Equal Opportunity Plugger

LAST WEEK I wrote a little thing despairing that CTV didn't go the extra mile to capitalize on the Kiefer Sutherland Corner Gas cameo.

In the comments, there were a few people who wrote in including one of the big Promotions people at CTV.

Well, mama and papa always taught me not to be one sided, so I have to say that I'm pretty tickled to see this current promotion running for Robson Arms:

Win your rent with 'Robson Arms'

It's a renter's or homeowner's dream!

Beginning Monday, May 5, Canadians have the opportunity to win up to $12,000 towards their rent or mortgage payments for one year by virtually stepping into Robson Arms and playing the "Robson Arms Rent Control" game at robsonarms.CTV.ca.

Created exclusively by the CTV Creative Agency, the game serves as a companion to Season 3 of Robson Arms which airs Mondays at 9:30 p.m. ET on CTV.

Additional promotional support for the Season 3 premiere included teams dressed as Robson Arms character Yuri Kukoc (John Cassini) who took to the streets today in Vancouver and Toronto to hand out free DVDs of the season premiere including special Season 3 bonus material.

The giveaway DVDs also included instructions on how to enter the "Robson Arms Rent Control" contest. CTV viewers can also qualify to win an iPod Touch by simply subscribing by June 1 to the Robson Arms newsletter at robsonarms.CTV.ca.

Now that's actually going the extra mile. Not because there's so many DVD's that are gonna get handed out, but because the news that they DID hand out DVD's could make for a start of good buzz.

The contest is kind of a hoot, too, and perfectly matched with the Robson Arms brand. You know, there were grumbles that "sneaking" those Season 3 eps after American Idol kind of almost dumped them without warning...but this is a really positive, forward thinking step showing that CTV is trying to get behind the show.

Launching Monday, May 5 at 9:30 a.m. ET and available online for six weeks (May 5 - June 15), "Robson Arms Rent Control" is a virtual game that has players embark on a quest to help Bobbi (Gabrielle Miller) find her rent money so she doesn't get evicted from Robson Arms.

Players must hunt through the apartments of Robson Arms tenants Nick (Fred Ewanuick), Hal (Zak Santiago), Yuri (John Cassini), Chuck (Dave Foley) and Trixie (Allison Hossack) to locate Bobbi's missing money. In doing so, they can also discover hidden storylines, video and audio clips and delve into the lives of the tenants, all while getting to know them on a "virtual" level.

Players will also need to collect a designated item from each apartment. Once they have travelled through all of the rooms, successfully completed the tasks and collected all of the key items, participants will be eligible to enter the contest and get a chance to win free rent or mortgage payments - up to $12,000 - for a year. Visit robsonarms.CTV.ca to play.

This promotion was conceived by the CTV Creative Agency. That's an in-house sort of promotions/advertising shop that was set up in the wake of the CTV-CHUM merger. (It was also developed with the help of Vancouver online ad shop Noise Digital.)

If this is the taste of the first things to come from this shop, then maybe, just maybe, we might have a light at the end of that chronic Canadian under-promotion tunnel.

Consumers vs. Citzens

IF YOU LISTEN very carefully you can probably catch the sound of me disappearing down a deep script hole. But in the meantime, you should all read Ken Girotti's take on how you approach culture defines you as a nation. (He's riffing off the CRTC hearings and an op-ed piece by the head of the CAB.) It's well thought out, and defines the essential problem without emotion. Jus'the facts.

I don't for a minute mean to suggest the opinion presented by Glenn O'Farrell (prez and CEO of the CAB) in the Globe & Mail's ROB today is the be all and end all. But he does begin his thesis with an intelligent analysis of what's been at stake over the last three weeks at the CRTC hearings in Gatineau, Quebec.

He poses the question in a succinct way:

"Do Canadians view their broadcasting system as consumers or as citizens?"

His use of collective nouns is what it's all about for me. If we're consumers, we are exactly what every major Hollywood studio wants us to be. Essentially we become shareholders without access to corporate dividends or profits. We're a mindless block controlled by promotion, swept along amidst the tide of the multitudes and God forbid we have a dissenting view or an honest criticism. If we're citizens we are everything they hate down there in La La Land. We're free thinking individuals with a multitude of opinions demanding access to diverse wares from a variety of sources. We become a major pain in the ass to their vertical integration, but we ensure choice for ourselves.

Okay, you think I'm reading too much into it. Here's why I'm not. The essential concept Peter Grant and Chris Wood illuminated in their book, "Blockbusters and Trade Wars" is this: cultural goods are different. Sure, you sell them on the market like other goods, but they are made differently, and for different reasons a lot of the time, and they don't behave like widgets or fly fishing rods or cars or toilet seats. When you make a widget (and I'm using the word widget the way my dad and yours would have used it) you spend some cash designing it and then you spend more buying materials and creating the assembly line to produce it. Here's why a film is different: we spend almost all of our money on the first copy. Millions of dollars go into the creation of a film, and outside of its theatrical release (a whole other story) all the subsequent copies -let's use DVD as the medium- are essentially worth pennies. So why does a DVD copy of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy cost nearly $40.00 when the plastic, paper and ink in the package is probably worth less than $1.00? Because we're not paying for the plastic and the paper. We're paying for what that stuff does, not what it actually is. Like books and pharmaceuticals, films and TV programs don't behave in the marketplace the way widgets do.

There's been a fight waging for quite a number of years over this difference with regard to cultural "thingies." Big movie studios, the ones that produce the tentpoles, want total market penetration everywhere all the time. That means things like indigenous content rules in countries like France, Germany, the UK and Canada are a big pain in the ass to organs like the MPAA. For years they fought in Washington to have cultural "thingies" treated in the international marketplace in exactly the same way widgets are. They've fought the wording of GATT at the WTO. (A very good overview of Canada's own confusing approach to cultural diversity can be found here). In the end (will it ever really end?) Canada was in the vanguard of the push to ensure cultural diversity through the cumbersomely titled UNESCO convention called, "Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions."

