AUSIELLO was out on this alone for a while, but NBC now confirms that their DirectTv gambit with Friday Night Lights will continue -- two more seasons, 13 eps each.
NBC's sucking has an upside!
Monday, March 30, 2009
CFC Applications Open for TV Program
FOR THOSE OF YOU looking to get an edumacation in the scriptening game, the Canadian Film Centre's CBC Prime Time TV Program is gearing up for another year.
They get blurby like so:
Deadline to apply is May 14, 2009. (Be advised, that's a Thursday.) You can find out information on eligibility, what you need to apply and more details on the program at their website.
Representatives of the program will also be on hand to answer questions at an Information Night, Wednesday April 8, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. As part of this info session, I'll also be doing a workshop on Deconstructions and Writing Specs.
For locale and to book a space (which is very limited) you should contact Valentina Puvtoska at the CFC
They get blurby like so:
The CFC’s Prime Time Television Program is recognized within the industry as an essential source for trained writers and newly developed projects for the television marketplace.
Through industry driven training our residents learn to write for episodic television in a collaborative story room environment, acquire real on the job skills, meet industry contacts and develop and pitch their own original series.
Deadline to apply is May 14, 2009. (Be advised, that's a Thursday.) You can find out information on eligibility, what you need to apply and more details on the program at their website.
Representatives of the program will also be on hand to answer questions at an Information Night, Wednesday April 8, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. As part of this info session, I'll also be doing a workshop on Deconstructions and Writing Specs.
For locale and to book a space (which is very limited) you should contact Valentina Puvtoska at the CFC
Two Point Oh Teen Webshow Goodness
COLLEAGUE JILL GOLICK has been exploring the world of web-delivered video content for some time now, and has written about it extensively on one of her blogs, Story2oh.com.
She's now debuting her next project, which looks like a lot of fun.
From the Press Release:
She's now debuting her next project, which looks like a lot of fun.
From the Press Release:
TORONTO, March 27, 2009 — Story2.OH and giraffesoft introduce Hailey Hacks, a series of web videos starring Toronto grade 6 student, Marlee Maslove. Hailey (Maslove) is the Hermione Grainger of web wizardry showing 8-13 year olds all kinds of cool things they can do with their computers.
“Kids have these very powerful machines at their fingertips,” says series creator Jill Golick, “but no one’s teaching them the incredible scope of what they can do with them.” The mandate of the series is to broaden tweens’ use of the computer beyond games, Google and YouTube to include the wider world of blogs, widgets, RSS feeds, social bookmarks and the amazing tools that exist on the web for creating, collaborating and communicating.
My standard rap on the future of web video tends to be that there's probably a 13 year old girl out there who has the secret to doing it right. Smart move, Jill... targeting the demo for whom Web Video is already no big deal, especially in the country that already seems to be an early and heavy adopter of the web video experience.
On the web: www.haileyhacks.com
Entertainment Doesn't Matter?
EXCEPT WHEN IT really does.
You might have read some stuff on this blog before about Louis CK. I've thought he was hilarious for a long time. I loved his HBO sitcom Lucky Louie. And I think it's bananas that finally, a talk show bit of his about how everything's amazing and nobody's happy has gone viral in the last few weeks.
In the midst of the sturm and drang in the culture wars and the cultural funding wars (you have to fight the latter in Canada to even get a shot at the former) it's easy to lose sight of the real reason to do a job like this. Why do you write a tv show? Why do you work in entertainment?
Because it helps people. It makes lives easier. Of course it's not as important as skin grafts or shelter-building or ensuring there's potable water and vaccinations for little kids...but when the trogs and the trolls come a-calling with their small minded bullshit, don't let them convince you that what you do isn't important, because it's "just entertainment."
From Louis C.K.'s blog about his best performance ever:
It's not just soldiers that need that release. We all do. If that's your part in the toil, so be it. Do it with a clear mind and an open heart. And damn the naysayers. You're not doing it for their approval anyway.
You might have read some stuff on this blog before about Louis CK. I've thought he was hilarious for a long time. I loved his HBO sitcom Lucky Louie. And I think it's bananas that finally, a talk show bit of his about how everything's amazing and nobody's happy has gone viral in the last few weeks.
In the midst of the sturm and drang in the culture wars and the cultural funding wars (you have to fight the latter in Canada to even get a shot at the former) it's easy to lose sight of the real reason to do a job like this. Why do you write a tv show? Why do you work in entertainment?Because it helps people. It makes lives easier. Of course it's not as important as skin grafts or shelter-building or ensuring there's potable water and vaccinations for little kids...but when the trogs and the trolls come a-calling with their small minded bullshit, don't let them convince you that what you do isn't important, because it's "just entertainment."
From Louis C.K.'s blog about his best performance ever:
I have been warned, also, by many, to keep it clean. Not somethign I 'm great at. I've also been "taken aside" by some people, some the same who warned me, and they tell me "Look, do your show. Try to keep it clean but do what you do. This is for these kids." SO it's a little confusing.
I started to have other worries to. For instance, for the last six months I"ve been opening my shows with about five minutes about how everyone dies. Not really okay to say to a crowd of people that might die tomorrow and know someone who just did. SO I had to rethink everything.
The show started with the sargent major, who the men love, and who brought us all here. he made a boring but sincere speech thanking everyone and telling the troops to have fun.
Leanne tweeden, who emcees the show, made a long emotional speech about the troops this and the troops that and America loves you and I know what it's like to be away from home and all that.
One of the country singers (i'll give you their names later when i am coherent) went on and did about five songs. The crowd was appreciative. He also said a lot about how much america loves them and god bless and all that. The feeling I had from the crowd was "Hey, we didn't come here to be thanked. Do a show."
Then it was my turn. I had zero idea what I was going to do but as I watched the show before me I realized how politel it all was and that no one had said anything real at all.
I peeked at the audience from the stage door. eVeryone was wearing knit caps, parkas, gloves, everyone was shivering and stamping their feet. The performers were all wearing coats and puffy clothes. I was wearing a thick fleece jacket. As Leeanne said my name I muttered "Fuck it" and threw off the fleece. I went out into the cold night air (outdoor show int he middle of the cold cold desert, like being on mars) in my tshirt, just like any other show.
I hit the stage, not knowing what I would say first till the second i put the mike to my face. I looked at them all and said "how are you fuckers doing?" The place went bezerk and it became instantly plain to me what they needed and wanted and what I needed to do. "You people are in a very fucked up place. I mean, it's Kuwait, the dessert and right over there is a starbucks. I saw the sign and thought it would be a little tent with coffe, but it's a real starbucks! With the jazz music, the chess tables and the faggot with the laptop." They couldn't believe it. the laughs were enormous. I was filthy. It was awesome. People were going crazy. It was like looking out over choppy water. People rocking back and forth, punching each other, clapping, stamping. It was mayhem. Every time I went way over the line I would say "I'm so sorry. I am not supposed to be saying any of this. I"m so sorry. Am I in trouble?" which would only make them laugh more. The sargent major was in the front row, arms folded, surrounded by Colonels and whatnot. None of them laughing. All aroudn them were young warriors, men and women of all ages, laughing and cheering at things that NONE of them could think about saying on this base, EVER.
