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

Liars Poker at the CRTC

After several months of interminable, fact free and boring ads, the CRTC has spent the last week and a few days trying to get Canada’s broadcasters and cable and satellite companies to come to some agreement on fee-for-carriage, in other words, allowing the broadcasters to get paid for what has always been a free service. As all Canadians know by now the public face of the battle is between the cable and satellite operators who claim they want to save us from the dreaded new “TV tax” and the country’s broadcasters who want to save local television.

Anyone who has paid even peripheral attention to the debate knows that both sides are, forgive the colloquialism, full of crap. The broadcasters have never shown any interest in local TV. The last time CTV cared was when it was a consortium of private owners like the Bassetts in Toronto and the Peters in B.C. who actually controlled the network. The shoe was on the other foot in those days. There was little interest in the network. Since Bell and the Globe Media bought out all the individual owners and centralized the running of the network local has been a bad word at CTV.

It’s even worse at Canwest/Global. Here, there has never been any interest in local TV. Before Izzy Asper got control, Global TV served all of Ontario from Toronto. There was never any coverage of Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Windsor, London etc. In Winnipeg the Asper station was a joke. When I was news director at Global and there were massive forest fires in Manitoba Izzy’s Winnipeg station refused to cover the fires. “Too expensive” they said. “We don’t have the manpower” they argued. We had to send a crew from Toronto.

In truth, and we all know this to be true, all CTV and Canwest/Global care about is the money. They have gone about making this abundantly clear in the past week. When Ivan Fecan, head of CTV, was asked if he would guarantee the fee-for-carriage money would go to local TV and local programming he said no. Canwest/Global said the same. So what was the point of all the advertising produced and aired by CTV and Global? Was it a false advertising? The only conclusion I can come to is yes, it was all a lie.

Further, to prove that money is the only motive, the networks level of greed showed no boundaries, they took their chutzpa to new levels demanding that on top of being paid for their free signals they want to expand simultaneous substitution. According to Michael Geist in The Globe and Mail:

“The broadcasters now wish to expand simultaneous substitution policy with program deletion…when a Canadian broadcaster purchases the rights to a U.S. program, they would have the right to air it whenever they choose within a seven day window. The hook is cable and satellite companies would be required to block the U.S. broadcast of the same program if it did not air simultaneously.
“The proposal, which would lead to millions of Canadians regularly encountering blank screens instead of expected programs, would perversely increase the attractiveness of U.S. programming…it would (also) send more Canadians away from broadcast television to the Internet…”

The broadcasters confirmed as well, they are not willing to invest in digital transmitters for all the local communities leaving residents in small cities like Kingston without any over the air signals, another slap at local TV. To add insult to injury the broadcasters are asking for an extra two years to make the switch to digital. In the U.S. that job was completed earlier this year. CTV and Global want us to wait another four years. You may wonder what difference that makes to you. Well, it means the new spectrum , 700 MHz, that was supposed to come available will not. That means Canada will lose billions of dollars in revenues from selling that spectrum and that new wireless and open internet innovation and competition will not be available to Canadian consumers.

In the face of all this, it should be a slam dunk for the cable and satellite operators. The broadcasters want everything and are willing to give back nothing.

Well that sounds like the real world. The CRTC has seldom, if ever, had close ties to the real world. The consumer is always at the bottom of the CRTC’s list of cares. The CRTC’s job, as they see it, is to protect Canadian TV. Not TV production as in new dramas and comedies, but TV distributors and stations. The reason: without a bunch of TV stations operating in Canada there is no need for the CRTC to oversee television. So they protect the millionaire owners. More important to the CRTC is cable. Every decision they make is to fortify cable. As long as most Canadians get their TV through cable the CRTC is powerful. You see, you cannot block over the air signals at the border, you cannot stop satellite feeds from entering Canadian air space, but you can control Canadian companies who distribute these signals over cable to millions of Canadian homes. Thus, over the years the CRTC has become the political arm of Rogers Cable. I have appeared before the CRTC five or six times and on each occasion at least half the commissioners were former Rogers employees. In many cases they went back to work at Rogers after their term was up at the CRTC. The connection is too obvious and has been going on for too long to call this a coincidence. CRTC decisions inevitably favour the cable companies first, the broadcasters second, the satellite companies third and I have to say it, the consumer never.