The rest of Ken's clear-headed take on the argument, and why neither Jim Shaw nor the broacasters are "heroes" in this, can be found here.

Now where did I put that magic scriptwriting elf?

"For some reason, because it's surrounded with big beefy guy jokes and poo jokes, we get away with it."

DIANE AT TV, EH? has taken my convo with Rent-A-Goalie star/creator Christopher Bolton from Blogtalkradio and spun it into an entertaining background piece on the show.

When I mentioned that Christopher Bolton, creator, writer, executive producer, and star of Showcase's Rent-a-Goalie would be a guest on the TV, eh? Blogtalkradio show, the reaction from women familiar with the series was hilariously universal. So when guest interviewer Denis McGrath and Bolton started discussing how the fart-joke-filled, testosterone-laden show resonated with females, I felt the need to add my voice on behalf of the double X chromosomes. Turns out, though, it's surprisingly awkward to tell someone "they think you're hot." I'm afraid I conveyed it slightly less coherently than that.

That's not the entire reason, of course, and I threw in something about his character's vulnerability and efforts to do right. As McGrath clarified: "Women love the reformed bad boy."

Rent-a-Goalie, which just finished production on a third season set to air in the fall, is an ensemble comedy centred around Cake, a recovered-from-every-imaginable-addiction hockey nut who runs his replacement goalie service out of Cafe Primo in Toronto's Little Italy. Cake lives by The Code, his personal philosophy on life that keeps him out of trouble. Almost.

If you'd like to hear the full half-hour conversation, where Chris and I talk comedy, the strengths of the RAG cast, and the Writing process Bolton and his co-writer Graeme Manson bring to the table, click here. (The RAG convo starts about 15 mins in)

Rent-A-Goalie is now streaming full episodes on the Showcase Website. New episodes return in the fall, and the Extras-laden DVD set of Season 1 is available in Canadian stores now.

Ricky, Bubbles, and Brent

REPORTS PERSIST THAT Showcase's Trailer Park Boys won't be returning. It makes sense, considering the fact that the show's run several years, they've done a movie and supposedly are considering a second film.

But the exit of the lo-fi sitcom, if indeed it's going, comes at an interesting time for Canadian TV. TPB has been the cable example of the show that Canadians love -- complete with personal appearances mobbed by fans. With Brent Butt's recent announcement that there will be no new tales from Dog River after the current season, Canada faces the prospect of losing two of its most popular comedies at the same time, with no obvious successors waiting in the wings.

So just because navel gazing's what we do here, sometimes, let's throw open a question to the peanut gallery -- a question that might provide a little free R&D for anyone looking to try and craft a new comedy to take these show's place in Canadian hearts.

What made Trailer Park Boys and Corner Gas so successful? On the surface they seemingly couldn't be more different. But are there any qualities they share that made them connect with the audience, where so many other homegrown shows have failed?

This is, by the way, the question I've privately been pushing inside people to consider for years. I've sadly seen not a lot of evidence that anyone's done so.

Discuss.

Well, It's Very Bad History!

IF YOU'VE EVER visited Washington D.C. and trekked up the steps to the Capitol Rotunda, you've likely seen the painting at left.

Turnbull's "Presentation of the Declaration of Independence" is, to many, the seminal image of that event.

An interesting wink, then, in last night's final installment of the very fine HBO series JOHN ADAMS.

In the scene, set in 1826, just before the second President's death, the 9o-year-old Adams is shown the painting. And he's not pleased. "You must understand," says he, that we were at war. People were coming and going that whole summer, trying to fix their signature when they could." He explains that no gathering such as this, with the complete Congress, ever took place. "It's very bad history!" Adams rages.

But a moment later, it's another remark, offhand, that gives you the emotional key to the scene. "Everyone in that painting is dead," Adams complains -- knowing that, at that moment, only he and Jefferson survived. The first hand history, the events, the reasons for breaking away from England -- all that knowledge was on the verge of slipping away.

Adams cared, perhaps a bit too much, about the judgement of history, and what people would make of his actions. After all, the fun of living history is that even as it recedes, it is broken down and re-interpreted. There are those who insist that the recollections of those who were there, the "First sources," should be respected at all costs. And then many of us know how memories lie, and how passion and direct involvement can color your opinion of an event, even years later. Sometimes the sober second judgement of those who have a distance from the event is needed.

But from Academia to Historical Adaptation in filmmaking, there's a bigger leap. Perhaps the biggest. Every epic tries to claim historical accuracy, and by design, on some level, every one is going to get it wrong.

But there is something, in our visual age, to the film or TV adaptation of history that is worthwhile, even as it's threatened.

Again, I'll use an example from John Adams. First, let's consider the source material. David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize winning book asks us to reconsider the second President, long misunderstood and maligned among the Founding Fathers, mostly by those who worship at the cult of Jefferson.

McCullough's book is eyeopening in many ways; its telling of the story of the Revolution and the birth of American democracy is novelistic, and sweeping.

There's one passage where he describes Washington, D.C., when Adams first occupied the White House. (He was the first President to do so.) There are carefully drawn passages about how the city was little more than an idea. The Executive Mansion was plunked down in a barely cleared field, with mud everywhere. It's a great passage. But even a wonderful writer like McCullough can't capture the scene as effectively as one image in the miniseries.

The first time you see The White House in John Adams, it is from a distance, set on a hill in a forest. As they push in, you see what McCullough was getting at: slaves wander, clearing brush (Yup, the White House was built partially by slaves.) The new President's home is plunked down in the middle of a construction site. Outside it's nasty, muddy, and almost unbearable: a tent city. Inside, the paint isn't dry, it's dark and empty and the most usable part of the house is the part closest to the fireplace.