After a particularly over the top bit, i paused to let them rest. AS soon as there was quiet, a young soldier yelled out passionately "thank you sargent Major!" I was stunned. he was thanking him for bringing me there. and I felt also that he was helping me because everyone felt I was getting myself into huge trouble for their enjoyment. When he said it, everyone cheered. I said "You guys, the Sargent major is a great great guy. And what I love about him is he's just a soldier like all of you. He's not some asshole officer."
I cannot describe the reaction that this got. No one could believe I said it. They made a huge racket, a mix of "Oh my god!' "Oh shit!" and whooping and laughing. It was bannanas.
I did about 25 minutes and said "Thank you guys. Goodnight' Every single soldier lept to their feet and cheered. I yelled over them. "This is the best show I"ve done in years. Thank you thank you thank you!" I kept yelling thank you and they kept cheering. It was very very emotional. I had never felt that way on stage in my life. BEcause even in the best shows I"ve done for the largest crowds, they only laugh. These kids laughed with such relief, with such gratitude. I never made people laugh that needed to laugh that badly. It was amazing.
Back stage I was shaking. It was a stunning stunning experience. I stepped outside next to the stage and was immediately swarmed by young kids wanting a picture. I took hundreds or pictures as the next country act played.
Every single kid that came up to me said how badly they had needed the laughs. Most of them have been here for a year and will be here for another. they had all been "stop gapped" and were only in KUwait as a small break from northern hostile deployments. At least fifty of them said exactly this "I ain't laughed once since I got here last december. Can't tell you how much that meant, sir." they all called me sir.
It's not just soldiers that need that release. We all do. If that's your part in the toil, so be it. Do it with a clear mind and an open heart. And damn the naysayers. You're not doing it for their approval anyway.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sooprise, Sooprise
REALLY, DOES THIS surprise anybody?
Yeah, uh, don't worry. I'm sure the carriage fees you're going to soon be paying for even less content that might be different than what you see on the U.S. networks won't be too bad. And, you know, you didn't want a new Corner Gas or local TV coverage anyway, right? Yeah. Sit back. Don't kick up a fuss. Be Canadian about this. Just sit back and take it in the shorts.
By the way...observe how the story was played in the Financial Post, owned by Canwest:
They choose to lead with the conventional broadcasters' woes. Nowhere in the article linked above, written by Derek Abma, does the fact that Canwest is a large beneficiary in this increase in profits get mentioned. They also repeat that CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told the Canadian Heritage Committee that carriage fees should be considered, without contextualizing his full statement, that he thought this was not a long term solution to the problems facing the conventional broadcasters. That, by the way, is the spin that the much-maligned CBC chose to go with.
Gee, I wonder if that means that when the recession ends and advertising bounces back, they'll remove the carriage fees? Right. Because that's how it always goes.
Steve Janke in the Post offers a full-throated defence of his parent company's intentions re: local stations, here. It amounts to: trust us.
Nice to hear that readers of Canwest papers are getting all sides of the argument.
Meanwhile, the independent wire service Canadian Press, in their article on the increase in profits for specialty and pay tv, don't mention the connection to Canwest and CTV Globemedia either. 'Course, I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that CP is struggling right now, and may not want to piss off the 900 lb. Gorilla's in Canada's concentrated corporate media. Perish the thought. Total coincidence.
The Globe and Mail, print arm of CTV Globemedia, chose not to weigh in at all. They went with the CP story.
Aren't you glad you're being so well served by your concentrated corporate media? Imagine how great it'll be when all the local stations close! Oh Well, at least we still get to see Dancing With The Stars!
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) this week released statistical and financial summaries for the Canadian specialty, pay, pay-per-view television and video-on-demand (VOD) services industry.
Despite slumping economic conditions, the federal broadcast regulator reported that total revenues in the specialty television industry in Canada still managed to grow a very healthy 7.6% to $2.9 billion while profits climbed to a record $686.1 million in 2008.
Revenues in the specialty TV industry have now increased $850 million, over 40% in the last five years. The industry now records a lucrative 23 cents of profits on every dollar of revenue.
Interestingly, two companies reaping much of the profits in specialty television are CTV Globemedia, owners of over 30 specialty channels including Canada’s number one specialty network TSN, and CanWest, owners of over 20 specialty channels, who are now before the CRTC and the Conservative government demanding consumers pay hundreds of millions of dollars annually for a "fee-for-carriage" for their non-specialty channels.
Of the $2.9 billion dollars generated by the specialty television industry last year, $1.9 billion in revenues came from cable and satellite subscribers and $1 billion came from national and local advertising. English-language channels captured $2.4 billion of the total revenues, while French-language channels brought in $481.3 million.
Yeah, uh, don't worry. I'm sure the carriage fees you're going to soon be paying for even less content that might be different than what you see on the U.S. networks won't be too bad. And, you know, you didn't want a new Corner Gas or local TV coverage anyway, right? Yeah. Sit back. Don't kick up a fuss. Be Canadian about this. Just sit back and take it in the shorts.
By the way...observe how the story was played in the Financial Post, owned by Canwest:
OTTAWA -- As conventional broadcasters struggle with dwindling profits, a report issued yesterday shows the pay-television business in Canada is seeing growth in its bottom line.
They choose to lead with the conventional broadcasters' woes. Nowhere in the article linked above, written by Derek Abma, does the fact that Canwest is a large beneficiary in this increase in profits get mentioned. They also repeat that CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told the Canadian Heritage Committee that carriage fees should be considered, without contextualizing his full statement, that he thought this was not a long term solution to the problems facing the conventional broadcasters. That, by the way, is the spin that the much-maligned CBC chose to go with.
Gee, I wonder if that means that when the recession ends and advertising bounces back, they'll remove the carriage fees? Right. Because that's how it always goes.
Steve Janke in the Post offers a full-throated defence of his parent company's intentions re: local stations, here. It amounts to: trust us.
Nice to hear that readers of Canwest papers are getting all sides of the argument.
Meanwhile, the independent wire service Canadian Press, in their article on the increase in profits for specialty and pay tv, don't mention the connection to Canwest and CTV Globemedia either. 'Course, I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that CP is struggling right now, and may not want to piss off the 900 lb. Gorilla's in Canada's concentrated corporate media. Perish the thought. Total coincidence.
The Globe and Mail, print arm of CTV Globemedia, chose not to weigh in at all. They went with the CP story.
Aren't you glad you're being so well served by your concentrated corporate media? Imagine how great it'll be when all the local stations close! Oh Well, at least we still get to see Dancing With The Stars!
Sunday Sermon: If Da Bunk Can Do It, So Can You
IF YOU EVER watched THE WIRE, you were probably mesmerized by the performance of Wendell Pierce as Bunk, the long-suffering partner of McNulty.
So -- you at all curious as to what he's been up to lately?
Turns out, according to this nice little profile in the New York Times today, (article by Stuart Miller; photo by Cheryl Gerber) he's been in New Orleans, filming a roll in a David Simon pilot called Treme.
