CHARLIE SHEEN? Really?
If you go to Itunes, and search out the Q Podcast for Thursday, July 19th, you can hear me being a total bitch about the Emmy Awards, with Jian and Halifax's own Tara Thorne.
For the record, I do understand that Two and a Half Men is the most popular sitcom out there right now.
If you can explain to me so that I understand, exactly why it is funny, I will send you five dollars. Free and clear. Yes, it's five Canadian dollars, but if you're American -- hang on to that for a few more months -- it'll be worth at least $5.20 by Christmas!
Course, we'll still be paying five bucks more than you for books. You bastards.
Anyway, the fun begins about 14:42 in.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
CRTC Deadline One Week From Today
PLAYBACK takes a different take on the CRTC's CTF proposal.
And the most important, most true statement ever made about TV vs. Movies:
Remember, you have til July 27 to file a response to the report on the CTF.
Will has a step by step guide of how to do that, here.
There are 1800 members of the WGC. If 1/3 wrote letters...that would be something. Please do it today.
Shawn Williamson, producer with B.C.'s Brightlight Pictures, tells Playback that reducing Cancon criteria would make it "easier for us to package things that are going to be more palatable, if we can attract talent that's already known internationally."
File that under prevailing wisdom. But is it true?
Let's look at the two top-rated Canuck dramas, as listed in the CFTPA's Profile 2007: Degrassi: The Next Generation and Instant Star, both from Toronto's Epitome Pictures and both made with CTF cash. Both are 10 out of 10 shows, and both continue to enjoy successful runs at home and abroad. In the eyes of U.S. broadcaster The N, these entirely Canadian-made shows can do no wrong. If we jump over to comedy, CBC's CTF-supported Little Mosque on the Prairie has had no problem garnering international attention, which, more recently, has translated into international sales.
And the most important, most true statement ever made about TV vs. Movies:
Cinema needs stars. TV makes them. Top U.S. shows like CSI and Grey's Anatomy came out of the gate with no real stars and have dominated the ratings. It is the writers and showrunners of these and other hit series that are the true behind-the-scenes stars of TV.
If Canadian shows require Hollywood talent, they don't have to look very far, because Hollywood is full of working Canucks who straddle the border, whether it's the directors of Degrassi or Little Mosque thesp Carlo Rota, who pulls double duty on 24. Sure, if a Canadian show could land a star of the caliber of say, George Clooney, or one of Hollywood's top scribes, no doubt that would lead to a boost in a show's ratings. But how many shows reliant on CTF cash could afford them?
CTF-supported shows could only bring in mid-level foreign talent on par with so many Canadians who are currently not working.
Remember, you have til July 27 to file a response to the report on the CTF.
Will has a step by step guide of how to do that, here.
There are 1800 members of the WGC. If 1/3 wrote letters...that would be something. Please do it today.
It's All My Fault
SO, HERE'S how the story ends:
OSHAWA -- No, a plane did not crash in Oshawa on Thursday.
The twin-engine aircraft sitting in the middle of Stevenson Road was there as part of a shoot for a TV miniseries -- but the unusual sight did prompt a few concerned phone calls.
"We've had a lot of calls from the media and some people out walking around were wondering what happened," said Stephen Wilcox, manager of the Oshawa Municipal Airport. "Today is the one day it's OK if you see a plane on the road."
from newsdurhamregion.
At one point yesterday, 680 News radio was actually reporting that a plane overshot the runway. Way to go on the local journalism, guys.
Now that that's out of the way, and the Director and his heap godlike awesome crew mercifully got our day, here's how the story starts:
My standard joke about Canadian TV production is that if you call for someone to drown in the ocean, they'll ask you to make it a bathtub.
Then the next day they'll come down and tell you you can't have any water.
So it was that when I came to craft my first episode of THE BORDER, I started thinking in terms of a long, distant CGI shot. I mean, a plane? C'mon.
I've been through two series in a row where the challenge was always, always thinking big while writing small. And you naturally assume that's how it's going to go.
But THE BORDER is a different kind of show for Canada. It's an action adventure show. It's about high-stakes and skullduggery along the United States-Canadian border, and the plucky squad of agents from Immigration and Customs Security who keep us safe from all manner of baddies looking to smuggle drugs or guns or objets du terreur across what used to be called "the longest undefended border in the world."
Of course, since 9/11, that border has gotten a lot pricklier, and the Americans have gotten a lot...weirder. And so THE BORDER is about that too. The show went through five years of development under Executive Producers Lindalee Tracey and Peter Raymont. A pilot shot last fall. I've been working on the series since early May.
Anyway, back to the story. This episode I wrote, "Bodies on the Ground" will run third in the series, but it's being shot first. So this is the big one out of the gate.
The first surprise I got was when the Director, John Fawcett, (at right) shook his head and immediately discounted the idea of the CGI plane. And in that way that writers never think of, he had the A-1 simple reason why:
It's a hand held show.
Ulp. I didn't think of that. But part of the energy and excitement of Fawcett's pilot is that it, indeed is shot all hand held. The camera's always moving. The pace is fast. There are lots of cuts. And to drop a shot of a distant CGI plane into that...well...
It wouldn't work.
So it came to be that I found myself sitting quietly in the corner of meetings as they talked about the logistics of shooting near an airport, finding a road where you could tow a small jet to the middle of the road to make it look like the plot of the story -- where a small jet puts down with fugitives in a lonely stretch of Quebec road.
The night of the first "plane" conversation I went home and sweated through my sheets. It feels like having the power to curse someone. You mean, I just write something down, and it happens? Is no one going to tell me 'no?' Someone always tells you no.
(pic above: not quite dead)
And so it went. Through all the planning sessions, the boarding and the scheduling, you see the sequences sitting there, ready for the jet day and part of you thinks, "they're not really going to do this, are they?"
And the funny thing is that the Jet isn't the only "big" part of the episode. There's gags with bullet hits, and stunts, and oh yeah, I think a car blows up too.
Nobody said no.
I scripted in JTF2 commandos. And on the day, suddenly there they are. And ... um... there sure are a lot of them. More than I pictured.
But nobody said no.
Every show, big budget or small, marshalls its resources. Battlestar Galactica and 24 are two shows I've noticed which are particularly good about harnessing and amortizing their budgets. You'll see a few episodes where lots of big stunts or CG happens, and then there's a few smaller character episodes. X-Files used to do this really well too.
Part of the brief of doing a big action adventure episode like this means that down the road you need to have different types of eps, where the drama is intense but the staging is easier. We've already got a couple of those episodes of The Border scripted, and they're great for totally different reasons. The next episode I write will probably be one of those kinds of eps, too. It's a chance to flex different muscles in your writing -- funny clever, not so much boom boom.
But while they're prepping the boom boom, I gotta tell you, heap god, it's a thing of beauty.
As I stood out on a road in the middle of Oshawa yesterday, watching the crew and actors who'd braved the rain and the heat to make 6 2/3 big pages happen, it was kind of awesome.
Less awesome? All the fingers pointing at me as someone said, "this is the guy who ordered up the plane."
Aw. Um...wait...I...uh...
Now, there's nothing I can do. I'm the high rolling writer. I'm the guy who demands planes in the middle of the road.
Actually, there's two planes in the episode...and two more that we don't really see...uh...but that's perhaps saying too much.
A few days before we started shooting, the cast gathered in a board room at the production office and read the script aloud for the first time. Producer Brian Dennis was there too, reading all the action descriptions, and as he read aloud, I got to hear things like, "the plane sits in the middle of the road....DENIS." And "the car explodes....DENIS."
Sigh. Nobody said no.
Actually, that's not entirely true. Because there's a search plot in the episode, at some point along the process somebody wanted a scene where we saw the JTF2 commandos ready to go in with dogs. And so I wrote one in.
And Brian came to me one day and told me how much the dog would cost. And I got a "take it out." And a couple of askance looks from people saying, "can you believe the guy? asking for a dog?"
I didn't even bother mentioning that the dog hadn't been my idea in the first place. And I took it out. And taking that dog out made me feel just a tiny little bit better. I swear, I slept a bit better that night.
So to review, plane in road, second plane, commandos-a-go-go, squib hits, fake blood, police cars with windshield gags, fireballs and stunts: A-Ok.
Just don't write in a dog.
I don't understand this business at all.
(pic above: Co-Showrunner David Barlow blames me for the plane, too.)
The Border premieres on CBC Television in January 2008.
OSHAWA -- No, a plane did not crash in Oshawa on Thursday.The twin-engine aircraft sitting in the middle of Stevenson Road was there as part of a shoot for a TV miniseries -- but the unusual sight did prompt a few concerned phone calls.
"We've had a lot of calls from the media and some people out walking around were wondering what happened," said Stephen Wilcox, manager of the Oshawa Municipal Airport. "Today is the one day it's OK if you see a plane on the road."
from newsdurhamregion.
At one point yesterday, 680 News radio was actually reporting that a plane overshot the runway. Way to go on the local journalism, guys.
Now that that's out of the way, and the Director and his heap godlike awesome crew mercifully got our day, here's how the story starts:
My standard joke about Canadian TV production is that if you call for someone to drown in the ocean, they'll ask you to make it a bathtub.
Then the next day they'll come down and tell you you can't have any water.
So it was that when I came to craft my first episode of THE BORDER, I started thinking in terms of a long, distant CGI shot. I mean, a plane? C'mon.
I've been through two series in a row where the challenge was always, always thinking big while writing small. And you naturally assume that's how it's going to go.
But THE BORDER is a different kind of show for Canada. It's an action adventure show. It's about high-stakes and skullduggery along the United States-Canadian border, and the plucky squad of agents from Immigration and Customs Security who keep us safe from all manner of baddies looking to smuggle drugs or guns or objets du terreur across what used to be called "the longest undefended border in the world."
Of course, since 9/11, that border has gotten a lot pricklier, and the Americans have gotten a lot...weirder. And so THE BORDER is about that too. The show went through five years of development under Executive Producers Lindalee Tracey and Peter Raymont. A pilot shot last fall. I've been working on the series since early May.
Anyway, back to the story. This episode I wrote, "Bodies on the Ground" will run third in the series, but it's being shot first. So this is the big one out of the gate.
The first surprise I got was when the Director, John Fawcett, (at right) shook his head and immediately discounted the idea of the CGI plane. And in that way that writers never think of, he had the A-1 simple reason why:It's a hand held show.
Ulp. I didn't think of that. But part of the energy and excitement of Fawcett's pilot is that it, indeed is shot all hand held. The camera's always moving. The pace is fast. There are lots of cuts. And to drop a shot of a distant CGI plane into that...well...
It wouldn't work.
So it came to be that I found myself sitting quietly in the corner of meetings as they talked about the logistics of shooting near an airport, finding a road where you could tow a small jet to the middle of the road to make it look like the plot of the story -- where a small jet puts down with fugitives in a lonely stretch of Quebec road.The night of the first "plane" conversation I went home and sweated through my sheets. It feels like having the power to curse someone. You mean, I just write something down, and it happens? Is no one going to tell me 'no?' Someone always tells you no.
(pic above: not quite dead)
And so it went. Through all the planning sessions, the boarding and the scheduling, you see the sequences sitting there, ready for the jet day and part of you thinks, "they're not really going to do this, are they?"
And the funny thing is that the Jet isn't the only "big" part of the episode. There's gags with bullet hits, and stunts, and oh yeah, I think a car blows up too.
Nobody said no.
I scripted in JTF2 commandos. And on the day, suddenly there they are. And ... um... there sure are a lot of them. More than I pictured.
But nobody said no.
Every show, big budget or small, marshalls its resources. Battlestar Galactica and 24 are two shows I've noticed which are particularly good about harnessing and amortizing their budgets. You'll see a few episodes where lots of big stunts or CG happens, and then there's a few smaller character episodes. X-Files used to do this really well too.
Part of the brief of doing a big action adventure episode like this means that down the road you need to have different types of eps, where the drama is intense but the staging is easier. We've already got a couple of those episodes of The Border scripted, and they're great for totally different reasons. The next episode I write will probably be one of those kinds of eps, too. It's a chance to flex different muscles in your writing -- funny clever, not so much boom boom.
But while they're prepping the boom boom, I gotta tell you, heap god, it's a thing of beauty.
As I stood out on a road in the middle of Oshawa yesterday, watching the crew and actors who'd braved the rain and the heat to make 6 2/3 big pages happen, it was kind of awesome.Less awesome? All the fingers pointing at me as someone said, "this is the guy who ordered up the plane."
Aw. Um...wait...I...uh...
Now, there's nothing I can do. I'm the high rolling writer. I'm the guy who demands planes in the middle of the road.
Actually, there's two planes in the episode...and two more that we don't really see...uh...but that's perhaps saying too much.
A few days before we started shooting, the cast gathered in a board room at the production office and read the script aloud for the first time. Producer Brian Dennis was there too, reading all the action descriptions, and as he read aloud, I got to hear things like, "the plane sits in the middle of the road....DENIS." And "the car explodes....DENIS."
Sigh. Nobody said no.
Actually, that's not entirely true. Because there's a search plot in the episode, at some point along the process somebody wanted a scene where we saw the JTF2 commandos ready to go in with dogs. And so I wrote one in.
And Brian came to me one day and told me how much the dog would cost. And I got a "take it out." And a couple of askance looks from people saying, "can you believe the guy? asking for a dog?"
I didn't even bother mentioning that the dog hadn't been my idea in the first place. And I took it out. And taking that dog out made me feel just a tiny little bit better. I swear, I slept a bit better that night.So to review, plane in road, second plane, commandos-a-go-go, squib hits, fake blood, police cars with windshield gags, fireballs and stunts: A-Ok.
Just don't write in a dog.
I don't understand this business at all.
(pic above: Co-Showrunner David Barlow blames me for the plane, too.)