So where does this leave the entire debate? It’s impossible. The CRTC can’t hurt either side. It explains why Konrad von Finckenstein says he’s sick of the whole thing. He finds himself on the horns of a major dilemma: how to help the greedy broadcasters without harming the greedy cable companies or vice versa. To make it worse, signals from the government suggest they don’t want the consumer to pay. Tough luck Konny, you lose no matter what you decide. Here’s hoping you don’t take the rest of us with you.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary , CRTC, CTV, Canwest, Izzy Asper, The Globe and Mail, Global, Ivan Fecan, Bell, Globe Media, Konrad von Finckenstein

Battle of the Blades

When I first heard about it I thought it was one of the truly dumbest ideas for a new television show that had ever been contemplated. A bunch of rough and tumble former hockey players lacing on figure skates and pairing with some of Canada’s best female pairs skaters, who thought this would be a good idea? Only the CBC could come up with this concept and allow it to get to air.

Guess what? I was wrong. I hesitatingly tuned in to what I expected to be massive disaster. Perhaps I even subconsciously wanted it to fail. I used to like to think I knew a good idea from a bad one. But I was hooked. Not only is Battle of the Blades a well produced and conceived TV show, it is utterly charming entertainment that both men and women can love and most of all, and this is what the CBC and the producers deserve the most credit for, it is the first originally Canadian reality show. Battle of the Blades may even be the first truly original Canadian TV show.

For those of you who didn’t tune in on Sunday night I will describe the show. Half-a-dozen former National Hockey League players, from goons like Tie Domi to pretty boys like Ron Duguay, are teamed up with some of the best female “pairs” skaters this country has produced. They train for a “LIVE” free skate together and their performances are judged by a panel that includes two great Canadian figure skating stars, Sandra Bezic and Dick Button and a third judge that will change every week, in this case it was former L.A. Kings goaltender Kelly Hrudey. Of course there’s the great build-up with lots of pictures of the hockey players falling over their toe picks and dropping the women in practice sessions. All this beautifully sets up the expectation of disaster. Finally we come to the time to perform and a glitzy, beautifully lit set has been created at Maple Leaf Gardens with a live audience on hand to lend atmosphere to the proceedings.

As it turns out almost all the hockey players do very well. Ron Duguay in fact, looks like he could have been a great figure skater had he not been a very good hockey player. Sure most of the artistic skating was performed by the women, but the men, except for Bob Probert, the former Chicago Black Hawk fighter, did not look out of place.

It was a truly riveting hour of TV. Yes, many watched to see the men fall or the possibility of a train wreck, but what every viewer got was not disappointing: they were entertained.

Where the show sparkled was in its down home Canadian charm. This was not a program that attempted to be anything that it wasn’t. There was no pretense. It was a bunch of jocks, regular guys, Canadians having a great time doing the unexpected. The female skaters seemed to enjoy it as much as the hockey players. The charm of the characters continually shone through. In the end I found myself liking each and every one of the skaters.

Donald Button was perfect as both a judge and a personality. He made it fun by being willing criticize as well as praise.

The only negative I could find was Ron MacLean. Is it me or is MacLean becoming so predictable with his bad puns and dry humour that I prefer to turn off anything he is involved with. A few years back I wondered why CBC was giving him a hard time when his contract was up. Now I think it’s time for Ron to hang up the mic and for CBC to find another sports host.

When Battle of the Blades comes back next year, and based on the great ratings for week one I’m sure it will be back, I would like to see a few more hockey stars like Ron Duguay and Tie Domi, guys who are showmen; hockey players who are happy to display their infectious enthusiasm. Skating ability is secondary on this show, having fun is what it is all about. That goes for the audience too.

The TV Tax – An Update
On a very different note, a few weeks ago I would have bet the farm that the CRTC was going to rubber stamp the CTV, Global and CBC request to be paid by cable and satellite companies for distributing their signals. The bogus claims by CTV and Global that this was to save local TV seemed to have some resonance with both the politicians and the people.

Now, after an effective counter attack by the cable and satellite companies it appears the networks might not get their undeserved millions. Polls are showing a vast majority of Canadians are against what is really a new tax on television in Canada. I don’t know if this is the reason but the Harper government has stepped in. They have asked the CRTC to look into how the new charges would affect Canadian TV viewing and how Canadians feel about the new levies.