To see that image, you can't help but have an emotional response. If you're an American, it may put you in mind of how fragile, how unlikely the American experiment must have seemed in those very early days. All around you must have been the counter-thought that you had to banish: "perhaps we've made a mistake." To know that at the same time, America was struggling at remaining neutral in a war between England and France -- watching as France's own revolution spiralled out of control...the disgust and guilt writ on Adams' face as he beholds the slaves working outside the mansion...the whole thing, tied up in that objective correlative image of that lonely, impractical house -- and John Adams alone in the dark inside, maybe staring at that famous portrait of Washington...the man he could never equal, the man he could never live down.

If you're not American, I imagine to see that image would be confusing and unsettling and maybe even gleeful. What better way to remind yourself that once upon a time, America was anything but powerful. It was a muddy hellhole, in fact.

People complain about the historical accuracy of Films and TV the same way they complain about TV news -- that they don't give a full picture of what's going on in the world; that they favor some stories over others, that they shave away complexity in going for the best pictures.

All of that is true. But yet, there is something essential and moving in the pictorial depiction of where we've been.

I say this because it seems to me that in the internet age of immediate fact-checking, the "based on a true story" and "based on historical events" tags have become far more controversial than they used to be. In the end, one must ask if Adams was right about that painting, or whether there's sometimes greater truth in getting people to understand not the facts, but the emotional context of great events. Because that is something that TV and film can do very, very well.

In Canada, we've suffered through a couple incidents in the last few years where organizations like CBC have caved to pressure to withdraw historical movies because of very minor quibbles about this characterization or that characterization. I've spent most of my schooling years in Canada -- I have a rich and deep sense of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, and almost zero sense of the personalities of John A. MacDonald and those who formed this nation. I'm not the only one. A recent biography of John A, Canada's first Prime Minister, was the first new bio of him in fifty years.

I don't get it.

In the end, I hope that the drumbeat of "make it completely accurate" fades, and we can get at more emotional truth in our historical films. The history is always there for the reading. But to get us all to understand these personnages as flesh and blood people, faced with terrible choices and no degree of certainty. That's a fine thing indeed. That's why John Adams, the miniseries, ulimately moved me and made me think anew about the history of the land of my birth.

Sunday Sunday

WELL, I'VE GOTTA prep some questions for my Blogtalk Radio interview with Rent-A-Goalie's Christopher Bolton (2:15 pm ET, or tune into the archived stream anytime.)

Then I'm gonna play some cards.

For some reason when I woke up this morning, I just was in a very good mood. There are plenty of birds chirping outside my window, the sun is out and shining brilliantly off the lake. Whatever you've got going on, I hope you can make a bit of time to enjoy the finer things in life.

You know...like The Hoff.

A Turn of Five Degrees

THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE review of the Canadian Broadcast System in decades is wrapping up soon. The CRTC has heard from broadcaster after broadcaster, and BDU after BDU -- cable and satellite companies to you and me.

In today's Globe & Mail, Grant Robertson has a reasonably good, concise precie of the issues at stake and the likely outcomes.

I say pretty good because it leaves out an essential bit of context. It's the same bit of context that the Report on Business always leaves out in discussing these issues -- the domestic production community and the production of indigenous Canadian programs.

Now, let's just say upfront that the Globe & Mail does a much better job than most at covering the cultural angle. John Doyle is frequently out there like Cassandra, raising the issues and beating the drum. And the Globe was the paper that broke the C10 story. They caught it, and went with it -- and pretty much everything that proceeds from that is due to their coverage.

But for the most part there is always a City Mouse/Country Mouse separation. The Arts section writes about the "cultural" question of Canadian Domestic Programming, and the Business Section writes articles about the effect the WGA strike had on broadcasters, and what the CRTC hearings mean, and don't mention anything to do with the fact that there even is a Canadian domestic industry.

By omitting that part of the story, they get to avoid discussing the reality underpinning that industry's malaise: the system is set up to reward, through simultaneous substitution and other levers, the redistribution of American product to Canadian eyeballs; beyond that, there is no viable product to speak of. They don't really make anything. And in the future, that means they won't have anything to sell.

Protections to this old model have always been upheld, and the broadcasters and cable companies have been able to successfully argue that they have very little responsibility to "give back" to the public, and the industry, anything for the advantages they've accrued.

By not accounting for the domestic industry in articles in the Business section, it's much easier to frame those programs, and our entire industry, as a "special interest group."

You see that attitude reflected at the CRTC level, too. Every broadcaster and BDU was given the chance to present individually, while organizations like the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild, ACTRA and other pro-Canadian creative organizations are jammed together, asked to present at once, and questioned all at once; as if to say, "Yes, yes, you have your ten minutes...say what you have to and then let the adults get back to the real issues at hand."

It's a fundamental lack of vision that's shared at very high levels in the boardrooms of the regulator, the BDU's and the Broadcasters. They're all arguing, essentially, about how to prolong "the good old days."

What Robertson misses in his otherwise very fine article, is how the major players in this fight -- the networks and the cablecos -- are really fighting over the same thing. And the fight springs from the same problem:

Their entire business is predicated upon being the gatekeeper for someone else's creativity. All they are is middlemen.

The problem, of course, is that all the technologies on the horizon seem to be pushing to an era where the audience, somehow, will be able to get what they want from a variety of sources. All the tricks both sides have used for so long as gatekeepers -- bundling channels, simsub, even newer things like geofencing streaming and embeddable ads -- are stopgap measures.