The Border premieres on CBC Television in January 2008.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Rain, Rain, Go Away...
I'M DOING a big-little dance, lighting candles and chanting hoping that the morning's rain in Toronto dissipates quickly.Why, you say?
Because today is Day One of shooting of my first episode of THE BORDER. And let's just say, it's outside, and it involves a very, very, very, very large prop.
I'll be heading to set after my pop on Q today. If you have control of the heavens in any meaningful way, like control of clouds and rain and things -- who knows, maybe you're a fan of the blog -- anyway, if you have providence over such things and can throw me a sudden shift of wind and miraculous clearing, I'd-a be much obliged. Thanks.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Doyle Explains Canadian TV to Americans, And Whaddya Know, Nobody Gets Hurt.
FOR THOSE of us experiencing a bit of John Doyle withdrawl as he takes a vacation from the Globe & Mail, here's an interesting curiosity.
TV Quarterly is the publication of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (the Emmy Awards people.)
In the latest issue, Doyle explains Canadian TV to an American Audience.
Strangely, he managed to get through the whole article without swearing or weeping once.
Kidding. You know, there is that great truism that says if you really want to know if you've got a good story, you have to pitch it to someone who's never heard it before. That's how you hone it. That's how you get better.
The way Doyle explains the narrative, and the purpose of Canadian TV, it almost seems like it's worth fighting for.
Anyway, if you're Canadian, here's something to read for when the bastards are getting you down. And if you're American, here's a primer on what I babble about on this blog all the time.
To download the entire issue, including Doyle's cover story, click here.
In other National Academy News, I'll be on CBC Radio's Q program tomorrow discussing the Emmy nominations. Fun!
Dear CRTC,
JOHN DOYLE'S explaining us to the Yankees. And Diane Kristine's managed to come up with the first ever Podcast on Canadian TV.
Hey, just wondering, what have you guys done for Canadian TV lately?
Wow...um...whaddaya know.
Are those crickets I hear?
Hey, just wondering, what have you guys done for Canadian TV lately?
Wow...um...whaddaya know.
Are those crickets I hear?
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Emily Post's Guide to Save-Our-Show Campaigns
FANS, COME in closer. Closer. Yes. That's good. Okay, I know sometimes you and I have disagreed on stuff like, oh, fanfic. But you know I love you. Hell, I am you. I remember explaining my X-Wing Fighter to my Ga and God love her if she didn't just sit there and nod when I babbled excitedly explaining who Darth Vader was. I traced and re-traced and collected every bit of Peanuts memorabilia I could. I went to three Star Trek conventions willingly. I built the Battlestar Galactica model. In a dark period in my past, I was even obsessed by Mickey Mouse. (I lived in Orlando. What do you want from me?)
As I cruised into adulthood, before I joined the dark side and started creating entertainment, I flipped for Twin Peaks. I thought long into the night about episodes of thirtysomething and The Wonder Years. I taped every episode of the first three seasons of Murphy Brown. I'm not even counting M*A*S*H, or my current crazy-love-object, the Ron Moore era Battlestar Galactica, Yes, brothers and sisters, testify -- I know what it's like.
And oh, shall we speak of it? Shall we speak of the dark times? Of the poor shows, beloved, that never made it? That sank beneath the waves and caused me depression? Yea, verily, Almost Grown and Eyes, I'm looking your way. My So Called Life and My Life and Times, I mourn you still. Sons & Daughters, Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Andy Richter Controls The Universe, Love Monkey -- no...no...the wounds are still too fresh.
I know how it feels.
But now I'm wearing a different hat. I write for shows. So that fan enthusiasm -- so much easier to foment and direct in this easy internet age -- might just come to bear and help save a project I loved and worked on.
Or it might help kill it.
Let me explain.
I'm going to take off my writer hat right now and put on another, earlier chapeau. This one's worn, and it doesn't fit as well. There's a couple of holes in it. But it should still serve. Ah. There it is. Sharp.
Once upon a time, dear reader -- after I was a fan, but before I was a self-interested writer...I was a network person.
Please. No hissing.
In 1997 I helped start up Canada's Sci-Fi Channel, SPACE: The Imagination Station. In those early days, our offices were kind of all crammed together -- as were our job functions. The publicist spent a whole lot of time answering the mail. And because we were practically on top of each other in a small office, we kind of all got to see it. And it was instructive.
Letters written in meticulous longhand by genteel grandmothers; crazy precise lettering of obsessives; semi-literate screeds that ended in the middle of a sentence -- we got it all.
In my years working inside the TV station I got a chance to see all the different kinds of mail that came through the door: job applications, complaints, contest entries, resumes, requests, and fan letters. Lots and lots of fan letters.
More importantly, I saw where they went. I saw who they went to, who was tasked with dealing with them, and how they reacted. It's not necessarily who or how you think.
Recently, fan campaigns are back in the news. Part of this is cyclical, of course, as the upfronts means not just a flurry of new shows, but the killing of a bunch of once-upon-a-time hopefuls.
Fan campaigns are usually futile -- too little too late, too small a fan base, a hundred other reasons...but they continue to flourish because every once in a while, they work. Or seem to work.
Jericho is the latest example. Yes, CBS reversed its decision to cancel and bring the show back for 8 new episodes. Depending on whom you talk to, fans either had a lot to do with that, or not very much to do with it at all. Me, I think it's in the middle. I think that Jericho fans organized very early and did good work writing letters, and I think that CBS, who wasn't that sure about canceling the show to begin with, found out that advertisers weren't too excited by their new shows and reversed on Jericho to buy themselves time.
But that victory, no matter whose it is, puts fire into the heart of any fan who thinks that maybe the show they love is going out before its time. But all fan campaigns are not created equal. And there are ways you can go seriously wrong and actually wind up hurting the show you love.
So I wanted to talk about Save-our-shows. I'm going to make a lot of reference to Blood Ties here, because that's the show I just finished on, a show I'd love to have the opportunity to write for again, and a show that's right in the midst of a mobilized campaign by its fan base.
So, take this as you will. But as a writer/insider, once and future fan, and former network person (though not a suit; never a suit) I present to you
Emily Post's Guide to Save-Our-Show Campaigns*
*not actually affiliated with Emily Post
1) Don't Send Crap.
It seems like a good idea, and kind of hooky -- find something that's associated with the show and send it on in in droves to "show your support." Jericho fans sent nuts, and yup, every news story about the show mentioned the damn nuts. But the nuts are beside the point. It's a bauble.
The problem is that now everybody wants to send some tchochke. And man, that's a big mistake.
So, Blood Ties fans, please, don't send pints of blood or fake fangs or anything. What you say in a letter is way more important and powerful than any hunk of junk you push through the postal system.
I have less of an opinion on other "organizing cries" like raising money for a charity or an ad or something -- though really, my humanist side says that it's always better to give to charity than try to buy an ad in Variety -- but when it comes to the crap through the mail stuff, I'm firm. It's a bad idea.
Because I've seen who it goes to.
The people who have the power to greenlight or un-cancel a show are never the people that have to deal with the cases of nuts or steel rods or Mars bars or fake vomit or whatever else gets sent by the skidload. It never gets anywhere near them. Instead, the likely outcome is that you're going to make some personal assistant or mailroom person's day absolute hell. For weeks. They get paid crap, and now they have to deal with your crap. It's not fair. They can't do anything about the show. And they're the ones who suffer.
But there's also an extra-special reason not to send crap. See, those powerless people? Even though they're powerless, they have something you don't. In whatever, small way -- they have access. The personal assistant to Susanne Daniels, President of Lifetime Networks, talks to her all day, every day. The mail gets delivered in the company each and every day.
Now when I worked at a network, occasionally, very impulsively -- someone very big would ask the "little people" what they thought of something. You know, to be populist.
What do you think they're going to say if they've spent weeks dealing with your crap?
That's right. It's only natural. It's only human. They are going to HATE YOUR SHOW. And they are going to be GLAD IT WAS CANCELED. They will not defend the show, because you have MADE THEIR LIVES HELL.
I have seen this happen with my own eyes. It's even happened to me.
When SPACE went on the air, we bought Doctor Who. We polled the online fans on our website asking where we should start the series. Like, 90% said, "Play it from the beginning." So we did.
And the show's ratings were abysmal. I'm not talking bad. I'm talking, test-pattern bad. It was a colossal mistake. The kind you make when you're new and just starting out.
So because we'd taken such a bath in the ratings, the decision was made not to buy more.
And the letters came by the bushel. Now. Keep in mind that this was for our lowest-rated show by a wide, wide margin. If the people who wrote the letters had all watched the show, and gotten their friends to do the same, maybe it would have been a different story. But they didn't. But the failure, you see, the anger -- well, that was on us. Except...not. Because the person who had the power to buy more or not was insulated from the mail by secretaries and all the little people.
Now, thank God, no one sent TARDIS's or scarves or anything -- but the mail in and of itself was...offputting. Extremely offputting. It was angry, and arrogant, and full of "you stupid this's" and "you screwed up that..." and it was just really hateful, and unpleasant. I'm serious. From that day to this, I've never seen more unpleasant fan mail.
So we decided we hated Doctor Who.
It took me years -- til the new series, as a matter of fact, to get the bad taste left by the Who fans out of my mouth.
That, ladies and gents, is a backfire.
Which brings me to
2) Learn how to Translate your FanLang.
FanLang is fan language. It can be the in-jokes from the show, jargon, whatever. Or it can be phrases like "squee" or other stuff that comes from the world of the show. A passionate fan letter is great. It's fun. But it's not going to be the most effective way to influence a decision to continue or cancel a show.
There's something you have to accept and account for right off the top: the people you're writing to approach the series in a completely different way than you do. To them, it's product. It's a commodity. It's a delivery device for eyeballs. Your eyeballs. And if the show's in danger of being canceled, the problem is that they feel that your eyeballs aren't enough. They need more.
Don't get upset or shirty about this. After all, TV is still a monumentally good deal for you. The compact is that you get to watch this piece of entertainment that costs upward of a million dollars, and all you have to do is let someone try to sell you soap every ten minutes. That's a sweet deal, even if that model is breaking down.
Because they view the show as a commodity, emotional appeals or ultimatums are not going to work. Not unless they're framed in language that a network person is going to respond to.
Remember the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where Picard was preparing for that diplomatic misson where he had to say the greeting exactly right or there'd be big heap trouble? It's like that. As you sit down to write the letter of support, keep that in mind. Remember -- you're trying to speak to them in language they'll find useful.
But here's the trick: that doesn't mean complaining about ratings or talking about demographics or whatever other empirical measurement you stumble upon. One of the most tiresome aspects of the online debate between the crazy Old Battlestar Galactica fans and the crazy New Battlestar Galactica fans is when the fans of the old show starting using "ratings data" to prove their point that the new show was an utter failure that no one ever watched.
The interpretations and analyses were crazy-making and offputting because they quoted figures out of context, and missed the barn of common sense.
Any network or channel will have reams of empirical data on the show. They do not need you to provide empirical data. And they will not take kindly to you trying to frame empirical data. It's not your strength, so don't go there. You are trying to be the human face behind the empirical data.
3) Attach the Show To The Channel's Core Values
Believe it or not, every channel has a vision of themselves. Who is their "typical viewer?" Who are the viewers they want. The cynical thing is to say, "young," these days. But that's not always the case. Beyond the viewers, there are certain types of people, certain modes, if you will, that the channel finds attractive. Remember -- it's all about positioning themselves to their advertisers. They want to be able to say that their viewers are like this, or like that...so before you write your letter, you may want to do searches or research a little bit on how the network tries to present themselves. What did they promise to advertisers at the last upfronts? Has the network programmer/president ever given an interview in Variety or the Hollywood Reporter?
When you write your letter, you want to attach yourself to these core values. Using the Blood Ties example, rather than say, "I think Henry is hot," or whatever, a positive thing to say would be, "The thing about Blood Ties that I like is that Vicki is the strong, central lead. She's not the sidekick -- she's the one driving the action. She's not in the traditionally female role. It's nice to see that, and to see the men following her lead for a change. I think that's very empowering for female viewers."
See, Lifetime is television for women. If you did a little reading about their planning, you'd quickly find that they're trying to get away from their staple: women done bad/in peril movies.
What's also good? Mentioning that the show moved you enough to recruit other people to watch it. Tell any sort of anecdote that fixes you in the mind of the reader as more than a stat. "I love this show because it's the one thing my daughter and I watch together..." "It sounds silly, but the way I get through my workout is by telling myself that I get to watch show X after."
You are their viewer. They have a picture of you. Do you fit their picture? Show them that you do. Demonstrate that this show affects you, and makes you feel warmly toward the channel. Convince them that though the numbers may not be over the top, you are exactly the kind of viewer they want, and they should think twice about losing the show. Be funny. Be thoughtful. Show how this show enriches your life, and how it enriches their channel.
4) Don't Threaten; Show A Willingness to Work With the Network
It's the easiest threat to make in the world: "If you cancel this show, I'll never watch your channel again." It's also empty. They know it's empty. All they need is one show that you like, and they know they'll get you back. Don't even try to deny it.
Making an empty threat is worse than keeping your letter positive.
Don't point to, or blame, other shows on the channel.
Again, I'm going to go to a Blood Ties example here. A lot of Blood Ties fans are looking at the fact that Army Wives took BT's spot, and did great ratings, as somehow a slight of the show. So you've got people saying, "I hate that show, I'll never watch it, etc etc."
Well, that's just silly. Because they're trying to get people to become habit viewers. So if they think you're someone who is only there for one show and if that show goes, so do you, well, then they're not losing very much because apparently the show didn't draw huge numbers of people like you and you say you're going to leave anyway.
Far MORE effective would be to demonstrate that Blood Ties made you decide to TRY Army Wives. Show knowledge of the other shows on the schedule. Sample them. Tell them you've sampled them. Explain to them what you liked and what you didn't, and return to your point: what you feel Blood Ties has that those other shows lack.