But he's been doing a whole lot more than that. The N.O. Native has thrown himself into the community rebuilding effort, trying to bring his historic neighbourhood back after Katrina:
A couple days back I wrote about Wendy Crewson, using her celebrity to try to bang the drum for indigenous work at a difficult time. Before that, I ran down the amount of Special Pleading that was likely to be at work in the cases made for "broadaster relief" at the CRTC and Heritage and elsewhere.In late 2007 Mr. Pierce discovered another project, this one in his own backyard. Pontchartrain Park, according to its neighborhood association, was created in 1955 by white politicians looking to maintain segregation. The neighborhood provided stability for working-class blacks, with ranch homes, wide curving streets and 200 acres of green space, including a golf course and later a Little League ballpark and tennis courts.
Before Katrina 92 percent of the neighborhood’s residents owned homes (nearly double the city’s rate), and only 10 percent lived in poverty (versus 28 percent in the parish of Orleans). Those who grew up there include Mr. Pierce; the trumpeter Terence Blanchard; Marc Morial, a former mayor; and Lisa Jackson, now chief of the Environmental Protection Agency.
But the neighborhood had the city’s second-lowest rate of posthurricane return. Many older, long-term residents couldn’t tackle rebuilding projects themselves.
“There were people talking policy at a 40,000-foot level, and everything was held up by policy conflicts,” Mr. Pierce said. Worse, he said, this desirable territory “was in the bull’s-eye” for developers. He fretted that they’d co-opt the area for wealthier (and likely white) residents. “My parents’ generation gave us this great upbringing, which is the foundation of our success. It would be sinful if we allowed this neighborhood to just go away.”
Mr. Pierce undertook a crash course, meeting with experts and sitting in on governance and technical sessions. He rattled off acronyms and figures, explaining mortgage credits or geothermals loops. “I’ve always been a quick study,” he said. “It’s part of being an actor, understanding the world I’m trying to portray.”
The redevelopment authority’s request for proposals received 15 responses, but Mr. Pierce’s was the only local group. Over three years his nonprofit corporation plans to build 350 homes, each likely to cost between $200,000 and $300,000; subsidies will reduce mortgages to as low as $125,000. Geothermal and solar heating and cooling will lower costs and earn mortgage credits.
“His folks lost a lot of memories there, but he is not just rebuilding; he is turning a page forward to what this place can really be,” said Irvin Mayfield, who’s on the board of the redevelopment authority. “It is hard to describe the amount of effort and time it takes to do something like that.”
Richard Monteilh, the executive director of the redevelopment authority, said that a celebrity frontman can accomplish a great deal, praising Brad Pitt, whose Make It Right Foundation has rebuilt six homes in the Lower Ninth Ward. But he added that Mr. Pierce is a more hands-on president.
There are times when you can't let the developers have the neighborhood, and there are times when you can't expect the celebrities to do everything.
Driving home from a dinner party last night, I got into a conversation about the cycles of the business. My passenger and I both lamented a bit from the Toronto and the Vancouver experience of how when the U.S. crews are rocking the service projects, everyone thinks the party's never going to end.
And it always does, and people are left scraping. Now, the sheet starts showing a trickle of shoots coming back, and there's a powerful pull to forget how bad things have been, how recently. But that's a sign. It's a sign of what happens when you don't control your fate.
Of course, writers in Canada don't have that luxury. There is no 'service' work for us. If Canadian produced shows go down, we go down.
I know there are lots of writers who read this. And lots of producers besides.
Today I'm asking you to read of the example of Wendell Pierce, who saw an untenable situation threatening his family's home and neighborhood, and rushed in to fill the gap.
Today should be the day you fill the gap. Spend a few hours, find your MP's number. Call the constit office and ask for a meeting. Draft a letter outlining your concerns. Send an email to Charlie Angus on the Heritage Committee... explain to him why you think giving "broadcaster relief" from their CanCon obligations is a terrible step that's an overreaction to the problem that exists. Crib all you want from the Canadian TV posts here.
Most of all, today is the day not to sit back and let someone do your fighting for you. There is nobody else. There's just you.
Be the change.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Keep It Together
MAN. THE HARDEST thing about all these CBC cuts is seeing the utterly predictable whisperings going back and forth as all the departments turn on each other. Regions vs. Toronto. Radio vs. TV. French vs. English. Children's vs. Adults. Younger Generaton vs. Older Generation, News vs. Drama, Fifth Estate vs. Everybody, apparently.
Discussions of who's more important and what's more essential at this point tears the fabric apart, and pulls on the thread that unravels the whole organization. You are under assault from without. Keep it together, please. And see how it plays out going forward. Turning on each other plays into the hands of those who'd take the whole shooting match down. There's nothing they'd like more.
Discussions of who's more important and what's more essential at this point tears the fabric apart, and pulls on the thread that unravels the whole organization. You are under assault from without. Keep it together, please. And see how it plays out going forward. Turning on each other plays into the hands of those who'd take the whole shooting match down. There's nothing they'd like more.
Freshening Up with Wendy Crewson
CHANGED THE QUOTE on the masthead again. Guess for better or worse we're all going into battle mode. You know, I've been known to roll my eyes occasionally when Wendy Crewson (or the guy from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, old what's-his-name?) are the first people quoted in any article on the business here...but part of the dividends of being the go-to person is that you really hone the soundbite.
Here's an interesting profile of Crewson in the Queen's Alumni publication. She has very trenchant things to say about working both sides of the border.
Here's an interesting profile of Crewson in the Queen's Alumni publication. She has very trenchant things to say about working both sides of the border.
“You can never be big enough [in Canada] to get a big role, because they’ll never give it to you because you’re not a star. But you can’t be a star because they never give you the role,” she explained.
“So you move away to the States and you get some TV role, you do a series or do something like that. Then when you come back, they’ll give you a big part because they’ve seen you on an American show and yet you’re a Canadian. Now when you’ve been away from the States, even though you haven’t been working down there, you’ve been working up here, honing your skills, doing leading parts. So when you go back down there, you have more chance in an audition because you’ve had that experience here. So it worked out very nicely doing work on both sides of the border.”
And here's Crewson on the current situation in Canada:
“In this culture right now, TV drama is the cornerstone of pop culture in the media. It’s the lynchpin of that. Without that, we have no voice that we all tune to, saying, ‘This is who we are. We’re showing Canadians, Canadians.’ All we see on our screens right now are Americans coming back at us. The only popular voice we have right now is the American. A country that does not own its own airwaves, does not own itself. Eventually, it will fall to the influence of whatever country it chooses to broadcast.”
Crewson said she thinks the Canadian government has been too lenient with broadcasters and isn’t doing enough to protect the arts in Canada.
“The CRTC has been so lobbied by broadcasters who no longer want to do any Canadian content,” she said. “They want to buy American shows, simulcast them and get the advertising money. They make all the money from that and spend all their money on American programming, putting nothing back into Canadian programming.” Crewson said her career’s temporarily on hold due to the economic situation.
Go Wendy!
Aspirations
If you're following a link here from the ugly and malicious CBC-slammer site Teamakers, you're liable to be a little discombobulated. This is a positive post -- which you don't get over there. Par for the course when your correspondents are sociopaths.
EDIT: keep reading through this, Chris Haddock corrects some stuff in the comments below.
