The CTV Games

One in three Americans watched the Super Bowl this past weekend setting a new record for viewership. I don’t know the numbers for Canada but I do know we were offered a very different production. I’m sure you are all thinking about the U.S. commercials that we never got to see during the game, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Canadians watched a four or five hour promo for the Olympic Games with a little football thrown in to keep us interested. Overkill? I think so. Couldn’t CTV sell any advertising? I almost longed for another Rogers or Bell ad, even the ones I had seen 200 or 300 times during the past week.

I know CTV has the right to shill for their huge investment in the Olympics. It’s the unrelenting repetition and boosterism I resent.

What’s worse, in fact much worse is that CTV and The Globe and Mail have sold out their news departments to sell the Olympic Games. If you watched CTV News about an hour after the football game you saw Lloyd Robertson, a rare sight on any weekend, lead the CTV National News with two outrageously non-stories from Vancouver. His first offering on the growing excitement and Olympic readiness of the host city and even more outrageous, his second story on the excellent nightlife in Whistler.

After leading the news with two non-stories it would be fair to ask whether there was any news anywhere in the world on Sunday. In fact there were a couple of major stories that had to be put on the back burner while the sales pitch was offered. There was a major explosion at a power plant in the U.S. that killed at least five people and may have injured dozens more. In Canada a major fire destroyed CTV’s own Ottawa television station, CJOH, taking with it all of CTV’s local archives. Hey neither story is Haiti but they are stories.

A CTV viewer could not tell you if anything else happened in the world because it was back to Lloyd with a softball interview with one of the heads of the Vancouver Olympic Committee to sell some more. In a few minutes of valuable news time we found out how great the games were going to be and what a wonderful job our boys and girls were doing to make sure everything would go off without a hitch.

Ignored or given shirt shrift on this night was an important election in Ukraine that could bring Kiev and Moscow closer and turn the country away from the West. The same for the shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Holland that was providing medical isotopes. A reactor that was vital to the treatment of cancer patients in Canada and the rest of the world because our own Chalk River facility is closed for repairs. Forgive me if I think those stories are more important than the night life in Whistler.
While CTV News was busy ignoring the news, Canada’s national newspaper was also busy selling the Olympics. In a very small front section of just 14 pages on Monday, there were two full page ads, two pages for editorials, letters and op-ed pieces, yet The Globe found room for seven Olympic stories on the remaining eight pages including such deeply important prose as a front page piece on the fact that the athletes are arriving in Vancouver and a pithy item with pictures and descriptions of a new method of hardening snow on Cypress Mountain.

It was the Toronto Star a few days earlier that picked up on a report of new methods of gene doping that WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) is preparing to detect at these Olympics. WADA is based in Montreal and was the pet project of a Canadian, Dick Pound. Yet neither The Globe nor CTV reported on this aspect of the games. I’m sure they believe the in house torch relay is far more relevant and newsworthy than the possibility of cheating. Or do they?

The truth is that CTV and The Globe have whitewashed anything negative since they paid their millions for the right to broadcast the games. The corporate bosses made the decision that only positive stories will be published or aired. It’s a complete abdication of their role as important news sources in Canada. It’s okay to flood the airwaves with commercials for the games. It’s okay for the sports departments to push the athletes and their “own the podium” mantra. But the front section of The Globe and CTV National News have to cover all the Olympic news, bad and good. So far they have not.

Luckily CBC News has not shied away from covering what has become a CTV event. If there is any negative news from Vancouver or from the games I suggest you watch CBC to see it. If you want to read about it pick up The Toronto Star or The National Post.

In past Olympics CBC News was pretty much exempted from shilling for the I.O.C (the International Olympic Committee) and was free to cover the negative with the positive. This time around it looks like Lloyd will be muzzled by his bosses. I hope the games go well, I hope Canadians win a truckload of medals, but if anything goes wrong, don’t expect CTV or The Globe to lead the coverage.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary , CJOH, CTV, CTV National News, Lloyd Robertson, Olympic Games, The Globe and Mail

CNN Changes the Rules

I left for Mexico a few days after the disastrous earthquake struck Haiti. Even a few days later Canadian networks were having a difficult time getting to Port-au-Prince and the surrounding towns that were devastated. The major U.S. networks were not faring much better. It seemed all the network reporting was coming from the airport, reporters traveling through the Dominican Republic on their way to Haiti or through Haitians in Canada and the U.S. who were raising awareness and money or trying to reach loved ones. The Governor General’s tears were getting as much coverage as the disaster.

There was one major exception. Somehow, CNN managed to get an army of reporters, camera operators and producers on the ground. Better still they were not stranded at the airport, they were trolling the streets for stories and not so amazingly in a scene of utter devastation, they were finding great stories.

I believe it is fair to say that CNN brought the Haitian disaster to the world. The great outpouring of sympathy, donations and demand that something be done to help can be directly attributed in large part to the marvelous work of CNN.

I have been a critic of CNN in the past. I was dismayed by their recent gaffs like the coverage of the balloon boy and the U.S. Coast Guard war game on September 11th. I was upset by their moving towards sensationalism rather than good story telling. Their drop in viewership seemed to be pushing them in all the wrong directions But let’s face it, when there is a real story, the bigger the better, nobody can touch the speed and resourcefulness that CNN throws at their coverage.

To be fair there has been some whining and complaining about the supposedly “over the top” coverage of Anderson Cooper. Night after night he stood somewhere in Port-au-Prince in his designer t-shirts railing at the authorities lack of ability to get their act together. Supplies piled up while people starved. Medicine was not getting through. Dr. Sanjay Gupta was treating people at makeshift hospitals in the street while international doctors were being held back from treating those who needed help.

Folks, you can’t have it both ways. For years I have heard complaints about journalists standing on the sidelines as “objective” observers. The question was always asked: how can you be there reporting and shooting and not lend a hand? How can you show so little emotion when you see horrible things happening all around you?