And keep their perspective in mind, too: in the case of Army Wives, it's Lifetime's most successful series premiere ever, and it's held its numbers. So yeah, they're going to be over the moon about it. If you come out and say that you hate, hate, hate their big popular successful show -- well, does that sound like you're in touch with their viewership, or out of step with it?
(Substitute CBS and their slate, or F/X and their slate here.)
By showing that you're willing to sample their other fare, and are aware of what they're doing, you're proving that you're an engaged viewer. They want people like you. A lot.
No matter how popular CSI is there are people (like me) who just hate it. Do you think CBS is going to give up on getting people like me to watch their network? Hell no.
So if you write and say, "Congratulations on Army Wives. I watched it, I liked this and this, but it's not really my cup of tea. I prefer shows that have X and Y, and that's why I like Blood Ties, etc, etc," then, my friend, you're making a case.
In the case of Blood Ties, again, this fall they're looking at running 10 episodes back-to-back twice a week in October. They're also going to package it on a night with a show about Psychics. (it actually sounds fun: a "psychic challenge" - why didn't I think of that?) That means they're trying to "build a night."
Sample the shows before and after. Put that in your letter, too. Show appreciation for the show by saying you tuned in the lead in and the lead out. That's speaking their language.
5) Don't Stop With the Network
One of the most effective groups in the United States when it comes to TV is an odious little outfit called the Parents Television Council. The PTC is famous for pouncing on any show that it thinks runs counter to its conservative Christian agenda.
It organizes people to write sponsors every which way to Sunday. And it makes sponsors nervous. It doesn't matter that they're not in the majority. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
If you note the kinds of people who advertise on the show you like, and were to write three letters to their company or their Ad Agency, that could make for a huge impact.
Again, it would help if you could explain why you like the show, what about it appeals to you (in a social standing, not plot -- remember, they may not have seen the show.) The idea "strong female characters," or "enjoyable action," or "witty interplay," or "interesting allegories for world events," or whatever it might be... what you're trying to say is that it's a good thing that they're associated with that show...being associated with that show makes you feel warmer toward the company. If you can describe their commercial, and show that you actually watched it, and absorbed its message, that's better. Heck, if you suggest that you like this project so much that you went out and tried their product for the first time to show your support for the show -- hell, that's even better!
6) Get Beyond The Internet
This is the hardest thing for fan communities to grok. No matter how big your numbers are online, you are still not fully representative of the audience.
A successful TV show pulls in tens of millions of viewers. And 90% of them, even still, are not chatting online about it. They're not going to Television Without Pity, they're not haunting newsgroups or fan sites, and they are not on Aint It Cool News.
Remember the fuss over the "online wave" in politics last year? The Net Roots? Well, they got Joe Lieberman to lose the Democratic nomination, but they didn't succeed in defeating him in the general.
Online fans tend to vastly overestimate their impact. When you're organizing an online campaign, especially if it's through a show's website, you're already preaching to the converted. You need to take the message out. That might mean everybody getting three people outside - who they don't know from online, to watch the show and see if they'll write a letter.
In the old days, when organizing was much harder, this stuff was taken for granted. But just as I was amazed when I saw university students in my class not willing to research beyond "googling," so am I surprised by fans who think that as long as they get the people who are chatting about the show online rallied, they're done. They're not. That's your base. You gotta expand your base. And the only way to do that is at the Water Cooler, at the Gym, in the line at Starbucks, at the bookstore, at the movies, at daycare, etc, etc, etc.
7) Remember that Everyone Is Unsure, and Exploit that...BUT... Know When You're Being Unrealistic.
This is a weird, transitional time for the TV industry. Broadcast models are breaking down. They're still figuring out how to factor in Timeshifting and PVR viewing (which I'm convinced helps genre shows more, since people are more likely to record those kinds of shows to watch and rewatch later), there's also the question of DVD sets and paid downloads...in short, that uncertainty means that there's a chance for a lot more second guessing -- provided that there is a baseline level of support.
I mean, nothing was going to save The Black Donnellys. And Studio 60 was toast too, by the end. And Veronica Mars had 3 seasons. At a certain point, they do have to go with the business analysis. And that's when you're going to hate them. They know that.
And sometimes...well...admit it. X-Files went on three seasons too long, right? I'm bummed Firefly never caught on, but not as bummed as I'd be if I'd never gotten to see it at all. The fact that there are only 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers and one season of Freaks and Geeks doesn't make me love those shows any less.
If there is the slightest bit of wiggle room for that "on the bubble" show...following the steps I've outlined above will help you make more of an impact in your letter.
Finally, one more: please, please, please appear rational, and make your arguments dispassionately. You don't have to leech all emotion out -- certainly not -- but the argument you're making for saving the show cannot be primarily an emotional one.
I remember somebody getting mad at me once because I said that "Dead Like Me" was gone, gone, gone -- because people had been cast in other shows. Well, this person didn't want to hear that. At all. I was telling her something she didn't want to hear, and as far as she was concerned, I was attacking her. She wanted to grasp at straws.
At a certain point, you gotta stop grasping at straws.
Read this article and read the comments. They're hilarious. Really.
Don't be like that, okay?
Good luck saving that show. Whatever it is. I mean it.
To read about how to send a letter of support for Blood Ties to Lifetime, click here.
As I cruised into adulthood, before I joined the dark side and started creating entertainment, I flipped for Twin Peaks. I thought long into the night about episodes of thirtysomething and The Wonder Years. I taped every episode of the first three seasons of Murphy Brown. I'm not even counting M*A*S*H, or my current crazy-love-object, the Ron Moore era Battlestar Galactica, Yes, brothers and sisters, testify -- I know what it's like.
And oh, shall we speak of it? Shall we speak of the dark times? Of the poor shows, beloved, that never made it? That sank beneath the waves and caused me depression? Yea, verily, Almost Grown and Eyes, I'm looking your way. My So Called Life and My Life and Times, I mourn you still. Sons & Daughters, Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Andy Richter Controls The Universe, Love Monkey -- no...no...the wounds are still too fresh.
I know how it feels.
But now I'm wearing a different hat. I write for shows. So that fan enthusiasm -- so much easier to foment and direct in this easy internet age -- might just come to bear and help save a project I loved and worked on.
Or it might help kill it.
Let me explain.
I'm going to take off my writer hat right now and put on another, earlier chapeau. This one's worn, and it doesn't fit as well. There's a couple of holes in it. But it should still serve. Ah. There it is. Sharp.
Once upon a time, dear reader -- after I was a fan, but before I was a self-interested writer...I was a network person.
Please. No hissing.
In 1997 I helped start up Canada's Sci-Fi Channel, SPACE: The Imagination Station. In those early days, our offices were kind of all crammed together -- as were our job functions. The publicist spent a whole lot of time answering the mail. And because we were practically on top of each other in a small office, we kind of all got to see it. And it was instructive.
Letters written in meticulous longhand by genteel grandmothers; crazy precise lettering of obsessives; semi-literate screeds that ended in the middle of a sentence -- we got it all.
In my years working inside the TV station I got a chance to see all the different kinds of mail that came through the door: job applications, complaints, contest entries, resumes, requests, and fan letters. Lots and lots of fan letters.
More importantly, I saw where they went. I saw who they went to, who was tasked with dealing with them, and how they reacted. It's not necessarily who or how you think.
Recently, fan campaigns are back in the news. Part of this is cyclical, of course, as the upfronts means not just a flurry of new shows, but the killing of a bunch of once-upon-a-time hopefuls.
Fan campaigns are usually futile -- too little too late, too small a fan base, a hundred other reasons...but they continue to flourish because every once in a while, they work. Or seem to work.
Jericho is the latest example. Yes, CBS reversed its decision to cancel and bring the show back for 8 new episodes. Depending on whom you talk to, fans either had a lot to do with that, or not very much to do with it at all. Me, I think it's in the middle. I think that Jericho fans organized very early and did good work writing letters, and I think that CBS, who wasn't that sure about canceling the show to begin with, found out that advertisers weren't too excited by their new shows and reversed on Jericho to buy themselves time.
But that victory, no matter whose it is, puts fire into the heart of any fan who thinks that maybe the show they love is going out before its time. But all fan campaigns are not created equal. And there are ways you can go seriously wrong and actually wind up hurting the show you love.
So I wanted to talk about Save-our-shows. I'm going to make a lot of reference to Blood Ties here, because that's the show I just finished on, a show I'd love to have the opportunity to write for again, and a show that's right in the midst of a mobilized campaign by its fan base.
So, take this as you will. But as a writer/insider, once and future fan, and former network person (though not a suit; never a suit) I present to you
Emily Post's Guide to Save-Our-Show Campaigns*
*not actually affiliated with Emily Post
1) Don't Send Crap.
It seems like a good idea, and kind of hooky -- find something that's associated with the show and send it on in in droves to "show your support." Jericho fans sent nuts, and yup, every news story about the show mentioned the damn nuts. But the nuts are beside the point. It's a bauble.
The problem is that now everybody wants to send some tchochke. And man, that's a big mistake.
So, Blood Ties fans, please, don't send pints of blood or fake fangs or anything. What you say in a letter is way more important and powerful than any hunk of junk you push through the postal system.
I have less of an opinion on other "organizing cries" like raising money for a charity or an ad or something -- though really, my humanist side says that it's always better to give to charity than try to buy an ad in Variety -- but when it comes to the crap through the mail stuff, I'm firm. It's a bad idea.
Because I've seen who it goes to.
The people who have the power to greenlight or un-cancel a show are never the people that have to deal with the cases of nuts or steel rods or Mars bars or fake vomit or whatever else gets sent by the skidload. It never gets anywhere near them. Instead, the likely outcome is that you're going to make some personal assistant or mailroom person's day absolute hell. For weeks. They get paid crap, and now they have to deal with your crap. It's not fair. They can't do anything about the show. And they're the ones who suffer.
But there's also an extra-special reason not to send crap. See, those powerless people? Even though they're powerless, they have something you don't. In whatever, small way -- they have access. The personal assistant to Susanne Daniels, President of Lifetime Networks, talks to her all day, every day. The mail gets delivered in the company each and every day.
Now when I worked at a network, occasionally, very impulsively -- someone very big would ask the "little people" what they thought of something. You know, to be populist.
What do you think they're going to say if they've spent weeks dealing with your crap?
That's right. It's only natural. It's only human. They are going to HATE YOUR SHOW. And they are going to be GLAD IT WAS CANCELED. They will not defend the show, because you have MADE THEIR LIVES HELL.
I have seen this happen with my own eyes. It's even happened to me.
When SPACE went on the air, we bought Doctor Who. We polled the online fans on our website asking where we should start the series. Like, 90% said, "Play it from the beginning." So we did.
And the show's ratings were abysmal. I'm not talking bad. I'm talking, test-pattern bad. It was a colossal mistake. The kind you make when you're new and just starting out.
So because we'd taken such a bath in the ratings, the decision was made not to buy more.
And the letters came by the bushel. Now. Keep in mind that this was for our lowest-rated show by a wide, wide margin. If the people who wrote the letters had all watched the show, and gotten their friends to do the same, maybe it would have been a different story. But they didn't. But the failure, you see, the anger -- well, that was on us. Except...not. Because the person who had the power to buy more or not was insulated from the mail by secretaries and all the little people.
Now, thank God, no one sent TARDIS's or scarves or anything -- but the mail in and of itself was...offputting. Extremely offputting. It was angry, and arrogant, and full of "you stupid this's" and "you screwed up that..." and it was just really hateful, and unpleasant. I'm serious. From that day to this, I've never seen more unpleasant fan mail.
So we decided we hated Doctor Who.
It took me years -- til the new series, as a matter of fact, to get the bad taste left by the Who fans out of my mouth.
That, ladies and gents, is a backfire.
Which brings me to
2) Learn how to Translate your FanLang.
FanLang is fan language. It can be the in-jokes from the show, jargon, whatever. Or it can be phrases like "squee" or other stuff that comes from the world of the show. A passionate fan letter is great. It's fun. But it's not going to be the most effective way to influence a decision to continue or cancel a show.
There's something you have to accept and account for right off the top: the people you're writing to approach the series in a completely different way than you do. To them, it's product. It's a commodity. It's a delivery device for eyeballs. Your eyeballs. And if the show's in danger of being canceled, the problem is that they feel that your eyeballs aren't enough. They need more.
Don't get upset or shirty about this. After all, TV is still a monumentally good deal for you. The compact is that you get to watch this piece of entertainment that costs upward of a million dollars, and all you have to do is let someone try to sell you soap every ten minutes. That's a sweet deal, even if that model is breaking down.
Because they view the show as a commodity, emotional appeals or ultimatums are not going to work. Not unless they're framed in language that a network person is going to respond to.
Remember the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where Picard was preparing for that diplomatic misson where he had to say the greeting exactly right or there'd be big heap trouble? It's like that. As you sit down to write the letter of support, keep that in mind. Remember -- you're trying to speak to them in language they'll find useful.
But here's the trick: that doesn't mean complaining about ratings or talking about demographics or whatever other empirical measurement you stumble upon. One of the most tiresome aspects of the online debate between the crazy Old Battlestar Galactica fans and the crazy New Battlestar Galactica fans is when the fans of the old show starting using "ratings data" to prove their point that the new show was an utter failure that no one ever watched.
The interpretations and analyses were crazy-making and offputting because they quoted figures out of context, and missed the barn of common sense.
Any network or channel will have reams of empirical data on the show. They do not need you to provide empirical data. And they will not take kindly to you trying to frame empirical data. It's not your strength, so don't go there. You are trying to be the human face behind the empirical data.