The WGA strike and its aftermath really does have a lot to do with this. What creative people make is the juice. Once upon a time the only way to get that juice was to go through the guys fighting in Gatineau. For years, a broadcaster could bring you a U.S. show six months, or a year after it was on in the USA and nobody would complain. A movie could premiere in England five months after its stateside debut and make money.

Those days are gone. What replaces them is still taking shape.

Will the BDU's control it, or will they be reduced to just providing a pipe? The pipe business can be lucrative...but the big money, down the road, is what's in the pipe.

The Broadcasters have a tougher road. They don't even have the option of the pipe. That's why they're asking for fees.

In the USA, Broadcasters now have ownership stakes in most programs they air. That might have been murder for the creative side of the industry, but it at least has insulated them against total armageddon -- even if the broadcast model totally implodes, they'll still make money through the production of content.

But in Canada, production, innovation, product -- all has been an afterthought -- so, now as much as it looks like the BDU's and Broadcasters are fighting over the future, they really aren't. Asking for more money to carry a signal is retro. And an undeniable cash grab that is definitely going to piss the public off.

(Which is why I fear the biggest fight Canadian creatives might have in the next little while will be trying to educate the public about what's really going on when the Cable companies try to blame the rate increase on "welfare for the lazy creatives.")

For their part, the BDU's want to fix the problem short term by bringing in even more cheap foreign product -- the very thing that's brought the current system to the brink, and made it way less healthy to be in this business in Canada than just about every other country in the world, where at least they do have their own programs which generate revenue.

The bolder choice would have been to look at something like Corner Gas and say, "how do we get into that business, because if we have something unique, we're going to be insulated if people do figure out how to get the thing they love another way."

But that kind of boldness has always been in short supply in Canadian business.

If you read Jim Henshaw's latest post over at his digs, you'll see that he chooses to side with the BDU's in this little match. Jim raises a lot of good points, though at the end of it, it's still kind of like trying to choose which creepy uncle you want to go home with. No matter which way you lean, you still end up feeling a little skeevy.

For better or worse, the creative unions have thrown in with the Broadcasters on this one, so that's where I sit, too. (Though I am really worried about public backlash to new fees.)

The reality is if you turn your thinking five degrees, you'll see that the whole premise of these hearings is profoundly, desperately off.

They write about innovation and entrepeneurship in other industries, the importance of R&D. But the Canadian broadcast industry has ignored its R&D for 30 years -- despite encouraging signs of success like TPB or Corner Gas. We could have been building audience appetite for Canadian homegrown drama. Corner Gas and TPB proves it exists -- but they didn't. And now we're all behind.

It was observed to me this morning by a colleague that more of the younger generation of Canadian TV writers seems to be working right now, than either of us remember. At the Writers' Guild forum, we got a bit of a hint of why: License renewals are coming up, and before that process there's always a uptick in production as the Broadcasters try to make themselves look better. Once the license renewals are in hand, that whole train screeches to a halt, and creatives are left pecking in the dust for a few years.

It will be interesting to see if that happens this time. And what the creatives affected -- me and my colleagues -- will do once it does. In the past, that's prompted wave after wave of emigration to the more daring and rewarding U.S. Market.

I wonder if the BDU's and the Broadcasters and the CRTC know that if that happens this time, they might just be losing the only thing that, in the long run, could keep them in the game. The only thing that could hold the key to their viability:

Being able to offer something different.

Guess we'll see.

Is Gossip Gonzo? Or Are We All Just Old?

BILL BRIOUX, writer for the Canadian Press, likes to give it rather hard to Gossip Girl, over on his site, TV Feeds My Family:

...a series that by any measure is one of the biggest flops in TV history. Gossip Girl barely averages 2 million viewers a week in a country of 300 million. In repeats the week of April 7-13, it ranked 12th among CW shows--like being the 12th highest scorer among the Toronto Maple Leafs--with 1.18 million viewers. It would have trouble cracking the Canadian Top-20 with that number.

So Gossip Girl a red hot hit? LOL. In fact, LOFL. Yet it continues to get referenced as "buzz worthy" on hyperventilating tabloid TV shows like eTalk and Entertainment Tonight. The CW argues that it is a sensation if not a ratings hit and it does rank as one of the most downloaded shows on itunes and in Internet streaming. Still, not a lot of glory or ad money yet in outdrawing Britney Girl. As a TV show, Gossip Girl is still just all talk.

To many, GG is the perfect example of the lunacy and imbalance of TV these days. So much hype, so much effort going to court young people because of notions of their consumer desirability ("they are open to trying new brands! they're not set in their ways!" etc, etc.) and yet, so undelivered. In terms of hard metrics, it's hard to argue against what Brioux is saying. The audience is small. New York magazine covers aside, this is NOT a show that merits the attention it gets.

Compare it, for instance, to NCIS, a show that most people -- except the tens of millions who watch it every week -- would scratch their heads and say, "is that still on?" It can't just be that everybody writing about TV is in their 20's, is it?

Well. Maybe not.

From Sonia Zjawinski of Wired:

Rather than figure out how to cash in on this new way of watching television, the CW's president of entertainment, Dawn Ostroff, has made one of the worst decisions of her career: She's shutting down streams. From now until the end of the season, all new episodes can only be seen on Monday nights at 9 p.m. in front of the TV, recorded on DVR or via iTunes.

Those hundreds of thousands of viewers who were watching directly on the CW's site will either have to tune in or turn to P2P networks to download the show illegally. And knowing how savvy kids are, that very well may be what happens. Doesn't Ostroff know you can't tell a teen what to do?

The persistent "are we missing something here?" isn't just "Getting old" paranoia; it's a reflection of the very real changes I've seen myself in teen consumption habits.

The idea of the GG audience consuming the show online first made sense to me the moment I saw the way that my goddaughter, who's 16, interacts with the computer.