To me this seems like code for “kill the new tax.” The CRTC is supposed to work arms length from the government but the request by the Conservatives is at worst a delaying tactic and at best a signal to the bureaucrats that they would be making a mistake to give the networks a $50 million windfall for nothing in return.

Stay tuned. We will hear a lot more about this before a decision is made.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary , Battle of the Blades, Bob Probert, CBC, CRTC, CTV, Donald Button, Global TV, Kelly Hrudey, Maple Leaf Gardens, Ron Duguay, Ron MacLean, Sandra Bezic, Stephen Harper, Tie Domi

Private Network Pirates

Canada’s biggest networks could not make it any clearer. They are cynical, money-grubbing entities that are not worth giving the time of day let alone the millions they are trying to squeeze from television viewers in Canada.

Let’s look back at how the last few months have played out. First CTV and Canwest/Global cry poor and beg the federal government through the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) to force the cable and satellite companies to pay them for their signal. They claim this is so they can save local television. Let’s leave aside the fact that their buying spree of local TV stations followed by their cutting them to the bone have been a primary cause of the failure of local TV. The networks shamelessly produced commercials and invited the public to their stations to explain why local television was in danger of disappearing. These fine upstanding TV moguls told us they want the opportunity to save their local stations and the only way that could happen was to charge all Canadians a few bucks for their services.

The CRTC then caves in to the demands of the millionaire owners. A new levy of 1.5% is to be added to your cable or satellite bill which is supposed to go towards local television production. Problem solved.

Not so fast. While waiting for word from the feds about the bailout the networks got busy. Victoria, B.C. and Red Deer, Alberta will see their stations closed. CTV sold its Brandon, Manitoba station and Canwest/Global sold CHCH in Hamilton and CJNT in Montreal. But hey, you say, they got money. Not enough it seems. The networks still want to charge for their programming even though their last pretense, saving local television, has gone by the wayside along with five local stations.

This whole situation is just plain crazy. The networks bought up every available station in Canada. CTV bought the CHUM/CITY group with all its “A” Channels across the country and specialty stations. Canwest/Global bought CHCH and Alliance Atlantis with a large roster of cable and satellite channels. This came years after CTV bought a bunch of small over-the-air stations from Victoria to Northern Ontario and Canwest/Global opened stations in Montreal and the Maritimes. The networks created a huge debt load they can’t sustain. Add in the recession and their troubles mounted. They screwed up. Their eyes were bigger than their stomachs as my mother would say when I wanted too much food at dinner. The CRTC knows this. The feds know this. So why are we contemplating bailing them out, now especially, when they have abandoned the reason for the bailout, local TV?

Here’s my take. If Canwest/Global is serious about operating a television empire in Canada they should immediately sell or shut down The National Post. It barely exists anyways after the staff slashing that has gone on for over two years. You don’t save a newspaper by providing less and less news on its pages. It is an empty shell. Further, it’s time to sell off the foreign assets like Channel 10 in Australia. Why should Canadians pay to support failure and foreign ventures? Canwest/Global has some excellent assets in its stable of cable networks. They could get all the money they need by picking two or three of their cable stations and selling them to Rogers or Astral Media. Save yourself before you ask me to save you. Finally, I would demand that Canwest/Global become serious producers of Canadian content. When I worked there they never lived up to their CRTC license agreements and they constantly cheated on the money they claimed they spent on Canadian content.

If CTV wants to prove it is serious about its commitment to Canadian programming and to Canada it too will have to produce and invest in more than the odd Canadian drama and comedy and schedule the Canadian shows in time slots that are not dead zones opposite Canwest/Global’s few winners. CTV too has plenty of assets that they could sell to tide them over the recessionary hump. Did we need a TSN2 at a time when CTV says they have no money?

I’m probably wasting my time and energy because of the political power the networks command. I cannot see any way they will not get their money from us. The CRTC wimps and the toady politicians will cave to their demands. But has anyone thought about the long term affects of the large increases in the cost of cable and satellite? Will you continue to buy History Channel and Discovery Kids if you need to save a few bucks because of the rising cost of cable? Is MTV Canada and CTV News Channel still worth having when you can’t afford the satellite TV cost increases? Are CTV and Canwest/Global actually hurting their own bottom lines with this irrational demand for new payments for their network signals?