3) Attach the Show To The Channel's Core Values
Believe it or not, every channel has a vision of themselves. Who is their "typical viewer?" Who are the viewers they want. The cynical thing is to say, "young," these days. But that's not always the case. Beyond the viewers, there are certain types of people, certain modes, if you will, that the channel finds attractive. Remember -- it's all about positioning themselves to their advertisers. They want to be able to say that their viewers are like this, or like that...so before you write your letter, you may want to do searches or research a little bit on how the network tries to present themselves. What did they promise to advertisers at the last upfronts? Has the network programmer/president ever given an interview in Variety or the Hollywood Reporter?
When you write your letter, you want to attach yourself to these core values. Using the Blood Ties example, rather than say, "I think Henry is hot," or whatever, a positive thing to say would be, "The thing about Blood Ties that I like is that Vicki is the strong, central lead. She's not the sidekick -- she's the one driving the action. She's not in the traditionally female role. It's nice to see that, and to see the men following her lead for a change. I think that's very empowering for female viewers."
See, Lifetime is television for women. If you did a little reading about their planning, you'd quickly find that they're trying to get away from their staple: women done bad/in peril movies.
What's also good? Mentioning that the show moved you enough to recruit other people to watch it. Tell any sort of anecdote that fixes you in the mind of the reader as more than a stat. "I love this show because it's the one thing my daughter and I watch together..." "It sounds silly, but the way I get through my workout is by telling myself that I get to watch show X after."
You are their viewer. They have a picture of you. Do you fit their picture? Show them that you do. Demonstrate that this show affects you, and makes you feel warmly toward the channel. Convince them that though the numbers may not be over the top, you are exactly the kind of viewer they want, and they should think twice about losing the show. Be funny. Be thoughtful. Show how this show enriches your life, and how it enriches their channel.
4) Don't Threaten; Show A Willingness to Work With the Network
It's the easiest threat to make in the world: "If you cancel this show, I'll never watch your channel again." It's also empty. They know it's empty. All they need is one show that you like, and they know they'll get you back. Don't even try to deny it.
Making an empty threat is worse than keeping your letter positive.
Don't point to, or blame, other shows on the channel.
Again, I'm going to go to a Blood Ties example here. A lot of Blood Ties fans are looking at the fact that Army Wives took BT's spot, and did great ratings, as somehow a slight of the show. So you've got people saying, "I hate that show, I'll never watch it, etc etc."
Well, that's just silly. Because they're trying to get people to become habit viewers. So if they think you're someone who is only there for one show and if that show goes, so do you, well, then they're not losing very much because apparently the show didn't draw huge numbers of people like you and you say you're going to leave anyway.
Far MORE effective would be to demonstrate that Blood Ties made you decide to TRY Army Wives. Show knowledge of the other shows on the schedule. Sample them. Tell them you've sampled them. Explain to them what you liked and what you didn't, and return to your point: what you feel Blood Ties has that those other shows lack.
And keep their perspective in mind, too: in the case of Army Wives, it's Lifetime's most successful series premiere ever, and it's held its numbers. So yeah, they're going to be over the moon about it. If you come out and say that you hate, hate, hate their big popular successful show -- well, does that sound like you're in touch with their viewership, or out of step with it?
(Substitute CBS and their slate, or F/X and their slate here.)
By showing that you're willing to sample their other fare, and are aware of what they're doing, you're proving that you're an engaged viewer. They want people like you. A lot.
No matter how popular CSI is there are people (like me) who just hate it. Do you think CBS is going to give up on getting people like me to watch their network? Hell no.
So if you write and say, "Congratulations on Army Wives. I watched it, I liked this and this, but it's not really my cup of tea. I prefer shows that have X and Y, and that's why I like Blood Ties, etc, etc," then, my friend, you're making a case.
In the case of Blood Ties, again, this fall they're looking at running 10 episodes back-to-back twice a week in October. They're also going to package it on a night with a show about Psychics. (it actually sounds fun: a "psychic challenge" - why didn't I think of that?) That means they're trying to "build a night."
Sample the shows before and after. Put that in your letter, too. Show appreciation for the show by saying you tuned in the lead in and the lead out. That's speaking their language.
5) Don't Stop With the Network
One of the most effective groups in the United States when it comes to TV is an odious little outfit called the Parents Television Council. The PTC is famous for pouncing on any show that it thinks runs counter to its conservative Christian agenda.
It organizes people to write sponsors every which way to Sunday. And it makes sponsors nervous. It doesn't matter that they're not in the majority. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
If you note the kinds of people who advertise on the show you like, and were to write three letters to their company or their Ad Agency, that could make for a huge impact.
Again, it would help if you could explain why you like the show, what about it appeals to you (in a social standing, not plot -- remember, they may not have seen the show.) The idea "strong female characters," or "enjoyable action," or "witty interplay," or "interesting allegories for world events," or whatever it might be... what you're trying to say is that it's a good thing that they're associated with that show...being associated with that show makes you feel warmer toward the company. If you can describe their commercial, and show that you actually watched it, and absorbed its message, that's better. Heck, if you suggest that you like this project so much that you went out and tried their product for the first time to show your support for the show -- hell, that's even better!
6) Get Beyond The Internet
This is the hardest thing for fan communities to grok. No matter how big your numbers are online, you are still not fully representative of the audience.
A successful TV show pulls in tens of millions of viewers. And 90% of them, even still, are not chatting online about it. They're not going to Television Without Pity, they're not haunting newsgroups or fan sites, and they are not on Aint It Cool News.
Remember the fuss over the "online wave" in politics last year? The Net Roots? Well, they got Joe Lieberman to lose the Democratic nomination, but they didn't succeed in defeating him in the general.
Online fans tend to vastly overestimate their impact. When you're organizing an online campaign, especially if it's through a show's website, you're already preaching to the converted. You need to take the message out. That might mean everybody getting three people outside - who they don't know from online, to watch the show and see if they'll write a letter.
In the old days, when organizing was much harder, this stuff was taken for granted. But just as I was amazed when I saw university students in my class not willing to research beyond "googling," so am I surprised by fans who think that as long as they get the people who are chatting about the show online rallied, they're done. They're not. That's your base. You gotta expand your base. And the only way to do that is at the Water Cooler, at the Gym, in the line at Starbucks, at the bookstore, at the movies, at daycare, etc, etc, etc.
7) Remember that Everyone Is Unsure, and Exploit that...BUT... Know When You're Being Unrealistic.
This is a weird, transitional time for the TV industry. Broadcast models are breaking down. They're still figuring out how to factor in Timeshifting and PVR viewing (which I'm convinced helps genre shows more, since people are more likely to record those kinds of shows to watch and rewatch later), there's also the question of DVD sets and paid downloads...in short, that uncertainty means that there's a chance for a lot more second guessing -- provided that there is a baseline level of support.
I mean, nothing was going to save The Black Donnellys. And Studio 60 was toast too, by the end. And Veronica Mars had 3 seasons. At a certain point, they do have to go with the business analysis. And that's when you're going to hate them. They know that.
And sometimes...well...admit it. X-Files went on three seasons too long, right? I'm bummed Firefly never caught on, but not as bummed as I'd be if I'd never gotten to see it at all. The fact that there are only 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers and one season of Freaks and Geeks doesn't make me love those shows any less.
If there is the slightest bit of wiggle room for that "on the bubble" show...following the steps I've outlined above will help you make more of an impact in your letter.
Finally, one more: please, please, please appear rational, and make your arguments dispassionately. You don't have to leech all emotion out -- certainly not -- but the argument you're making for saving the show cannot be primarily an emotional one.
I remember somebody getting mad at me once because I said that "Dead Like Me" was gone, gone, gone -- because people had been cast in other shows. Well, this person didn't want to hear that. At all. I was telling her something she didn't want to hear, and as far as she was concerned, I was attacking her. She wanted to grasp at straws.
At a certain point, you gotta stop grasping at straws.
Read this article and read the comments. They're hilarious. Really.
Don't be like that, okay?
Good luck saving that show. Whatever it is. I mean it.
To read about how to send a letter of support for Blood Ties to Lifetime, click here.
EDIT: 11/13 - I guess it's because of the WGA strike, but this article has been getting a ton of link-love lately. And, of course, front and centre is every Jericho fan who wants to quibble and argue and thinks I'm running them down for their campaign. And I'm not. You were very lucky to have the right campaign at the right time.
But...
Besides being a writer, and working at a network, I've also been a journalist. And journalism is all about the 'new hook.' Sending crap now -- not a new hook. The Jericho case worked. End of story. The next time something gets sent, not a great hook. The best you can hope for is that you were the SECOND group to orchestrate a campaign around sending stuff...
Come up with something better. Be clever. Don't copycat.
And really, really, really -- don't send crap. Jericho is the exception that proves the rule. I promise you.
EDIT: Jan 2009 -- What do you know. They actually got that Dead Like Me movie made. Um. Exception that proves the rule?
No?
Fine.
You still shouldn't send crap.
EDIT: Jan 2009 -- What do you know. They actually got that Dead Like Me movie made. Um. Exception that proves the rule?
No?
Fine.
You still shouldn't send crap.
Monday, July 16, 2007
What I Wrote to the CRTC
The disastrous recommendation to split the CTF in two continues. The CRTC is "allowing" public comments until July 27. Read more about it here and here. Here's what I wrote to them in my submission. Warning. It's long and about Canadian TV.
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing you today about the results of your task force on the Canadian Television Fund. (CTF) Specifically, one recommendation that will do great damage to a sector which cannot afford it: the community of artists working to create and write Canadian Television.
At issue here is the Task Force’s central recommendation that the current CTF fund be split into two: a fund administered by Canadian Heritage which would fund so-called 10/10 programs, and a Broadcast Development Undertakings fund, which would come from cable/satellite contributions and be subject to a lower, 8/10 creative threshold.
This recommendation, if implemented, will have a disastrous, immediate, and possibly irreversible deleterious effect on the Canadian Television Industry. It will strangle further the one sector of the industry the CRTC has done nothing to protect in the last several years. It proceeds from a faulty premise, represents a return to failed policy, and represents both an abdication of the CRTC’s mandate to support the Canadian domestic industry, and administer the airwaves for the good of all Canadians. The CRTC stands on the precipice of breaching its responsibilities under the Broadcasting Act, and of making bad policy that will further erode Canadians’ cultural identity at a time when maintaining that identity is most crucial.
The Premise is Faulty
Splitting the fund into two is a solution predicated upon a problem which does not exist. Supposedly, the 8/10 fund will allow for programs with greater commercial appeal. In fact, the shows that are popular with Canadian audiences – by definition, the shows with the most creative appeal – flourish with Canadian talent, writers, and directors front and centre. CORNER GAS, a program that is consistently seen by over 1.5 million Canadians a week, uses exclusively Canadian talent both above and below the line. If anything, it should be a matter of some embarrassment that the most popular Canadian show receives no CTF money. CORNER GAS has been moved around the schedule on its originating network, CTV, many times in its six seasons on the air. This has done nothing to diminish its popularity.
In the case of a smaller, cable show that does receive CTF financing, we have TRAILER PARK BOYS. I don’t know if the commission gets out to gatherings of audience members very often, but I was moved a couple of years ago when I ventured out to a personal appearance by the stars of TRAILER PARK BOYS at a Toronto theatre. One thousand people braved January cold to mob the Bloor Cinema in Toronto to get a look at the three actors and creators of this show. The line snaked around the block, and the audience was a cross section of Canada: teens to grandmothers. I have witnessed this TPB effect many times; they have sold out personal appearances at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom; they are mobbed for autographs at film festival parties where other stars go unmolested. The show spun off a movie version last summer which was one of the nation’s highest grossing homegrown comedies. Showcase, in the show’s seventh season, still regularly draws numbers on a cable channel that dwarf the numbers for CBC’s terrestrial drama offerings. By any reasonable measure, this low budget, aggressively Canadian show is an enormous hit. Its specificity of place and attitude is 100% Canadian, as are its creative team.
As for CBC, this January, they gave us LITTLE MOSQUE ON THE PRAIRIE, a show which drew a regular audience of over one million people.
CTV’s DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION continues to connect with audiences both in Canada and in the USA precisely because of its unique, Canadian take on social issues and the problems of growing up set it apart from similar American fare.
I could name more. These shows are all 10/10 shows. They are all commercial. They have all connected with their respective audiences. If these shows can all be made within the current system (one without any CTF money at all,) what is the justification for saying that there needs to be a separate fund for “more commercial” fare?
A “two-fund” solution implicitly defines “Canadian” fare as something that is not audience-driven. It feeds into a faulty and false piece of propaganda: that Canadians don’t want to watch Canadian shows, and therefore any programs that are made here are going to be loss leaders. They will watch them, as long as they're good. Splitting the fund in two does nothing to make shows good. At the same time, a two-fund solution results in another set of bureaucratic guidelines, more hoops, and more meaningless benchmarks for Canadian creatives to jump through. Less time spent on the creative, more time on the forms. Is this really what the system needs?
It is a matter of great concern to me that the CRTC can proceed from this premise, while doing nothing to take a look at the programs which are successful, and say, “what are they doing right?” To tinker with the funding makeup for the industry before figuring out the answer to that question is, frankly, mad.
Not to mention the fact that we’ve tried a version of this before, and it does not work.
A Return to Bad Policy
For years, leading up to the broadcast envelope system, Canadian TV producers had a panicked wait seeing if their show would pick up CTF financing. Sometimes they’d get it, sometimes they wouldn’t – some would get one fund, and not another. There was no way to plan, and everyone agreed the system was broken.
The system was broken because there is something inherently incompatible with trying to judge a program’s worthiness based on a bureaucratic checklist. The broadcast envelope system, at least, allows networks to get behind the projects they creatively support. It’s closer to letting creative drive whether a show should or should not be made.
If we go to two funds, we take a step back to a more confusing time. Which fund do you apply to? What are the criteria? Once we negotiate a fusillade of new forms, new criteria, two different processes, two different boards – we still haven’t gotten any closer to getting on the screen and serving the only thing that really matters here: trying to make programs that find and connect with an audience. The system cannot afford to be any more top heavy.