She's on it all the time. She does her work, Facebooks, IM's and watches TV in a window all at once. That's her space: online. It's a place away from adults, unlike the TV, which is only one way. I don't want to watch the show. I want to watch the show and text and IM Chelsea, and OMG, did you just see that?

In much the same way my parents would get on me about talking on the phone, sprawled in front of the TV doing my homework when I was a teen - "You can't possibly be paying attention to your homework!"-- this way of consuming TV programming might not be a blip. It might be the start of something. That computer window might just be GG's natural habitat.

Maybe they're not coming back.

The question then becomes, well...then what? If the metrics of measurement of online, streaming audience vs. TV audience are skewing weirdly when it comes to younger viewers, what does that mean for a place like CBC, with its new obsession for younger viewers? What does it really mean for a canceled show like JPOD?

I was amazed a couple years back to see that the very teens who would not pay 99 cents to download a song were perfectly willing to pay $3.50 for a 30 second ringtone snippet of the same song. The ringtone thing was so important to teens that Itunes managed to incorporate a ringtone maker into a recent update. (We'll get them to buy the song somehow!) Could this be the ringtone thing writ upon our beloved TV medium?

Somebody better figure this out soon. I mean, the one thing I know for sure is if we're going to continue to chase and be obsessed with reaching this audience, who wants to watch TV but not on TV, well...wow....

...there's gonna be a lot of tears.

Welcome To Hicksville

EVERY ONCE IN a while, something happens in Canada that just makes my pancreas hurt. Such great people, such a wondrous spirit, such interesting diversity and dignity. I've met lovely people in Victoria and Vancouver who couldn't be more different from the Calgarians I've hung out with. I've broken bread in the 'Peg and Regina and had laughs and traded bon mots in Montreal. I've stomped my feet to keep warm in Thunder Bay and Quebec City, laughed it up in the Market in Ottawa, and enjoyed conversations and hale fellows well met in Halifax and Fredricton.

This truly is an amazing country.

When it's not busy being a backward, bush league, ridiculous punchline.

Sadly, we've gotten the latter a lot lately. There's the crushing idiocy of having to explain why culture is important -- a concept that's just taken as read in every other country in the world. There's the insanity of holding the gun to a head of an entire industry over two paragraphs in a 600 page tax bill -- and of continuing to let your oppponents unfairly characterize a labor tax credit as "public funding."

But all that's small beer compared to the latest.

There's one batshit crazy dude who owns a cable company, see? And he doesn't like Trailer Park Boys. So on a whim, he instigates a convulsion that throws the Canadian Television Industry into crisis by witholding money is legally required to contribute. Then, when there are hearings to deal with the problem that he himself instigated, he refuses to show up.

Cut to another set of hearings, another regulatory soft shoe. This time, batshit crazy dude writes a letter to his friend the Prime Minister complaining that the regulatory body is mean.

He has a laundry list of stuff he wants, you see. And he really doesn't want other people getting their laundry list of stuff. Oh, and by the way, he still doesn't want Mr. Lahey or Ricky or Bubbles to get anything. (Bubbles doesn't want much. Maybe a couple Kittys.) Anyway, like it or not there's another whole set of hearings to deal with how the broadcast system is going to change. There are millions on the line.

And once again, the crazy batshit fucker doesn't show.

This marks the second time this year that he has personally boycotted a CRTC proceeding. He refused to turn up at hearings on the Canadian Television Fund in February after learning that von Finckenstein would not be present and had opted to put one of his underlings, commissioner Rita Cugini, in charge.

At the time, Shaw famously referred to Cugini and her colleagues as the CRTC's "B Team," a criticism that von Finckenstein tossed back at the company yesterday.

"Sending you – which in his views, in his terminology, I would characterize as a `B Team' – I don't think adds to the process," von Finckenstein told Shaw executives, led by president Peter Bissonnette. "This is not meant in any way as disrespect to you."

Seriously. Stephen Harper, the fact that you know this guy is embarrassing. The fact that he might have your ear is totally frightening.

The fact that this guy single-handedly holds everybody hostage to his caprices and moods makes Canada look like a hick provincial backwater.

And how wrong is it that they shuffle every cultural institution into one three hour block, but give every cable company and broadcaster their own slot to present -- a slot that Shaw thumbs his nose at. I mean, is this really where we are in this country? Where right there, out in the open, a guy gets to flout the system because he expects his friend the PM to just intervene, change the rules, and give him what he wants?

Seriously. I understand that money talks. But this is bullshit. And we all know what bullshit does.

Does no one have the guts to give this guy his walking papers?

If you're a SHAW shareholder, seriously, aren't you the slightest bit mortified by this guy? If you're in the cable tent, are you happy this guy is on your side?

Is no one shamed by this dude? I mean, really...is it just me?

Memo to Matt Weiner: More Joan

IF YOU'RE like me, you might be pleased to know that, according to Ausiello at TVGuide, Mad Men will be back in July, with a S1 DVD release around the same time.

Yesssssss. Just in time, too. I've been watching those slides over and over, and now the carousel on the projector is broken...

Mmm. the Carousel.

The Potsie Problem

JAIME WEINMAN has a very entertaining essay on his Macleans blog that in no way shape or form represents anything that any writers currently scripting any episodes of any series being produced right now are dealing with in any way shape or form, nosiree not a bit, does not apply at all, I can't even imagine what you're talking about and neither could any of my friends working on other shows, so stop trying to read things into me posting this, jeez, can't a guy just post a link anymore without getting the third fucking degree?

We've all seen it. A character is introduced in early episodes who is clearly intended to be an important character on the show, one of the most important after the stars. But as the show develops, other supporting characters become more important, and that character's relationship with the star, originally intended to be a big focus of the show, becomes almost irrelevant.

The example that probably comes to mind when I'm talking about this is Moira Kelly as Mandy on The West Wing. That character was supposed to be fairly important, and wound up having no purpose on the show; she was dropped after the first season with no explanation.

