobody's saying you have to put down the Yankee crack pipe entirely.
Surely from a consumer standpoint that's better than expecting Canadians to put up with wholesale blackouts on the U.S. network feeds they've had for 40 years.
Really -- expecting people to put up with that... is that really more farfetched than maybe being able to build on doing more than pay lip service to making things?
The champagne corks are popping at CHCH in Hamilton.
The local TV station, recently purchased for $12 by Channel Zero, has seen its supper-hour newscast become highly competitive this fall in nearby Toronto, the country's biggest and most lucrative advertising market.
According to BBM Canada, CTV's 6 p.m. newscast led all comers from Aug. 31 to Nov. 15 in total (2+) viewers with 283,000 on average, while CHCH has fought a three-horse race for second place with Citytv Toronto and Global Television.
City averaged 134,000 viewers, followed by Global with 120,000 and CHCH with 115,000 viewers, BBM Canada reports.
Interesting, why? Well, for all the fooferal over Local TV mattering, we know that Canada's private broadcasters have spent years consolidating and cost cutting in the regions, and pursuing a strategy that said that only ever-increasing spends on U.S. programming could save them.
Now they're before the CRTC, begging for money. Yet a station that's gone aggressively local has seen dividends from it. Anomaly? Fluke? Maybe. But I have yet to see a satisfactory explanation from anybody on the broadcast side why they have such trouble making money off their local newscasts, when that's the profit centre of most local stations in the U.S.
It points, unfortunately, to the sobering conclusion that maybe -- just maybe -- they're not very good at running their businesses?
The same argument is made about CanCon -- the "non-local" part of the homegrown spend, that these nets are always trying to get reduced. This week, we've heard network reps stand up there and say that Corner Gas never made CTV money, and that CanCon can't make money -- falsehoods that were proved so by a Nordcity study released by Canadian Producers and the WGC earlier this year.
When Norm Bolen, the new head of the Canadian English Language Producers Association, the CFTPA appeared before the CRTC yesterday, he came with that same message: maybe it's time to actually commit to making things.
Producers called on the CRTC to put the brakes on foreign programming spending -- echoing sentiments by cable and satellite companies -- and said Thursday that over-the-air broadcasters would be better served focusing on Canadian content as a viable business opportunity.
Despite challenges, conventional television "still has lots of life in it," the producers group declared at the commission's continuing hearings into fee-for-carriage, noting that new Portable People Meters show higher audiences than previously thought for OTAs.
"Sky-high expenditures on foreign programming are a big part of the problem in the English-language market. Any business that grows spending more than its revenues is walking on a tightrope," said CFTPA president and CEO Norm Bolen in his opening remarks, pointing out that private conventional broadcasters spent 7.4% more on foreign programming, while revenues decreased by 1.5% in 2008.
The CFTPA put forth solutions it says will improve the financial health of over-the-air television, including an introduction of CPE or Canadian programming expenditure obligations -- maintaining that the model works for specialty channels which generate audiences and derive profit from their homegrown shows.
You don't often hear about it, but the kinds of lifestyle programming that crops up on so many of those specialty channels aren't just filler -- they're leaders. In fact, if you look at a channel like HGTV, many of their homegrown shows are, in fact, the big drivers not just on the Canadian HGTV -- they're the backbone of the American version of the services, as well.
Now there's Flashpoint, consistently drawing nearly 2 million viewers. Heartland on CBC is in the same territory. Canadian produced tween and animation programs buoy services like YTV, and export to both acclaim and cash.
The business model for Canadian OTA networks is bruised and broken -- but there is evidence from CHCH to Flashpoint to their own specialties, that actually committing to trying to do more than one-minute more that they're required to could point a way toward viability. Certainly more than the drunken-free-for-all American program spending -- with CTV instantly thrown into precarious straits and Canwest on the edge of the abyss.
It requires a big change of thinking -- and there's no question that the will is not there. They had it very good, for a very long time....little effort, write a check, let the money roll in. But that's gone now. And sure, there's denial and wanting to grasp and no taste for trying something riskier -- there's no will to actually try making comedy and drama. But what if there was? What if they stopped paying lip service to their obligations and actually tried to market and make shows that their customers liked?
They said local was impossible. Yet CHCH is popping champagne corks. PPMs say the numbers are up. And best of all, nobody's saying you have to put down the Yankee crack pipe entirely.
Surely from a consumer standpoint that's better than expecting Canadians to put up with wholesale blackouts on the U.S. network feeds they've had for 40 years.
Really -- expecting people to put up with that... is that really more farfetched than maybe being able to build on doing more than pay lip service to making things?
Different Industry, Same Dream, Harsh Reality.
Y'ALL MIGHT FIND this interesting. A no-B.S. breakdown of how you won't get rich just by having a book on the New York Times bestseller list.
Should give the starry-eyed AND the haters something to think on...
(H/t @kazza323)
Should give the starry-eyed AND the haters something to think on...
(H/t @kazza323)
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Holy Cow.