But going to an 8/10 funding system will defeat the production of good Canadian shows in another way: it will drive the creative decisionmaking process out of this country.
I know that the intent is to allow flexibility: maybe if a producer can cast an American star they can get access to foreign sales. Maybe they can make better product.
But the recent past is littered with examples that prove that this is not the likely trajectory of how things will go.
Until the international syndicated market dried up, Canada was the dubious beneficiary of many so-called “industrial” shows. These are shows that benefited from our tax incentives, lower labor costs, locations and trained crews. They were generally 6/10 shows. They shot here, they occasionally used Canadian directors, and actors in secondary roles, and the role of “service producer” was filled by a Canadian.
The key creative decisions, however, were not made by Canadians. They were made in L.A. There was an abuse of the spirit of the law – writers with “Canadian passports” or “landed” papers would come up to Toronto for a day and get their papers and be back in L.A. People with legal loopholes would go to Niagara Falls for a day and come back as "Canadian writers." Story rooms, creative, scripts, all big decisions came out of L.A. Canadians who wished to crack this process and have a meaningful creative participation in a show found that they had to move to L.A. to do it. Little or no effort was made to draw from the creative pool here. They found out how to work the system, and the L.A. decisionmakers hired their pet Canadian producer to make everything look square – but even these producers were hewers of wood and drawers of water – they did nothing to control the actual creative. These are the same producers who will benefit most greatly if we go to 8/10. Because then the L.A. based companies will be able to return to the days when shooting here was a great deal for them…the days when they used Canada as a location, a source of cheap labor, while retaining ownership and control themselves.
The difference is, this time they’ll be doing it with Canadian money.
Now, what of these more “commercial” shows? How did they do? Well, they sold for a while. They made their L.A. based production companies very wealthy in international sales. But they were cookie cutter, shoddily conceived, and few people missed them when they were gone. And once they were gone, the Canadian industry immediately suffered. Producers here were not used to making creative decisions - -they couldn’t shape domestic shows that could fill the gap. We were so dependent on the gravy train of low rent syndie shows that when they pulled out, the bottom dropped out. That’s what happens when you’re not the master of your own industry.
These are the “commercial” shows that the BDU fund is looking to restart? Good luck.
The CRTC needs to think long and hard before opening up funds contributed by Canadians’ cable and satellite fees to this kind of abuse. Will it serve Canadians with better shows? Will we get more Corner Gases? Or are we destined for another round of EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT and RELIC HUNTER, with generic characters, settings, and stories that enrich nothing and inform no one? Again, this is not the world based upon your false premise that Canadian shows are not popular. This is the reality, based on the kinds of shows that were made here before.
You’re Hurting the Very People Who Can Afford it Least.
In 1999, the CRTC changed a policy that stipulated that Canadian 'casters had to run a certain amount of drama. You allowed Canadian networks to count reality shows and certain other types of programs toward their Canadian content quotas. At the time, various creative unions and people warned that this would cause a terrible drop in the number of Canadian drama programs on TV. You chose to listen to the CAB and the broadcasters, who insisted this would not be the case, and who needed more “flexibility.”
We were right, and you were wrong. The number of domestic Canadian drama and comedy shows were halved overnight. Within a few years, 12 or 13 shows became 4 or 5. Now it hovers, depending on the time of year, around 1 or 2.
The CAB and other broadcast interest groups scream poor and say that there simply is no money to produce Canadian drama. Yet – broadcast profits are extremely healthy. And there seems to be plenty of money for consolidation and takeovers, as the CHUM/CTV deal and the Global/AA deal prove.
You have recognized that there are pressures on the broadcast industry – so you’re relaxing the rules on advertising. The broadcasters stand to benefit from this greatly. There was a plan a couple years back that maybe suggested that Canadian broadcasters could be encouraged to run more homegrown drama by using that to let them earn more commercial time. I guess that’s gone by the wayside now that advertising restrictions are lifted. So the ‘casters are rewarded. You’ve taken care of them.
You uphold a plank of broadcast law that allows for great benefit to the broadcasters: cable substitution. Cable substitution shapes the industry in this country profoundly. It allows Canadian broadcasters to buy U.S. programs, piggyback on their signal and P.R., and not have to worry about competing. Interestingly, if there was no substitution, maybe these channels would actually have to make more Canadian shows, because that would be the only thing they could offer that was different than the U.S. networks which are beamed into just about every Canadians’ homes. The spending on U.S. programming has reached record levels, by your own figures, while spending on homegrown programming has declined. You’ve moved decisively and quickly to prop up and support the broadcast side of things.
The Canadian Television Fund came into existence because the Cable co’s were asking for protection. That was their price, their social benefit, bought in exchange for extremely favorable terms and protections from the CRTC for their industry. You took care of them. Just last week, you released figures which showed healthy growth and huge profits for the Cable and Satellite distribution industry.
In fact, the CRTC has implemented a bunch of protectionist policies that have benefited many of the big, monied players.
But real incomes for Canadian creatives – writers and directors, the very people who most depend on things like the CTF – they’ve never been worse. We’re still suffering greatly from the rule change you put through in 1999. And now you want to tinker with the fund and roll the dice on us again.
We can’t afford it. We’ve been drowning for a long time. Why is it that we’re the only people in the domestic television industry who you refuse to help?
Cause and Effect and What’s at Stake
As a regulatory body, this is the part of my comment that might be hardest for the CRTC to digest, because it’s the hardest to quantify.
But it goes back to what I said at the start about the faulty premise at the heart of the recommendation to split the two funds. It comes down to two very fundamental questions: what makes a show Canadian? And what’s best for Canadians as a whole?
At the start I suggested that the CRTC try to consider why shows like CORNER GAS connect and are so popular with Canadian audiences. But in the end, I understand this is an impossible task, just as suggesting that cable substitution be lifted is an impossible task.
Quasi-governmental organizations like the CTF and the CRTC should not, and cannot, be expected to define what makes a program Canadian. There can be no checklist. Government fails every time it tries to decree what is art. There is only one body that can decide what is truly successful in this case, and that is the audience. You’ve gone a ways toward acknowledging this in your report by tying future funding to audience performance. This is a good step.
But as for that definition of what makes something Canadian? The very kind of definition we’re going to force administrators to make if we go to a two-fund system? It’s a fool’s game.
In a complex, globalized world, there is only one meaningful definition that can be used to decide what makes a Canadian show:
That’s it. That’s the whole definition.
We have a history in this country of incredible media innovation. From Marshall McLuhan to Moses Znaimer to Graham Spry’s vision of a national broadcaster that mixed both popular and public aims – Canada, by virtue of our position close to and yet apart from the greatest exporter of popular culture the world has ever known, has always been in a unique position.
Our creative artists – musicians, artists, painters, authors – have brought their unique disciplines to the world stage, and had an impact greater than you’d think for a nation of less than thirty million people.
Our Television artists have had a similar impact – it’s just that they’ve traditionally had to go to the United States to do it. And their Canadian viewpoint gets subsumed into the American machine.
The convulsions of our industry are such that we are constantly starting over. Writers, directors hone their craft, and then hit the periodic dry spell or find there’s not enough work, and then move to L.A. If Canadian TV has not achieved a level of greater popularity, it’s only because we are consistently forced to reinvent the wheel. We are not retaining trained people. It’s too hard to make a living here, and the pressure to go to a larger market where you can make a living is simply too great.
There’s nothing the CRTC can do to completely stop people from going south. That’s always going to happen to some degree. But what you’re contemplating doing is tantamount to throwing in the towel. And say that happens. What happens next? What is actually at stake with the loss of original Canadian drama on TV?
I can only offer you a few anecdotes.
The first is an example. This fall, there will be a program on U.S. television called ALIENS IN AMERICA. In this program, a foreign exchange student from Pakistan comes to stay with Americans and they worry that he’s a terrorist. The themes of cultural difference are explored. But we should note the format: the outsider is seen as that – a stranger, and the comedy comes partially from the fear of the other. In Canada, by contrast, we have LITTLE MOSQUE. In this case, a lot of the same themes are explored – but the Muslims are the main characters. They are not the other. They are us. This is such a small adjustment that says so very much about us as a nation and as a people. But I think it’s an attitude worth preserving, don’t you?
I am currently employed on a CBC show called THE BORDER. This is a show that’s set inside a Homeland Security type agency in Toronto. The post 9/11 fears about security and liberty are explored – but not from within the culture of fear and suspicion that dominates American views of the subject. On our show, one of the pressures is the pressure that Canadians feel everyday – an uneasiness about how the American nation has shifted, and how their new view of the world and their place in it affects all of us. If the creative was coming out of L.A., do you think that this would be the focus of the show? Do you not think this is a rich vein of potential story, with relevance to Canadians now?
DEGRASSI, in its original incarnation, appeared on PBS stations in the USA and picked up fans because it was so utterly unlike American teen shows. Part of that came from a willingness to address subjects that are too “third rail” in the United States. In the USA, teens cannot have sex without getting pregnant. No one can have an abortion. The lessons are proscribed within a tiny window. Ironically, the thing that made the original Degrassi such a hit in the USA was its Canadian-ness. That’s what made it different. That’s what made it appealing.
Right now, DAVINCI's INQUEST, the long running CBC show, is enjoying a new life in late night syndication in the USA. The fact that it's different -- that the stories and characters are NOT like cookie cutter American crime shows -- is the reason why that show is doing well. Preserving an independent Canadian voice can have a great effect -- if we have the foresight and courage to pursue it.
Studies published in the last year show definitively that socially, Canadians are moving further and further away from Americans in terms of social attitudes. Yet the American dramas we see frame issues of crime and social justice, and society in distinctly American terms.
Surveys show that Canadians are increasingly obsessed about crime, even though the rate of crime here is nowhere near the American level. Ingesting another nation’s values, longterm, is not good for nationhood or the shared national conversation. But when those values are diverging more and more, the stakes grow even higher.
There’s a phrase that’s bandied about a lot that I actually quite hate: “telling our own stories.” This is generally interepreted to mean Canadian stories; stories about Canadians or set in Canada – but I don’t think that’s what’s needed. Not at all. If we’re going to connect with Canadians, if we’re going to continue to build upon our successes and get more programs on the air that Canadians respond to, we have to recognize that “telling our own stories” really means “letting us tell stories.” The story doesn’t matter in this case; the person telling it does. Canadians have a different perspective on the world. That difference, when it’s allowed to surface – when we’re not trying to ape other types of programs or American models – finds resonance with our countrymen and women. And that difference, when it’s allowed to be organic, could actually help us sell those stories abroad. Because when you’re trying to be like someone else, there’s always a falseness. Only by being true and specific, can you find experience that is universal to all. That’s why Degrassi is a success.
American shows-in-all-but-name where the creative comes out of L.A. will never allow this difference. They'll be too concerned with trying to make Toronto look like Chicago and scrubbing out any local reference or custom. A raft of cheaply made, hacky, "Anywhere U.S.A." will accrue no social benefit, and very little actual entertainment value, to Canadians.
The only way to get Canadian stories out is to keep the reins on those telling them. You’ve recognized Canada’s unique position and moved to protect the interests of broadcasters, and satellite and cable operators. I’m asking you merely to extend the same philosophy to creatives. Don’t experiment with our livelihoods any more. You’ve done that enough. We’re struggling to get off the mat – largely because of your past decisions. Don’t kick us in the stomach when we’re down. Don’t implement this foolish recommendation, predicated on a faulty premise, echoing past failure. Find another way.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Denis McGrath
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing you today about the results of your task force on the Canadian Television Fund. (CTF) Specifically, one recommendation that will do great damage to a sector which cannot afford it: the community of artists working to create and write Canadian Television.
At issue here is the Task Force’s central recommendation that the current CTF fund be split into two: a fund administered by Canadian Heritage which would fund so-called 10/10 programs, and a Broadcast Development Undertakings fund, which would come from cable/satellite contributions and be subject to a lower, 8/10 creative threshold.
This recommendation, if implemented, will have a disastrous, immediate, and possibly irreversible deleterious effect on the Canadian Television Industry. It will strangle further the one sector of the industry the CRTC has done nothing to protect in the last several years. It proceeds from a faulty premise, represents a return to failed policy, and represents both an abdication of the CRTC’s mandate to support the Canadian domestic industry, and administer the airwaves for the good of all Canadians. The CRTC stands on the precipice of breaching its responsibilities under the Broadcasting Act, and of making bad policy that will further erode Canadians’ cultural identity at a time when maintaining that identity is most crucial.
The Premise is Faulty
Splitting the fund into two is a solution predicated upon a problem which does not exist. Supposedly, the 8/10 fund will allow for programs with greater commercial appeal. In fact, the shows that are popular with Canadian audiences – by definition, the shows with the most creative appeal – flourish with Canadian talent, writers, and directors front and centre. CORNER GAS, a program that is consistently seen by over 1.5 million Canadians a week, uses exclusively Canadian talent both above and below the line. If anything, it should be a matter of some embarrassment that the most popular Canadian show receives no CTF money. CORNER GAS has been moved around the schedule on its originating network, CTV, many times in its six seasons on the air. This has done nothing to diminish its popularity.
In the case of a smaller, cable show that does receive CTF financing, we have TRAILER PARK BOYS. I don’t know if the commission gets out to gatherings of audience members very often, but I was moved a couple of years ago when I ventured out to a personal appearance by the stars of TRAILER PARK BOYS at a Toronto theatre. One thousand people braved January cold to mob the Bloor Cinema in Toronto to get a look at the three actors and creators of this show. The line snaked around the block, and the audience was a cross section of Canada: teens to grandmothers. I have witnessed this TPB effect many times; they have sold out personal appearances at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom; they are mobbed for autographs at film festival parties where other stars go unmolested. The show spun off a movie version last summer which was one of the nation’s highest grossing homegrown comedies. Showcase, in the show’s seventh season, still regularly draws numbers on a cable channel that dwarf the numbers for CBC’s terrestrial drama offerings. By any reasonable measure, this low budget, aggressively Canadian show is an enormous hit. Its specificity of place and attitude is 100% Canadian, as are its creative team.