THE OTHER NIGHT in Toronto at Atom Egoyan's Camera Lounge, there was a screening and discussion session for Being Erica, with Aaron Martin and Jana Sinyor, the showrunners & exec producers. Host Jill Golick ably directed the show as the crowd sampled two later episodes of Erica, the much ballyhooed "lesbian" ep guest starring Anna Silk, and a special sneak preview of the Season Finale which airs on CBC next Wednesday.
Jill's done these "Writers Watching TV" sessions for a couple of years now. Often they involve the preview of a Canadian show that's yet to make air, as when she hosted Malcolm MacRury for ZOS last year. Attendees of these sessions were also among the first to get a look at my Ex-show, The Border, as well as the Citytv comedy Less Than Kind, a session I wrote about here.
What was remarkable about the screening the other night was the turnout. Granted, Camera's screening room isn't the largest in the world -- probably tapping out around sixty. But there were at least twice that many people there. Never has 'first come, first served' seemed so apt.
I actually slipped out to the bar after the first episode because I thought, "this is crazy. I got my chance to ask Aaron and Jana questions already."
It may not have been the epiphany of seeing dozens of disappointed, shivering people queue up in the dead of winter at the Bloor Cinema just to catch a glimpse of the Trailer Park Boys. But it was a clarity moment. The people at that screening were there because of word of mouth. There were several unabashed fans of the show in the audience...many of them -- most, I'd say -- squarely smack in that women 25-54 demo CBC is coveting. (Apologies to Brioux here...and Bill, 50% in the demo is great for CBC -- it's actually something to build on...) A woman I know was more than proud to delcare full-throated support for the show. She'd clearly watched the season and was looking forward to more. And there were several more where she came from.
The lucky ones who got inside were treated to a peek at a very moving season finale, that puts the pin in the biggest mystery of the show's first season. (I got to see about half of it outside on a monitor.)
As is customary at these things, you talk and schmooze and people schmooze you ... and so it was that I found myself talking Canadian TV with someone (and I'm sorry I forget who; it's a whirlwind) who asked me the question I've been asked a thousand times. About why, with my American passport, I didn't go to the USA to write.
I've had several answers to that usually prepped and ready over the last few years. Most of them are true. There are soft reasons, like the pull of friends and family, and harder ones, like the fact that my decision to quit my job and start writing full time coincided with the rise of George W. Bush, and that ascendancy and the ugliness in the wake of the 2000 recount soured me on going home. There's the comical reason -- I may have only been a baby in New York City, but it's enough to make me fucking hate, hate, hate L.A....and there's the kismet reason. I drew up three scenarios for quitting my job in 2000: 1) Get into the ABC/Disney Writers Fellowship program and move to L.A. 2) Get into the Canadian Film Centre's Prime Time TV program and stay in Toronto, or 3) Get into Neither and go become one of the guys who wears a Mickey Mouse costume and gets beaten up by tourists at Disney World. (I didn't think that 3 would happen necessarily, but I knew if it did, thanks to family connections I'd at least have somewhere to stay.)
But when that question got asked the other night, I had a different answer. Something had been swimming around my head for a day or so and for whatever reason, here's what popped out:
"Because Chris Haddock showed me that I didn't have to."
It's been a tough week. If you're a creative, things are always precarious in the Canadian side of the business. Any regular reader of this blog knows that. So because there's no shortage of bad news this week, I wanted to solicit a little bit of good. How 'bout I go first?
Chris Haddock, with DaVinci's Inquest, proved that you could make literate, tough, interesting, compelling TV in this country; without compromise or apology. That show came on at a time before newfangled PVR's where you can tape lotsa stuff at once, and I remember for whatever reason, I always seemed to have a problem getting both The West Wing and Davinci on tape every week. I think I got The West Wing more often. But if I remember correctly, my friend Gregg was the guy who followed DaVinci religiously.
Which is not to say that I didn't catch it whenever I could. I use that anecdote merely to point out how good the show was. I thought of "Davinci" and "West Wing" in the same breath, at the same level. That was...shocking.
I'd had that kind of shock before. When I was on Media Television, I chased doing a story for a while on the first season of THE NEWSROOM. And I remember so clearly talking to a CBC Publicist who was frankly bewildered by the enthusiasm she was getting from the press...everybody loved the series! She kept saying it to herself like she didn't believe it. Like if she didn't say it out loud she'd wake up to find it was all a dream.
DaVinci's evocation of Vancouver as a place, as a locale, was fresh and exciting (and continued through Haddock's next Canadian series, the underappreciated Intelligence) and never disguised or apologized for itself (would that Toronto-set series did the same thing.) Nicholas Campbell was a hero worthy of a Robbie Coltrane Cracker-tradition. (I loved getting to work with Nick on the Ex-Show, and, God, please, I'll get to work with him again.)
The stories were tough, idiosynchratic, didn't have to end on a 'win' but always stayed with you. And for the first several seasons, DaVinci pulled in over 800 000 viewers a year on the CBC. Not bad. No simulcast, bitches. Not bad at all.
Haddock and his partner Laszlo Barna, whose Barna-Alper Productions produced the series, inspired a new generation of creators to go, "wait. maybe we don't have to go. what if we could stay here an do things our way?"
Now, granted, Haddock is a force of nature and not everyone's going to get to be a Haddock. Haddock talks of himself as a producers, and maybe that's the way you have to be to work in the subsidy-system that rules the roost in this country. But the truth is, he is a balls-out U.S. style showrunner. And for better or for worse, his example is why I decided, "Eff it. I'm going to stay."
Jesus, that might have been a huge fucking mista...
Sorry, sorry..this is a Happy Happy Joy Joy Post.
Okay. So. That was the surprise. Here's the second one, that's not a surprise. I tell this to everybody I talk to. Peter Mohan is a guy I worked for who modeled in its purest form, the platonic showrunner ideal of "Best Idea Wins." But he wasn't the first. I've had the fortune to have a boss before that who taught me about managing people in the media.
Howard Bernstein was my first boss out of University. He had been the head of Global News, and the Senior Producer for The Journal, and Executive Producer for Canada AM, and a bunch of other posts in the business. He used to joke that he had either hired or fired everyone in broadcasting.
When I worked with Howard at TVO, here's what he taught me about management. It's valued stuff, that I've cherished to this day and a philosophy that I will follow to the best of my ability in any show I ever run. Howard's philosophy of management was very, very, very simple:
"Going off track" doesn't mean, "not doing it the way I would do it." It means, "has lost sight of the forest, for the trees."
We live in an age of micromanaging where no one's allowed to show their best. And second guessing is all the rage. It's shocking how much Howard's method works. It frontloads the work for you -- you have to pick the right people. But it's funny what you get out of people when they know it's okay to reach.
Howard and I would talk Murphy Brown and Seinfeld all the time. Later, he produced a show on the Toronto Zoo that kept me afloat during my transition to scriptwriting. So though I've never worked with him on a scripted show, I can honestly say he's the guy, as much as any other, who modeled skills and granted me opportunity to do what I do now.
There's a funny thing at work in the Biz --- Something I've seen in my own life. There is no shortage of people who will line up to take credit for your success. But the people who are really responsible for your success are rarely those who are lining up to claim the privilege.