Anderson Cooper did get involved. He took on the U.S. relief effort. He questioned the whereabouts of the Haitian government. He asked whether the right supplies were being sent and why, if the supplies were what was needed, they were not getting to the people. It was activist journalism of the best kind in my estimation. It was dramatic and more important it told the story of what was really happening on the ground. Sure CNN could have focused on the few people being rescued. They would have been feel good stories. CNN could also have focused on the incredible disaster. That would have provided what we TV people call great pictures. They did do some of that. But they did the harder work. They produced story after story of the failure of the relief effort. They took on their own government failures while showing how a team of Israelis bypassed the red tape by just coming into Haiti, and by ignoring the problems. The Israelis were succeeding where the huge U.S. effort was failing.  I could go on with example after example not the least of which is Dr. Gupta practicing emergency medicine on his own in the streets of Port-au-Prince. The CNN effort was as monumental as it was edifying. And best of all it pushed all the other TV networks into doing better work then they would have. CNN set the standard by which all TV coverage of Haiti would and should be judged.

When this is all over and CNN wins accolades and awards for their Haiti coverage I hope the debates will begin in newsrooms and J-schools about the sort of activist journalism practiced by Anderson Cooper and his colleagues. I believe the CNN coverage will begin to force journalists to draw new lines and guidelines. I think all of journalism be better for the coming debate. When all is said and done all journalists will look back at Haiti as a turning point. From now on will we expect more from the reporters on the ground? I sure hope so. In the meantime I want to thank CNN, Anderson Cooper, Sanjay Gupta and their colleagues for their hard work and determination in bringing the Haiti story to the world. They have made an old journalist proud of the profession he once worked in.

Oh, and by the way…I was away so I don’t know if CTV even made it to Haiti. Since I have returned I have seen four Haiti stories on CTV…three were done out of Washington and one out of Ottawa using U.S. network footage. Paul Workman is an excellent reporter. He is totally wasted at CTV where he gets to report 3,000 miles from the story he is supposedly covering.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary , CNN. Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Haiti

Choking on Islam

I wish I could write about the what´s going on at CITY-TV. I guess Rogers can´t afford to run a TV station, but I am away in Mexico for the next little while and I can´t do any digging.

I have a really interesting editorial someone sent me which I hope will fill a bit of the gap.

After Attack on Danish Cartoonist
The West Is Choked by Fear
An Editorial by Henryk M. Broder
AP
A Somalian man broke into the home of Kurt Westergaard on Friday armed with an ax and a knife. He is accused of the attempted murder of the Danish cartoonist.
The attack on illustrator Kurt Westergaard wasn’t the first attempt to carry out a deadly fatwa. When Muslims tried to murder Salman Rushdie 20 years ago, the protests among intellectuals were loud. Today, though, Western writers and thinkers would rather take cover than defend basic rights.
In 1988, Salman Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses” was published in its English-language original edition. Its publication led the Iranian state and its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, to issue a “fatwa” against Rushdie and offer a hefty bounty for his murder. This triggered several attacks on the novel’s translators and publishers, including the murder of Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi. Millions of Muslims around the world who had never read a single line of the book, and who had never even heard the name Salman Rushdie before, wanted to see the death sentence against the author carried out — and the sooner the better, so that the stained honor of the prophet could be washed clean again with Rushdie’s blood.
In that atmosphere, no German publisher had the courage to publish Rushdie’s book. This led a handful of famous German authors, led by Günter Grass, to take the initiative to ensure that Rushdie’s novel could appear in Germany by founding a publishing house exclusively for that purpose. It was called Artikel 19, named after the paragraph in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights that guarantees the freedom of opinion. Dozens of publishing houses, organizations, journalists, politicians and other prominent members of German society were involved in the joint venture, which was the broadest coalition that had ever been formed in postwar German history.
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Sympathy for the Hurt Feelings of Muslims
Seventeen years later, after the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published a dozen Muhammad cartoons on a single page, there were similar reactions in the Islamic world to those that had followed the publication of “The Satanic Verses.” Millions of Muslims from London to Jakarta who had never seen the caricatures or even heard the name of the newspaper, took to the streets in protests against an insult to the prophet and demanded the appropriate punishment for the offenders: death. Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden even went so far as to demand the cartoonists’ extradition so that they could be condemned by an Islamic court.
This time, however, in contrast to the Rushdie case, hardly anyone has showed any solidarity with the threatened Danish cartoonists — to the contrary. Grass, who had initiated the Artikel 19 campaign, expressed his understanding for the hurt feelings of the Muslims and the violent reactions that resulted. Grass described them as a “fundamentalist response to a fundamentalist act,” in the process drawing a moral equivalence between the 12 cartoons and the death threats against the cartoonists. Grass also stated that: “We have lost the right to seek protection under the umbrella of freedom of expression.”
“I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong,” commented then-British Home Secretary Jack Straw, referring to the decision by several European media organizations to republish the caricatures. Meanwhile, Vorwärts, the party organ of Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party — one of the country’s two largest political parties — defended freedom of expression in general, but gave the opinion that in this special case, the Danes had “abused” the freedom, “not in a legal sense, but in a political and moral one.” For Fritz Kuhn, the then-parliamentary floor leader for the Green Party, it was a déjà vu experience: “They (the caricatures), remind me of the anti-Jewish drawings from the Hitler era before 1939.” With his statement, Kuhn, who was born in 1955, demonstrated that either he had a sensational pre-natal memory or that he had never seen a single anti-Semitic caricature in the Nazi’s Der Stürmer propaganda newspaper.
Like Eunuchs Talking about Sex
It was like listening to the blind talk about art, the deaf about music or eunuchs discussing sex based on hearsay. Because with the exception of the left-wing Die Tageszeitung, the conservative Die Welt and the centrist Die Zeit, every German newspaper and magazine followed the advice of Green Party co-leader Claudia Roth, who said “de-escalation begins at home,” and erred on the side of caution by not republishing the cartoons. Prominent German psychoanalyst Horst-Eberhard Richter advised: “The West should refrain from any provocations that produce feelings of debasement or humiliation.” Of course, Richter left open the question of whether “the West” should also refrain from the wearing of mini skirts, eating pork and the legalization of same-sex partnerships in order to avoid causing any feelings of debasement and humiliation in the Islamic world.
Had the Muhammed cartoons been reprinted by the whole German press, then newspaper readers could have seen for themselves how excessively harmless the 12 cartoons were and how bizarre and pointless the whole debate had become. Instead, the assessment was left to “experts” who had in the past defended every criticism of the pope and the Church as well as every blasphemous piece of art in the name of freedom of opinion, but who, in the case of the Muhammad cartoons, suddenly held the view that one must take other people’s religious feelings into consideration.
But that argument was clearly just an excuse, a way of excusing the fact they had been silenced by fear. After all, a few things had happened in the time between the Rushdie affair and the caricatures debacle: 9/11, the London bombings, Madrid, Bali, Jakarta, Djerba — events which some commentators have also interpreted as a reaction by the Islamic world to its degradation and humiliation by the West. Against this threat, it seemed more reasonable and, above all, safer, to show respect to religious feelings rather than insist on the right to freedom of expression.
Right to Offend More Important than Protecting the Offended
Very few people showed a willingness to break ranks. Among them was comedian Rowan Atkinson (“Mr. Bean”), who in the context of a debate over British proposed incitement of religious hatred legislation, declared that “right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended.” And Somalia-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a secular Muslim woman then living in the Netherlands, responded with a manifesto that began with the words: “I am here to defend the right to offend.”
But she was one of the few exceptions. Even the then-French president, Jacques Chirac, temporarily forgot that he represented the country of Sartre, Voltaire and Victor Hugo, and decreed that “anything that could offend the faith of others, especially religious beliefs, must be avoided.”
Thus began the “de-escalation” that had been called for. The only problem is the other side isn’t thinking about de-escalation. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie is still in effect, and the attempt to murder Kurt Westergaard last week wasn’t the first attempt to carry out a death sentence for an instance in which no crime had been committed. Islam may be the “religion of peace” in theory, but it looks different in practice.
A German-Turkish lawyer who lives in central Berlin recently had to go into hiding because she became the recipient of death threats after publishing a book. The tome doesn’t include any caricatures of Muhammad. It’s just the title that serves as a provocation: ” Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution.”