As for CBC, this January, they gave us LITTLE MOSQUE ON THE PRAIRIE, a show which drew a regular audience of over one million people.
CTV’s DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION continues to connect with audiences both in Canada and in the USA precisely because of its unique, Canadian take on social issues and the problems of growing up set it apart from similar American fare.
I could name more. These shows are all 10/10 shows. They are all commercial. They have all connected with their respective audiences. If these shows can all be made within the current system (one without any CTF money at all,) what is the justification for saying that there needs to be a separate fund for “more commercial” fare?
A “two-fund” solution implicitly defines “Canadian” fare as something that is not audience-driven. It feeds into a faulty and false piece of propaganda: that Canadians don’t want to watch Canadian shows, and therefore any programs that are made here are going to be loss leaders. They will watch them, as long as they're good. Splitting the fund in two does nothing to make shows good. At the same time, a two-fund solution results in another set of bureaucratic guidelines, more hoops, and more meaningless benchmarks for Canadian creatives to jump through. Less time spent on the creative, more time on the forms. Is this really what the system needs?
It is a matter of great concern to me that the CRTC can proceed from this premise, while doing nothing to take a look at the programs which are successful, and say, “what are they doing right?” To tinker with the funding makeup for the industry before figuring out the answer to that question is, frankly, mad.
Not to mention the fact that we’ve tried a version of this before, and it does not work.
A Return to Bad Policy
For years, leading up to the broadcast envelope system, Canadian TV producers had a panicked wait seeing if their show would pick up CTF financing. Sometimes they’d get it, sometimes they wouldn’t – some would get one fund, and not another. There was no way to plan, and everyone agreed the system was broken.
The system was broken because there is something inherently incompatible with trying to judge a program’s worthiness based on a bureaucratic checklist. The broadcast envelope system, at least, allows networks to get behind the projects they creatively support. It’s closer to letting creative drive whether a show should or should not be made.
If we go to two funds, we take a step back to a more confusing time. Which fund do you apply to? What are the criteria? Once we negotiate a fusillade of new forms, new criteria, two different processes, two different boards – we still haven’t gotten any closer to getting on the screen and serving the only thing that really matters here: trying to make programs that find and connect with an audience. The system cannot afford to be any more top heavy.
But going to an 8/10 funding system will defeat the production of good Canadian shows in another way: it will drive the creative decisionmaking process out of this country.
I know that the intent is to allow flexibility: maybe if a producer can cast an American star they can get access to foreign sales. Maybe they can make better product.
But the recent past is littered with examples that prove that this is not the likely trajectory of how things will go.
Until the international syndicated market dried up, Canada was the dubious beneficiary of many so-called “industrial” shows. These are shows that benefited from our tax incentives, lower labor costs, locations and trained crews. They were generally 6/10 shows. They shot here, they occasionally used Canadian directors, and actors in secondary roles, and the role of “service producer” was filled by a Canadian.
The key creative decisions, however, were not made by Canadians. They were made in L.A. There was an abuse of the spirit of the law – writers with “Canadian passports” or “landed” papers would come up to Toronto for a day and get their papers and be back in L.A. People with legal loopholes would go to Niagara Falls for a day and come back as "Canadian writers." Story rooms, creative, scripts, all big decisions came out of L.A. Canadians who wished to crack this process and have a meaningful creative participation in a show found that they had to move to L.A. to do it. Little or no effort was made to draw from the creative pool here. They found out how to work the system, and the L.A. decisionmakers hired their pet Canadian producer to make everything look square – but even these producers were hewers of wood and drawers of water – they did nothing to control the actual creative. These are the same producers who will benefit most greatly if we go to 8/10. Because then the L.A. based companies will be able to return to the days when shooting here was a great deal for them…the days when they used Canada as a location, a source of cheap labor, while retaining ownership and control themselves.
The difference is, this time they’ll be doing it with Canadian money.
Now, what of these more “commercial” shows? How did they do? Well, they sold for a while. They made their L.A. based production companies very wealthy in international sales. But they were cookie cutter, shoddily conceived, and few people missed them when they were gone. And once they were gone, the Canadian industry immediately suffered. Producers here were not used to making creative decisions - -they couldn’t shape domestic shows that could fill the gap. We were so dependent on the gravy train of low rent syndie shows that when they pulled out, the bottom dropped out. That’s what happens when you’re not the master of your own industry.
These are the “commercial” shows that the BDU fund is looking to restart? Good luck.
The CRTC needs to think long and hard before opening up funds contributed by Canadians’ cable and satellite fees to this kind of abuse. Will it serve Canadians with better shows? Will we get more Corner Gases? Or are we destined for another round of EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT and RELIC HUNTER, with generic characters, settings, and stories that enrich nothing and inform no one? Again, this is not the world based upon your false premise that Canadian shows are not popular. This is the reality, based on the kinds of shows that were made here before.
You’re Hurting the Very People Who Can Afford it Least.
In 1999, the CRTC changed a policy that stipulated that Canadian 'casters had to run a certain amount of drama. You allowed Canadian networks to count reality shows and certain other types of programs toward their Canadian content quotas. At the time, various creative unions and people warned that this would cause a terrible drop in the number of Canadian drama programs on TV. You chose to listen to the CAB and the broadcasters, who insisted this would not be the case, and who needed more “flexibility.”
We were right, and you were wrong. The number of domestic Canadian drama and comedy shows were halved overnight. Within a few years, 12 or 13 shows became 4 or 5. Now it hovers, depending on the time of year, around 1 or 2.
The CAB and other broadcast interest groups scream poor and say that there simply is no money to produce Canadian drama. Yet – broadcast profits are extremely healthy. And there seems to be plenty of money for consolidation and takeovers, as the CHUM/CTV deal and the Global/AA deal prove.
You have recognized that there are pressures on the broadcast industry – so you’re relaxing the rules on advertising. The broadcasters stand to benefit from this greatly. There was a plan a couple years back that maybe suggested that Canadian broadcasters could be encouraged to run more homegrown drama by using that to let them earn more commercial time. I guess that’s gone by the wayside now that advertising restrictions are lifted. So the ‘casters are rewarded. You’ve taken care of them.
You uphold a plank of broadcast law that allows for great benefit to the broadcasters: cable substitution. Cable substitution shapes the industry in this country profoundly. It allows Canadian broadcasters to buy U.S. programs, piggyback on their signal and P.R., and not have to worry about competing. Interestingly, if there was no substitution, maybe these channels would actually have to make more Canadian shows, because that would be the only thing they could offer that was different than the U.S. networks which are beamed into just about every Canadians’ homes. The spending on U.S. programming has reached record levels, by your own figures, while spending on homegrown programming has declined. You’ve moved decisively and quickly to prop up and support the broadcast side of things.
The Canadian Television Fund came into existence because the Cable co’s were asking for protection. That was their price, their social benefit, bought in exchange for extremely favorable terms and protections from the CRTC for their industry. You took care of them. Just last week, you released figures which showed healthy growth and huge profits for the Cable and Satellite distribution industry.
In fact, the CRTC has implemented a bunch of protectionist policies that have benefited many of the big, monied players.
But real incomes for Canadian creatives – writers and directors, the very people who most depend on things like the CTF – they’ve never been worse. We’re still suffering greatly from the rule change you put through in 1999. And now you want to tinker with the fund and roll the dice on us again.
We can’t afford it. We’ve been drowning for a long time. Why is it that we’re the only people in the domestic television industry who you refuse to help?
Cause and Effect and What’s at Stake
As a regulatory body, this is the part of my comment that might be hardest for the CRTC to digest, because it’s the hardest to quantify.
But it goes back to what I said at the start about the faulty premise at the heart of the recommendation to split the two funds. It comes down to two very fundamental questions: what makes a show Canadian? And what’s best for Canadians as a whole?
At the start I suggested that the CRTC try to consider why shows like CORNER GAS connect and are so popular with Canadian audiences. But in the end, I understand this is an impossible task, just as suggesting that cable substitution be lifted is an impossible task.
Quasi-governmental organizations like the CTF and the CRTC should not, and cannot, be expected to define what makes a program Canadian. There can be no checklist. Government fails every time it tries to decree what is art. There is only one body that can decide what is truly successful in this case, and that is the audience. You’ve gone a ways toward acknowledging this in your report by tying future funding to audience performance. This is a good step.
But as for that definition of what makes something Canadian? The very kind of definition we’re going to force administrators to make if we go to a two-fund system? It’s a fool’s game.
In a complex, globalized world, there is only one meaningful definition that can be used to decide what makes a Canadian show:
Is it created by and made by Canadians?
That’s it. That’s the whole definition.
We have a history in this country of incredible media innovation. From Marshall McLuhan to Moses Znaimer to Graham Spry’s vision of a national broadcaster that mixed both popular and public aims – Canada, by virtue of our position close to and yet apart from the greatest exporter of popular culture the world has ever known, has always been in a unique position.
Our creative artists – musicians, artists, painters, authors – have brought their unique disciplines to the world stage, and had an impact greater than you’d think for a nation of less than thirty million people.
Our Television artists have had a similar impact – it’s just that they’ve traditionally had to go to the United States to do it. And their Canadian viewpoint gets subsumed into the American machine.
The convulsions of our industry are such that we are constantly starting over. Writers, directors hone their craft, and then hit the periodic dry spell or find there’s not enough work, and then move to L.A. If Canadian TV has not achieved a level of greater popularity, it’s only because we are consistently forced to reinvent the wheel. We are not retaining trained people. It’s too hard to make a living here, and the pressure to go to a larger market where you can make a living is simply too great.
There’s nothing the CRTC can do to completely stop people from going south. That’s always going to happen to some degree. But what you’re contemplating doing is tantamount to throwing in the towel. And say that happens. What happens next? What is actually at stake with the loss of original Canadian drama on TV?
I can only offer you a few anecdotes.
The first is an example. This fall, there will be a program on U.S. television called ALIENS IN AMERICA. In this program, a foreign exchange student from Pakistan comes to stay with Americans and they worry that he’s a terrorist. The themes of cultural difference are explored. But we should note the format: the outsider is seen as that – a stranger, and the comedy comes partially from the fear of the other. In Canada, by contrast, we have LITTLE MOSQUE. In this case, a lot of the same themes are explored – but the Muslims are the main characters. They are not the other. They are us. This is such a small adjustment that says so very much about us as a nation and as a people. But I think it’s an attitude worth preserving, don’t you?
I am currently employed on a CBC show called THE BORDER. This is a show that’s set inside a Homeland Security type agency in Toronto. The post 9/11 fears about security and liberty are explored – but not from within the culture of fear and suspicion that dominates American views of the subject. On our show, one of the pressures is the pressure that Canadians feel everyday – an uneasiness about how the American nation has shifted, and how their new view of the world and their place in it affects all of us. If the creative was coming out of L.A., do you think that this would be the focus of the show? Do you not think this is a rich vein of potential story, with relevance to Canadians now?
DEGRASSI, in its original incarnation, appeared on PBS stations in the USA and picked up fans because it was so utterly unlike American teen shows. Part of that came from a willingness to address subjects that are too “third rail” in the United States. In the USA, teens cannot have sex without getting pregnant. No one can have an abortion. The lessons are proscribed within a tiny window. Ironically, the thing that made the original Degrassi such a hit in the USA was its Canadian-ness. That’s what made it different. That’s what made it appealing.
Right now, DAVINCI's INQUEST, the long running CBC show, is enjoying a new life in late night syndication in the USA. The fact that it's different -- that the stories and characters are NOT like cookie cutter American crime shows -- is the reason why that show is doing well. Preserving an independent Canadian voice can have a great effect -- if we have the foresight and courage to pursue it.
Studies published in the last year show definitively that socially, Canadians are moving further and further away from Americans in terms of social attitudes. Yet the American dramas we see frame issues of crime and social justice, and society in distinctly American terms.
Surveys show that Canadians are increasingly obsessed about crime, even though the rate of crime here is nowhere near the American level. Ingesting another nation’s values, longterm, is not good for nationhood or the shared national conversation. But when those values are diverging more and more, the stakes grow even higher.
There’s a phrase that’s bandied about a lot that I actually quite hate: “telling our own stories.” This is generally interepreted to mean Canadian stories; stories about Canadians or set in Canada – but I don’t think that’s what’s needed. Not at all. If we’re going to connect with Canadians, if we’re going to continue to build upon our successes and get more programs on the air that Canadians respond to, we have to recognize that “telling our own stories” really means “letting us tell stories.” The story doesn’t matter in this case; the person telling it does. Canadians have a different perspective on the world. That difference, when it’s allowed to surface – when we’re not trying to ape other types of programs or American models – finds resonance with our countrymen and women. And that difference, when it’s allowed to be organic, could actually help us sell those stories abroad. Because when you’re trying to be like someone else, there’s always a falseness. Only by being true and specific, can you find experience that is universal to all. That’s why Degrassi is a success.
American shows-in-all-but-name where the creative comes out of L.A. will never allow this difference. They'll be too concerned with trying to make Toronto look like Chicago and scrubbing out any local reference or custom. A raft of cheaply made, hacky, "Anywhere U.S.A." will accrue no social benefit, and very little actual entertainment value, to Canadians.