But usually characters like that don't get dropped, because the actors don't want to leave a steady job and the producers don't want to disturb the chemistry of the show by letting a character go. (It may be hard to write for irrelevant characters, but writing them out is also hard and can provoke hostile fan reaction.) So what happens is that the character hangs around, unmoored from the relationship or plot hook that was originally supposed to give meaning to that character, as the writers either a) search for something else to do with him or her, or b) give him or her lots of token lines and subplots to hide the fact that that character really isn't doing anything.

I call this "Potsie Syndrome," after Potsie (Anson Williams) on Happy Days. He was supposed to be the best friend of the lead (Richie) whose wacky schemes to get girls and make money would lead the two into trouble. Then, of course, a short leather-jacketed thug moved into his role as friend number one, and the writers spent the rest of the series coming up with desperation methods to explain what exactly Potsie's function was on the show. (These include -- and are frequently resorted to for any character with Potsie Syndrome -- making him dumber every year, giving him subplots with his equally doofusy friend Ralph, and letting him sing in every episode.)

Favorite Potsies? Anybody?

Again, not that I'm talking about any current characters that any writers might be struggling with.

I! MEAN! IT!

The full article is available here.

More Murdoch

THE NEWS IS a little crinkly but I thought I'd mention it here anyway. Murdoch Mysteries, the turn of the century police procedural produced by Shaftesbury for the Citytv stations, has had a second season ordered. Scripts are being written now for a July filming start.

Getting ratings data out of Citytv is like getting a rich man through the eye of a needle (or a camel...damnit, I'm forgetting my biblical expressions now) but what's interesting in the press release was the notion that the show built audiences throughout its run. That suggests good word of mouth. It's got to be good word of mouth, because Citytv spens very little on promotion. So yay for that. The more episodes, I mean. Not the lack of promotion.

Wow. See what story breaking by yourself does for you?

Yannick Bisson returns as Murdoch. And yes, apparently he's still dreamy.

Corner Gas Teacheth Once More

HERE, IN ONE small example, is a distillation of what we're up against in the Canadian TV industry.

As you may have read before in this space, Corner Gas is the biggest scripted show in Canada. (And the show that I once observed, ruined everything.) It's one of the only scripted shows to regularly make it into Canada's Top 30 programs. It airs to almost two million viewers every week.

Last night, Corner Gas aired its fifth season finale. (The sixth, and final season is about to start filming.)

As you can see from this Bill Harris article from the Toronto Sun, and the picture, the episode featured a very big cameo. A cameo by Kiefer Sutherland.

I wasn't able to see the show because I got home too late. But when I saw that article, I wanted to see the clip. So I went to the CTV broadband site -- they run episodes of Corner Gas on there, right? Sure, they're hard to find because they advertise all the American stuff on the front page, but...

click through....oh.

Not updated.

Okay, well, maybe I can go to YouTube. Surely someone's uploaded the clip to YouTube -- maybe as a stunt or something. Maybe it was even leaked!

Nope.

See, there it is. In the USA, that clip would have immediately been trumpeted on the network website, front and centre. It would drive hits and eyeballs to the site. There would be so many uploads of the material to YouTube that the network lawyers would have to get them taken down (hopefully by pointing them to the network site.)

The network would have also sent out a press release trumpeting the cameo -- even if they had wanted to keep it a surprise -- that release would have gone out five minutes after the program finished, complete with art -- a decent photo so that you wouldn't have to use a screen grab.

You would assume that people wanted to know.

You would assume that people were interested -- because two million watch every week. (Which, if we're staying in the U.S. analogy, would probably be more akin to twenty million.)

The combo of a network primed and ready to promote its stuff, with the savvy to maximize every marketing opportunity, and an engaged and active viewership ... that is how you work the TeeVee world.

Kiefer Sutherland? The 24 guy? On Corner Gas? Hilarious. "I want to see that!"

"Oh..um...Okay, hang on, let's see, Caruso, Caruso, Patinkin -- what's that doing in there, he's dead to us -- Tierney, Jon Stewart, Sandra Oh, Kat Heigl, McDreamy...hmmm... nope. I'm sorry. Corner What was that again?"

See, in Canada, they don't think that way. That killer promo instinct just isn't there. Nope, we just take the U.S. network promo or the U.S. network art, and maybe film the actors in front of a green screen for our dancing logo. And yeah, we'll get it up there, on the website, sure, ho hum -- eventually.

And this, remember -- for Canada's Number One Original Show.

Now maybe it was promo'd to death on etalk daily, I don't know. All I know is that there are elements of the domestic industry I'm impressed by: the hardworking crews, the able technicians, the frugal art directors and set designers, the tenacious AD's, the resourceful locations guys, many of the suffering and hardworking writers, top actors, and caring and literate directors.

...Not so much the promotional people, the salesguys, and the people who are supposed to serve up the sizzle.

Not unless the steak comes pre-cut up and packaged, and FedEx'ed up from L.A.

Some days, man. Some days.

EDIT:

Finally, some enterprising 17 year old got it up on YouTube. And you know what? Pretty damn funny. Way to go Kiefer. Still, it doesn't spoil our teachable moment, now, does it?

Genre Be For You and Me

THE PODCAST for Tara Thorne and my segment on Q is now available. It's in the first segment. There you go.

The Toxic and The Tin-Eared

CAN NO ONE save Heritage Minister Josée Verner from herself?

Here's the latest Bill C10 lunacy.

A couple days ago Director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) was talking to students in Vancouver, when the subject of Bill C10 came up. He exhorted the students to do what they could to fight it.

He said financially-assisted films should not be treated as propaganda "or as a salesman for the tourist industry. I think that's just too low. They (the government) should know better than that."