So far I have seen no sign of intelligent life at Canwest/Global since Izzy Asper died and left the company in the hands of his kids. At CTV I have seen a company that has managed to lose money while running seven of the top ten shows in Canada, a feat worthy of public ridicule. This is what we are being asked to prop up, greedy owners who have mismanaged a license to print money in the good times and are now paying the price in the bad times. Only they don’t want to pay the price, they want us to.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary , Alliance Atlantis, Canwest, CHCH, Chum, CRTC, CTV, CTV News Channel, Global TV, History Channel, Izzy Asper, The National Post, TSN2

J-school not Job School

I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for a long time. There are a couple things about journalism school that make absolutely no sense to me and I should think to most of you.

First, it is a crazy idea to teach young people, no matter how bright, how to do journalism if they have no knowledge about anything else. If I ran the world, the only way to get into journalism school would be to have a degree in something else, political science, economics, history, art, biology, math, physics, I don’t care what. Any knowledge you bring to journalism will be useful. The lack of any knowledge about anything is a major handicap. The University of Western Ontario has done this right, the only journalism degrees they offer are post graduate degrees.

I taught at Ryerson for ten years and the most obvious thing that sticks with me from those years is how much better the students with BA’s and BSc’s did in the courses. They were not smarter or more motivated, they just brought informed ideas with them that allowed them to understand the stories they were researching and covering. Unfortunately the undergrads generally could not perform to the same level.

I can’t speak for all schools but at Ryerson this problem is made worse by a stupid idea behind their non journalism courses offered to J-school students. The J-school students don’t take economics, they take economics for journalists. They take a political science course that only deals with local politics. Every non journalism course is dumbed down. The reason: I was told journalism students don’t want to take non journalism courses. Well, when I was at school I had to take a whole lot of courses I didn’t want to take. They are called requirements for a reason. Dumbing courses down to make them easier to handle for journalism students does nobody any good. The students are cheated of knowledge and their future employers are cheated out of knowledgeable employees. All this so the journalism profs can have an easier time dealing with their students. It seemed to me that J-school at Ryerson was run for the most part by and for the teachers not the students. I met few teachers at Ryerson who cared about the education or the future of their students.

My second beef with journalism school is also true of film, radio and television arts, communications, whatever universities and colleges choose to name their media courses. It seems obvious to me that the schools are making promises they cannot keep to young impressionable people who don’t know better. A student chooses a course of study to prepare for a job in that field…am I going to fast here for all you journalism deans? There are very few jobs available in media. Even in good times there are few openings in Canada. Yet just about every school in Canada invites young people to spend their time and money taking these courses. We are graduating hundreds, maybe thousands of students every year into fields where only a handful of jobs will be available.

I understand that young people think film, TV and journalism is glamorous. I understand that they want to get into these professions. That’s no excuse for our educational institutions to take advantage of them. Let’s be honest, it’s all about the money. J-schools are packed with eager students. If we opened more places in the schools – and we do seem to do this all the time – we would fill them instantly. But does anyone tell these kids there are no jobs for them? I have never seen it. Worse, the schools continue to accept these students knowing there are no jobs. It is morally wrong. I expect this from fly-by-night outfits that advertise on match books and late night TV. I don’t expect this kind of behavior from government funded institutions.

The simple answer is to cut back on the spaces available. Cut way back. Only the best should get in because only the best will get a job in the media.

There are other problems with journalism schools. The move towards getting teachers with higher academic credentials rather than experience and knowledge in the courses they teach is hurting those students who do not themselves strive to be academics – in others words, the students who want to work in journalism. When I was at Ryerson we had people teaching news production who had never worked in news, people teaching television production who had never produced television. The real talent was in the part-timers, not the staff teachers.

The growing numbers of students are taxing the system. There are not enough cameras and edit suites available to teach the courses properly. More students equals more money for the school but there are seldom more facilities when numbers go up.

The best thing about journalism school is the students. I found that the best ones pushed themselves and others. They succeeded in spite of the teaching and overcrowding. They succeeded because they were driven to succeed. Their success speaks to their own abilities not to those of their teachers or their schools.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary , Journalism, Journalism school, Ryerson University, University of Western Ontario

Time for Al Jazeera

Many years ago when I was producing the news at CBC Toronto I found myself in a typically ferocious friendly argument with one of the smartest people on my staff, a man who was a close friend then and remains so to this day. He was very upset that I was planning to have Ernst Zundel on one of our programs. Zundel, of course, was one of Canada’s leading Nazi supporters and Holocaust deniers. My friend argued that we were giving a platform to a dangerous point of view and that hate speech had no place on Canadian airwaves.