UM. WHEN DID Parks & Recreation get so damn funny?
Death of the sitcom, my overwatered kiester.
Death of the sitcom, my overwatered kiester.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
On The Raydio
ONE OF THE interviews I did this morning, for CBC's Toronto Morning show, Metro Morning, with the venerable Andy Barrie is up and available for download.
I have to get a better phone.
Andy's questions were really great -- and he's very informed on the subject. I think it's a pretty good interview. Listen and see if you agree.
I have to get a better phone.
Andy's questions were really great -- and he's very informed on the subject. I think it's a pretty good interview. Listen and see if you agree.
Contempt.
I HONESTLY DON'T think that I have more to say about the coverage and things I heard from the CRTC hearings today. I'm astonished, a little. The openness, the utter lack of ideas, the complete and bloody-minded insistence on old ways of thinking.
A business that stands in bankruptcy got up today and showed a lot of the reason why they got there.
I can't even type about it any more.
Let's just throw it to a few of the days' most juicy tweets, shall we?
I really hate to say this. But I'm honestly starting to think that there's no sense in preserving the Canadian ownership rule for Canadian broadcast properties.
Based solely on what we've witnessed today, I cannot conceive of how ceding ownership to American or foreign owners could possibly result in a more contemptuous attitude toward homegrown creative talent and shows. It's one thing for a broadcaster to view having to produce something original as a "tax." It's quite another to say it out loud.
Throw open the door. Let'em in. Make them promise to make shows here that use Canadian talent.
It might be no better for us.
But it won't be worse.
And the viewers at home won't even notice the difference.
So be it.
***
Alan Sawyer also has a very detailed -- and excellent -- breakdown of the issues from a Cable/Satellite perspective here.
And for a little bit of piquant context, I'd like to link to an entry I wrote just shy of three years ago now. It's a response to a broadcasting student's questions. When I read back through the whole thing, I'm struck by two things: 1) That I'm talking about an upcoming CRTC hearing where they're going to discuss... carriage fees. Yup. That's how far we've come. Three years, and one recession later. No new ideas. The same discussion. Again.
(It is interesting that now the spin is that carriage fees are needed to save local tv... hmm... but, they were asking for them three years ago and "save local tv" was nowhere to be found. It's almost like the cash grab came first and the justification came.... naaaah. Couldn't be, could it?)
The second thing I notice? How optimistic I seemed then. I thought we were changing things. I thought things were going to get better.
As Blue Rodeo -- a band that, like so many others, benefited greatly from CanCon regulation (and whose new recording is fantastic, by the way) once sang,
A business that stands in bankruptcy got up today and showed a lot of the reason why they got there.I can't even type about it any more.
Let's just throw it to a few of the days' most juicy tweets, shall we?
Based solely on what we've witnessed today, I cannot conceive of how ceding ownership to American or foreign owners could possibly result in a more contemptuous attitude toward homegrown creative talent and shows. It's one thing for a broadcaster to view having to produce something original as a "tax." It's quite another to say it out loud.
Throw open the door. Let'em in. Make them promise to make shows here that use Canadian talent.
It might be no better for us.
But it won't be worse.
And the viewers at home won't even notice the difference.
So be it.
***
Alan Sawyer also has a very detailed -- and excellent -- breakdown of the issues from a Cable/Satellite perspective here.
And for a little bit of piquant context, I'd like to link to an entry I wrote just shy of three years ago now. It's a response to a broadcasting student's questions. When I read back through the whole thing, I'm struck by two things: 1) That I'm talking about an upcoming CRTC hearing where they're going to discuss... carriage fees. Yup. That's how far we've come. Three years, and one recession later. No new ideas. The same discussion. Again.
(It is interesting that now the spin is that carriage fees are needed to save local tv... hmm... but, they were asking for them three years ago and "save local tv" was nowhere to be found. It's almost like the cash grab came first and the justification came.... naaaah. Couldn't be, could it?)
The second thing I notice? How optimistic I seemed then. I thought we were changing things. I thought things were going to get better.
As Blue Rodeo -- a band that, like so many others, benefited greatly from CanCon regulation (and whose new recording is fantastic, by the way) once sang,
"I used to think I knew
What I was fighting for.
I don't think that anymore."
Kinda Exciting
IF YOU'RE A TeeVee Geek... from the NYTimes:
After devoting most of his energy in recent years to feature films and cable, the writer, director and producer Larry Charles is returning to network television. Mr. Charles, left, who wrote many episodes for the NBC hit series “Seinfeld” and “Mad About You” in the 1990s, is to write and direct the pilot of an as-yet-unnamed series for NBC. In this decade Mr. Charles has directed Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” and “Brüno” films, and also directed, produced or written episodes for the HBO hit series “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Entourage.” The new NBC show is to have an ensemble cast and be set in a small town. Mr. Charles told The Hollywood Reporter that the show would try to depict “contemporary American life through the prism of a do-it-yourself homemade aesthetic that will mix mediums.”
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