Anyway. There it is. Those are my stories. Now... The Anecdote lines are open. Enough with the sturm and drang. If you work in Drama, comedy, lifestyle, doc, reality, or infotainment production, who's the person who shaped who you are? Who do you owe and why?
It's a tough time out there right now. We need good stories of people who are decent, and who help others forward. Pour out your stories. We could all use a bit of reflected goodwill right now!
EDIT: keep reading through this, Chris Haddock corrects some stuff in the comments below.
THE OTHER NIGHT in Toronto at Atom Egoyan's Camera Lounge, there was a screening and discussion session for Being Erica, with Aaron Martin and Jana Sinyor, the showrunners & exec producers. Host Jill Golick ably directed the show as the crowd sampled two later episodes of Erica, the much ballyhooed "lesbian" ep guest starring Anna Silk, and a special sneak preview of the Season Finale which airs on CBC next Wednesday.
Jill's done these "Writers Watching TV" sessions for a couple of years now. Often they involve the preview of a Canadian show that's yet to make air, as when she hosted Malcolm MacRury for ZOS last year. Attendees of these sessions were also among the first to get a look at my Ex-show, The Border, as well as the Citytv comedy Less Than Kind, a session I wrote about here.
What was remarkable about the screening the other night was the turnout. Granted, Camera's screening room isn't the largest in the world -- probably tapping out around sixty. But there were at least twice that many people there. Never has 'first come, first served' seemed so apt.
I actually slipped out to the bar after the first episode because I thought, "this is crazy. I got my chance to ask Aaron and Jana questions already."
It may not have been the epiphany of seeing dozens of disappointed, shivering people queue up in the dead of winter at the Bloor Cinema just to catch a glimpse of the Trailer Park Boys. But it was a clarity moment. The people at that screening were there because of word of mouth. There were several unabashed fans of the show in the audience...many of them -- most, I'd say -- squarely smack in that women 25-54 demo CBC is coveting. (Apologies to Brioux here...and Bill, 50% in the demo is great for CBC -- it's actually something to build on...) A woman I know was more than proud to delcare full-throated support for the show. She'd clearly watched the season and was looking forward to more. And there were several more where she came from.
The lucky ones who got inside were treated to a peek at a very moving season finale, that puts the pin in the biggest mystery of the show's first season. (I got to see about half of it outside on a monitor.)
As is customary at these things, you talk and schmooze and people schmooze you ... and so it was that I found myself talking Canadian TV with someone (and I'm sorry I forget who; it's a whirlwind) who asked me the question I've been asked a thousand times. About why, with my American passport, I didn't go to the USA to write.
I've had several answers to that usually prepped and ready over the last few years. Most of them are true. There are soft reasons, like the pull of friends and family, and harder ones, like the fact that my decision to quit my job and start writing full time coincided with the rise of George W. Bush, and that ascendancy and the ugliness in the wake of the 2000 recount soured me on going home. There's the comical reason -- I may have only been a baby in New York City, but it's enough to make me fucking hate, hate, hate L.A....and there's the kismet reason. I drew up three scenarios for quitting my job in 2000: 1) Get into the ABC/Disney Writers Fellowship program and move to L.A. 2) Get into the Canadian Film Centre's Prime Time TV program and stay in Toronto, or 3) Get into Neither and go become one of the guys who wears a Mickey Mouse costume and gets beaten up by tourists at Disney World. (I didn't think that 3 would happen necessarily, but I knew if it did, thanks to family connections I'd at least have somewhere to stay.)
But when that question got asked the other night, I had a different answer. Something had been swimming around my head for a day or so and for whatever reason, here's what popped out:
"Because Chris Haddock showed me that I didn't have to."
It's been a tough week. If you're a creative, things are always precarious in the Canadian side of the business. Any regular reader of this blog knows that. So because there's no shortage of bad news this week, I wanted to solicit a little bit of good. How 'bout I go first?
Chris Haddock, with DaVinci's Inquest, proved that you could make literate, tough, interesting, compelling TV in this country; without compromise or apology. That show came on at a time before newfangled PVR's where you can tape lotsa stuff at once, and I remember for whatever reason, I always seemed to have a problem getting both The West Wing and Davinci on tape every week. I think I got The West Wing more often. But if I remember correctly, my friend Gregg was the guy who followed DaVinci religiously.
Which is not to say that I didn't catch it whenever I could. I use that anecdote merely to point out how good the show was. I thought of "Davinci" and "West Wing" in the same breath, at the same level. That was...shocking.
I'd had that kind of shock before. When I was on Media Television, I chased doing a story for a while on the first season of THE NEWSROOM. And I remember so clearly talking to a CBC Publicist who was frankly bewildered by the enthusiasm she was getting from the press...everybody loved the series! She kept saying it to herself like she didn't believe it. Like if she didn't say it out loud she'd wake up to find it was all a dream.
DaVinci's evocation of Vancouver as a place, as a locale, was fresh and exciting (and continued through Haddock's next Canadian series, the underappreciated Intelligence) and never disguised or apologized for itself (would that Toronto-set series did the same thing.) Nicholas Campbell was a hero worthy of a Robbie Coltrane Cracker-tradition. (I loved getting to work with Nick on the Ex-Show, and, God, please, I'll get to work with him again.)
The stories were tough, idiosynchratic, didn't have to end on a 'win' but always stayed with you. And for the first several seasons, DaVinci pulled in over 800 000 viewers a year on the CBC. Not bad. No simulcast, bitches. Not bad at all.
Haddock and his partner Laszlo Barna, whose Barna-Alper Productions produced the series, inspired a new generation of creators to go, "wait. maybe we don't have to go. what if we could stay here an do things our way?"
Now, granted, Haddock is a force of nature and not everyone's going to get to be a Haddock. Haddock talks of himself as a producers, and maybe that's the way you have to be to work in the subsidy-system that rules the roost in this country. But the truth is, he is a balls-out U.S. style showrunner. And for better or for worse, his example is why I decided, "Eff it. I'm going to stay."
Jesus, that might have been a huge fucking mista...
Sorry, sorry..this is a Happy Happy Joy Joy Post.
Okay. So. That was the surprise. Here's the second one, that's not a surprise. I tell this to everybody I talk to. Peter Mohan is a guy I worked for who modeled in its purest form, the platonic showrunner ideal of "Best Idea Wins." But he wasn't the first. I've had the fortune to have a boss before that who taught me about managing people in the media.
Howard Bernstein was my first boss out of University. He had been the head of Global News, and the Senior Producer for The Journal, and Executive Producer for Canada AM, and a bunch of other posts in the business. He used to joke that he had either hired or fired everyone in broadcasting.
When I worked with Howard at TVO, here's what he taught me about management. It's valued stuff, that I've cherished to this day and a philosophy that I will follow to the best of my ability in any show I ever run. Howard's philosophy of management was very, very, very simple:
1) Hire someone smart. 2) Encourage them to take risks, and strive, and stretch 3) Keep an eye on them, and only step in when they go off track.
"Going off track" doesn't mean, "not doing it the way I would do it." It means, "has lost sight of the forest, for the trees."