The only way to get Canadian stories out is to keep the reins on those telling them. You’ve recognized Canada’s unique position and moved to protect the interests of broadcasters, and satellite and cable operators. I’m asking you merely to extend the same philosophy to creatives. Don’t experiment with our livelihoods any more. You’ve done that enough. We’re struggling to get off the mat – largely because of your past decisions. Don’t kick us in the stomach when we’re down. Don’t implement this foolish recommendation, predicated on a faulty premise, echoing past failure. Find another way.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Denis McGrath
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Reprint: "Mom. Dad. Sit Down. I have to tell you something...I'm a Writer..."
(Originally published November 4, 2005)
I've mentioned a couple of times before that I teach a class at a local University here in Toronto. This year, the class isn't very onerous. It's got the vaguely pretentious course title of "Master Writers Workshop." In reality, the class pretty much boils down to "Professional TV writers come in and bare their souls about how and why the hell they do this."
I don't teach for the money. (Thank Dog, because it's like, beer money at best.) But it's extremely useful, because it gives me a weekly window into what a bunch of 20 year olds think - and it also forces me to think about and try to articulate what I do. I've learned quite a bit about writers I thought I knew already by leading them through questions for this class.
Striking the right balance is often the hardest part. Because you don't want to misrepresent the writing life. But when you talk about the reality, it's easy to seem negative. Especially in Canada.
When I'm procrastinating, occasionally I'll troll the sites of aspiring screenwriters and wonder, "why, exactly, do you want to do this?"
It's a question that's so important. And I'm not sure it's one that's answered truthfully or honestly very often.
I've yet to meet someone who got into writing for the money who actually made a go of it. Yes, I know how much Shane Black made for selling Lethal Weapon. Yup, I know that spec sales throw dollar sign dreams into the eyes of any doe-eyed newcomer.
But the reality is that you may very well polish that screenplay for seven years. It may indeed be good. And it might sell. But how much work did it take? And if you really wanted to make money -- if that was the goal, then wouldn't some currency trader route be, I don't know -- easier?
I've got a cousin who's a Very Big Deal in the financial world. He's damn good at his job. I met him for a drink at the Royal York Hotel when he was in town not so long ago, and we had a great old time. He's decent, a good guy, a very good businessman...he works seventy hours a week and oh... he's a millionaire.
I wouldn't trade places with him for the world.
The truth is, most writers I know that achieve some degree of success are doubters. They constantly doubt their material. It's wrenching to send a script out there. You never feel confident about it. At least most writers I know who are good don't.
(By the way, this is the root of why I think writers -- especially TV scribes, need to really stay away from fansites. Cause that stuff can F you up proper, g.)
I know others. I know people who really think that what they do is just...great. Every finished script will change the world. Every script is the greatest thing they've ever done.
And without fail, it's the doubters who get further ahead. I tested this theory in a convo with my agent last night. He agreed immediately. "When I get a script, if the person talks about how they're not totally happy with it, it's inevitably better than the person who says, "this is the best thing I've ever done."
My agent is cool. He has long hair and everything.
So doubt works. So does finishing. The main thing that separates people I know who actually make a living writing from those who don't is that the ones who do are finishers. And the way they finish is by focusing on small, realistic signpost goals, and chipping away.
The analogy I can think of is that there are a lot of people out there who think of a writing career like it's winning the World Series of Poker. In reality, it's more like being a grinder...playing one game at a time, for hours on end, just chipping, chipping, trying to get by.
There's a price to be paid for all this. You do spend a lot of time alone. You sometimes find yourself feeling disconnected even when you're out. You have to step back and observe more often than you participate. You actually have to indulge a level of self-involvement that most people would try to avoid. (Not as much as actors, but still.)
There's a lot about this life that's actually quite negative, on balance.
So why do it?
Well, here's the rub:
Because I can't imagine doing anything else.
I'm serious. I may call one of my writer friends and have a full on bitch session laced with bitterness, with a side of bitterness. We can beat each other up til we're whacking away on some great big bitterness pinata. And then one or the other will say, "well, at least we're living the dream."
It may be a peculiar Canadian trait, to define yourself negatively like this, but the writers I know and respect all have a somewhat fatalistic view of what they do. They don't do it for lofty reasons. They don't do it for fame or even for fortune. There are a lot of petty humiliations, snubs, and indignities to suffer along the way, but in the end you do it because, if you don't, then what the hell else are you going to do?
In many ways, I think you don't decide to be a writer. I think you come out as a writer. It's not what you do, it's who you are. I know that sounds glib. But in times that are dark, I have often taken comfort from the fact that I know I would never be happy doing anything else.
So maybe the first thing you should ask yourself if you're thinking of trying to be a writer (not write on the side, not be a waiter who's working on a screenplay, not an actor who's working on a novel, but a real, honest-to-goodness-this-is-how-I-make-my living writer writer) is this:
"Could I be happy doing anything else?"
If the answer's yes, you should strongly consider doing that thing.
If not, well, welcome. Maybe you're a writer after all.
"We're here. We fear. Get used to it!"
I've mentioned a couple of times before that I teach a class at a local University here in Toronto. This year, the class isn't very onerous. It's got the vaguely pretentious course title of "Master Writers Workshop." In reality, the class pretty much boils down to "Professional TV writers come in and bare their souls about how and why the hell they do this."
I don't teach for the money. (Thank Dog, because it's like, beer money at best.) But it's extremely useful, because it gives me a weekly window into what a bunch of 20 year olds think - and it also forces me to think about and try to articulate what I do. I've learned quite a bit about writers I thought I knew already by leading them through questions for this class.
Striking the right balance is often the hardest part. Because you don't want to misrepresent the writing life. But when you talk about the reality, it's easy to seem negative. Especially in Canada.
When I'm procrastinating, occasionally I'll troll the sites of aspiring screenwriters and wonder, "why, exactly, do you want to do this?"
It's a question that's so important. And I'm not sure it's one that's answered truthfully or honestly very often.
I've yet to meet someone who got into writing for the money who actually made a go of it. Yes, I know how much Shane Black made for selling Lethal Weapon. Yup, I know that spec sales throw dollar sign dreams into the eyes of any doe-eyed newcomer.
But the reality is that you may very well polish that screenplay for seven years. It may indeed be good. And it might sell. But how much work did it take? And if you really wanted to make money -- if that was the goal, then wouldn't some currency trader route be, I don't know -- easier?
I've got a cousin who's a Very Big Deal in the financial world. He's damn good at his job. I met him for a drink at the Royal York Hotel when he was in town not so long ago, and we had a great old time. He's decent, a good guy, a very good businessman...he works seventy hours a week and oh... he's a millionaire.
I wouldn't trade places with him for the world.
The truth is, most writers I know that achieve some degree of success are doubters. They constantly doubt their material. It's wrenching to send a script out there. You never feel confident about it. At least most writers I know who are good don't.
(By the way, this is the root of why I think writers -- especially TV scribes, need to really stay away from fansites. Cause that stuff can F you up proper, g.)
I know others. I know people who really think that what they do is just...great. Every finished script will change the world. Every script is the greatest thing they've ever done.
And without fail, it's the doubters who get further ahead. I tested this theory in a convo with my agent last night. He agreed immediately. "When I get a script, if the person talks about how they're not totally happy with it, it's inevitably better than the person who says, "this is the best thing I've ever done."
My agent is cool. He has long hair and everything.
So doubt works. So does finishing. The main thing that separates people I know who actually make a living writing from those who don't is that the ones who do are finishers. And the way they finish is by focusing on small, realistic signpost goals, and chipping away.
The analogy I can think of is that there are a lot of people out there who think of a writing career like it's winning the World Series of Poker. In reality, it's more like being a grinder...playing one game at a time, for hours on end, just chipping, chipping, trying to get by.
There's a price to be paid for all this. You do spend a lot of time alone. You sometimes find yourself feeling disconnected even when you're out. You have to step back and observe more often than you participate. You actually have to indulge a level of self-involvement that most people would try to avoid. (Not as much as actors, but still.)
There's a lot about this life that's actually quite negative, on balance.
So why do it?
Well, here's the rub:
Because I can't imagine doing anything else.
I'm serious. I may call one of my writer friends and have a full on bitch session laced with bitterness, with a side of bitterness. We can beat each other up til we're whacking away on some great big bitterness pinata. And then one or the other will say, "well, at least we're living the dream."
It may be a peculiar Canadian trait, to define yourself negatively like this, but the writers I know and respect all have a somewhat fatalistic view of what they do. They don't do it for lofty reasons. They don't do it for fame or even for fortune. There are a lot of petty humiliations, snubs, and indignities to suffer along the way, but in the end you do it because, if you don't, then what the hell else are you going to do?
In many ways, I think you don't decide to be a writer. I think you come out as a writer. It's not what you do, it's who you are. I know that sounds glib. But in times that are dark, I have often taken comfort from the fact that I know I would never be happy doing anything else.
So maybe the first thing you should ask yourself if you're thinking of trying to be a writer (not write on the side, not be a waiter who's working on a screenplay, not an actor who's working on a novel, but a real, honest-to-goodness-this-is-how-I-make-my living writer writer) is this:
"Could I be happy doing anything else?"
If the answer's yes, you should strongly consider doing that thing.
If not, well, welcome. Maybe you're a writer after all.
"We're here. We fear. Get used to it!"
Friday, July 13, 2007
Reprint: Gettin Schooled
(Originally published Dec 1, 2006)
THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA.
That's rain outside my window that looks suspiciously like it wants to be snow. This is the kind of weather that makes a rewrite much, much easier. Blueglow will be relieved that I shant be haunting the coffee shops today. (Still gotta write about that.)
So the better to get to work, and ease into the weekend, I need something easy to write. Hmm. Let's see. Here we've got an email from Nicole. Nicole is a journalism student somewhere here in the fine Province of Ontario, and she writes:
On a basic level, the difference is that Canadians are not as insular as Americans are. The great bulk of Americans have very little curiosity about other cultures or an international perspective. (They have more now than they did five years ago, to be sure, but it's still tied up in post-9/11 fear and a sense of threat, not genuine curiosity about the world.) Americans tend not to be too interested if the show isn't about Americans, or something happening in America. I have a hard time explaining this to Canadians, a lot of the time, but Americans tend to kind of be isolationist as a people. (Their government's experiments in imperialism notwithstanding.)
What that means is that I think you can write a bit more about the situation in the world, or feel free to set something other than Chicago or New York, or have a character from a different part of the world in a Canadian work, rather than an American work.
The peculiar thing about Canadians, of course, is that they spend their whole lives absorbing and observing a culture that they're intimately familiar with, of which they aren't really a part. I think that might make Canadians more introspective as a people. So maybe characters who are more thoughtful, and more considered, rather than "men of action" could play here, more than in the U.S.
If you believe the ratings, smarter shows that use irony do a little better with Canadians. God bless'em, the great bulk of the American people don't really cotton much to irony. They didn't get it when Mark Twain tried it a hundred years ago, and they don't get it now. Irony rules the internet, and snarky magazine pieces, but not that mass TV audience.
On a more practical level, the differences have to do with social pressure. Because the religious right isn't quite as militant or influential in Canada, you can portray things that you simply can't in the USA: teenagers can have sex on TV here, without immediately getting pregnant. If they do get pregnant, they could actually have an abortion, not be forced to keep the baby or have a magic miscarriage. Degrassi actually had lots of trouble getting some of their shows past the N, though it's their most popular show. Shows that aired here and were no big deal were too hot to handle down south. That's telling. The Sopranos runs on CTV here unbleeped. Dropping an F or an S bomb won't be thought of as bringing the whole of western civilization to a halt. And, of course, Canadians are mostly allergic to jingoism, that kind of "My country right or wrong" rah-rah stuff you see in a lot of CBS shows. Oh, and people here who smoke pot do so without immediately trading up to heroin. They are not necessarily evil.
But on the other hand, there are lots of things that are going to be similar in writing TV for Canadians. They demand the production values, pacing, and quality they see from the best U.S. shows. And so they should. That's the place where, sadly, we have to do better. And it's a challenge, because we're never going to have the money most U.S. shows have.
That's a long answer, Nicole. But that's what you get for asking a complicated question.
Oh..you're getting a text message? I'll wait.
There. (I'm kidding, of course, this is an email interview. I've never even met Nicole, though I think she has superb taste in interview subjects.) John Doyle, the TV writer for the Globe and Mail, thinks there's a gentleness to it. And I tend to think that's part of it. American comedies really evolved to a place where we were laughing at people being nasty to each other. Corner Gas is a lot more gentle, and a million and a half people watch it every week, which is a huge number for Canada. The people on Corner Gas tolerate each other, and may get annoyed from time to time, but there isn't nastiness. Trailer Park Boys has a ton of swearing, but the characters form, in their own way, a sweet, supportive family. (One of my favorite things in TPB is the way they handled the gay relationship between Mr. Lahey and Randy. Nobody cared. It was just matter of factly revealed. Nobody has a problem with the two of them because they're gay. It's a far bigger deal that Lahey is always drunk and Randy never wears a shirt.) Degrassi, in all its incarnations, was successful because it spoke to its audience about subjects that U.S. TV wouldn't touch, and it didn't judge or talk down to them. So that's something.
I think successful Canadian shows come out of not replicating U.S. formulas -- but in trying to speak to the parts of the Canadian psyche that don't get represented on U.S. TV. Sometimes that's executed in a clumsy or unsatisfying way, but when creators here do a series with the audience in mind, and not so focused on "what they want to say," that helps. And being different because we're different -- not being different than American shows for the sake of merely being different, is huge, too. I don't know if you see that there's a huge difference between those two things, but there is. If you take another Canadian show that I think works, Rent-A-Goalie, the obvious, surface thing is that it's about hockey. But the thing that makes it work isn't that -- it's the gentleness underneath the fart and jock jokes; the sense of family, just like Trailer Park Boys.
The USA is the largest and most successful exporter of culture the world has ever known. And we're right next door. In other countries, people love U.S. shows, but they also love their own cop shows, their own lawyer shows, or family dramas, or soaps, or talk shows. Canada is an anomaly in the sense that most of our top 20 shows are American.