Afterwards, as youthful film-makers gathered around him, Lee urged them to "make a noise, whatever" to stop Bill C-10. "It's almost like censorship."

Lee, who also directed such celebrated films as Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is the highest-profile opponent so far to speak out against the bill, currently in hearings before a committee of the Senate.

So, fine, that's embarrassing. An internationally-renowned Director calls you out on your shoddy Bill. People with long cultural memories in Canada might be a little leery if they remember the fiasco around The Tin Drum, which for years gave Canada a reputation as priggish, censorious, and a little unsophisticated in the world cultural scene. It's been a couple decades, and the country has certainly clawed its way back. But in reacting to Lee, here's what the Minister said, (as reported in today's Globe & Mail:)

In addition to pointing out that Lee, as a non-Canadian, is exempt from being denied the particular tax credit included in the bill, [emphasis mine] Verner denied Lee's charges of censorship.

It's not often in this world that you see someone try to defend something by pointing at one of the things that makes the thing odious in the first place.

Central to the opposition to C10 by Canadian creatives is this idea that there are two sets of rules for tax credits -- one for foreigners and one for homegrown artists. It's ridiculous -- and purely political -- to have such a double standard. And if this shoddy bill ever became law, it's probably the clause that would eventually get it struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada.

There's no way to defend this double standard. If you try to say, "well, you can't apply it to foreign productions because then we won't attract their films and jobs will be lost," the obvious retort is, "well, um, what about the homegrown jobs created by Canadian producers -- why are they different?" Part of me would really like to see the Minister chew over that one, but then I realize it's probably not a good idea. Her head might explode.

The incredible thing is that in the very same breath, after pointing out how (separate from the emotional argument about censorship) her government intends to discriminate against homegrown creatives, she goes on to repeat the canard she's been floating for weeks now:

“We are reaching out to industry to work with them on Bill C-10. Together, we will find the best solution for the industry, for Canadian citizens and tax payers.”

That raises another issue for critics of the bill such as writer Susan Swan, the chair of The Writer's Union of Canada. Swan says the arts community has no intention of working out guidelines with the Minister. Swan was in Ottawa last week to deliver this message to a senate committee.

“None of the delegates from the other arts organizations at the senate banking committee last week expressed any interest in doing it,” she said. “There are already guidelines in place for government funding of film. Why would we want to add another tier? The Writers' Union, like Ang Lee, believes artistic freedom is the best public policy for film funding.”

So nobody -- except the Minister, her puppet master, and her special interest groups think it's a good idea. In defending it, she points out why it's odious. And then she claims support and consultation that simply isn't there.

This woman is completely alone out on this limb. And, lo and behold, now the news breaks that Verner is one of the Conservative MP's involved in the brewing campaign finance scandal, which saw Conservative Party headquarters raided by the RCMP last week, on a warrant prompted by an Elections Canada investigation.

Really, how long can this continue? How bad can Canada look before something's done?

And what the hell is it with this country's governments and Election Scandals, anyway? Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Yuck.

Stewart or The Onion -- Who Peels More Laughs?

NYTIMES TV CRITIC Virginia Heffernan had an interesting blog entry a couple days back about The Onion's News Network, the venerable video version of the beloved internet-humor magazine:

On ONN, actors with wonderfully off-kilter appearances play the smarmy prigs that parade through cable news: spokesmen, ambassadors, consultants, people on the street. The spokesmen enunciate in a firm, value-neutral way, as if auditioning for legitimate jobs in the industry. They all seem convincingly unaware that what they’re playing is comedy. The false news stories manage to seem plausible in a dangerous, “War of the Worlds” way, coming across as only slightly distorted versions of the clichés that appear all day on CNN and Fox News.

In one segment, the Food and Drug Administration, represented by an exhausted and concerned-looking official at a lectern, stages an urgent Class I product recall of “piping hot” potpies and asks that they be delivered to the F.D.A. headquarters — to the attention of the F.D.A. panel conference room. In another, a Chinese ambassador crows over China’s status as the world’s No. 1 polluter, his diction combining Confucius and Mao (“The labor of the people made the sky black with the smoke of progress”). And in a segment that’s too sad to laugh at, a pudgy single woman appreciates the streamlined process of heartbreak and rejection on Match.com, which might, a reporter approvingly summarizes, “distract her from killing herself.” The Onion’s bellowed instruction to America is to give up and stop pretending to have hope.

By contrast, fancy, coastal visual comedy — “30 Rock,” “The Sarah Silverman Program,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” — has a strongly aspirational element to it, with protagonists mired in what Joni Mitchell once called rich people’s problems (real estate, restaurants, relationships). They comparison-shop values like consumerism and thinness, glamour and goodness, Obama and Clinton.

The Onion shrugs at these choices. Indifferent and impassive before overblown moral showdowns, The Onion offers only contempt, impotence and blank depression. ONN’s producer, Will Graham, has said he wanted The Onion’s first video foray to be “sinister.” And indeed it is, painting TV news as driven less by bimbos than by mentally ill martinets. After 20 years and various media incarnations, The Onion still displays the attitude of a sidelined teenager who sees no percentage in any of the great human sweepstakes. He has an unbreakable heart. “F.D.A. Approves Napalm Breast Implants.” “Army Holds Annual ‘Bring Your Daughter to War’ Day.” “New Abortion Bill to Require Fetal Consent.”

What struck me while I was reading Heffernan was this: I too, think the Onion parodies are brilliant. Some of them approach and even exceed the sharpness of the satire at work in the longrunning print incarnation. (As an aside, if you are a comedy writer or an aspiring comedy writer, you should go and download the "Tough Room" program of This American Life. It features a long audio profile of The Onion Writing Room. Very eye opening. Should be available on Itunes or Audible.com)

But often, when I'm finished watching, my reaction isn't amusement, it's something vaguely approaching panic -- or even grief. That's because the segments do such a good job of pointing out the massive failures of the entire cable news format that it actually makes me depressed to think of the citizenry gorging on the real thing. The paradox of TV news today: the more you watch, the less you know.