We live in an age of micromanaging where no one's allowed to show their best. And second guessing is all the rage. It's shocking how much Howard's method works. It frontloads the work for you -- you have to pick the right people. But it's funny what you get out of people when they know it's okay to reach.
Howard and I would talk Murphy Brown and Seinfeld all the time. Later, he produced a show on the Toronto Zoo that kept me afloat during my transition to scriptwriting. So though I've never worked with him on a scripted show, I can honestly say he's the guy, as much as any other, who modeled skills and granted me opportunity to do what I do now.
There's a funny thing at work in the Biz --- Something I've seen in my own life. There is no shortage of people who will line up to take credit for your success. But the people who are really responsible for your success are rarely those who are lining up to claim the privilege.
Anyway. There it is. Those are my stories. Now... The Anecdote lines are open. Enough with the sturm and drang. If you work in Drama, comedy, lifestyle, doc, reality, or infotainment production, who's the person who shaped who you are? Who do you owe and why?
It's a tough time out there right now. We need good stories of people who are decent, and who help others forward. Pour out your stories. We could all use a bit of reflected goodwill right now!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
TV with all the Fix-Ins
JUST AS I think to myself, "I can't do it; I can't write about this crap again, I'm going to open a vein," comes Will Dixon at Uninflected Images to fill the gap. To him I pass the fading torch.
Will's got a piece up about the Heritage Committee grilling of CRTC guys here. Here's a surprise: the answer to fixing their business model is you. You're welcome.
Don't ask them what you're paying for. That's not polite.
Does it all sound ridiculous, like, oh I don't know, like all this is a fait accompli?
Will deals with that too.
Will, when the whole thing goes to shit, do you have any prairie property out there where maybe I can dig a very, very, very large gopher hole?
Yes, I will be dying there. Please feel free to sell my glasses and belt buckle.
Will's got a piece up about the Heritage Committee grilling of CRTC guys here. Here's a surprise: the answer to fixing their business model is you. You're welcome.
Don't ask them what you're paying for. That's not polite.
Does it all sound ridiculous, like, oh I don't know, like all this is a fait accompli?
Will deals with that too.
Will, when the whole thing goes to shit, do you have any prairie property out there where maybe I can dig a very, very, very large gopher hole?
Yes, I will be dying there. Please feel free to sell my glasses and belt buckle.
The Dirty Garage
THIS IS A H/T to Rob Sheridan. If you're writing a screenplay like this right now, put down the laptop, step away from it, take off your Moldy Peaches CD and go eat a veggie burger, you twee hippie poseur goofus.
The Dirty Garage - watch more funny videos
CBC Shows Cut
THIS LIST OF to-be-cut and canceled CBC TV shows comes courtesy Tod Maffin:
This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Border, Being Erica, Little Mosque on the Prairie will all have their seasons reduced and/or budgets cut. Some shows' online extensions will be canceled.
Marketplace & Fifth Estate will have budget restrictions, 80 jobs in English news will be cut.
Radio drama will also be reduced, and CBC Radio shows like The Inside Track, The Point, Out Front and The Signal are gone. The Current will cut the number of shows by 10%
CBC Radio 3 also drops to one stream/sat radio broadcast.
No word mentioned about Wild Roses -- at least none that I could see.
Oh, and no more Toronto Blue Jays baseball games on CBC. Too bad. They actually did a great job with the HD broadcasts.
CBC's report on the cuts is here.
This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Border, Being Erica, Little Mosque on the Prairie will all have their seasons reduced and/or budgets cut. Some shows' online extensions will be canceled.
Marketplace & Fifth Estate will have budget restrictions, 80 jobs in English news will be cut.
Radio drama will also be reduced, and CBC Radio shows like The Inside Track, The Point, Out Front and The Signal are gone. The Current will cut the number of shows by 10%
CBC Radio 3 also drops to one stream/sat radio broadcast.
No word mentioned about Wild Roses -- at least none that I could see.
Oh, and no more Toronto Blue Jays baseball games on CBC. Too bad. They actually did a great job with the HD broadcasts.
CBC's report on the cuts is here.
Hope On The Shelf
IT'S LATE AT NIGHT as I write this. (Thank you, delayed publishing feature.) There are times when the bleakness of the news coming around makes you feel like Joe Frazier right before Cosell shouts "DOWWNN GOES FRAZIER!"
I was caught by surprise by my reaction to the Where The Wild Things Are trailer, (which I've linked to below.) The images, the song, I get to certain point in it and I feel myself tearing up, every time.
See, there are certain things you get out of if you don't have kids. Even as an "Uncle" with kids in my life, reading the occasional story, for whatever reason I've never really ever gone back to Where the Wild Things Are. Which means that I don't really remember it that well -- I don't recall the text, and the images are mostly those that I conjure up from my mind of being read the book when I was a sprout myself.
Clearly there's something deep in my sense memory about this book. And it evokes strong emotions. What a gift.
So no sturm and drang now. How about some evocations of hope? Something positive that I got from some screenwriting or industry related books? Some nugget of usefulness or narrative that reminds me of why I started doing this in the first place.
Find your positive thing and hold on tight to it. And keep writing.
DESPERATE NETWORKS by Bill Carter. A mostly inside-baseball look at behind the scenes building of the network schedules. The hopeful thing I took from this book is also the most scary thing. Every brilliant project was initially spurned. And every hit that comes out of the book came from some development executive who took a flyer on a talent, a piece of material, a something that they saw and their superiors didn't. And then they went out on a limb and made people see it.
You D-types...eventually you're going to have to fight for something. You're going to have to fight for a writer or a project. Read this book and find out why it's worth it.
A GREAT FEAST OF LIGHT by John Doyle Screw the TV turnoff week types. In a brisk, matter-of-fact, unsentimental style, Doyle paints a positive portrait of the effect that TV had on him growing up in Ireland. If you want to dip into a primer about how the medium can make a difference, not by being all self important -- but just by being entertaining and doing what it does best, this is the book. You don't have to say profound things on TV to shape a life. This book is a mash note to the whole TV medium.
BILLION DOLLAR KISS by Jeffrey Stepakoff. Another book I've blogged about here. And there's a lot in here that's depressing. But it's inspiring simply for the retold story of how one idea can pivot and change an entire show's direction. If you're a writer, you will recognize yourself in Stepakoff's every anecdote. And that's comforting too.
SIT UBU, SIT by Gary David Goldberg. I always meant to blog about this book and never got the chance. It's part memoir, part rumination by the guy who brought you Family Ties. What I get from Goldberg is that it's possible to be mercurial and productive, and wise, and foolish, and if you cop to it, come to humility and further understanding. Among the best passages in the book is a self-examination of how he came to leave Spin City... a passage where he's not afraid to look bad. His tale of falling out -- and eventually making up -- with Michael J. Fox should be required reading for any dramatic writer. We tend to be emotional people, and grudges can destroy and poison things...but there's always coming back. And then there's the love affair with his wife. Aw. What a mensch.
There you go. What books are you getting a bit of hope from these days?
I was caught by surprise by my reaction to the Where The Wild Things Are trailer, (which I've linked to below.) The images, the song, I get to certain point in it and I feel myself tearing up, every time.