What makes it even stranger is that you'll see lots of Canadians stand up and wave the flag for Canadian music, or Canadian books, -- hell, they'll get all misty eyed at Hockey Night in Canada and the "I Am Canadian" beer ad, but they're more than happy to watch another nation's values and obsessions on TV every night. It's a disconnect, to be sure. I just happen to think it's a disconnect that we in the Canadian TV industry have sometimes made worse.
Degrassi always aged the kids in real time. And now that they're practically adults, well, all those hormone stories aren't so taboo anymore. And the great truth that Canadian TV can say that U.S. tv can't is that by the time kids get to the end of high school, the majority of them are sexually active -- at least in some fashion.
But the arguments that people make against Cancon quotas are exactly the same arguments they made against forcing stations to play Canadian music. And for a few years, yeah, that meant playing the same bad stuff a little too much...but the industry matured. And now, I think you've got to say that Canada's domestic music scene is arguably more vibrant and interesting than the U.S. scene, especially since we're ten times smaller. Whether you're talking bands that only really succeed domestically like Blue Rodeo or Tragically Hip, buzz bands that are indie music darlings in the U.S. like Broken Social Scene, Feist, Arcade Fire. K-os, Sum 41 -- hell, none of these bands would be around if not for the regulations that allowed Canadian artists to get a toehold and not be overwhelmed by the much larger American market.
If there's a consistency to support for Canadian TV, we'll get to that place, too. Because people will be able to get better, get more experience, move up in the ranks and not have to go south to work in TV, which is what happens now. In fact, if they hadn't changed the rules in 1999, I bet we'd have more hits on the air right now than Corner Gas. It takes a few years. But I think we saw with the rule change where the Networks' priorities are. Once they didn't HAVE to put Canadian drama and comedy on the air...boom...they stopped. Overnight.
I also think this is contingent on separating the Canadian Film and TV industries a bit. Canadian Film is arthouse film. Nobody wants to see arthouse TV. The people who should be creating TV shows here should be people with a commercial, audience-entertaining sensibility. These people, in the past, haven't been the ones getting TV shows here. So, like David Shore (House,) Hart Hanson, (Bones, Judging Amy) and a bunch of Simpsons writers-- they went to the USA.
They also want more ad time, they want to count infomercials as CanCon. It's pure greed. Utterly silly.
The CRTC should restore a quota: 7% of private broadcasters revenues have to go into Cancon, period. They should also stipulate a number of hours a week in primetime that has to be devoted to homegrown scripted programming. That's the stick. Then offer the carrot: breaks or credits on Adtime for spending money to actually promote these homegrown shows. There are people smarter than me that probably have better ideas about this, but the bottom line is that Canadian networks have treated their homegrown shows as a nuisance. Something has to be done to force them to really try to invest in these programs' success. Broadcasting licenses in this country are not a right, they are a privlege, and they have to step up as corporate citizens here. They're crying poor, but broadcasting in this country has been and continues to be ABSURDLY profitable. All we're asking for here is our fair share -- and 7% is not a lot, in context. Networks who spend 300 million a year on U.S. shows and then balk at spending more than 90 million on homegrown shows just aren't credible.
THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA.
That's rain outside my window that looks suspiciously like it wants to be snow. This is the kind of weather that makes a rewrite much, much easier. Blueglow will be relieved that I shant be haunting the coffee shops today. (Still gotta write about that.)
So the better to get to work, and ease into the weekend, I need something easy to write. Hmm. Let's see. Here we've got an email from Nicole. Nicole is a journalism student somewhere here in the fine Province of Ontario, and she writes:
For my final assignment I am doing an article on Canadian media—specifically how America affects Canadian television and Canadians viewing habits. If you feel like you could give me any insight or views into this subject, I would like to interview via-email.Sure Nicole, sounds fun. And since everything is repurposed for content here at Dead Things Labs, let's have a giggle and share Nicole's questions and my answers to the group, shall we?
Here are my questions..thank you so much for taking the time and helping me out. You rock!I really don't. At best, I sway. But Thanks. Shoot.
Do you think there is any difference between writing tv for Canadians as opposed to Americans? Explain.I think so. There's several ways to answer that question. First, though I truly believe there is a difference, I'm not sure our industry has done a very good job of exploiting what that difference is, yet.
On a basic level, the difference is that Canadians are not as insular as Americans are. The great bulk of Americans have very little curiosity about other cultures or an international perspective. (They have more now than they did five years ago, to be sure, but it's still tied up in post-9/11 fear and a sense of threat, not genuine curiosity about the world.) Americans tend not to be too interested if the show isn't about Americans, or something happening in America. I have a hard time explaining this to Canadians, a lot of the time, but Americans tend to kind of be isolationist as a people. (Their government's experiments in imperialism notwithstanding.)
What that means is that I think you can write a bit more about the situation in the world, or feel free to set something other than Chicago or New York, or have a character from a different part of the world in a Canadian work, rather than an American work.
The peculiar thing about Canadians, of course, is that they spend their whole lives absorbing and observing a culture that they're intimately familiar with, of which they aren't really a part. I think that might make Canadians more introspective as a people. So maybe characters who are more thoughtful, and more considered, rather than "men of action" could play here, more than in the U.S.
If you believe the ratings, smarter shows that use irony do a little better with Canadians. God bless'em, the great bulk of the American people don't really cotton much to irony. They didn't get it when Mark Twain tried it a hundred years ago, and they don't get it now. Irony rules the internet, and snarky magazine pieces, but not that mass TV audience.
On a more practical level, the differences have to do with social pressure. Because the religious right isn't quite as militant or influential in Canada, you can portray things that you simply can't in the USA: teenagers can have sex on TV here, without immediately getting pregnant. If they do get pregnant, they could actually have an abortion, not be forced to keep the baby or have a magic miscarriage. Degrassi actually had lots of trouble getting some of their shows past the N, though it's their most popular show. Shows that aired here and were no big deal were too hot to handle down south. That's telling. The Sopranos runs on CTV here unbleeped. Dropping an F or an S bomb won't be thought of as bringing the whole of western civilization to a halt. And, of course, Canadians are mostly allergic to jingoism, that kind of "My country right or wrong" rah-rah stuff you see in a lot of CBS shows. Oh, and people here who smoke pot do so without immediately trading up to heroin. They are not necessarily evil.
But on the other hand, there are lots of things that are going to be similar in writing TV for Canadians. They demand the production values, pacing, and quality they see from the best U.S. shows. And so they should. That's the place where, sadly, we have to do better. And it's a challenge, because we're never going to have the money most U.S. shows have.
That's a long answer, Nicole. But that's what you get for asking a complicated question.
What do you think makes a successful Canadian show?I don't think there's a magic bullet or yardstick. And again, that question needs to be parsed a little bit, because are you talking success in terms of ratings or revenue, or in terms of being artistically successful? I'm going to assume the latter, because I think it's a more interesting answer and I'm the one answering the questions here, Nicole, let's not forget that.
Oh..you're getting a text message? I'll wait.
There. (I'm kidding, of course, this is an email interview. I've never even met Nicole, though I think she has superb taste in interview subjects.) John Doyle, the TV writer for the Globe and Mail, thinks there's a gentleness to it. And I tend to think that's part of it. American comedies really evolved to a place where we were laughing at people being nasty to each other. Corner Gas is a lot more gentle, and a million and a half people watch it every week, which is a huge number for Canada. The people on Corner Gas tolerate each other, and may get annoyed from time to time, but there isn't nastiness. Trailer Park Boys has a ton of swearing, but the characters form, in their own way, a sweet, supportive family. (One of my favorite things in TPB is the way they handled the gay relationship between Mr. Lahey and Randy. Nobody cared. It was just matter of factly revealed. Nobody has a problem with the two of them because they're gay. It's a far bigger deal that Lahey is always drunk and Randy never wears a shirt.) Degrassi, in all its incarnations, was successful because it spoke to its audience about subjects that U.S. TV wouldn't touch, and it didn't judge or talk down to them. So that's something.
I think successful Canadian shows come out of not replicating U.S. formulas -- but in trying to speak to the parts of the Canadian psyche that don't get represented on U.S. TV. Sometimes that's executed in a clumsy or unsatisfying way, but when creators here do a series with the audience in mind, and not so focused on "what they want to say," that helps. And being different because we're different -- not being different than American shows for the sake of merely being different, is huge, too. I don't know if you see that there's a huge difference between those two things, but there is. If you take another Canadian show that I think works, Rent-A-Goalie, the obvious, surface thing is that it's about hockey. But the thing that makes it work isn't that -- it's the gentleness underneath the fart and jock jokes; the sense of family, just like Trailer Park Boys.
How is Canadian TV affected by America?Profoundly. We're the only country in the world that receives U.S. network feeds in their entirety on our cable systems. So their shows are all on at the same time as in the USA. No other country has this burden, and it is a burden, because in many ways we really are what Hollywood would like us to be: an extension of the U.S. domestic market.
The USA is the largest and most successful exporter of culture the world has ever known. And we're right next door. In other countries, people love U.S. shows, but they also love their own cop shows, their own lawyer shows, or family dramas, or soaps, or talk shows. Canada is an anomaly in the sense that most of our top 20 shows are American.
What makes it even stranger is that you'll see lots of Canadians stand up and wave the flag for Canadian music, or Canadian books, -- hell, they'll get all misty eyed at Hockey Night in Canada and the "I Am Canadian" beer ad, but they're more than happy to watch another nation's values and obsessions on TV every night. It's a disconnect, to be sure. I just happen to think it's a disconnect that we in the Canadian TV industry have sometimes made worse.
The new season of Degrassi seems to be sexed up. Do you think this is this a way for CTV to compete with American shows kike the OC?I really don't think so, no. I think it's just a function of where those characters are in their lives right now. I actually haven't watched Degrassi for a few years, so when I tuned in I was shocked by how old they've all gotten. No wonder they're all sexed up -- they're all 19 and 20 years old and totally hot.
Degrassi always aged the kids in real time. And now that they're practically adults, well, all those hormone stories aren't so taboo anymore. And the great truth that Canadian TV can say that U.S. tv can't is that by the time kids get to the end of high school, the majority of them are sexually active -- at least in some fashion.
What is your opinion on the Cancon mandate?I think it's important. There are some really radical people in my industry who think that we should have a quota system like France where I think 60% of their prime time has to be homegrown fare. I think that's totally unrealistic, and you'd probably have a viewer revolt, and the Canadian networks would really suffer. And Oh My Lord that would mean a whole lot of crap on the air. So I don't favor that at all.
But the arguments that people make against Cancon quotas are exactly the same arguments they made against forcing stations to play Canadian music. And for a few years, yeah, that meant playing the same bad stuff a little too much...but the industry matured. And now, I think you've got to say that Canada's domestic music scene is arguably more vibrant and interesting than the U.S. scene, especially since we're ten times smaller. Whether you're talking bands that only really succeed domestically like Blue Rodeo or Tragically Hip, buzz bands that are indie music darlings in the U.S. like Broken Social Scene, Feist, Arcade Fire. K-os, Sum 41 -- hell, none of these bands would be around if not for the regulations that allowed Canadian artists to get a toehold and not be overwhelmed by the much larger American market.
If there's a consistency to support for Canadian TV, we'll get to that place, too. Because people will be able to get better, get more experience, move up in the ranks and not have to go south to work in TV, which is what happens now. In fact, if they hadn't changed the rules in 1999, I bet we'd have more hits on the air right now than Corner Gas. It takes a few years. But I think we saw with the rule change where the Networks' priorities are. Once they didn't HAVE to put Canadian drama and comedy on the air...boom...they stopped. Overnight.
I also think this is contingent on separating the Canadian Film and TV industries a bit. Canadian Film is arthouse film. Nobody wants to see arthouse TV. The people who should be creating TV shows here should be people with a commercial, audience-entertaining sensibility. These people, in the past, haven't been the ones getting TV shows here. So, like David Shore (House,) Hart Hanson, (Bones, Judging Amy) and a bunch of Simpsons writers-- they went to the USA.
What do you think the CRTC must do to ‘save’ Canadian TV?Go back to the carrot and the stick. Right now the networks are asking for carriage fees, so they can charge cable operators to carry their signals. Which are mostly simulcasts of U.S. shows, which is a big fat joke on the Canadian public. Try explaining to the Canadian public that they have to pay 10 bucks more a month for cable just so they can watch CSI on CTV and not CBS. See how far you get.
They also want more ad time, they want to count infomercials as CanCon. It's pure greed. Utterly silly.
The CRTC should restore a quota: 7% of private broadcasters revenues have to go into Cancon, period. They should also stipulate a number of hours a week in primetime that has to be devoted to homegrown scripted programming. That's the stick. Then offer the carrot: breaks or credits on Adtime for spending money to actually promote these homegrown shows. There are people smarter than me that probably have better ideas about this, but the bottom line is that Canadian networks have treated their homegrown shows as a nuisance. Something has to be done to force them to really try to invest in these programs' success. Broadcasting licenses in this country are not a right, they are a privlege, and they have to step up as corporate citizens here. They're crying poor, but broadcasting in this country has been and continues to be ABSURDLY profitable. All we're asking for here is our fair share -- and 7% is not a lot, in context. Networks who spend 300 million a year on U.S. shows and then balk at spending more than 90 million on homegrown shows just aren't credible.
What do you think about the CRTC hearing going on this week?It would be nice if the commission showed some teeth. The broadcasters have gotten their way for so long that I think they just expect to get whatever they ask for. It's outrageous that they're standing up there, asking for even more breaks and protection, and then out of the other side of their mouth whining that there's no room to spend money on domestic shows. I hope people finally wake up and realize that these guys want to charge them more every month for stuff that they're already getting, and not give anything back to anyone. We'll see.
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