That's why I always tend to prefer the segments that manage to skewer the self-importance of something that's really trivial. Here's my favorite recent example.



Wildly Popular 'Iron Man' Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film


The other bulwark of my current comedy consumption, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, has been kind of leaving me cold of late. Last night, his interview with Barack Obama on the eve of the Penn. Primary was downright embarrassing. To me, Stewart's best interviews have always been with his ideological opponents -- people who came on and actually tried to engage on the points. When they trotted out their standard soundbites -- the ones that pass unremarked on every other cable stop -- Stewart would mercilessly mock and hammer, letting you know that there was a price for bringing out only the low hanging fruit.

But when a Christopher Hitchens or even a Bill Kristol actually gets out of the comfort zone and tries to talk -- actually have a conversation, the results are sometimes illuminating, and always interesting. And unlike anything else you'll see on the TV dial, at least if you're watching something other than BBC World.

On his best nights, Stewart helps put the lie to the whole "short interview" format that's rife in Cable News. He's proving the point made by ONN -- that vapidity is the only thing possible in the restrictive cable news format.

Unfortunately, when he admires his subject, especially political ones (but also, to be fair, a couple of his interviews with the late Kurt Vonnegut) the questions get softer and Stewart seems to lose his focus. What is he, if not the loyal, outraged opposition?

It's worth thinking about if you want to write comedy: what is your point of view? What does it say about the times we live in? And what reaction are you going for? Where does your funny fit? Are you peeling the Onion? Or peeing into the corners of power and privilege?

Comedy, Eh?

FURTHER TO THIS little news below, Jim Slotek in The Toronto Sun is an always-interesting writer with a great sense of comic context. He's puzzled by the "Canadians are so funny" thing almost as much as I am, and he's turned in an interesting antidote of a read:

To some extent, reality TV is a prime culprit for the decline of our influence in the comedy world. With sitcoms nearly dead, many comics I knew who took part in the annual "pilot season" auditions have given up and gone back onstage for good (with the result that live comedy has never seen bigger business).

The Comedy Network, which recently marked its 10th anniversary, was also not the boon it promised to be, hamstrung with tight budgets even when it tried to be ambitious (as with Open Mike with Mike Bullard -- whatever you thought of Mike, a big problem with the show was that it had a writing staff of only a couple of people). No wonder that at its 10th anniversary celebration, the Comedy Network ran a promo reel that was dominated by Daily Show and Colbert Report clips.

(Speaking of the Daily Show, it, at least, values its Canadians -- with Samantha Bee and her husband Jason Jones holding key staff roles.)

For a while, I thought the problem was us. Maybe we had stopped being funny. Maybe it was like that Clive Owen movie Children of Men, where, for reasons unexplained, the last Canadian with a sense of irony was born decades ago, and we've just been drifting along in a state of cowlike unquestioning consumerism ever since, watching Adam Sandler punch people.

But in the last year, I've actually gone out to see twentysomething comics -- as a judge for the Tim Sims Encouragement Fund and at Yuk Yuk's $25,000 Laugh Off (where for the third year in a row, a Canadian standup comic won the grand prize over competition from around the world). Many of them are actually funny, and weird, and worth hearing. And you can hear them at open mikes at places like the Eton House and Spirits and the Rivoli.

From the lemons-to-lemonade department -- maybe the fact that the Americans aren't knocking so hard that also means that some enterprising producer could actually build a Canadian show around somebody funny here, before they were whisked off to the USA. That would be a feat.

It would also require some people getting off their asses and out to see some shows. I have, in the back of my mind, at least five comics I'm going to tap if I get a show greenlit in the next couple of years. No, I'm not telling you who they are. But yes, like good Canadian writers, they're out there.

Imagine the sea change that could be if Canadians bothered to find them first.

QWhat? QYou?

I WILL BE ON CBC Radio's Q again today talking about genre TV and all sorts of various and sundry things. Two p.m.ish on CBC Radio.

Gorgeous Day for a TV Podcast!

DON'T FORGET, if you're by your computer today around 2pm ET (11am PT) you can tune in BlogTalkRadio for the launch of TV, Eh? Radio. Full details are here.

Call in at 646-200-4063 to discuss what you’re watching or join the conversation with our guests and give your opinion:

• Robson Arms co-creators Susin Neilsen and Gary Harvey
• Technogeek Steve Wild on tv on the web
• Screenwriter/journalist Mark Leiren-Young will report on Bill C-10 (see his The Tyee article on appearing before the Senate about the controversial legislation)

The archived show will be available on the site right after it's over.

CTV Executive Exit Shocker!

CTV CREATIVE EXECUTIVE Brent Haynes is going to New York.

He'll be taking over in some sort of East Coast Veep Programming role for MTV Networks. This comes only a few months after he was promoted to have some responsibility over CTV's CHUM acquisitions, including Space. The news supposedly became official around CTV this week.

This could be good news for Canadian comic talent, though not necessarily for writers. And it's certainly interesting timing. Now that new boardroom blood's being forced onto CTV's comedy development -- at the same time as Corner Gas saddles up for its ride into the sunset -- could it be a case of getting out while the getting's good, or the dawn of a new day?

Good Luck to Haynes. Gee, after Roma Khanna, and Laura Michalchyshyn, imagine if the executive exodus gives rise to scurrilous rumormongering among creatives, "Oh, you know, all the good broadcast executives don't stay in Canada ... they all go south..."

Okay. Pause. Wait for it.

Get it? Ah, yes. Irony.

Tasty.