See, there are certain things you get out of if you don't have kids. Even as an "Uncle" with kids in my life, reading the occasional story, for whatever reason I've never really ever gone back to Where the Wild Things Are. Which means that I don't really remember it that well -- I don't recall the text, and the images are mostly those that I conjure up from my mind of being read the book when I was a sprout myself.
Clearly there's something deep in my sense memory about this book. And it evokes strong emotions. What a gift.
So no sturm and drang now. How about some evocations of hope? Something positive that I got from some screenwriting or industry related books? Some nugget of usefulness or narrative that reminds me of why I started doing this in the first place.
Find your positive thing and hold on tight to it. And keep writing.
DESPERATE NETWORKS by Bill Carter. A mostly inside-baseball look at behind the scenes building of the network schedules. The hopeful thing I took from this book is also the most scary thing. Every brilliant project was initially spurned. And every hit that comes out of the book came from some development executive who took a flyer on a talent, a piece of material, a something that they saw and their superiors didn't. And then they went out on a limb and made people see it.You D-types...eventually you're going to have to fight for something. You're going to have to fight for a writer or a project. Read this book and find out why it's worth it.
A GREAT FEAST OF LIGHT by John Doyle Screw the TV turnoff week types. In a brisk, matter-of-fact, unsentimental style, Doyle paints a positive portrait of the effect that TV had on him growing up in Ireland. If you want to dip into a primer about how the medium can make a difference, not by being all self important -- but just by being entertaining and doing what it does best, this is the book. You don't have to say profound things on TV to shape a life. This book is a mash note to the whole TV medium.
BILLION DOLLAR KISS by Jeffrey Stepakoff. Another book I've blogged about here. And there's a lot in here that's depressing. But it's inspiring simply for the retold story of how one idea can pivot and change an entire show's direction. If you're a writer, you will recognize yourself in Stepakoff's every anecdote. And that's comforting too.
SIT UBU, SIT by Gary David Goldberg. I always meant to blog about this book and never got the chance. It's part memoir, part rumination by the guy who brought you Family Ties. What I get from Goldberg is that it's possible to be mercurial and productive, and wise, and foolish, and if you cop to it, come to humility and further understanding. Among the best passages in the book is a self-examination of how he came to leave Spin City... a passage where he's not afraid to look bad. His tale of falling out -- and eventually making up -- with Michael J. Fox should be required reading for any dramatic writer. We tend to be emotional people, and grudges can destroy and poison things...but there's always coming back. And then there's the love affair with his wife. Aw. What a mensch.There you go. What books are you getting a bit of hope from these days?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
One in Six
JOURNOS have now lost their jobs in Canada. Fagstein has the deets.
Wow. That's a good healthy thing for a democracy.
Wow. That's a good healthy thing for a democracy.
WGC on the CBC Cuts
The WGC put out a press release this afternoon on the CBC cuts that I think summarizes neatly the harsh and negative reality of this purely political act, at a time when we all least need it. Mad props for contextualizing the situation over the last few years too. Why do we do all these frigging reports if NONE of the recommendations are EVER followed?
THE WRITERS GUILD OF CANADA is extremely disheartened by the CBC’s announcement today that it will cut 800 jobs in order to balance its budget. The WGC asks: why has it come to this? We have known for more than a decade, through successive governments and through a variety of official reports, that the CBC is underfunded – the economic downturn and the resulting decline in advertising revenues have only exacerbated what was already a tenuous financial situation.
The Lincoln report, “Our Cultural Sovereignty,” tabled in 2004, was a two-year study of broadcasting by the standing committee on Canadian Heritage. Among its recommendations was increased and stable funding for the CBC. And just last year, the call for an enhanced parliamentary appropriation was repeated in another standing committee on Canadian Heritage report [emphasis mine] which the WGC publicly supported.
The WGC has appeared in front of successive Heritage committees, advocating for financial stability for the CBC. We presented clear ideas, with the BBC as a model, about how to get the CBC where it needs to be. These reports and recommendations have gone nowhere.“The loss of 800 jobs is drastic” says Maureen Parker, Executive Director, WGC. “If the CBC needed an advance on their next budgetary allocation, why was this dismissed outright? There has certainly been sympathy expressed for the financial position of the private broadcasters, whose main business is the simulcast of U.S. shows. Yet the CBC is ours – it is where Canadian talent, Canadian voices, take prime-time prominence and pride of place. The CBC should come first.”The CBC is making popular Canadian shows, and has been succeeding in the battle for ratings. The WGC believes it is essential that the CBC be fully and sufficiently funded to fulfill its role as our national voice. We urge the government to demonstrate its understanding of the value of our public broadcaster, and advance the necessary portion of the CBC’s parliamentary appropriation.
CBC Cuts deep
EIGHT HUNDRED POSITIONS.
400 English, 400 French. Across all services. That's about 10% of the workforce.
Layoffs begin in Summer, complete by September
No additional U.S. programming, No commercials on radio.
National Radio will be cut substantially...lot more repeats.
$50 million cut to programming budget
$175 Million shortfall.
No station closures, yet.
$125 Million worth of assets to be sold to make up one time shortfall.
83% of cuts to TV, 17% to Radio.
Senior managers take minimum 20% cut including bonuses.
bit of math I don't understand exactly -- apparently before today, regional costs were 40% of budget. They're getting a cut of 20%.
More as it develops... but this is deep, broad, and brutal.
UPDATE 4:33 PM: MSM coverage here and here.
400 English, 400 French. Across all services. That's about 10% of the workforce.
Layoffs begin in Summer, complete by September
No additional U.S. programming, No commercials on radio.
National Radio will be cut substantially...lot more repeats.
$50 million cut to programming budget
$175 Million shortfall.
No station closures, yet.
$125 Million worth of assets to be sold to make up one time shortfall.
83% of cuts to TV, 17% to Radio.
Senior managers take minimum 20% cut including bonuses.
bit of math I don't understand exactly -- apparently before today, regional costs were 40% of budget. They're getting a cut of 20%.
More as it develops... but this is deep, broad, and brutal.
UPDATE 4:33 PM: MSM coverage here and here.
Party Down or Party Over?
PARTY DOWN, the new Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars) series, bowed Monday night in Canada on Super Channel. Super Channel is fast becoming a pay channel you buy not for the movies, but for its series content. Besides the new shows Trust Me, Party Down, and Head Case, Super Channel is also the Canadian broadcast home for the hit British teen show Skins, Burn Notice, The Closer and my must-see guilty pleasure of the last year, Sons of Anarchy.
[*Although, let's face it...we're coming rapidly up on the juncture where these guys need to pony up and MAKE SOMETHING. Hear that, Allarco Entertainment? You know, you buy a script and you hire someone to shoot it. I know you can do it if you try, you little scamps.]
Here's the funny thing. Party Down's original network in the USA is Starz. (They make Head Case, too.) Starz is to cable channels what Corning, New York is to tourist destinations. But there it is, following AMC and a bunch of other "who dat?" networks into the production business.
You gotta ask....why?
Well, the answer's simple enough.
Branding. Remember branding? We talked about this be..wait, wait. Here.
