CBC: Fade to Black

Every time someone writes a blog condemning the new CBC, like the one last week by Tim Knight that caused a small stir, there seems to be less and less interest in it. There was a time when a piece like Tim’s would have caused a tremendous reaction. CBC backers would have taken to their computers and their writing implements to shout him down or to join him in the chorus of complainers. The fact that this is not happening speaks volumes about where the CBC is today in the conscious minds of Canadians. It is in fact not a pretty picture.

The CBC move to become ultra-light in an effort to woo younger viewers and boost its ratings has been a dismal failure. The age of the average CBC audience has not declined appreciably. The audience numbers have not risen, especially in comparison to the gains made by CTV and Global since the rating system was changed. Shows like Little Mosque on the Prairie and Insecurity have served to turn loyal CBC viewers away from the network. The National’s weak efforts since it was revamped have served to cut anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of the CBC News audience. The dismal treatment of current affairs mainstays like The 5th Estate and Marketplace have eroded both their numbers and their positive affect on how we view the work and importance of CBC TV. All of this is regrettable, and most important each small failure has led to the Corp’s biggest problem: too few people care enough anymore to fight for the CBC’s future.

I just returned from a trip to the east coast. When I lived there many years ago the CBC was a mainstay. It was top of mind if not top of ratings. The National’s news anchor was a star. There were programs that everyone watched and talked about. Yes, it was mainly in news and current affairs, but under brilliant people like John Kennedy the CBC was producing excellent movies and series that made a difference.
Today, I couldn’t find anyone who called himself or herself a CBC viewer. Most of the people I met don’t watch The National at all and seldom see anything on CBC. I know this is not a scientific survey, but I did see a lot of people in social group situations. The Maritimes, like Manitoba and Newfoundland were where the CBC picked up its biggest per capita audiences. That’s not true anymore for the Maritimes.

As if all this is not bad enough, at least three people questioned why the CBC should continue to exist and be funded by the taxpayers. One man from New Glasgow, a bookshop owner, went so far as to say he would not vote for any political party that would not sell off CBC TV. The general argument they make is that CBC TV programming is the same sort of stuff we see on CTV and Global. When I talked of Canadian content and jobs in the TV industry they laughed, saying if you can’t produce quality shows that I want to watch, you don’t deserve to have a job in the industry.

While many of these people’s feelings are extreme, what I see is a general malaise. People just don’t care anymore about the CBC and its future. When Parliament asked CBC to look for five percent in cuts to a budget that is already far to small to do the job, I didn’t hear a peep from anyone complaining about our cultural heritage or the need to have a national broadcaster. The silence was deafening.
CBC TV, it seems, has finally lost its standing as an important Canadian institution. Twenty-five years of budget cuts and six years of management dumbing down the content have worked their magic to make CBC TV just another station, and an unpopular one at that. The fact that the CBC costs Canadians a billion dollars per year only serves to make citizens care more about the money and less about what the network has to offer.

In the best of all worlds there would be a groundswell of opposition to what the current managers have done to a venerable institution. There would be a demand for watchable local news and a more serious National. There would be an outcry demanding a few high quality shows to counterbalance the froth. Alas, none of that is happening. What we are witness to is a slow fade to black at CBC TV. The very people who are responsible for a 75 year old legacy are either asleep at the wheel or have no idea what they are doing to the reputation and standing of the CBC.

Stephen Harper will not have to sell off the CBC, he won’t even have to do anything drastic. All he has to do is stand aside and let the CBC drift further and further into irrelevancy.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary, CBC, CBC TV, CTV, Global, InSecurity, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Marketplace, The 5h Estate, The National, Tim Knight

Leadership Vacuum: The CBC in 2011

While I am one of the dwindling number of Canadians who believes the CBC should not only exist but it should be helped to prosper, I must admit I was shocked by the recent spate of CBC’s self-congratulating PR missives patting themselves on the back for the massive amounts of dollars the national broadcaster generates for the Canadian economy. The study, paid for by the CBC and done by Deloitte and Touche LLP, claims that for your billion dollar investment, the Corp creates 3.7 billion dollars in economic activity.

I have no idea whether this is a reasonable figure but like all numbers and statistics I find it questionable. Two facts jump out at me. First that CBC paid for the study, and second that the BBC paid Deloitte Touche for the very same kind of study in the United Kingdom and came up with almost the exact same results. The BBC it seems generates just over three times its taxpayer supported subsidy. Coincidence? Would the CBC have paid for such a study if the BBC’s results were different, say if the Beeb wasted one third of the money it gets? I suspect not. I also wonder what is the norm for a corporation that employs over six thousand people and buys product and materials from other Canadian businesses. I suspect every company that is not going bankrupt generates at least similar, and in most cases far more dollars for the economy of the country.

The real story, and it is one the CBC is not talking about, is the cultural benefits that are accrued to the country. These you see, are priceless. How do you put a dollar value on the understanding Canadians have for each other from coast-to-coast? How much is Opera Atelier or The Royal Winnipeg Ballet worth to the Canadian soul? What about the value of k.d. lang or Leonard Cohen?