I believed that exposing Zundel’s remarks to the public would do more to shine a light on his inane points of view and stupidity that this man represented than censoring him. I pointed out that the Nazi’s were banned in Germany in the ‘20s and look how well that worked out.

The irony was that my friend is Christian and I am Jewish, although to be fair, neither of us is particularly religious.

I tell this story because of the fight over whether Al Jazeera should be allowed to enter Canada as a cable and satellite station. I cannot say I know much more than what I have read about the network. I have heard groups argue for and against Al Jazeera’s availability to Canadians.

Those against are quick to point out the anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli rhetoric they say is a hallmark of Al Jazeera in Arabic. I have never heard the same said about their English language service. I suspect it is pro-Palestinian, pro-Arab and pro-Muslim, but we allow U.S. news into Canada and I don’t believe Fox news is any less slanted and unfair, probably it’s a lot more biased.

Those for Al Jazeera are quick to point out that Tony Burman, the former head of CBC News, a Canadian, is running Al Jazeera, so how bad can it be. Tony was responsible for some pretty bad newscasts in Canada, but that’s not what the proponents are saying. They believe a Canadian at the helm of Al Jazeera proves it is not unfair, anti-West and irresponsible. Having seen some Middle East coverage from CBC under Tony Burman it’s not an argument I would be comfortable with. In any case who cares? Since when is balance and fairness in news coverage a requirement for getting on the air in Canada? I have already mentioned Fox, but the coverage of the Iraq War by ABC, NBC and CBS was egregious. It could have been written and reported by the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Coverage of the Separatist Movement in Canada was no better, at least on the English side, and the War in Afghanistan seems a-ok with our three top television networks, see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. You know them better as CBC, CTV and Global.

What most folks are really saying is that you can be unfair and unbalanced so long as we agree with the side you are taking.

All these years after my Ernst Zundel debate I have not changed my mind. I think the best way for Canadians to understand where other people are coming from is to hear their points of view. I don’t have to agree. But I certainly cannot agree or disagree if I don’t know what they are saying. The Arab viewpoint is sorely lacking in Canada. All we get is coverage of the coverage. I would like to see what Al Jazeera is saying about Obama, Israel, terrorism, the troubles in Pakistan and perhaps even Canadian Middle East policy under Stephen Harper.

Most of the rest of the world already gets Al Jazeera either in English or Arabic. Heck, Israeli’s can watch the network. What are we afraid of? Are our beliefs and opinions that fragile? If Al Jazeera were to say that Jews control U.S. foreign policy and the International Monetary Fund, as I have read they have reported in Arabic, will well educated Canadians automatically believe it? I think not. Some bigots may use Al Jazeera to bolster their beliefs but they will find their path to bigotry whether Al Jazeera is available or not.

I am told that, in fact, quite a few Jewish journalists work for the English Al Jazeera network. I don’t know whether this is true. I do know that many Israeli politicians have gone on Al Jazeera to try to get their viewpoints across to Arabs.

Let’s grow up as a country and live up to the standards we say we believe in. Freedom of speech is always a good thing. Knowledge is always a good thing. Understanding your enemies as well as your friends is always important. A diversity of opinion in a land as diverse as our own should be a given. If Al Jazeera screws up there will be plenty of Canadian voices willing to point out their failures. If they break our libel or hate laws we can prosecute them. But muzzling them hurts us more than it hurts them, it’s time, bring on Al Jazeera.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary , Al Jazeera, CBC News, CTV, Ernst Zundel, Fox News, Global News, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Tony Burman

Walter Cronkite and the Golden Age of TV News

One of my favorite lines about the sixties states that if you remember them, you weren’t there. I am not sure what I remember and what I don’t but there are some memories that do stand out: the assassination of President Kennedy, the arrival of the Beatles, the murders of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Chicago riots at the Democratic National Convention, The Vietnam War, Kent State, the moon landing, and I know I’m stretching into the early seventies, the Watergate break-in leading to the Watergate hearings and the downfall of Richard Nixon.