See, Starz knows that it's never going to be a major playa. But it also knows that if it's going to get noticed in the crowded cable market in the USA (where cable systems aren't required to carry anybody - channels need to negotiate carriage) there has to be something that's going to sell people on wanting to BUY them. And "the place for reruns of X" is not enough.
But Canadian stations are terrible at branding. Even Super Channel's boldness, such as it is, of buying the "best of series you're not seeing elsewhere" isn't going to wind up with a cohesive brand. Because they buy from lots of sources: F/X, TNT, USA, Starz, BBC, etc. Why? Well, let's crib from the last time I talked about this:
The Nets here ignored the winds of change in Broadcasting down south and didn't get seriously into making and promoting their own shows when they could have helped their bottom lines.
Now, do you think any of them are going to learn anything from why a rinky-dink channel like Starz (or AMC for that matter) -- which get viewers not in the millions, but in Canadian-sized numbers... is getting so heavy into the "make a signature flagship program business?
Or have I just previewed the 2014 CRTC hearings where they all whine about how their business model for specialty is broken?
Super Channel, ultimately, can't be praised because as a brand-new channel they seem hell bent on repeating the experience of all Canadian broadcasters: buy buy buy and don't do the work that could actually pay off -- making something that's all yours to go forth and build your channel on.
Finally, let's pre-empt all the hippie "the internet is mooting all this" talk -- because it isn't. Not yet. Not for a long time still. Look at the furore in the USA over the digital switch. Right now, Cable channels with good brands will be relevant for several years to come...because the alternative is too much like the Internet was before Google. Impossible to find anything. Besides, brand is arguably even more important on the net. Cable channels -- in the USA -- are the things that do branding well, which is why they're the growth area in TV there, too. Whatever the internet-based model for distribution is -- respeck to the Heritage Minister and his Ipod -- it's a ways down the road.
Party Down, people!
EDIT: a previous version of this article made reference to Allarcom. The actual parent company of Super Channel is Allarco Entertainment
[*Although, let's face it...we're coming rapidly up on the juncture where these guys need to pony up and MAKE SOMETHING. Hear that, Allarco Entertainment? You know, you buy a script and you hire someone to shoot it. I know you can do it if you try, you little scamps.]
Here's the funny thing. Party Down's original network in the USA is Starz. (They make Head Case, too.) Starz is to cable channels what Corning, New York is to tourist destinations. But there it is, following AMC and a bunch of other "who dat?" networks into the production business.
You gotta ask....why?
Well, the answer's simple enough.
Branding. Remember branding? We talked about this be..wait, wait. Here.
See, Starz knows that it's never going to be a major playa. But it also knows that if it's going to get noticed in the crowded cable market in the USA (where cable systems aren't required to carry anybody - channels need to negotiate carriage) there has to be something that's going to sell people on wanting to BUY them. And "the place for reruns of X" is not enough.
But Canadian stations are terrible at branding. Even Super Channel's boldness, such as it is, of buying the "best of series you're not seeing elsewhere" isn't going to wind up with a cohesive brand. Because they buy from lots of sources: F/X, TNT, USA, Starz, BBC, etc. Why? Well, let's crib from the last time I talked about this:
In Canada, where the norm is to buy programs and spread’em across your broadcast outlets, shoving square pegs into round holes galore – the dilution of the brand begins almost immediately. This is where you get Alliance Atlantis (now Canwest) jamming CSI:NY and NCIS reruns onto History and calling it “history programming.” When I worked at SPACE, every month or two you’d have to shake your head at some kind of moonshine movie or other inappropriate thing jammed onto the air because it was part of a movie package. Bravo! (who, unlike its U.S. counterpart, didn’t take the savvy step of re-inventing itself as a gay or gay friendly network) fell from running “TV too good for TV” to any kind of crappy movie, so much so that you’d scratch your head and say, “what am I watching?”Contrast that with the U.S. cable channels, where they let the ORIGINALS they make set the tone for the channel...featuring them prominently in all the advertising, and getting reviews, press about them that drive viewers to the channel and creating buzz that makes non-subscribers want to take a look:
Damages, Rescue Me, and The Shield all scream F/X – a channel that’s supposed to be not quite as anything-goes as HBO, and delivers programs that speak to that edginess exactly. Then look at USA – who have perfected a formula of off-kilter light detective shows – Monk, Burn Notice, and Psych.So right now, while the Heritage Committee and the CRTC are clucking about concessions to the industry, and the broadcasters are crying poor, let's keep a few things in mind. First, the specialty channels are the currently-profitable parts of their empires. Well, unless you believe that maybe the conventionals aren't as bad off as they say. Second, the CRTC has already ruled that unbundling starts in 2011. That means you'll be able to choose individual channels in a more complete way, and not forced to buy 'tiers' of programming that protects weak-ass channels with bad branding and little to offer.
Then there's TNT -- with female friendly tough detectives Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer) and Holly Hunter (Saving Grace). The Closer's the biggest show on cable right now. It MAKES TNT.
The shows make the brand, and the brand makes the money.
But in Canada, for better or worse, the channels here buy from lots of different sources – which means lots of different brands. CTV and Global both have shows from all the U.S. networks, and in some cases, the cable channels too. That means that they try to hang their brand on ephemeral, who gives a shit stuff like promos. (which help to define the channel, but not as much as shows.)
They fire off press releases quibbling over numbers because there really isn’t too much to set them apart.
The Nets here ignored the winds of change in Broadcasting down south and didn't get seriously into making and promoting their own shows when they could have helped their bottom lines.
Now, do you think any of them are going to learn anything from why a rinky-dink channel like Starz (or AMC for that matter) -- which get viewers not in the millions, but in Canadian-sized numbers... is getting so heavy into the "make a signature flagship program business?
Or have I just previewed the 2014 CRTC hearings where they all whine about how their business model for specialty is broken?
Super Channel, ultimately, can't be praised because as a brand-new channel they seem hell bent on repeating the experience of all Canadian broadcasters: buy buy buy and don't do the work that could actually pay off -- making something that's all yours to go forth and build your channel on.
Finally, let's pre-empt all the hippie "the internet is mooting all this" talk -- because it isn't. Not yet. Not for a long time still. Look at the furore in the USA over the digital switch. Right now, Cable channels with good brands will be relevant for several years to come...because the alternative is too much like the Internet was before Google. Impossible to find anything. Besides, brand is arguably even more important on the net. Cable channels -- in the USA -- are the things that do branding well, which is why they're the growth area in TV there, too. Whatever the internet-based model for distribution is -- respeck to the Heritage Minister and his Ipod -- it's a ways down the road.
Party Down, people!
EDIT: a previous version of this article made reference to Allarcom. The actual parent company of Super Channel is Allarco Entertainment
How I Know I'm Still American
IN CASE YOU missed it, a very funny finale on 22 Minutes last night, culminating in a bit on the latest FAUX News fracas.
So how do I know I'm still, in spite of it all the seeming vitriol, (oh Lordy did I hear an earful from my awesome cousin!) a good little American boy?
Critch's button on this desk joke.....hurts, man. It hurts.
So how do I know I'm still, in spite of it all the seeming vitriol, (oh Lordy did I hear an earful from my awesome cousin!) a good little American boy?
Critch's button on this desk joke.....hurts, man. It hurts.
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