The reason the CBC is not talking about all this is because culture has just about disappeared from the CBC channels. In fact, in the rush for great ratings, high quality drama and comedy have all but disappeared for CBC viewers. Today, in the post Stursberg CBC the Stursberg philosophy lives on: go light, get numbers, avoid depth and at all costs don’t allow serious culture anywhere near the line-up.

As if to prove my point both InSecurity which may be the worst comedy on North American Television and Little Mosque on the Prairie, which specializes in comedy that would have been passé in the early sixties are returning to the CBC schedule. There’s more reality and double episodes of that all Canadian soap opera, Coronation Street. You want Canadiana, how about Camelot? To be fair, there is a new series called Arctic Air and the historical series John A: Birth of a Country…on the other side, there’s also a sequel to the Don Cherry biopic that ran a couple of years ago.

From this perch it looks to me like there is no serious planning going on at the CBC, just a bunch of folks guessing at what will bring in the numbers. That’s okay for a private network, but I question whether that’s the way a national network should work. I would love to see some leadership from the top at CBC. The President, Hubert Lacroix may be the most invisible president the CBC has ever had. Do you know what his vision for the CBC is? I’ve never seen it, heard it or read it. Kirstine Stewart, once Stursberg’s leading yes woman, is surprise, surprise carrying on as if Stursberg were still telling her what is what.

You know the CBC did an internal survey this spring. They have managed to keep the results relatively quiet. Perhaps it wasn’t difficult because there were few surprises in the poll results. Little that was really newsworthy.

Let me sum up a few things about the survey. There were 65 questions in 12 categories. They organized them by favorable scores. As an example, employee engagement got 85%, while Leadership and Direction got only 31% approval. That last score is pretty amazing, by far the lowest of any category. Essentially, more than two-thirds of employees believe CBC management is incompetent.

Operating efficiency approval was at 33%. What does this say about the vast amounts of money the CBC is generating? Perhaps the CBC needs that money to overcome the internal waste and inefficiency. Keep in mind, these are figures for the CBC as a whole. Apparently, they are considerably lower for News and Current Affairs. For example, Leadership and Direction for all of CBC is at 31% approval, while for News and Current Affairs it was around 20%.

The CBC does need more dollars to do the job it is mandated to do properly. But I for one am not in favor of giving them one extra penny until they begin to serve all Canadians, to show leadership in culture and Canadian affairs and until the corporation hires leaders with a vision for the future that is based on more than numbers as well as leaders who can be trusted to do their jobs by more than fifty percent of their workforce.

Call me when you can give me a reason to care.

Filed under: Media Commentary, BBC, CBC, Coronation Street, Hubert Lacroix, InSecurity, Kirstine Stewart, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Richard Stursberg

The Fifth’s Estate

Sometimes when I look at the CBC I just want to shake my head and ask what could these people possibly be thinking? CBC has some very successful programming. Hockey Night in Canada continues to roll along with more than 2 million viewers each week even though the presentation and style are deeply rooted somewhere in the last two decades of the last century. I believe it is a testament to Canada’s love of hockey and has nothing to do with what CBC Sports adds to the value of the production.

Dragon’s Den has captured a substantial audience. Over a million Canadians seem to love to watch new business ideas, both creative and crazy, being either praised or panned by a panel of so-called experts who we are told have the funds and the experience to bring a good idea to market. It’s reality TV that works, but for the record, it could just as easily run on CTV or Global and it is a bought “format.” This show runs as a local production in dozens of countries.

CBC has always done a great job of producing sketch comedy. This Hour has 22 Minutes, Rick Mercer Report and the late lamented Royal Canadian Air Farce.

Where the network has fallen down most is in producing high quality, high concept drama and situation comedy. Little Mosque on the Prairie manages to be mostly humorless and a throwback to 1950’s style situation comedy. In Security is just plain embarrassing, unfunny, unwatchable.

The Republic of Doyle just manages to be okay as it combines a 1980’s TV private detective idea with the beauty and zaniness of Newfoundland. Finally, shows like Being Erica and Heartland have never really drawn the numbers CBC needs and they have never managed to be special or Canadian in any way I can see.

The shocking thing for me is that CBC may have the very best Canadian produced program and they have buried it where few people can find it, and worse, where the potential audience is the smallest available in prime time.

Hello! Kirstine Stewart! Have you ever watched The Fifth Estate? If you have and you allow it to continue to run on Friday evenings you don’t deserve to hold the esteemed position you now have at the CBC. If you haven’t, shame on you for not caring enough about the kind of programming CBC has done best for six decades, the programs that built the CBC. From the days of This Hour has Seven Days, to Newsmagazine, to The Journal, to Marketplace, to Ombudsman the CBC has consistently produced some of the best current affairs programs anywhere.

The Fifth Estate is as good as journalism gets on TV and further it is as great a program as any produced in this country. Every week Linden MacIntyre, Hana Gartner, Bob McKeown and Gillian Findlay churn out excellent hour long documentary reports that never fail to engage the audience. Usually the stories open our eyes to events, people or ideas that we knew little about or they provide context and clarity to some of the most important stories in the news.

Last week Linden MacIntyre hosted a wonderful backgrounder on the rise and fall of Libyan strongman Mouammar Kadhafi. Not only was it a thorough and well produced backgrounder on a leading figure in the news, it brought international perspectives from the likes of Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice. This was a show that all Canadians should have had the opportunity to see. With all eyes turned toward the uprisings in the Middle East the interest here among both news junkies and casual news viewers should have resulted in an audience of over 1.5 million. Too bad the show is buried. Even more heinous is the lack of publicity given to a program that is so important.

Two weeks ago The Fifth Estate deconstructed the shenanigans surrounding the police handling of the G-20 Summit in Toronto. I thought I knew that story inside out and was prepared to change the channel. I tuned in and I was hooked. The reporting was excellent and the insights were important. Once again I wondered if anyone knew this show was on.

This year The Fifth has covered stories ranging from the code of toughness to hockey to two episodes on Colonel Russell Williams. In the past The Fifth has blown the whistle on lottery cheating and even the sale of tainted tuna. Folks, the quality of The Fifth Estate is not hit and miss. It is consistently great journalism and even better, it is consistently great TV.

The time has come for the CBC bosses to recognize what they have. A prominent time slot on a Sunday or Monday evening is needed. More important, the powers that choose who gets the publicity dollars have to let Canadians know what’s on this program consistently and effectively. I guarantee that if Canadians knew about the content of The Fifth Estate and if it was aired at an advantageous time and day, the audience would soar to the numbers that Rick Mercer gets and more.

I should add that Marketplace needs the same kind of treatment. It should be on the air from September to May. It should have a decent time slot. It deserves to be publicized.

The CBC brass has shown its disdain for current affairs since the day Richard Stursberg showed up on their doorstep. Building a big audience has been the mantra spouted by everyone in charge. The result has been for the most part mediocre drama, bad sitcoms and a reliance on reality TV. What hurts most is that the tools were there to build audience all along. Shows like The Fifth Estate and Marketplace can be ratings winners. David Suzuki’s show still produces excellent science programming. These shows are cheap compared to drama. They have drawn big audiences in the past and they can do the same in the future. From where I sit they are the answer to the CBC’s problems. Too bad nobody in head office realizes this.

Filed under: Media Commentary, CBC, CTV, David Suzuki, Dragon's Den, Global, Hana Gartner, Hockey Night in Canada, In Security, Kirstine Stewart, Linden MacIntyre, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Marketplace, Rick Mercer, The Fifth Estate, The Republic of Doyle, This Hour has 22 Minutes

2015: The CBC’s Impossible Dream

It’s taken me a while to try to figure out the CBC’s new five year plan. It’s called 2015: Everyone, Every Way and it is rife with platitudes about where CBC is going, but extremely short on details. And as we all know, the devil is in the details.

It’s not that I think CBC President and CEO Hubert Lacroix is pulling a fast one. From all reports he seems like a good guy who cares not only about public broadcasting but about the people who will have to make the changes he foresees. My problem is that I don’t get what he and Kirstine Stewart are actually trying to accomplish.

In broad strokes, they are talking about the CBC English service becoming more Canadian, more local and more digital. Sounds okay so far, but except for the digital part it is nothing we haven’t heard for the past few years. The CBC is already almost totally Canadian in prime time. Yes, in summer, late at night and during holiday periods U.S. films and series pop up to fill out the schedule. Does this mean that next summer we will get Canadian films and re-runs of Canadian series? I suspect the audience would have liked it better the old way but hey, they’re going back to their mandate, a word that was lost during the Stursberg era. It also looks like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are toast on the CBC. While the nationalists in the crowd will cheer, I am left to wonder where the big money these two shows generated will come from and what effect that will have on Canadian production in prime time. While I am totally in favor of the CBC being 100% Canadian, I’m afraid I have to live in the real world. Money, not platitudes is all that counts in broadcasting today. It takes millions of dollars to produce a new drama or sitcom. Since we all know that Stephen Harper is not inclined to give the CBC more than it gets today, and since based on all previous experiences we can guess that the loss of American movies and series will result in fewer viewers and that fewer viewers mean less advertising revenue, I have to ask the question: where Mr. Lacroix do you intend to get the money to produce your all Canadian programs?

Looking at what details we have it actually gets worse. Mr. Lacroix and Ms. Stewart are also talking about beefing up local television, especially in areas that are under-served or not served at all by CTV and Global. He says the lack of local news and stories is actually an opportunity for the CBC to reconnect with Canadians. I sure hope this works because it is both necessary and overdue. But again, let’s not kid ourselves, the CBC went back into local news in, what is for them, a big way in past couple of years. They reopened newsrooms and added 30 to 60 minutes to local newscasts. What goes unsaid is that CBC local newscasts are embarrassingly bad. A handful of hard working folks try to cover big cities or vast provinces without the resources to succeed. The result has been dismal ratings. So few people are watching CBC local news it would be cheaper to send out CD’s rather than bother to air the program. Even in B.C. where the CBC hired the biggest name in west coast news history the ratings have been terrible. Without the money and the staff, as the CBC has proved, there is no point in making the effort. I would be all in favor of a well financed return to local TV. It was a huge error to allow local TV to flounder since the mid-80’s, but if you can’t fund it, don’t do it. The money can be better used elsewhere.

The five year plan also talks about the return of culture. Does anyone who watches the CBC remember culture? There was a time when ballet, modern dance and opera actually appeared on the CBC. It cost a truckload of money to produce and provided tiny but loyal audiences. I miss this programming and wish it were still a part of the mandate. If the CBC doesn’t produce it, it will not get done. CTV and Global are not in the habit of making expensive shows that produce audiences of less than 200,000. So while I love the idea, I ask once again, Mr. Lacroix, where will the money come from?

It’s a whole new digital world out there. I am glad the CBC brass recognizes this, people now download and watch TV shows when they want to, not when the network schedule says they have to watch it. The CBC is talking about doubling its spending on digital services. More big bucks spent on non-TV and radio product.

The new plan even talks about new CBC channels for sports, kids and arts and entertainment. It mentions new local weekend and morning news programs. It promises new “micro” news websites for large local communities, naming Hamilton and the Montreal suburb of Longueuil. All of the ideas cost real dollars. Dollars the CBC doesn’t have.

Everyone, Every Way leaves me with more questions than answers. There is no mention of increasing local news staff and budgets. In fact the plan calls for streamlining staff, I read that as cuts. Will the new morning and weekend news programs have dedicated staffs or will the already overburdened local news teams be expected to stretch even more? Will the digital web sites be staffed and funded? Will new channels have original programming or just be places to rerun network shows? If there is to be new programs how will they be paid for, subscription? Will we be forced to buy more channels we have no intention of ever viewing?

The truth is, and we all know it. The money is not there to do everything, some might say anything in 2015: Everyone, Every Way. So what is this really about? Is this a PR stunt? Is this meant to show that the Stursberg era is past? If so, I have a few better ideas. Fix up The National and CBC NN. Make them relevant again by producing quality stories we actually care about and lose the pap and thin gruel that fill your airwaves and erode your audiences. Begin to produce dramas and comedies with some heft that tackle serious issues in an adult way. Little Mosque on the Prairie and Being Erica are okay, but they are what we expect from any broadcaster, they do not speak to the needs of a national broadcaster. Not all programs have to be heavy or serious, but the odd one or two each week would be a pleasant change.

In other words, it’s time to fix what you do now before you spread your dollars even more thinly. Mr. Lacroix, I have no beef with your ideas, I just don’t believe they are real.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Being Erica, CBC, CTV, Global, Hubert Lacroix, Jeopardy!, Kirstine Stewart, Little Mosque on the Prairie, The National, Wheel of Fortune

New Boss, Same Old Stursberg Manifesto

Now it’s my turn to change the narrative. The response to my last blog about the excessive nature of the coverage of the terrible death of Sgt. Ryan Russell has been overwhelming. Perhaps shockingly, there has been only one negative response. I was expecting to be bombarded with hate mail. Be that as it may, it is time to move on.

If there is an organization that is more screwed up than the CBC I would worry about its ability to continue to function. The CBC however, ambles along seemingly oblivious to its own shortcomings and failures.

When Kirstine Stewart was finally named to replace the Evil Emperor, also known as Richard Stursberg, it did, I admit, come as a bit of a surprise. In fact it raised a whole lot of questions. For instance, why did it take more than a half-a-year to replace Stursberg when the replacement was his sitting second in command? Did the CBC search for an outside replacement and fail? Was Kirstine Stewart the second, third or tenth choice for the job? Was there a fight about whether to promote her at the board level? We will never really know because once the die is cast the only story we get is how wonderful a choice Ms. Stewart is.

Even that statement raises questions in my mind. What we all know to be true, whether you thought Richard Stursberg a mad genius or the man responsible for the every mistake our national broadcaster has made in the last half a decade, was that the only opinions King Richard accepted were his own or those that agreed with his. The man accepted no opposition and heard no disagreement. In the end it was this attitude that led to his banishment. He refused to accept the CBC mandate and he especially refused to contemplate programming dealing with the 75th anniversary of the corporation. You didn’t have to be a palm reader or a psychiatrist to know that the result was that he surrounded himself with “yes” people. One senior CBC employee told me that the new boss at CBC News began every statement she made with “Richard says…”

That being the case it’s not a stretch to wonder what the heck Kirstine Stewart was doing when Richard Stursberg was in charge. On the surface one can guess that she was just another “yes” woman whose job was to agree with the Emperor and to do his bidding when he could not do it himself. Not the kind of thing I would want on my resume. It is possible she disagreed with the boss in private but based on my experience, people like Stursberg do not keep people who disagree around whether it’s in public or private. It’s also possible she disagreed but kept it to herself and her best buds, but what does that say about her character and leadership abilities?

So, I ask again, why did Kirstine Stewart get the job? What qualified her to run the largest and most important cultural institution in English Canada? Here’s what was written about her on her Wiki page, I’m guessing composed by a CBC flack:

…Stewart oversaw CBC’s fresh presentation style launch with such new hits as Dragons’ Den, The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos, Test the Nation, The Greatest Canadian Invention, and The Next Great Prime Minister – all 2006/2007 green lit by Stewart in her first year, along with the critically acclaimed and highly rated show Little Mosque on the Prairie. The show’s ratings, averaging a million viewers weekly, were a first for CBC in more than 5 years. In 2009, new shows like Canada’s Super Speller and Battle of the Blades premiered on the network. In 2008, hits The Border, The Week the Women Went, and Sophie were launched by Stewart on CBC’s primetime schedule.
Prior to her current role at CBC, Stewart was senior VP at Alliance Atlantis overseeing eight channels, including BBC Canada, National Geographic Canada and Home and Garden Television. She also worked in the US as programming VP at Hallmark Entertainment, overseeing programming of 17 international cable and satellite broadcast channels.
Ms. Layfield began her career in international program distribution at Paragon Entertainment, rising to senior vice-president of the distribution division before moving to Trio/Newsworld, a CBC/Power Corp. joint venture. From there she joined U.S.-based Hallmark Entertainment as senior VP of programming, travelling the world to head up 19 international channels. In 2003 she joined Alliance Atlantis Communications, where she doubled the audience for its specialty channels such as Life Network, HGTV and Food Network Canada…

So what can we glean from this? She loves reality TV, no surprise having come from Alliance Atlantis where that’s about all they did. She does not even have a whiff of journalism, documentary, sports or current affairs in her background. Finally, that she has never run a major terrestrial broadcast network.

I am also made to wonder what Kirstine Stewart deems a hit when most of the shows she takes credit for were anything but. The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos has never been a ratings success, Little Mosque on the Prairie took no time to lose its audience when the audience realized how shallow it is, The Next Great Prime Minister, did anybody see that? Sophie! Does anyone remember it? Truth be told the CBC has three hit shows. Dragon’s Den which is a format show bought from abroad that has little or no actual CBC input, Hockey Night in Canada which has great numbers but nobody presently at the Corpse can take any credit for, and Battle of the Blades…congratulations, one home grown hit. As an old friend of mine used to say “even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometime.”

Until Richard Stursberg came to the CBC there was a tradition that the chief programmer would come from the journalistic side, Denis Harvey, Peter Herrndorf. It can be argued that drama and comedy were given short shrift. The truth is that drama and comedy are purchased from and produced by outsiders, independent producers who come up with ideas and sell them to the CBC. News and Current Affairs are produced in house. The bulk of CBC creative staff work in News or Current Affairs. The programming that once made CBC stand-out was once News and Current Affairs. I still believe the CBC is still the CBC if Little Mosque or Dragon’s Den disappear, but the CBC no longer needs to exist if The National and Fifth Estate no longer produce excellent programs.

Under Stursberg The National was reorganized into close to oblivion. The Fifth Estate was moved to the dead zone of Friday night. The CBC claims to be getting more viewers, a statement I reject, but does anyone believe that reality and mediocre sitcoms present a reason to spend a billion dollars on a national broadcaster?

From this perch it looks like more of the same at the CBC. The Stursberg manifesto lives on. Only the stewardship has changed. Sure Kirstine Stewart will be easier to get along with. She will probably pay her respects to the board and to the president. She will even pay lip-service to the mandate. But the soft, squishy programs that we have come to see as the new CBC will continue to be the present and future. Too bad. Especially at this time, when a 1,000 channel universe and a growing on-line viewership threaten our financial ability to produce real Canadian content. Now, when we need CBC the most it is being destroyed by reality and thin gruel.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Battle of the Blades, CBC, Dragon's Den, Kirstine Stewart, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Richard Stursberg

The Witch is Still Dead

It has been over a week since Richard Stursbeg was shoved off the gang plank at CBC. There is still no reason given or available as to why the man who ran the corporation for six years was so unceremoniously dumped. If you read the letters to the staff from Kirstine Stewart, the interim new boss, and Hubert Lacroix, the President of the CBC you get the idea that everything was just fine. Management loved the new direction the CBC was taking. ‘Hubie’ and ‘Kit’ are over the moon over the big ratings increase. Nothing is going to change they shout in unison. Just to make matters really surreal, news honcho Jennifer McGuire sends out a missive extolling the benefits of the changes brought in at CBC news and sends hero-grams out to the folks who covered a few of the stories that CBC news actually got to including sending hosts to the Vancouver Olympics and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill; in the past the coverage would have been a given, now it demands extra notice.

I have a question for Hubert Lacroix, Kirstine Stewart and Jennifer McGuire. If everything at the ‘corpse’ is so hunky-dory, why did the leader who brought us all this success have to spend the last week and a bit removing the knives from back? Stursberg was the unquestioned leader and catalyst in the changes that you all claim were so successful, so why dump the genius before he has finished the job?

The truth is there is an awful lot of “bull” being spread since the manure hit the fan. Guys like John Doyle who got most of it right from the get-go was way off the mark with his characterization of Stursberg as a strong leader the CBC needed and the whining troops were always destined to resent. Stursberg was not a strong leader he was a tyrant and a bully. The CBC needed change, it like any large organization always does. But change cannot be accomplished without the help of the staff. You are talking about 5500 union workers and maybe a thousand more managers. If you ignore them or push them around they will rebel and make your job a lot tougher. Good leaders have the ability to convince the people they lead that they have a plan that will work. They get the majority on side and the workers not only help make the changes happen, they come up with a few ideas for change of their own. When they feel like things are being shoved down their throats they fight back. If John Doyle was right many of the people who were the winners in the Stursberg shuffles would be coming to his defense. So far, I have heard nothing but joy coming from inside the CBC since Stursberg was fired. The folks who worked under him knew him and they didn’t like what they saw.

Then there’s all the spin about the ratings. What a hero Stursberg was because he raised the ratings. How only the CBC would get rid of such a successful boss. What a load. The rating of CBC went up for two reasons: the new people meters added 30 to 40% viewership across the board. CTV and Global saw their numbers jump even higher than CBC did. The second reason: reality programs and American quiz shows. In fact most of Stursberg’s “successes” get poor ratings. Little Mosque on the Prairie is typical. It got a huge starting audience of well over a million viewers. We never hear the end of those numbers. How come we seldom hear about the loss of over half of that audience? In fact of the new shows that came in under Stursberg’s reign, only Dragon’s Den and Battle of the Blades are genuine CBC hits. The dramas and the comedies, whether you like them or you hate them, are getting about the same numbers that the CBC got for dramas and comedies before Stursberg.

Interesting, the purveyors of the great ratings argument come from the right wing press. David Akin who is one of the people behind the new Fox-like news coming to Canada, and the Ottawa Citizen, part of the National Post chain who distinguished themselves by criticizing every CBC move during Stursberg’s tenure are among the leaders of the woe is CBC for dumping Stursberg cabal. Folks, these are the people who want to kill the CBC. These are the people who want the CBC sold off. These are the people who say the CBC is a communist plot against right-thinking Canadians. Yeah, let’s buy into their spin.

I don’t know what’s going to happen at the CBC in the coming months and years but I do know this: if things were really meant to stay the same, Stursberg would not be gone. There are changes coming, no matter what Hubie and Kirstine say. When a new permanent V.P. is chosen we will get a hint of the direction those changes will take. I will bet real money that the news will be the first place that returns to sanity. I believe there will be room for the odd serious drama to take its place among the fluff. I’m not holding my breath but I would like to see the arts make a re-appearance on the network. There’s no guarantee we will like the direction the new boss has in mind any better than we liked what Stursberg did but if the CBC is going to survive it will have to not only get new viewers but it will have to win back and retain the loyal audience that supported the network before the changes wrought by Stursberg and his gang. That’s how successful enterprises remain successful, they appeal to new consumers while keeping their loyal customers happy. Stursberg threw out the baby with the bathwater. He pissed off the typical CBC type while attracting too few new acolytes.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Battle of the Blades, CBC, CTV, David Akin, Dragon's Den, Global, Hubert Lacroix, Jennifer McGuire, Kirstine Stewart, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Richard Stursburg, The Ottawa Citizen

Ding, Dong The Witch is Dead

I could hear, or should I say see, the collective smile from coast to coast to coast as the politicians say. After six years the demon of Canadian public broadcasting is gone. Richard Stursberg, the Vice President of everything English language at the CBC has been fired, or according to some resigned. Who cares, so long as he is gone? Stursburg has been the most disruptive and hated V.P. of CBC I can ever remember.

Richard Stursberg’s biggest problem as CBC boss was that he just didn’t get it. He never understood the CBC mandate. He never saw a difference between what CBC has to do and what CTV and Global have to do. He never understood that if CBC were to lose Little Mosque on the Prairie or Being Erica it would still be the CBC and that the brutal massacre of news and current affairs he oversaw could destroy the people’s network. All Stursberg ever cared about was ratings. He did not care about quality TV. He did not care about serving the Canadian public who were paying his salary. He certainly had no time for news and even less time for shows like The Fifth Estate and Market Place.

Ironically the good-bye letter from CBC honcho Hubert Lacroix cites the fact that Stursberg leaves the CBC in better shape than he found it. I can only surmise that refers to the overall ratings. In fact the CBC ratings totals may be better than six years ago but why? It seems to me that all of the numbers increases can be attached to Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Hockey Night in Canada and The World Cup of Soccer. These are either non-Canadian or sports shows and in fact the numbers have been inflated by the new people meters that measure audience. Hey CTV and Global have also seen their numbers rise and in fact while the total CBC viewership is up, the actual audience share is down. Yes he had two real successes in six years: Dragon’s Den and Battle of the Blades, but shows like these can and do run on other networks, they are reality shows. As for the rest of King Richard’s offerings, the numbers range from mediocre to poor. Not much of a legacy when you consider that news ratings are down by about 40% and that current affairs ratings have dropped precipitously.

Oh, and let’s not forget the management tone Stursberg set. He never failed to let everyone know it was his way or the highway. He treated people poorly. He knew very few of the staff who worked for him. The stories are rampant about the on-air people he failed to recognize, especially if they came from news. CBC types were always asking whether he actually ever watched the CBC. His treatment of his staff may be an even bigger failure than his wrong-headed programming decisions.

Let’s look at just a few of his accomplishments:

*Stursberg got off to a bad start in his position by forcing a massive lock-out of CBC workers. What characterized that lockout was the refusal to negotiate and the refusal to recognize the input of the workers. There is still bad blood left over from that work stoppage in 2005. In past work stoppages management always took great pains to be cordial to the striking workers. They always understood that when the strike was over they would have to go back to working side by side with the staff. Stursberg didn’t get that. He had to be the tough guy.

*He gutted arts programming on TV and under his rule lost most of the classical music programming from CBC Radio 2. It’s true the arts did not generate huge audiences, but CBC was the sole serious purveyor of that programming in Canada. (Bravo had long since abandoned its commitment to the high arts.)

*He oversaw the changes in The National that have led to the most dramatic loss of viewership in CBC News history. At a time when the new rating system saw CTV and Global new audiences climb by 40% the CBC dropped by the same amount. The “renewal” saw American news doctors come in and advise the CBC to move to shorter stories, more human interest, less serious news coverage, more weather, more fluffy animal stories…i.e. “Eyewitness News.” This was supposed to raise ratings and make younger people want to watch CBC news. It never took into account that loyal CBC news viewers were used to quality and depth and would not put up with the changes and that young people are not news viewers in general, and the ones who are, are not idiots looking to watch the kind of fluff The National has opted for.

*He moved The Fifth Estate, probably the best current affairs show in Canada, to the dead zone of Friday night so that Being Erica could get a better time slot on Wednesday. He buried Marketplace and The Nature of Things and cut way back on the number of episodes they produce each year. The result: shows that reached close to a million viewers in years gone by barely attract half that today on their best days.

For the most part, Stursberg’s new programming was part of a dumbing down of the CBC. His new offerings were always light drama, inane comedy and reality. Gone were the serious movies and series that set the CBC above its rivals. In fact, CTV with shows like The Bridge and Flashpoint were tougher, harder and more provocative than any of the new fare that Stursberg championed.

It has been reported that Sturberg is gone because he didn’t like the new CBC “five year plan.” What does that mean? We have been given no explanation. Does the CBC want to worry less about ratings? Is management upset by what’s happened to its newscasts? Until we know the answer to these questions we won’t know who will take Stursberg’s job and in what direction he or she will be expected to take the CBC.

For my part, I would like the new boss to come from programming so that he or she can assess the quality of the new offerings. I want someone who will work in partnership with CBC staff rather than acting as a tyrant. I want someone who recognizes all of the kinds of programs that are important to a national broadcaster in order to serve all of its audiences, be they large or small…and that includes news, current affairs, the arts, drama, sports and comedy. Ratings are important but so is public service when you are being supported by tax dollars. Is this too much to ask? I think not when the future of our biggest and most important cultural institution is at stake.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Battle of the Blades, Being Erica, CBC, CTV, Dragon's Den, Flashpoint, Global, Hockey Night in Canada, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Marketplace, Richard Stursburg, The Fifth Estate, The Nature of Things

Playing with numbers

Everybody is right and everybody is wrong. It sounds impossible but in the crazy world of broadcast television anything is possible. Just ask the spinners at the Canadian networks about their ratings and watch the numbers fly.

Right now we are in the midst of a massive self congratulatory period where the Canadian nets are taking to the podia to proclaim the major successes they have had over the past year. The ratings are amazing, it’s true, almost everybody’s numbers are way up. But, and it’s a big but, does that mean that there are more people watching the fare offered by CTV, Global and CBC?

To me the answer is obvious. In a world where network TV audiences have been declining for a decade or more it is hard to believe that there has been anything broadcast in the 2009-2010 television season to change the trend. Sure there have been some hits, there always are. The real reason for the numbers rising is the new counting method. This is the first television year for the new PPMs (personal people meters). These pager-like devices are worn by people and report back to companies like Neilson on what viewers are actually watching. It is clear that this is a much better system than asking someone to fill in a questionnaire where he or she could lie, forget, not bother or just plain ignore their viewing choices. On the other hand, the PPM measures what’s on the TV if you are in the room, not whether you are actually watching it. For my generation that doesn’t mean much. Put a 60 year old in front of a television and we’ll watch color bars for twenty minutes. Young people, however, are a different breed. They can be on the computer, listening to an ipod and still have the TV tuned to the hockey game. What they are actually watching or listening to is anybody’s guess. So while I accept that the new numbers are more accurate, I don’t believe they are truly accurate.

For CTV and Global the results are just about money. The more viewers they have, the more they can charge for commercial time. That’s great. Even without the new TV tax it should mean a windfall in ad revenues for this year and in the future. The Olympic numbers were staggering. On some occasions there were close to 15 million Canadians watching. Put in perspective, Canada’s best ever rated shows before this year were in the 5 to 6 million range. Over at Global shows like Survivor and House are doing gangbuster business. If we are lucky, and I wouldn’t hold my breath, maybe a few of these extra dollars might find themselves funneled into new Canadian content…in prime time.

The CBC, as usual is a different story, Kirstine (Layfield) Stewart and company are fighting for both the future of the people’s network and for the proof that the choices they made back in 2007 are the right ones.

The critics, and I am one of them, claim the CBC has dumbed down. They have dropped cultural programming, they have stopped producing gritty, real drama, and they have clearly begun a love affair with reality and fluff. Most upsetting to me is what they have done to news and current affairs. The Fifth Estate has been relegated to the dead zone of Friday night. The National has become the national joke for its lack of content and its ridiculous new set. The Nature of Things and Marketplace have been shuffled around more than a deck of cards on poker night. There is, it is clear, no backing for anything that could be deemed serious.

I am not the only one saying these things. In a Globe story Ken Finkleman and others have gone out of their way to question the direction of mother corp. These are people who in past times depended on the CBC for their livelihood.

The answer according to Ms. Stewart: check out the ratings. The CBC is thriving with Little Mosque on the Prairie, Dragon’s Den, and 18 to Life.

So here is where it is true and it is wrong at the same time happens. Yes the numbers are up. Six CBC shows have over 1 million viewers (one of which is Jeopardy). Thank you PPMs. It is also true that the corp doesn’t have a single show in the top 20 in Canada. The hockey playoffs will nudge Hockey Night in Canada into the top 20 but that will be it. Battle of the Blades and Dragon’s Den are certifiable CBC hits. But even with the PPMs, The Ron James Show, 18 to Life, Being Erica, Kids in the Hall and Little Mosque can be described as ratings losers. None reach much over half a million viewers with the best ad campaigns and the best time slots. The Fifth and Marketplace are in the same audience range without any ads and in schedule purgatory.

So when Ms. Stewart finishes patting herself on the back for her brilliance, remember that CTV is doing much better with Canadian programming and even Global is overpowering the CBC numbers. You see everything is relative in the world of TV ratings and people like Stewart are the first to use the numbers to their own advantage even when they are meaningless.

Filed under: Media Commentary, 18 to Life, Battle of the Blades, Being Erica, CBC, CTV, Dragon's Den, Global, Hockey Night in Canada, House, Kids in the Hall, Kirstine Stewart, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Marketplace, Neilson, The Fifth Estate, The National, The Nature of Things

Newsworld at 20

It’s the 20th anniversary of Newsworld and try as they might at the CBC they can’t get anyone to celebrate with them. Oh sure, there have been a few “puff” pieces in the newspapers over the weekend, but even those were mostly buried deep inside the paper.

The worst article I saw was by Oakland Ross in the Saturday Toronto Star. I remember Mr. Ross as a fine foreign correspondent for The Star. Either he’s a terrible feature writer or he couldn’t be bothered with this assignment. Not that I blame him. It was a lousy assignment. How to you turn the sow’s ear of Newsworld into a silk purse?

Oakland Ross writes “If sheer survival is among the abiding themes of Canadian history…then Newsworld must be defined as a success.” Whoa, is that a load of manure. Newsworld has been a cash cow for the CBC. Even if nobody watched the network, Newsworld would make a fortune for CBC. Every Canadian who has cable TV or satellite television has to pay a subscription fee of over a dollar a month. For twenty years we have had no choice in the matter. That’s millions of dollars every month going to support a network that few Canadians watched. There was no way it would be taken off the air. The CBC couldn’t afford to.

A few years ago my partner, Lon Appleby, and I were doing a series of specials for C-Pac. We got paid peanuts but we enjoyed the cinema verite coverage they allowed us to do of conventions and elections. The people in charge of C-Pac at the time loved our work so much they brought us in to train their staff. What they were most proud of at the time was that their audience was usually larger than Newsworld’s. That’s C-Pac, hands up those of you who are regular C-Pac viewers.

At the time we joked that it would be far cheaper for Newsworld to go off the air and send video tapes to anyone who was interested in their programming. But then they would have to forgo the CRTC mandated millions they were collecting.

The old timers interviewed by Oakland Ross love to talk about the good old days when Newsworld was on top of the Meech Lake Accord or the Wars in Iraq. The truth is the best rated shows on the network were programs like Antiques Road Show. Does that even belong on an “all news” channel?

As Newsworld heads towards a new beginning, a fresh look that aims to be newsier, faster, using the CBC’s words, more like CNN, I wish them all the luck in the world. The changes are an admission that what they have been doing hasn’t worked. But they’ve chosen a steep hill to climb. Especially when the CBC doesn’t have the resources to cover very much outside our major cities, let alone the rest of the world. When a crisis happens in Mumbai will viewers tune to CBC or CNN? In the past Canadians have voted with their channel changers. They have tuned into CNN and the U.S. networks in droves. Do you want to watch people reporting from the scene or from a desk in Toronto? I know CBC got a reporter to Mumbai, luckily a CBC staffer was on vacation in the region. But while CBC News was getting its first reports back CNN was coming live from the streets of Mumbai.

I don’t blame CBC News for this. CBC is a small underfunded network that on the main channel at least, seems less interested in the news service than Being Erica and Little Mosque on the Prairie.

What I do blame CBC News for are the unrealistic goals being set. Wouldn’t it be far better to aim for a network that provided context and depth to major stories in Canada and around the world? Forget about CNN Headline News Channel. Look at the panels and discussion shows that are also successful at CNN. Look at TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin which gets a better audience in Ontario than Newsworld gets coast-to-coast by staying within their means and doing what they can do well. Sure, let us know when a story breaks, that’s what all-news is about, but just as important, help us to understand what is happening and why. Canada, and especially Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, are a perfect venue for panels and discussions. No matter where an event happens in the world we have experts living right here. People who understand the foreign context and the Canadian context and can bring the two together. And guess what? We can do this extremely well with the money and resources at our command.

The last word has to go to a former CBC News chief editor, Cliff Lonsdale, who I am quoting from the Oakland Ross story, he said, “Across journalism, we need more in-depth coverage. In a world of Twitter, what we desperately need is context.”

Filed under: Media Commentary, Antiques Road Show, Being Erica, C-Pac, CNN, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Newsworld, Oakland Ross, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, The Toronto Star, TVO