If you asked me what all of these events had in common yesterday I would have waffled and come up with some platitudes about the “hippy” era and the baby boom. Today the answer is clear to me: they mark a golden age of television journalism. The golden boy of that golden age was Walter Cronkite.

It will be hard for anyone under the age of 50 to understand the real power of television news in the sixties and seventies. Without understanding that power it will be impossible to understand the greatness of “Uncle Walter.”

Just about everyone in North America got almost all their news from television. Polls at the time said 75% got 100% of their news from TV. And the man who was the most trusted man in America through those times was Walter Cronkite, a news anchor and journalist.

When Walter was the anchor at CBS I never knew the name of the CBS national newscast. I never heard anyone say they were going to watch The CBS Evening News. You said you were going to watch Cronkite, or Walter, it was like calling all tissue paper Kleenex, Walter Cronkite was more than the brand he was the product. Nobody before or since in Canada or the United States has come close to that kind of power and reach.

Whenever I hired a news anchor it was Walter Cronkite I sought to find. I remember telling my boss at CBC that no host of a show is a success until the host’s name replaces the name of the program in the viewers’ minds. So what was I looking for? I wanted a person who had real journalism experience in the field so that they could empathize with both the reporters and the subjects of the stories. I wanted a person of integrity for whom the story was everything. I wanted someone who was willing to display their humanity on air. Most of all I wanted someone the audience immediately trusted. Walter Cronkite had all of that and one more thing, perhaps the most elusive thing of all, he was a star.

You see it has always been my belief that television is one of the greatest lie detectors man has ever devised. When someone is talking to you on TV you somehow know if they are telling the truth. You can read their character. In 1960 people who heard the debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy on radio thought Nixon won the debate. Television viewers were even more certain that Kennedy won. Viewers know when a host or anchor is being real. I believe the success of Lloyd Robertson is that he is exactly the same on and off camera. You see Lloyd on TV you know the man. In Canada, Barbara Frum had many of the same qualities. In the U.S. Johnny Carson was the only person that was in the same league as Walter.

Unfortunately there will never be another Walter Cronkite. Sure there will be great news people, great television hosts, but the world has changed. Television news will never be as important as it was. The internet has seen to that. The opportunity to speak to and sometimes for all the people just does not exist anymore in any medium.

The TV news business has changed too. It used to be a reporter centric medium where the guy on the site of the story provided the all the answers. Today it’s the news desk that writes and produces the stories. The reporter in most cases is just a face holding a microphone. It’s not a lack of reporting talent, it’s a lack of time. In the golden age a reporter had to produce one quality news story per day. Today they have to file for radio, TV, the internet and in some cases for multiple newscasts all day long. They have no time to think let alone assess a story.

Speed has become as important, if not more, than accuracy. And the technology allows for live reporting from any scene anywhere in the world. That means an anchor sitting in New York or Toronto is expected to comment on a story that’s happening right now in Teheran or Beijing. If we have the live pictures we go to air. The technology that was supposed to make TV news more accurate has in fact devalued the news. How can a man or woman sitting at a desk really know what’s happening 10,000 miles away?

A more important change has occurred since the Vietnam War. Politicians came to understand the power of TV. President Lyndon Johnson, I believe was first when he was quoted as saying that when he lost Walter Cronkite’s support for the war in Vietnam, he lost the American people. He decided not to run for re-election. Smart politicians since that time have learned the art of spin. Spin doctors are among their most important staff members. The purpose of all of this is to manipulate the media. In Walter’s time the media, to quote Marshall McLuhan, was the message. Today they are pawns to the message. The power has shifted. The Carl Roves of the world are better at getting their stories out than the reporters that cover them. Carl and his buddies have the time, the expertise and the money. All the reporters have is a camera and a microphone…easy pickings for the pros.

In the end it is no surprise that TV news just isn’t what it used to be. There are too many factors weighing against television journalism.

So when we look back at Walter Cronkite’s career and his amazing accomplishments we should shed a tear not just for the loss a great pioneer and icon but for television journalism. Walter Cronkite is both an example and a symbol of what it has lost and what it has become.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary , Barbara Frum, Carl Rove, CBS, John F. Kennedy, Johnny Carson, Lloyd Robertson, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Luther King, Richard Nixon, The Beatles, Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite