Creativity

YOU MAY HAVE missed it, but last week, FOX quietly dropped this season's experiment which saw it run less commercials in FRINGE and DOLLHOUSE. Turns out that it there were improvements in stopping PVR ad fast-forwarding, and they did get a premium for the ads -- but it still wasn't profitable. Still, it was a pretty bold try.

FOX is trying something new again this week. It's premiering one of its Fall shows early. MONTHS early, in fact. Glee is getting all sorts of love from critics. It's definitely a hopeful, Obama-era show in line with the kind of sunny programming I've been saying would be in vogue soon.

Well, FOX obviously wants to make its impact count -- because it's sneaking the show right after the finale of American Idol on Tuesday. Here's sort of an extended trailer:

No question, the show looks like it might be a winner. And it also is a perfect match for Idol. But the fact is that in the battle for eyeballs, in the midst of trying times for the TV business, with the full knowledge that the network TV model is eroding, and it's getting harder and harder to pay for shows through advertising, FOX is trying bold things. They are doing whatever they can to get one past and over, to find a hit, to place a show, to make the model work. There are ideas here. Some don't work, some might. But they're trying.

Let's contrast that with the Canadian networks.

Questions? Comments? Observations?

Playing Poker With a Weak Hand

GRANT ROBERTSON in the Globe & Mail has some delicious tea-reading of the recent CRTC hearings, and how the Canadian Networks are being pushed to seek their "carriage fees" in a different way:

According to transcripts of the meetings, Mr. von Finckenstein instructed CTV and Global to consider a different path that would see the networks negotiate with the carriers for compensation for their signals, rather than the regulator approving a monthly fee. He suggested the CRTC would look at changing federal regulations to allow the networks to enter arbitration if a deal could not be reached.

"I think you should contemplate a scenario where there is a negotiation where at the end of the day if you don't get to an agreement you can put it to us for arbitration and we will deal with it," Mr. von Finckenstein said in meetings that were closed to the public. The transcripts have since been produced with sections blacked out, though much of the discussion remains intact.

The CRTC's idea would see the networks given the right to negotiate money from the carriers for their signals, as cable channels do, and potentially withhold their signal. That rate would not be set by the regulator. If a deal could not be reached, the matter would be settled in arbitration.

The problem here, of course, is that it brings into sharp, sharp relief the question exactly as framed by the creative guilds in this country: if you lose Canadian signals, what are you missing?

The networks have doubled down on local news. Sure, that's one thing - unless you're under 50 and get your news from the internet. The rest of the time, the privates are usually re-broadcasting American shows. They have spent so little time bringing up a homegrown stable of shows that if you were to lose their feeds, what would you be missing? It's likely a pretty empty threat.

Even their new strategy -- pairing with U.S. nets for "reverse simulcasted" U.S. shows -- means that you could still get those shows on U.S. nets if the CTV or Global signal went dark on your dial.

For years, this argument has been framed by business. And they forgot the first rule of selling: What's your unique selling proposition?

I'm not sure CTV and Global have one. In fact, since they took over CHUM and Alliance Atlantis, respectively, even the properties they once held seem less valuable. I used to watch Bravo! and Showcase and History and Comedy and Space. But lately, a channel like Showcase, which used to have a very distinct identity, looks like just one more repository for the shows bought down south at the screenings. What made it unique is gone. In St. John's, I have a cable package that includes TMN, but none of those specialties -- Space, Bravo! History, HG, Comedy, etc. Don't miss 'em. The only channel I don't have that I miss is CNN.

It's curious: with that one simple word: negotiate, we risk exposing just how unclothed the Emperor is in this situation.

I'd have paid 50 cents a month for Corner Gas, maybe. Gas is gone. I would certainly pay 50 cents a month for four or five shows like Corner Gas I couldn't get on CBS, ABC, NBC or FOX. But if the Cable co's and the CanNets continue to play this game of chicken and that signal disappears? What am I supposed to miss, exactly?

Interesting corner we've been painted into. I mean, they could point to the Broadcast Act and say, "you have to carry us, we're Canadian." But how do you do that with one hand and keep playing the "we can't afford to do the rest of the stuff the Broadcast Act demands, and make Canadian shows?"

Curiouser and curiouser.

House of (No) Change

I WAS A little p.o'd by HOUSE's Bobby Ewing episode this week, but I have to admit I find Jaime Weinman's latest take on the show quite convincing -- even if he goes to some lengths to back away from it.

it’s pointless to complain that nobody ever changes, because that’s the whole point of the show.

As I said, this is not an uncommon or illegitimate take on House. I don’t really buy it, but it does indicate why House has been so successful: it combines the up-to-date features of hip TV storytelling — ongoing storylines, speculation about what the characters will do next — with the traditions of comfort-food television, the most important tradition being that every episode should be pretty much the same. David Shore may not have planned it all out like this, but he hit upon a way to have his cake and eat it too, to create the comfort of familiarity without being written off as TV for the uncool. And he did it by creating a premise that turns the biggest tradition of old-school episodic television — that people stay the same no matter what happens — into a big over-arching worldview.

Like I said, I don’t exactly buy this, or I might have been more likely to buy it back when the show was at its peak. The past season has been uneven enough that I’m not prepared to accept the repetition as part of some statement about human nature. But it is part of the genius of House that, at its best, it made formula storytelling into something cool by transforming the formula into a worldview.

It occurs to me that this is exactly how I've treated HOUSE for the last couple seasons: comfort food. I'm watching a lot less TV right now than usual (that always happens when I'm on a show) and I watch different shows for different reasons. Like a lot of people right now, I'm drawn to comedies, which is why How I Met Your Mother continues to grow in my estimation, and why 30 Rock is crack to me (even if I have to stay up to 11pm...seriously...to catch it.)

But HOUSE, which is a show I used to call brilliant, is now like a pair of comfortable slippers. It's the Snuggie of network TeeVee. And that's OK.

But seriously, no more Bobby Ewing in the shower, m'kay?

Norm Bolen's New Jersey

THERE'S A LOT of people I've talked to lately who had stories about Norm Bolen, mainly from his days at Alliance Atlantis. In the Globe & Mail today, there's a profile by Gayle MacDonald of Norm in his new role as spokesman and President for Canada's producer's group, the CFTPA. He was a frankly surprising choice for the CFTPA. In the article, I appreciate his categorization of his time at Alliance Atlantis as his phase of being a "born again capitalist."

“I see a gap that needs to be filled. A leadership gap. I've always had a strong affinity with producers, and at Alliance we were focused on Canadian content. We did not see it as a cost of doing business or a tax or a liability.”

In recent years, Bolen says he's seen a huge shift in the broadcasters' muscle over the production community. “There is an imbalance in the system. … Because of the broadcasters' strength, they make a decision and dictate to producers, who don't have much leverage to negotiate reasonable terms. Producers have to take it or leave it. And if you leave it, you have no work,” he adds.

On average, Bolen says broadcasters are currently paying 37 per cent of the total budget of Canadian productions. In return, he adds, they are demanding non-negotiable, unlimited plays on all their channels (conventional or specialty) for up to seven years. He says broadcasters are also demanding all digital media rights.

“Producers can't speak out as individuals because they're in jeopardy of alienating broadcasters who control their fate.”

The networks argue that they want to retain more rights to their content, including subsequent broadcast windows and digital platforms. CTV has told the CRTC that if it gets another hit like Corner Gas it wants to be able to make more money off the show. The producers, who generally retain some of those rights, are concerned about this, since they put up a considerable amount of the money upfront and take on the risk if a show flops.

And then there was this:

At the end of the day, everyone involved in this cat-and-mouse game “has to rise above narrow self-interest and see if we can find bigger solutions,” he says.

“The first thing I did when I took the job was dig up the Broadcasting Act, and read it,” he adds, noting that section three is about the primacy of Canadian content and how the airwaves belong to the people. “The purpose of the broadcasting system is to see that Canadian stories are told. It's not just to be a rebroadcaster.

Hear hear. I still think that individual producers fear of speaking out is a lot more of an excuse than an actual problem. But I guess some of us just feel more comfortable with a target painted on our ass.

Well, now Bolen gets to wear that paint. He's got his work cut out for him, that's for sure. We could use another articulate voice making the case for creatives in this country, though, so I say, "Welcome back to the fight, Mr. Bolen."

What's There To Say?

I DON'T REALLY have anything to add here. Minister James Moore said last week the CBC wouldn't face any more cuts. Fifty-six million dollars while they're still talking about "relief" of private broadcasters is just offensive.

There's no good spin here. None.

CBC could be facing a cut of up to five per cent, or $56 million, from its parliamentary appropriation in the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

That reduction would come on top of a funding shortfall this year of $171 million as a result of a decline in ad revenue.

The federal government has set a target of reallocating expenses by five per cent under its strategic review of government departments and Crown corporations.

The strategic review program, begun in 2007, requires all departments and Crown corporations to look at their spending once every four years, according to a spokesman for the Treasury Board.

CBC president Hubert Lacroix told CBC employees on Friday that CBC/Radio-Canada has been asked to participate in the spending review for 2010-11.

Why J.J.'s Trek Prospers

LIKE ROUGHLY A jillion people across North America, I saw the new Star Trek this weekend, and loved it.

[SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE FOLLOW]

But it took the kung fu of John Rogers to point out how the movie also kicks most of what you know about heroic storytelling on its ass:

Captain James T. Kirk, the protagonist of the movie, does not have the development executive's beloved "character arc." He has no arc at all.

He starts as an arrogant sonovabitch, and becomes a slightly more motivated arrogant sonovabitch. He does not learn to sacrifice, he does not learn to work well with others -- he takes over the goddam ship. He's right all the time, he never doubts he's right, and the only obstacle he occasionally faces is when other people aren't sharp enough to see how frikkin' awesome -- and right -- he is as quickly as they should.

He never has an end-of-Act-Two "low point." Being stranded on the ice planet? Please. He spends those few minutes dictating a memo about bringing Spock up on charges when -- not if, when -- he rejoins the fleet. Oh yes, and then not one but two deus ex machina's get him back to the ship in time.

Does he learn Spock's precious lesson about fear? No. Does he learn what it was like for his father to willingly stare death in the face and sacrifice himself? FUCK no, that's Spock in the starship in the end, making the kamikaze run.

The rest is well, well worth your time.

Canadian TV Pays Its Way

YOU MAY HAVE missed it (it was undercovered, as usual) but one of the cornerstones of the WGC presentation to the CRTC last week at the license renewal hearings (the same one where the broadcasters claim local programming is dead unless they get carriage fees, and the cable co's called 'liar liar pants on fire') was a study co-commissioned by the WGC that showed that contrary to what the networks claim, homegrown programming is profitable for Canadian networks.

This study was prepared despite the fact that the networks do everything they can to not release the disaggregated data about how much their various channels make.

There's a deliberate attempt to conceal and mislead the commission and the public into thinking that Canadian produced shows don't make money. This is so they can ask for "relief" in the form of lowered CanCon regulations, or relaxed rules that let them count cheap Entertainment Tonight or ETalk shows as part of their quota.

Does Canadian programming make as much as those cheap U.S. shows that they have spent the last decade outbidding each other for? No, of course not. But it does make money.

And after all, the question of why we need Canadian networks at all if they're just going to be U.S. network affiliates is a provocative one. I have a U.S. network affiliate as part of my cable package. Right now, in St. John's, they come from Boston. In Toronto, they come from Buffalo. And when I was in Vancouver, they came from Seattle.

Why do we need them from Toronto, or Ottawa too? Fine question.

The complete Nordcity study on the profitability of Canadian TV can be downloaded here, or at the WGC site.

Because We've All Been There

Courtesy HULU, which still isn't available in Canada.

Take the Damn Job

THERE'S AN INTERESTING article I want to link to, but I'll get to that in a moment. In my travels, I often find myself talking to aspirants; people who want to get into the writing room and want to work in TV but ... aren't sure. The worst kind of "aren't sure," is the person who seems to have a job on the hook. Maybe they've made a connection with the producer, but the material is something that they hate, or don't respond to very well.

Maybe it's the fact that the producer seems a little shady, or the show's a little shaky.

In any case, even though a few months back the only thing you could possibly imagine is having the chance to sign up to write on something, or to be a story coordinator and be close to writers in the room, but something, something now is holding you back...you just can't put your finger on it.

I'm telling you to take the job.

It's a funny business. It's full of charlatans and pretenders. There is definitely an A-list, B-list, C-list etc of everything -- Producers, Prodco's, Writers, Crew. Everybody wants to start with the A-list. And very few people get to start with the A-list.

And that's a good thing.

Have you ever noticed that when you watch a totally amazing movie, there's very little you can learn from it? You can steal, but not learn. We got talking the other day about Goodfellas in the writing room. Goodfellas is guycrack. You see Goodfellas on TV, you have to keep watching it. It's almost beyond your control.

But as a writer, Goodfellas has very little to teach you. It's wonderfully executed. A lot of elements have come together in exactly the right way. And that's why you can't learn from it. Now, if you watch a noir or a comedy that misfires in the final act, or that doesn't set its characters off the top correctly, the conversation you're going to have about what was wrong and how maybe it could have been fixed would have been far more illuminating than sitting around for the 100th time and running down all those awesome, favorite scenes from Goodfellas.

The fact is, the same thing holds in the writing workplace. Everybody has their disaster shows. Shows which are managed poorly, where the showrunner doesn't have a vision, or where toxic relations with the producers, basic criminality, insanity or mental illness makes a great product impossible. Or maybe the material just is what it is. Maybe it's beyond being "elevated," whatever that word might mean to you.

That's okay.

The idea is to get those shows under your belt early in your career. This serves a number of purposes:

1) It gives you stories.

There will come a day when you're grizzled and hopefully not old; still creatively vibrant, where you will be able to bond over stories over the abject insanity, mendacious behavior and sheer stupidity you saw back in the day. You will go into these bull sessions thinking that your story will be the craziest and most outrageous. This will be true about 10% of the time. It's also a great way to bond and connect with writers who have a few more years in on you. Maybe they've been at it a decade, or two, and you've been on the job five years, but you've both been in the shit.

2) It builds up your "never gonna do's."

Writing is largely self-taught. Writing professionally on TV is self-taught, too -- but there's also (hopefully) an element of mentorship involved. But a lot of the self-taught component is watching people behave spectacularly badly: scream at underlings, lie for no reason, reject wise counsel simply because it wasn't their idea... any and all of this kind of thing goes in your bank of experience and hopefully hardens your resolve to never, ever, ever repeat those mistakes when you somehow find yourself on a better show.

Again, watching a remarkably well-oiled machine, where the showrunner is always on the ball, the producers make things happen, and the writers support each other and turn drafts in on time doesn't really teach you very much at all. In fact, it can be a little traumatizing if you have that experience, and then go to your next show and find that it's an utter disaster. It's one thing to be in hell and imagine the shape of heaven; quite another to have been there and now to have to undure an unending flaming pitchfork in your butt.

3) It lets you get to know your fellow travellers.

Sometimes the people that you find yourself beside on those really bad shows are going to wind up being players. If you were in the shit with them, and showed grace and supportiveness, you never know. Somewhere else somebody wrote about the "Nash Bridges" effect -- how that show, even though it was a straight up-and-down, not very creative effort, nevertheless trained great writers who one day found themselves on LOST. Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars, Cupid) also cut his teeth on that show, I believe.

So even if the work is ass, the contacts may not be. Tell yourself that. It will help. A bit. At 3am. When you're rocking like a ball in the corner.

4) Only Assholes pick at early credits.

It's true. You think you're going to be forever stigmatized because you worked on a crappy show? By who? They've all worked on crappy shows too. I know two guys who were drivers -- pretty low on the crew. One's an international rock star now who's won Grammys. The other pitched a Director and wound up being a screenwriter who's now written several of the top grossing films of the last twenty years.

The other joke you hear writers make all the time is a version of this: they hold up their resumes and say, "oops, there it is! that's the sound of that credit falling off!" It's a happy, happy day when momentum allows you to 'retire' a less-than-desirable credit. But until that day, anybody who gives you stick for that show where you were a staff writer or story editor is just showing their utter and complete ignorance of the business.

If you achieve any degree of success -- and I mean ANY degree, whatsoever, the amount of jealousy and crazy-hate that's going to come your way will astound you. No, you did nothing to deserve it. Yes, they are small people and possibly disordered. Maybe they live with their moms, or hang out in IRC chatrooms or in Second Life or something. Fuck'em. The idea that one day someone might point at that early credit and judge you for it -- and that being a valid reason to not take a job -- THAT WILL PAY YOU TO WRITE -- is flat out, the craziest thing of all.

5) Nobody knows Anything: or the Inverse Rule of the Film/TV job.

Talk to the crew and they will tell you that when you're making it, there is usually just no way to tell whether it's going to be a good show or a bad show. Sometimes the best movies or TV shows are nightmares to work on. And sometimes the crummiest stuff will form friendships and memories that will carry you through a very long, long life. You just can never tell. So you may as well relax.

There's a show on my resume that I'm not particularly proud of, that was a pain in the ass at times, that exposed me to insanity and stress like you wouldn't believe. But it was fun. Lots of fun. And I made friends. And that's enough.

Now...all's that preamble to this. Imagine a show so packed with talent behind and in front of the camera, given such free rein by the network, that it just couldn't possibly fail.

Well, then you'd have the Dana Carvey Show, kids. With Carvey and Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert on screen, and Robert Smigel and Louis C.K. behind the scenes. It's out on DVD this Tuesday.

See? You just never, ever know.

So stop kvetching. Take the job.

The WGC on the CRTC Hearings

FINALLY, AFTER THE cablers and broadcasters whining, the WGC today made its case for Canadian programming for Canadian viewers. (Yes, you love your U.S. shows. But you already get those, remember.)

This release went out this morning:

The Writers Guild of Canada appeared today at the CRTC’s licence renewal hearings for private over-the-air broadcasters. After several days of the broadcasters expressing their desire for ‘flexibility’ in the regulatory system, the WGC called on the CRTC to reassert the primary place of Canadian programming in the Canadian broadcasting system.

The WGC applauds the CRTC’s recognition of the imbalance between broadcasters’ spending on Canadian programming and American programming in its proposal of a 1 to 1 spending ratio. “We agree that the system is out of whack, with the ludicrous amounts these companies are spending on American programming,” says Maureen Parker, Executive Director, WGC, “and we want to work with the CRTC to refine the 1 to 1 model. The last decade tells the tale: without specific regulation, broadcasters will not do local programming and they most certainly will not make the kind of high-quality Canadian shows that audiences want and deserve.”

In 1998, private English OTA broadcasters spent 5.1% of their ad revenue ($73 million) on Canadian drama. Last year, they spent just 3% of ad revenue ($50 Million) on Canadian programming – and this included benefits spending from consolidation. Over those same years, the amount the English OTA broadcasters spent on foreign drama has increased, rising steeply in the last years as they entered into bidding wars with each other for American programming.

“There’s no one with more skin in the game than the creative community,” says Ms Parker. “In fact, since 1999, we’ve been flayed in the interests of flexibility - but we know now that ‘flexibility’ is just code for less Canadian in our broadcasting system.”

The WGC requested that while the CRTC addresses the immediate issue of local programming, they hold the OTA broadcasters to 2008 expenditure levels on quality Canadian programming like drama. Ms. Parker added, “the status quo is still a loss for us, but let’s save the complex policy issues for the 2010 hearings when we will have the time and facts to address them fully.”

On this note, the WGC also called on the CRTC to require broadcasters to provide the disaggregated data necessary to making informed arguments about revenue and expenditure levels across station groups. Broadcasters have refused to provide the disaggregated data required for a full discussion of the issues instead focusing on immediate relief in the form of fee of carriage and reduced levels of Canadian content.

“Canadian programming, especially drama, has been getting the short end of the regulatory bargain, when it should be the very raison d’être of Canadian broadcasting,” says Rebecca Schechter, President, WGC. “Without quality Canadian programming, the Canadian broadcasters are nothing but network affiliates of the American stations. If they’d prefer to just air U.S. programming, let’s do away with their protections and subsidies, and we’ll get the American shows directly from the U.S. sources.”

"I Love You" only means "I Do Not Hate You"

I'M CATCHING UP on my blog reading and missed this til now, but SERIOCITY did a great piece last week on the neurotic calculus of staffing season.

I put together a list of rules to help you make it through:

1. If someone says they love you, that only means they don't hate you. It does not mean that they will hire you. Quite the contrary.

2. No matter what level you are, you will always be too expensive.

3. Even if you have twenty different samples, you will never have the exact right one.

4. The studio or network list doesn't mean anything if you're on it, but it does mean something if you're not.

5. Most people don't know how to recognize good writing, which is why having the exact right sample is so crucial.

6. You will always knock a meeting out of the park on a show that doesn't get picked up.

7. There is always one show that gets picked up that makes everybody in town go, "Where the fuck did THAT come from?" That show never lasts.

8. The rumors you hear only come true if they diminish your chances of getting a job.

9. Somebody in one of your meetings went to college with that psychopath you worked for.

There's much, much more. Go read the full post here.

Hold Your Nose and Pass The Smelling Salts

I'VE MANAGED TO pull up sick in the last forty-eight hours, just as we get into the meat of storybreaking. Bleah.

Of course, at least some of that queasiness should be reserved for the subject that never goes away and never gets better: the whingeing and moaning over Canadian TV.

Ten years since broadcasters were allowed to re-define "priority programming" to include crappy magazine shows nobody gives a shit about. Ten painful years trying to make inroads with creative dramas and comedies. Some successes. Some failures. But a drop in the bucket to the big tent show: Broadcasters vs. Cablers.

The latter are making all the money. The former are mad. Both, in their time, have complained about homegrown programming not "being competitive" in the midst of their very, very much-protected industries.

In the sideshow this week, Jim Henshaw comes out in an entertaining post for Team Shaw. I tend to feel more like one of his commenters, who compares consumers' role in this little fight as being Poland caught between Germany and the Soviet Union in WWII.

Except, of course, the Poles actually had a sense of their own culture.

Ooh. Low blow. I know. Cranky. I'm in a hotel for night nine. Gimme a break.

The display at the CRTC has been weird, with Cable co's offering interesting speculation about how to re-align the industry, as the conventional broadcasters continue their single-minded pursuit of Carriage Fees. Or, As Henshaw puts it,

Despite ample opportunities offered by Commission Chair Konrad von Finckenstein for input on how the broken conventional model of television could be fixed, Fecan offered nothing but “give us more money”.

Seemingly unable to articulate how that money could be spent, be it on local news or maybe even drama, to bring back both audience and advertisers, he raised the same question a lot of people have been asking about auto industry bailouts -- “If nobody’s buying the product, how does keeping the company afloat a while longer solve that problem?”

Even when von Finckenstein mentioned that it’s been a downhill slope for “ten years”, Fecan couldn’t come up with one idea on what might change things.

Anybody remember what happened ten years ago? 1999? The year the nets won a reprieve from doing expensive dramas in favor of cheaper to produce and mostly unwatchable pap?

And throwing more money at this guy, just like the CRTC did back then, is going to make it all better. Uh-huh.

So Jim Shaw made what he knew was a winning bet, and immediately further pissed on Fecan’s parade by stating that his Kenora station (another small market outfit) had managed to end up $200,000 in the black last year.

Huh?

You mean local TV can make money?

How come the CTV affiliated Globe & Mail never mentioned that? Is there some odd reason Canwest’s National and Financial Posts both missed it as well? Whatever could cause such a journalistic lapse?

Jim says $200,000 isn’t a lot of money. Maybe not to him. But it’s more than GM or Chrysler made last year. And suddenly a lot of people who pay Cable bills or work at the CRTC have begun wondering just how well those other stations could be doing if they weren’t saddled with a schedule of lame celebrity magazine shows and derivative reality offerings their viewers can already get elsewhere.

If you choose to read beyond Jim, please give a moment to consider that today is yet another wonderful Canwest D (for 'Debt') day. What will happen? You got me.

Meanwhile, on the public side, sometimes the CBC's Richard Stursberg is a tough guy to like. He can be high-handed. I'm not the guy's publicist. ( I also sure as hell wouldn't want his job.)

And though I know it's easy to point at me at this point as a guy who's worked on CBC shows now and for the past two seasons and declare me biased -- I don't deny it -- I wonder how someone could read this little article Stursberg wrote for the Star and not have a little pause. It articulates a point of view that makes quite a bit of sense, in context.

The CBC is the only television service in the country devoted specifically to Canadian programming. Our 8 p.m.-11 p.m. prime-time schedule is entirely Canadian; those of our competitors are overwhelmingly American. If this does not make us "distinctive," what would?

Ah, say our critics, we're not "distinctive" because CBC shows are made within the same narrative and format conventions as many U.S. television shows. They argue that the Canadian privates could make these shows.

Maybe. But they don't. CBC spends more on Canadian drama and comedy than all the privates combined.

But, say the critics, it's not "high quality" and a public broadcaster needs to focus on quality, not popularity.

Here is the root of the matter. Some people believe there is a mutually exclusive choice to be made between popularity and excellence. If a show is successful, it must necessarily be coarse or vulgar. For some, in fact, television itself is an unworthy medium.

This is patronizing, disrespectful and untrue. They are the views of those who haven't paid attention lately to shows like Little Mosque on the Prairie, which has been inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in New York and sold to more than 60 countries around the world. Or Being Erica, cheered by critics here and abroad. Or other programs that Canadians love to watch, like The Tudors, The Border, Heartland, Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Dragon's Den and The Week the Women Went.

In Lausanne this year, The Rose D'Or Awards are devoting an entire day to celebrating the CBC.

When the pundits describe what they want on TV, it's more "high brow," more "educational" and more "mandate." They want it to be a university lecture, a ballet, or a treatise on world hunger. While television can sometimes portray these, it is none of those but rather much more: the greatest popular art form in the world.

Every serious public broadcaster, including CBC, aspires to make great national television.

The BBC is packed with wonderful, popular soap operas, sitcoms, reality shows, game shows, police procedurals and comedies. They are all relentlessly British and relentlessly focused on attracting audiences. The BBC makes no apologies. It celebrates television for what it is.

In English Canada, it's sometimes argued that we've fallen away from CBC's Golden Age in the 1970s and 1980s. Not true. A typical prime time from 1982 was mostly American shows of little cultural distinction: Mork & Mindy, WKRP in Cincinnati, Dallas or Joanie Loves Chachi.

Our Golden Age, arguably, is now. Our prime time is Canadian. It's also attracting more Canadians than Global, CITY, the A Channels or the E Channels. For the first time in history in English Canada, a Canadian schedule is beating an American one.

Yes, CBC is a rorschach test for everybody in the industry. No matter who you are, you tend to project your own concerns, biases, and needs onto it. Still, the defense that Stursberg makes needed to be said. And he said it pretty well.

Speaking of saying it pretty well, from the truth to power department, if you can tear yourself away from the "local TV is dying" kabuki sideshow going on at the CRTC, save a little energy to cheer on Team WGC as they present on Thursday -- along with Canadian showrunner Cal Coons. (Murdoch Mysteries.)

Michel Arpin may look on that presentation as the bleating of a self interested group. You may look at it a little differently. I certainly do. I think Thursday we'll get to see the only people at this whole hearing speaking out for a greater choice for consumers, and a greater voice for Canadians on the airwaves we all supposedly own.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go. That ColdFX has to be somewhere.

Spinning Plates

EVERY DISCUSSION of "Hey, um, you think they know what they're doing on LOST?" seems to get queasier and queasier as the eps tick down. The NYTimes tackles the subject again, with Lindelof offering answers that might evince a few nods from anybody who's ever been in a writer's room, and puzzled head scratches from everybody else:

There’s so much organizational power, especially now. The less episodes there are, the more you have to go, like, “Oh my God, we have to do this. When are we going to do that?” We always get asked iterations of the same question which is, “Are you making it up as you go along?” It’s a very complicated question to answer, but ultimately, we have all the story but we don’t know what order we’re going to tell it in. So it’s like “Pulp Fiction.”

There was always an option in past seasons which was, “Let’s hold it for next year. I don’t think they’re ready for that,” or “That’ll have more emotional impact later.” And then there are also actor deals to contend with – what’s the stable of regulars you can maintain at any one time? Next year, I feel like for the first time we’ll have the entire box of crayons to color with, without having to worry about the mechanics. All our ducks are in a row.

I think one of our biggest concerns is reaching the climax of the story too soon – you have to time it right, you have to walk that line between giving a steady supply of story and character pathos and mysteries being answered along the way, so that the audience doesn’t feel like it all comes in one big chunk. But then if you do it too soon, they kind of feel like, “I got everything that I cared about halfway through the season, so why am I still watching?” And it’s terrifying. Finally, we’re going to do it. There’s no excuses, we don’t get to say, “We didn’t get to end the show on our own terms. They kept us on the air three years longer than we wanted to be. Blah blah blah.” It’s like “Galactica,” you have to say, “Here it is, do you like it? I hope you like it.” There’s a lot of second-guessing going on. I think the show will end exactly as it began. There’ll be people who love it, there’ll be people who hate it. There’ll be people who’ll be confused by it, there’ll be people who love being confused. It’ll end on its own terms.

A Tale of Two Governments

WORKING ON A new series is always an amazing, upward learning curve. The first steps when you get in the room, and take that Bible that sold the show and try to figure out how to get it on its feet and translate that selling document to series; the back and forth as a new writing team tries to gel and find their way; the kludge-together let's start something here as production comes together, producers toil, and a creator tries to open up and shift that thinking from "let's make a pilot" to "let's make a series..." with enthusiasm and hope and tenacity and generosity of spirit intact...

It's all possibility at this point. And professionals who smile and try to conceal the excitement..."is this really going to happen?" "Are we really doing this?"

The exciting becomes transcendant when you find yourself in a place that's new and exciting to you. I felt this way when I first went to South Africa. I feel it again here in St. John's.

It happens in little ways, as you peel back and discover other elements of the culture that makes this rugged land and this beautiful city so very, very different. It happens when you drive winding roads and look out to sea and see your first Iceberg. It happens when your charismatic lead actor and Executive Producer reminds you that he's a first-generation Canadian; the son of people born into the separate nation of Newfoundland. It happens as you contemplate the hundred different little ways the culture here is different, yet undeniably alive. It makes you think, think of all the other places you've been in this great nation -- Alberta, where they never met a U.S. idea they didn't like, and where they hate the CBC like it's a religious rite. I think of the Calgarians I know who seem as surrounded as liberals in Austin, Texas. I think of Vancouver, aloof and a little smug about its beauty and wonder; as I stare now out the window at its easy equal. I think of winding stone streets in Vieux Montreal, the steps leading up to the Chateau in Quebec City. I think of the few days I spent up in Thunder Bay, another few in Halifax, the sunny times spent on Parliament Hill or wandering the Byward Market in Ottawa. I close my eyes and picture the ferry ride to Vancouver Island, lovely and still through the summer fog of morning. I recall my own teeming, shiny, stinky and occasionally humid Toronto, and how beautiful and majestic the Legislature looked at night the one time I visited Regina, and viewed the place where Medicare began. I think of this wonderful, different, vibrant country -- its parts seemingly ever at war or resentment with each other.

And as I prepare to help craft stories that show off one beautiful part the way it hasn't been shown before, all I can think of is what a gift Canadians miss by not being able to see stories told about all the funky, silly, crazy, wondrous, scary, nifty and puzzling people I've met in all these wonderful cities in this great and vast and puzzling land.

I think of how this short-sighted debate has been going on for some time. And I think about how little Canadians know of their own government. Little enough that they misunderstand the very process of parliamentary democracy itself. And I curse again the colonized culture that makes those lessons invisible. And then I realize: that's not strictly true. Ontarians don't know a lot. Albertans think they know, but honestly, I've looked -- it's a photocopy or an American ideal of the west. B.C. just hates Toronto. Right now I'm in a place that understands the value of its culture -- and just coincidentally it's a place where the culture has been ridiculed by the rest of Canada for a long time.

So it was today that this was read out in the legislature of the great Province of Newfoundland and Labrador:

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation recently approved its upcoming television season lineup, and confirmed that a one-hour father-son police drama, entitled Republic of Doyle, will be among the new shows featured next year.

Republic of Doyle is one of the biggest budget television series ever produced in Canada – and the 12 episodes commissioned to date will be filmed right here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

This is an unprecedented opportunity for our film industry, and for film industry workers in this province. We recognized this when the producers approached us last year with a view to securing our financial support in making the television series a reality.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has committed $1.5 million in film equity funding to the project in Budget 2009 to ensure this province accrues the maximum benefits from this television production. The size of this production will also enable producers to avail of approximately $3 million through the Newfoundland and Labrador Film and Video Tax Credit.

Therefore, the direct commitment from the Provincial Government in Republic of Doyle is $4.5 million, with economic spin-off activities estimated to result in about $11.3 million in benefits to the local economy.

Contrast that with the fabulous recent efforts of our central, National government.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Ottawa, these guys, and these guys and these guys continue to fight a battle over millions, where the only surety is that at some point they're going to complain about the need to throw breadcrumbs to support the very process I'm starting right now here in St. John's.

It's a pretty stomach-churning display. It's one of those times that I'm very glad to be very far away, where the sound of the sea drowns out the sound of money, and the local culture can be seen, felt, and heard all about you. It exists in Canada.

At least in parts of it, it does.

Leacock Prize!

CONGRATS TO Mark Leiren-Young, my colleague on Blood Ties, who just won the prestigious Stephen Leacock Prize for Humour Writing. That's right - with a 'u.'

Filmmaker, playwright and author Mark Leiren-Young's quirky book about his misadventures as a rookie reporter working in the B.C. interior has snagged the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

Organizers of the annual humour-writing prize announced Leiren-Young the award's 2009 winner for his book, Never Shoot a Stampede Queen: A Rookie Reporter in the Cariboo at the Stephen Leacock Memorial Museum in Orillia, Ont., on Thursday.

Leiren-Young's debut book is a memoir of his time as a young reporter in Williams Lake, B.C.

"Not only does the author recount his encounters with the police, loggers, the fire department, fellow workers and, yes, beauty contest aspirants for the local rodeo, but he tells his story with both humour and compassion. As his readers will find out, it is a wonderfully amusing story," organizers said in a statement.

The Vancouver-based writer is the first Leacock winner to receive the increased cash prize of $15,000 (raised from $10,000 earlier this year). He will receive the actual Leacock medal and his cheque at a gala near Orillia on June 13

Congrats Mark! Good writer news!

Writer on the Radio

YOU KNOW WHAT? It's great to be able to plug a Canadian writer on the radio who isn't ME!

Like most screenwriters, Tassie Cameron isn't a household name -- but her reach is growing day by day.  She's the leading voice in a new generation of screenwriters who upend the whole "gotta go to the U.S.A. to work on shows" conventional wisdom.  Besides her own ventures like Would Be Kings, and the adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride, Tassie spent a good part of last season doing a lot of the heavy lifting on Flashpoint. She also had a hand in the early going of her sister Amy's Wild Roses. That didn't end as happily for the show (which was recently dropped by CBC) but now Cameron's taking the reins on another Canadian cop show with a sale to a U.S. network (in this case, ABC.)  

And yes, in case your wondering, she does carry the flag for Canadian-ness. She's extremely nice and polite in person. So there.

Tassie talks to Jian on Q here. 

Touchdown Rock

TOMORROW IT STARTS.

By the bye, you can really feel that extra half hour :)

How'd the begfest at the CRTC trough go...?

...nah, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

You In The Picture

IF YOU LIVE in Ottawa, Sudbury, or Thunder Bay, Ontario, Quebec City, Corner Brook, NFLD, Victoria, Prince George or Prince Rupert B.C., or Edmonton or Calgary, Alberta, you might be hearing me on CBC Radio tomorrow morning talking about the upcoming CRTC hearings into Private TV license renewals.

All that, as well as the Heritage Committee's ongoing look into the "crisis in Canadian TV" is stuff that may get short shrift from me here, as I prepare for my new job and life. Nice to see the Heritage Committee get caught in a Synechdoche loop this week, though. Seems they've bought into the idea that this "local crisis" is separate, and not part and parcel of a much larger fight about obligations, and the fact that 0ne of the most protected businesses in the country doesn't feel it should have any. Where have you gone, Charlie Angus? An industry raises its beleaguered eyes to you, while the millionaires say, "look over here at local! Look! Look! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Give us fee for carriage!" Ugh.

Anyway, there's plenty of other places to get the full skinny on what's really going on right now, as one group of millionaires (The Broadcasters) square off against another group of millionaires (The Cable Co's.)

Right now, the person who matters least in this equation is you, the consumer, TV audience member or cable subscriber. However you wish to describe yourself, whether you wish to remain the person who matters least in this equation is entirely up to you.

Blue Skies, Smling at Me...

BILL BRIOUX talked to me, as well as esteemed writer/bloggers JIm Henshaw, John Rogers and Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan about recession-era TV, and how it's affecting what you see on the Box:

As Denis McGrath, a former writer for CBC's The Border sees it, it is all about networks feeling our pain and not wanting to be behind the curve. "We've got to do something to acknowledge what people are going through," he sees them saying, "because there is a danger of being out of step with what people want to see."

McGrath is about to take his own step toward the light. He leaves this week for Newfoundland, where he will run the writing room on The Republic of Doyle, an upcoming CBC private-eye drama he describes as retro and fun. But even darker shows like AMCs' Emmy-winning Breaking Bad – a show about a dying school teacher (Bryan Cranston) so desperate to provide for his family he turns to selling drugs – have had to adjust to the new economic reality.

"Reality does impact, and you can't help but pay attention to what's going on in the newspapers every day," says Breaking Bad creator/producer Vince Gilligan. He sees his show as being about "a good man who makes a very bad decision" and then "the cascade of consequences, the domino effect from that decision." It is an extreme example of what a lot of people are dealing with today.

Suddenly, CEOs and bankers are the new bad guys on TV. The Canadian-born creator of the American cable drama Leverage, John Rogers, says the recession probably helped his show get a second season because many of his stories focus on people going after corporate criminals. McGrath found it interesting that the creators of the midseason ABC comedy Better Off Ted had tapped into a growing cynicism and mistrust about the corporate world. "It has finally sunk in that these guys have wrecked our economy," says McGrath.

There is word leaking out from Friday Night Lights that job-loss storylines will be on the agenda next season. "It's certainly on producer's and writer's minds and that means those kind of stories will be on the table in the coming weeks," says veteran Canadian TV screenwriter Jim Henshaw (BeastMaster).

"The only thing the networks want to see right now are what the networks are calling `Blue Sky Shows,'" says McGrath, who has heard through his agent and writer friends in L.A. that "Happy stuff` is all the rage. "All those Criminal Minds, CSIs, dark, crime procedurals are in real trouble.

"When the real news is all doom and gloom, the dive to comedy and escapism is almost a reflex."

And Then There's Maude.

SLOW CLAP for Bea Arthur, Ladies and Gentlemen. A full on, groundbreaking comedy broad if ever there was one. She'll be missed.

EDIT: A proper tribute from Salon's Rebecca Traister:

There are lots of reasons to take a moment this weekend to mark the passing of Bea Arthur, who died on Saturday at age 86 in her home in Los Angeles. The most obvious was that she was talented and hilarious, and that if you are over the age of 30 in this country, there's a good chance that she made you laugh on a semi-regular basis at some point in your life.

But it's also important to remember that before "Dollhouse," before "Sex and the City," there was "Maude." The "All in the Family" spin-off, which ran from 1972 to 1978, starred Arthur as Maude Findlay, the Democratic-voting, women's liberation-supporting, four times married cousin of Edith Bunker. The program, created by television visionary Norman Lear, made the news early in its run for featuring prime time's first abortion, in a two-part episode that aired two months before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal across the country.

Seven years after "Maude," Arthur starred in "The Golden Girls" as Dorothy Zbornak, the divorced retiree who shared a home in Florida with three other women, including her aged mother. It's remarkable to think, given how young, glossy and pneumatic network television has become, that less than 20 years ago, the airwaves were given over to four older women who talked about sex and ex-husbands and ate cheesecake.