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary , Die Welt, Die Zeit, Gunter Grass, Jacques Chirac, Kurt Westergaard, Rowan Atkinson, Salman Rushdie, Satanic Verses

An American Fiasco…it can’t happen here.

The fiasco that’s playing itself out in the United States with Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and NBC could not happen here in Canada. There was a time when it could but the amassing of television properties by just a few large conglomerates has put an end to anyone being able to force CTV, Global and even CBC to do anything they don’t want to do.

What occurred in the U.S. was a revolt by the NBC affiliated stations against the low ratings Leno was getting at 10 o’clock. This resulted in lower ratings for the local eleven o’clock local news and of course a corresponding loss of advertising revenue for NBC’s local affiliated stations.

The affiliates said enough is enough. We don’t care if NBC is saving money by not running an expensive drama at ten. Your gain is our loss.

In the U.S. the affiliates wield all the power. The networks need them to air national programs so that they can sell national advertising. That’s where they make their money. If the affiliate in Cincinnati or St. Louis doesn’t broadcast the NBC show it means a lower national audience. A smaller audience means less money for advertising for the network. It is this system that makes local television strong. This system is why local news is important in America and why the average local newscast in a small city like Buffalo spends more money on news than the huge CTV station in Toronto. The entire U.S. network system is based on a grid of local stations that cover the entire country, local stations that are only there to serve local markets.

For all the bull coming from CTV and Global about saving local TV the fact is the Canadian networks co-opted the local owners and bought them out years ago. CTV and Global own almost all the stations that broadcast their signal. If CTV or Global is saving money on a show that is not delivering audience it is their call as to whether the money savings are worth the audience loss. There are no affiliates left to complain. There is no local left. In Canada it is always about the network. In Canada it is always about the bottom line of CTV and Global.

What’s most interesting about the Leno problem at NBC is that the show was working well-enough for the network. Sure they were getting about one-half to one-third of the audience that ABC, CBS and Fox were getting in the ten o’clock time slot, but they were only paying 20 percent of what the other networks were doling out for shows like CSI Miami and The Good Wife. Do the math. They were actually making more money on the cheap Leno show with five million viewers than they would have made with a cop show or hospital drama with 10 to 15 million viewers. NBC in fact did not want to move or cancel Leno it was working for them.

In the U.S. it was the power of local TV, real local TV, that made the difference.

When I started in television at CTV in the seventies the entire network was controlled by the affiliates. The Peters family in B.C. created the highest rated newscast in Canada. B.C. TV was a powerhouse. In Toronto and Saskatoon the Bassets ran the local CTV stations and built the strongest local newscasts in Toronto and Northern Saskatchewan by far. In Ottawa and Halifax the Waters family built massively successful local newscasts that it seemed everyone watched. All these stations did one thing really well: they were local. They covered their communities better than anyone and they made money doing it. They also held the real power at CTV. The network had to make them happy or they would be called on the carpet to explain.

Even at CBC the affiliates had a lot of power. Years ago, in the mid-eighties, a study was done by CBC to find the best time slot for The National. CBC news was getting beaten badly going head-to-head against CTV National News. It was embarrassing to the bosses at CBC so they plotted to move the show. The study, it cost thousands of dollars by the way, came back saying 7 p.m. was the best time slot for The National. It would follow local news and would come on after NBC, CBS and ABC News. No problem right? Wrong. At the time the CBC had 14 affiliates in places like Sudbury, Victoria and Barrie and 7 p.m. is where they made their money. This was a local timeslot. Here the affiliates ran game shows and in some rare instances they ran local current affairs (Does anyone remember local current affairs?). It was local TV making local choices. The money they made in that hour helped pay for local news. The result: The National moved to 10 o’clock which was considered network time. I guess the relative success of that move and the creation of The Journal silenced the local critics for a few years. In the end though, most of CBC’s affiliates left them for CTV or Global as CBC News numbers started to retreat.

So, when you hear about CTV and Global trying to save local TV think about Conan and Jay. Think about the power local TV has in the U.S. Think about the fact that local TV does not really exist anymore in Canada. If Leno was a Canadian show there would be no talk of moving the program. Sure local news numbers would be down but the networks would be making more money and isn’t that all that matters to CTV and Global?

Filed under: Media Commentary , ABC, CBS. Fox, Conan O'Brien, CTV, Global, Jay Leno, NBC, The National

Disconnect with Mark Kelley

After far too many wasted hours in front of my television I can say, without any doubts, that Connect with Mark Kelley is the worst new current affairs show on TV. This program is two hours of non-news, old news, inane filler and just plain nonsense. Worse still, the attempts at humor are juvenile at best and completely flat most of the time.

Whose idea was it to do two hours every week night on the detritus left aside by every news program on CBCNN? What were they thinking? If the material is not strong enough for any newscast or current affairs program covering the other twenty-two hours of the day why take two hours of prime time and my time and fill it with this garbage?

One night in December they actually wasted our valuable time on such stories as the 25 worst Christmas album covers of all time. I know the only reason I buy CDs, or in the day, albums, is because of the cover art. On the same night they started a new segment with a doctor. One could call or email questions. What did they choose to talk about? The H1N1 panic that ended a full month before this night. There is even a segment called “Off the Radar.” On a show that’s off the radar they choose stories that are even more out in left field. Maybe they think two negatives will make a positive. That’s math not television production.

Look, I understand that current affairs producing is not easy. On a newscast a large percentage of the stories are obvious. They are newsy. They happened today. We argue about the line-up and the quality of the reporting but the choice of stories is seldom an issue. On a current affairs program it is not so obvious. The choices are the same but you only get to choose a few of the stories for discussion or reporting. Great current affairs shows have the ability to understand and even exploit the mood of the public. 60 Minutes, Nightline (when it was hosted by Ted Koppel), Newshour on PBS; all these shows choose important, interesting or engaging stories, stories that the audience is likely to be interested in. None of them go out of their way to choose stories that few people, if any, care about in the least. Duh!

More important still is the fact that the most successful shows on television are programs that the viewing audience has a feel for. When you tune in to 60 Minutes you know the kind of stories and reporting you are going to get: a celebrity profile, a look behind a major news story, a scam that is cheating either the government or a lot of viewers. When you tune to Newshour you know you will hear about the latest goings on in Washington, important economic news and major stories that affect the United States.
It’s easy for me, as a viewer to choose to watch or not because I know what to expect. Oh, and as a TV producer  or researcher, it is easy for me to find stories because I know what I’m looking for. I know the kinds of stories my bosses and the audience want and expect.

So how does it work at Connect? Do the producers sit around and wait to see what nobody else uses? Do they choose only stories they themselves do not care about? How do you fill two hours when you can’t pick up interesting and important stories?

From what I hear from inside the CBC it is no joke. The staff of Connect with Mark Kelley are seriously unhappy and looking for ways off the show. They don’t feel like they understand the program and they are not certain what Mark Kelley wants or is even trying to do with his show. Yes there are even grumbles coming from management, but so far, like all the other bad decisions at the CBC they are being swept under the rug. There is so much under that rug at CBC headquarters that it must be getting very difficult to walk the halls.

The whole thing is an exercise in bad programming and poor management. I’m told Connect is based on an idea that Mark Kelley came up with. Didn’t anyone running CBCNN look at his idea? Did anyone question the content? CBCNN is, after all, supposed to be a news channel.

Connect is not the only bad show on CBCNN but it is so awful it makes the other offerings look good by comparison. The time has come for CBC brass to put an end to this fiasco. Mark Kelley will survive. He’s an engaging host with a bad idea. Come up with a better idea. Produce him. Don’t throw away two hours of prime air time. Don’t make the audience pine for the good old days of Antiques Road Show.

Filed under: Media Commentary , 60 Minutes, CBCNN, Connect with Mark Kelley, Mark Kelley, Newshour, Nightline, Ted Koppel

No News is Bad News

At the end of the year it’s traditional to look back at what occurred during the past twelve months and pick out the highs and lows. Most years there are a few examples of each. 2009, however, has proved to be one of the most dismal years for news and current affairs in Canada ever. I can’t think of a worse period in my lifetime.

Everybody has already noted the disaster that is the new National at CBC: thin gruel masquerading as news, the worst reporting staff in CBC Television history, the inability to fill sixty minutes with relevant stories, and this doesn’t even refer to the ludicrous and totally unmotivated standing around to read the news and do interviews. The good news is that the audience numbers are way down. Perhaps this will induce the CBC bosses to see the error of their ways. I’m not holding my breath.

The CBC’s last great journalism show has also been diminished. The Fifth Estate has been moved to the dead zone of Friday night where it is almost impossible to garner decent ratings. The reason for the move: a better night to run Being Erica. Now I’m all for Canadian drama but why do the schedulers at CBC need to promote Canadian drama at the expense of their flagship current affairs program?

CBC fell further under the leadership and thrall of the evil emperor, Richard (Darth) Stursberg. He and his hand-picked minions of “yes” people seem to be doing the best they can to wreck CBC News and Current Affairs. Under his rule we have seen the degradation of national news, the moving of The Fifth and local news to dead zones, the virtual disappearance of the once popular program Market Place (it finally reappears after New Years), the now almost non-existent documentary, and I haven’t mentioned the terminally unwatchable CBCNN. There are those within the network, the cynics I guess, who believe Stursberg wants to see news and current affairs fail miserably so he can take the money and spend it on new drama, comedy and reality. If that’s the case the man has not looked at the history of television. News has been, and still is, one of the best ways to build an audience for your entire schedule. Hello, Dick, is the CBC still the CBC without Little Mosque on the Prairie and Being Erica? Is the CBC still the CBC without The National and The Fifth Estate?

CBC Radio has fared a little better but those in charge there believe it is purely a case of benign neglect and they fear that neglect is coming to an end. One producer of a flagship current affairs program on radio told me that Stursberg and company are beginning to look at radio. Scary. Ratings are good, but they can better if the shows are “dumbed –down” like over in CBC-TV land, at least that’s the idea the radio producers are getting from their bosses.

Over at CTV and Global the news is not much better. The bulwarks of “Capitalist Broadcasting” are coming to the government cap-in-hand begging for money in the form of cable and satellite fees. Their hook: they want to save local TV. Local TV, isn’t that the part of their empire they have abused and chopped going way back before they had a small financial dilemma? To prove how much they care about local TV they have been closing local stations even before they find out whether the CRTC will grant them their millions in unearned cash and they have steadfastly refused to guarantee that the dollars they squeeze out of cable and satellite subscribers will go to local TV. Save our shareholders! I guess that doesn’t sound so good in a television ad.

In the meantime CTV still runs W5 but buries it by running it against hockey on Saturday evening and if and when they invest in a documentary, it always airs in the W5 timeslot.

Over at Global, they bury their current affairs in their schedule too. Hands up anyone who has seen or heard about a Global documentary. I saw one on the rise of religion in Canada but that was only because a friend produced it and was kind enough to let me know when it was going to air.

CTV and Global news do a much better job of appealing to Canadians than CBC News does. For proof of this I only have to point out that both get over a million viewers regularly while CBC has trouble reaching half-a-million. Both are better produced and slicker than CBC’s effort but there is little room for celebration. Neither makes any attempt at depth or context. In a world where ABC, NBC and CBS have long understood that fewer stories told more completely is the best way to compete with all-news TV; CTV and Global are still doing newscasts the same way they were done pre-CNN and the internet. Here too CBC News’ failure may be a key. CTV and Global have always done a better job when they were pushed by excellent coverage at CBC. Now that the “Corpse” news has sunk below CTV and Global’s level there is no need for the privates to try harder.

In the U.S. we have witnessed the disintegration of the CNN audience with the odious Fox News being the main recipient of new viewers. Serious stories go unreported south of the border while the balloon boys, disappearing politicians and “birthers” dominate the airwaves. Sensationalism is winning and stories like Copenhagen are losing. Worse still the all news folks are challenging each other to see who can distort or get the facts more wrong. Any coverage of the health care debate by Fox or MSNBC is sure to make a Canadian’s eyes roll.

The good news? Well 60 Minutes somehow continues to tell excellent stories and surprise, surprise, gets a big audience too. The Fifth Estate still has the ability to do the best research and find the best stories. PBS’ new Newshour format is even better than it was before. CTV’s reporters, as a group, are as strong as any reporting team I can remember; perhaps that’s because they took their best and added some of CBC’s best to create a kind of dream team of news reporting. The Agenda with Steve Paikin gets better every year and deals with the kind of topics that only PBS and TVO tackle; oh, and surprise, surprise, they get pretty good numbers doing it in the middle of prime time against the toughest competition. CBC Radio has so far stayed the mostly fine course (we can only pray that lasts). And finally, Lou Dobbs is gone from CNN, this alone could be reason to celebrate the New Year.

Filed under: Media Commentary , 60 Minutes, ABC, Being Erica, CBCNN, CBS, CNN, CTV, Fox News, Global, Lou Dobbs, Market Place, MSNBC, NBC, PBS, Richard Stursberg, The Agenda, The Fifth Estate, The National, TVO, W5

Hijacking the Torch

Who knew when it started that the Olympic Torch Relay would not only become an interminable tortoise run across Canada but worse that it would be hijacked in the most crass way by CTV, TSN and The Globe and Mail.

How do you make this patriotic run up to one of the most exciting sporting events in the world boring? Just ask the broadcasters and newspapers who own the rights to air the winter Olympics from Vancouver and Whistler.

When the torch relay began it became clear that CTV was going to cover it and run it like it is an in house event, a reality show for the rights holders. I don’t know how the torch bearers are chosen but I do know the best way to guarantee that you will get the opportunity to squeeze into one of those nifty white suits and strut down an avenue close to home making like Lady Liberty. The best way: become an on air personality for CTV or one of its affiliates. Whether it’s Seamus O’Regan in St. John’s or Ben Mulroney in Sept Iles it became very obvious very quickly that this wasn’t Canada’s torch relay it was the CTV/Globemedia torch relay.

Night after night we are treated to pictures and clips not from ordinary Canadians, not from former Olympians, not even from youngsters who dreamed of toting the flame through their home town. No, we get words and pictures of CTV celebs like Sandy Rinaldo doing their bit to advertise the fact that CTV is the Olympic Broadcaster.

Leaving aside the fairness issue, that is whether all Canadians should have had an equal opportunity to carry the Olympic Torch, since when is it okay for reporters and hosts to make themselves the story? How do you cover an event if you are the star of that event? We all know the answer, you can’t and shouldn’t but that hasn’t slowed CTV one bit. Night after night their employees get first billing and the star treatment as they heft their torches through the streets and highways of the country.

Worse than unfair, it is stupid television production. CTV, TSN and The Globe are missing great opportunities almost daily to focus on the most heartwarming, interesting, crazy and uplifting stories that I am sure are there among the just plain folks who are doing the bulk of the relay. These great stories should be the centerpiece of the coverage. The stories of real Canadians from coast-to-coast-to- coast should be hi-lighted to show how an event like the Olympics can unite a country and bring out the best patriotic passion that Canadians are so shy about.

TSN could be focusing on the former Olympians and retired athletes making one last contribution to the Canadian Olympic effort.

Instead CTV and TSN have turned what should have been a democratic event into an in house broadcast. Pity.

And I’m afraid that’s not the worst of it. In the past few days, just north of Toronto and near Brantford, Ontario we have seen the complete abdication of CTV, TSN and Globe journalism. Native people, unhappy with the symbolism and their plight in this country have used the torch relay to make their point. Protests and roadblocks have been set up forcing the relay off its planned route twice. Interestingly CTV and the paper that calls itself “Canada’s National Newspaper” have chosen to all but ignore the protests. Why? When CTV paid millions for the rights did they give up on their job as journalists in order to become Olympic cheerleaders? If so, I would advise watching the Olympics on NBC.

A few years ago I produced a documentary on Sale and Pelletier, those wonderful figure skaters who were cheated out of a gold medal. It took forever to get CTV approval to tell the story because they were afraid it would reflect badly on the Olympic movement. We had to promise them that the IOC (the International Olympic Committee) would come out smelling like a rose because they forced the skating body to rectify the problem. The doc was a huge success garnering 1.5 million viewers. CTV came back to us and asked us to do another Olympic themed doc. We suggested a look at the anti-doping lab in Montreal. Montreal is the anti-doping centre for the Olympics and Dick Pound, a Canadian, is the anti-doping king. This is something Canadians should be proud of and informed about. The work done in Montreal is pivotal and we were actually granted full access to the labs and their work. No way, said CTV. Doping is not the kind of positive story we are looking for. Enough said about where CTV, TSN and the Globe are coming from.

Today’s Globe mentioned the fact that the relay had to change its route to Brantford but they did not bother to do any stories about what the native peoples on the Six Nations Reserve were protesting. They didn’t even cover the protest. When the protest north of Toronto took place a few days ago CTV National News ignored not only the protest but the issues around the protest. I daresay CTV and TSN will continue to ignore the Six Nations story. In fact it looks to me like CTV, TSN and The Globe will continue to ignore any negative stories that pop up between now and the time that CTV, TSN and The Globe lose the media rights to the Olympic Games four years from now.

Let’s hope CBC gets the Olympic rights back sooner rather than later because history has shown us that while CBC Sports may have glossed over some controversial issues, they did not abandon their journalism. And CBC News never shied away from the negative stories. Brian Williams is a fine reporter and sports journalist. Too bad it looks like CTV and TSN will never allow him to do what he does best.

Filed under: Media Commentary , Ben Mulroney, Brian Williams, CBC, CTV, Dick Pound, NBC, Olympic Torch Relay, Sandy Rinaldo, Seamus O'Regan, The Globe and Mail, TSN

Too Much Tiger

I had no intention of writing about Tiger Woods and his oh so public trial by media and public opinion. There is already far too much ink and acetate being wasted on this story. It was my belief that whatever comes of this fiasco is self-inflicted and well deserved. In any case, Tiger may be hurt both financially and personally but he will never be poor. He can hide out on his yacht for the rest of his life if he wants to or he can return to golf and make many more millions of dollars just from his future winnings and appearance fees. Other than passing interest in what has become a train wreck, you have to look even if you don’t really care, I don’t see the relevance of this story to anyone but Tiger’s friends, family, sponsors, the professional golf tour and the networks who depend on him for ratings. I certainly don’t see the travails of the Tiger as front page news over a week after the story came out. But that’s me.

A short telephone conversation with a friend, a former journalist, got me going on the subject. It made me wonder once again about the way the media is heading. I understand the TMZ’s of this world, the tabloid press and even all news TV. Scandal is their bread and butter. The more they can make of the Tiger story the more newspapers and soap suds they will sell. Heck TMZ and the Florida tabloids are being credited with getting the story right, meaning Tiger’s dalliances, even though they blew the initial story by reporting that Tiger was in critical condition. In typical fashion Fox and CNN repeated the fact that Tiger was in bad shape which led to mainstream TV and newspapers picking up the story without fully fact checking the original reports. I’m not surprised anymore by shoddy journalistic practices.

What does surprise me is the complete lack of depth and context from the national networks in the U.S. and Canada. The same is true from the major newspapers. So few reporters have attempted to understand Tiger and everything that his actions represent. Look, I don’t know this for a fact but I am willing to bet that Tiger is not the first pro golfer to have an affair or pay for sex. For the most part you have a bunch of very rich men traveling on their own, without families, for up to ten months a year. In fact I will go further, I’ll bet many pro golfers and more than a few golf journalists knew exactly what was going on with Tiger. Until TMZ reported it and Tiger drove his car into a tree and a fire hydrant in the middle of the night, they all looked the other way.

I know for sure that baseball, football and hockey journalists know many a scandalous tale about the men they cover; young men that are about the same age as Tiger, also very rich, if not in Tiger’s financial league, and also very desirable because of their athletic prowess. Yet these stories do not get told or written. I’m sure the same is true for the music journalists who cover the major rock stars. Why, it is even true in most cases, although less so since Bill Clinton, for our politicians.

None of the above makes the actions of serial or even one-time screw-ups right or even tolerable. It does beg though, for reporting that looks at the perils of stardom and the attitudes of young filthy rich and spoiled men. It also begs for a serious look at the women who are attracted to stardom, wealth and power even when they know the men in question are married and unlikely to leave their wives for the likes of a groupie. These are the kinds of items that were once used to further an ongoing story. A look for new angles and a search for understanding was part of the journalist’s job. Now it seems, not so much.

So day after day we are subjected to a torrent or a trickle of new facts. Today a sponsor pulls out of their deal with Tiger. Yesterday Tiger’s wife bought a mansion in Sweden. Tomorrow, who knows, maybe a new woman comes forward to grab a piece of national notoriety by spilling the beans on her affair with Tiger. None of this helps us to understand what I continually say is the prime question of journalism. Why! Why did Tiger cheat on his gorgeous wife? Why do the women throw themselves at Tiger and men like him? The facts have no real meaning until we can understand them in the context of the entire situation.

In the meantime the serious media lower themselves to new depths in covering Tiger and stories like his. The question I have to ask is whether this is because of the poor financial situation that newspapers and television find themselves in, a desperate need for sales, or is this just the way of the future? Have we as a nation of voyeurs seen so much of Ozzie Osbourne, Montel Williams, and  Survivor that we just can’t seem to get enough. People! Do you know what’s going on in Copenhagen? How about HST? Do you understand what Canadians are doing in Afghanistan? It’s time to get a real life. The Tiger Woods story makes me very happy to be a former journalist rather than a practicing journalist.

Filed under: Media Commentary , Bill Clinton, CNN, Fox, Montel Williams, Ozzie Osbourne, Survivor, Tiger Woods, TMZ

Where is the new Ted Koppel?

Every once in a while you know you are going to say or write something that will get you into trouble. I’m afraid this is one of those instances. Some of you will disagree with me. Some of you may even be mad at me for what I’m about to write about.

After 40 years of paying close attention to television news and current affairs I’m afraid I have to report that the art of the great interview is dying.

I am amazed at the lack of interviewing talent that exists on network TV and radio in both Canada and the United States. In fact, I will go further. I am astounded at the lousy interviewers that inhabit our airwaves today.

Pretty much everyone agrees that Ted Koppel was a great interviewer when he hosted Nightline at ABC. In my mind he was the best interviewer I have ever seen or heard. His interviews were always focused. He asked the questions the audience wanted answered. He never competed with his guests. He was fearless, never backing away from asking the tough questions. He always did his homework. He was an even better listener than he was a talker. He never failed to follow up when a guest said something that needed follow up. In short, he was an interviewing god. Every television and radio host should be forced to watch a thousand hours of Ted’s work so they can see how it should be done.

There have been other great interviewers. Edward R. Murrow was a pioneer on television. The hosts of 60 Minutes have distinguished themselves. I am sure I am missing many, many great broadcasters from the golden ages of TV and radio. But who stands out today? Name somebody? When I asked friends and colleagues this question most were stumped. One said Charlie Rose. Are you kidding? He never asks a tough question. He spends most of his time trying to look smart and in the process talks about things no audience member knows or cares about. His interviews are about Charlie Rose, not his guests. Another mentioned Bill Moyers. Still another friend said Farid Zakaria; interesting names, but not a real interview “star” among them. More interesting still is that not a single Canadian broadcaster came up on anyone’s list.

Heck, Canada is the country that produced Barbara Frum and Patrick Watson. They were both icons of the interview, fearless questioners who put the audience first in their attempts to get to the heart of a story. So what is happening here in the great white north?

For most of my lifetime the CBC, especially CBC radio has distinguished itself with excellent hosts and interviewers. I already mentioned Barbara Frum but Michael Enright, Marylou Finley and Linden MacIntyre stand out as broadcasters. They dominated the national radio scene when they were on Sunday Morning and As It Happens. Many people loved Peter Gzowski. I didn’t. I thought his interviews were about Peter. I would call him a great radio personality not an especially good interviewer. I once heard him compare himself to Nobel Laureate I.B. Singer when he was interviewing him. I also heard him tell Annie Lennox that he had never heard of her and then ask her why she was a guest on his show.

Michael Enright is still doing a fine job hosting on Sunday mornings. Linden MacIntyre is still doing great work on The Fifth Estate but where is the new crop of talent? The CBC claims they want younger viewers but most of their young talent is not up to the task. For sure George Stroumboulopoulos is glib and personable but does anyone expect great insight or fierce journalism from George? I think not. Jian Ghomeshi always sounds like he is reading his questions from a script. He doesn’t listen to his guests. I know this because there is seldom follow up when a guest says something surprising. As far as the journalists are concerned, Peter Mansbridge is obviously a news reader when he interviews. There is seldom the feeling of a discussion and far too often he goes into Charlie Rose mode, trying to show how smart he is and forgetting that there’s an audience watching. The only time Anna Maria Tremonti surprises is when she asks another inane question that is far off topic. The Current is everything that’s wrong with CBC radio today, simplistic stories, bad guests, poor questions, I can’t think of anything that’s good about the show.

So who do I like? I think Steve Paikin at TV Ontario is the best interviewer in Canada today. I think he could be a little tougher; it upsets me when he starts a tough question with “some people say” or “some people think” as if it is not his question, but on the whole he is more engaged and more informed than anyone I see or hear today. He also brings one more big plus to his interviews: he seems genuinely excited to be there. You can be both entertained and informed by a Steve Paikin interview, a rare combination these days.

While I’ve got your attention I want to mention some former broadcasters who seldom get their due and one radio host who deserves to be lauded for his fine work. Norm Perry was the real deal when he hosted Canada AM. He was always prepared and the story always came first. He never got the attention he deserved.

I worked for two years with Larry Solway. Most of you don’t know who he is but let me assure you, I never worked with a better interviewer. He was tough, honest, smart and always thoroughly prepared.

I was lucky enough to do work with Valerie Pringle on a show for Vision TV. She was amazing. Her depth of knowledge and understanding of the issues was almost superhuman given the circumstances. She never failed to make a bad interview work and a good interview better.

Finally I want to give kudos to Bob McCown. He is hidden away on sports radio and television but he is the consummate broadcaster. He knows how to get to the nub of a story as well as anyone in the business and perhaps more important he understands that his job is to both entertain and inform.

Interviewing is a fine art. I hope the folks who run TV and radio in this country appreciate the difficulty and complexity it entails and look more critically at what they have and as important what they don’t have. If they do we may yet see more Ted Koppels and Barbara Frums on our airwaves in the future.

Filed under: Media Commentary , 60 Minutes, Anna Maria Tremonti, Barbara Frum, Bill Moyers, Bob McCown, Charlie Rose, Edward R. Murrow, Farid Zakaria, George Stroumboulopoulos, Jian Ghomeshi, Linden MacIntyre, Michael Enright, Patrick Watson, Peter Mansbridge, Steve Paikin, Ted Koppel

Bye Bye Network TV

With all the ‘bull’ being raised at the CRTC hearings in the National Capital District it amazes me that nobody has glommed onto the obvious. The great television networks of North America are a dying breed. CTV and Global are wasting their time and ours by arguing for a future that doesn’t exist. In fact if you read between the lines, subscription fees are another way of saying “we want to be a cable service.”

The greedy part of what they are doing is that they are attempting to keep all the perks of over-the-airways channels: must-carriage, simulcasting, the best spots on the dial, while charging the same sort of fees that TSN, Slice or W charge.

The real truth is that they cannot win these new fees without offering something huge in return. The most obvious is to promise greater amounts of Canadian content. It will be the CRTC’s job to make sure that the content they offer is in the form of drama, comedy and documentary production. The nets would far prefer to offer cheaper reality TV. The nets will offer the Canadian programs in dead zones like opposite hockey, Friday nights, outside prime time. It will be the CRTC’s job to get guarantees for a percentage of prime time and while I’m at it, an assurance that Canadian shows will have the same sort of promotion budgets that the big U.S. shows get.

I’m not holding my breath. The CRTC is toothless in dealing with the networks. Global seldom if ever lives up to its license guarantees. CTV uses every trick to shortchange Canadian production. The CRTC has always been silent on any transgression.

The bread and butter of CTV and Global is the big U.S. blockbuster series. That’s where they get their audience. That’s where they make their money. The U.S. shows are way cheaper to buy than spending $2 million and more per episode on Canadian drama. And here’s the rub: the U.S. networks are in as bad shape as CTV and Global.

Many American media experts point to two events in the past year as forewarning the end of the network era. First came Jay Leno’s new prime time talk show. It basically said NBC doesn’t have the money to produce three hours of prime time every weekday. More recently Oprah’s announcement that she is walking away from her hugely successful show that runs on network television. Everyone knows she will reappear on her own cable station that’s about to be picked up by cable and satellite companies in the U.S.

The writing is on the wall. NBC is trying to sell itself to Comcast, the biggest U.S. cable operator. What’s fascinating about this sale is that it’s General Electric’s cable channels: Bravo, USA, MSNBC, SyFy and CNBC, not NBC are what Comcast wants, not the fourth place broadcast network.

The experts agree that broadcast TV that relies on advertising may be a broken model. In a recent article in the U.S. Tim Arango and Bill Carter looked at the future of broadcast networks:

“The business model of the big three networks — which became four when Fox began prime-time programming in 1987 — has for decades relied on a simple formula: spend millions on original programming that will attract advertiser dollars and later live on as lucrative reruns in syndication.
But ratings are going down. In the 1952-53 television season, more than 30 percent of American households that owned televisions tuned in to NBC during prime time, according to Nielsen. In the 2007-8 season, that figure was just 5.2 percent.
The mass audience — the bread and butter of broadcast networks — has splintered into niches as viewers flock to alternative entertainment choices on the Internet, to video games and to cable channels dedicated to individual tastes, like Ms. Winfrey’s forthcoming OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.
And yet, programming remains expensive — a network drama costs about $3 million for one hour — and advertisers are becoming reluctant to pay ever-rising premiums for prime-time shows. All the networks have tried to adjust, putting on more reality programming, for example, that is cheaper to produce.
NBC made perhaps the biggest bet of all — moving Jay Leno to prime time each night at 10, saving the millions it would have cost to develop a scripted show in that time spot. The Leno move has been the subject of intense scrutiny by the media, because Mr. Leno’s ratings have lately fallen on several nights well below even the modest guarantees NBC made to advertisers.
While networks have found it difficult to charge ever-higher advertising rates in the face of declining ratings, big cable channels — like USA, TNT and TBS — have flourished with the millions of dollars in subscription fees from cable operators that they receive, on top of advertising.
“The cable players have a robust affiliate fee stream that allows them to better finance original programming,” said Anthony DiClemente, a media analyst at Barclays Capital. “The main structural issue right now with broadcast is that the vast majority of revenues are from advertising.”
Profit margins for cable networks are also much better than broadcast networks’. Derek Baine, a senior analyst at SNL Kagan, said big cable networks earned profit margins of 40 to 60 percent, while a good year for a broadcast network is a 10 percent profit margin.
Illustrative of this is a comparison of NBC to ESPN, one of the most popular cable channels. Last year, revenue for the two networks was roughly equal. NBC, according to SNL Kagan, generated about $5.6 billion in advertising dollars; ESPN generated a total of about $6 billion in revenue — $1.6 billion from advertising and $4.4 billion in subscriber fees. But ESPN was vastly more profitable. Its cash flow was about $1.4 billion, while NBC’s was $304 million.”

What does this mean for CTV and Global? It means the shows they have depended on to survive, the ones they want even better access to, may soon cease to exist. How long can a dying industry continue to produce $3 million episodes that get smaller and smaller audiences? Not long. Global without House and NCIS is dead. CTV without the CSI’s and Grey’s Anatomy is likewise in big trouble.

So, instead of looking at ways to save the dinosaurs shouldn’t the huge brains at CTV, Global and the CRTC be planning for a very different future? A future where all TV is either by subscription or pay-per-view. A future that includes on-demand TV and television via the internet and cell phone. If these guys are so smart why can’t they see what’s happening before their eyes right now? The stupidity of the Aspers, Fecans and von Finckensteins is frightening to me. How about you?

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary , Bravo, CRTC, CTV, ESPN, Global, Ivan Fecan, Konrad von Finckenstein, Leonard Asper, MSNBC, NBC, Oprah Winfrey, TBS, TNT, USA Network