So here I sit in Buenos Aries after week long stays in Mendoza and Salta Argentina and a quick stopover in Santiago Chile and I must say, even though my Spanish can at best be described as rudimentary, I am more than a little envious of the South Americans for their amazingly strong early morning television. Unlike Canada where only the all news stations bother much with news in the morning, CBC network does do an hour from 6 am to 7 am too, in South America, or at least these parts, they start their broadcast day with hours of serious news content…live newscasts, live news interviews, even live cameras out on the streets.
It is truly impressive to see three or four stations competing for news viewers with the latest reports and live coverage of events from six am until at least nine am (it may start earlier and end later, I have to admit I haven’t been in front of a TV before 6 or after 9). In every hotel they blast their favorite, sometimes two favorite newscasts out into the breakfast rooms and everybody seems to be glued to the news, even those in large group. Sure, there’s some recut footage from yesterday’s newscasts, but it makes up maybe 25 or 30 percent of the coverage. Most of the reports are either live or live interviews.
Contrast that with Canada.
Look, I startd out in morning television on Canada AM in the early to mid-seventies. AM was a serious part of CTV News. Every morning we produced a live two hour show with interviews with the top newsmakerws of the day. The interviews were seldom booked more than a day in advance and in many cases were booked overnight when a story broke. I remember redoing entire shows at 2 am when Pope John Paul I died and when, thank you Larry Leblanc, John Lennon was killed. Canada AM got the first ever interview with Jimmy Carter after he became president, even before the U.S. networks. Politicians, business people, lawyers, sports stars, you name them, clamoured to be interviewed live first thing in the morning. Norm Perry, Helen Huthinson, Gale Scott, Pam Wallin…they were all serious journalists and took little or no joy in the odd feature interview we produced. Oh for the day…
Today Canada AM isn’t even a shadow of its former self. Beverly Thompson is too busy dealing with the latest paint trends, dressing your lettuce and the top fitness apps to even notice a big news story. The newscasts are just rehashes of last night’s CTV National and the odd international piece that AM can grab from an American network.
Global is the newest kid on the block in the early morning, and while I applaud what seems to be a serious attempt at Global to compete with CBC and CTV for a national news audience in the evening, their morning show is a dog’s breakfast, at least the timing is appropriate. At Global morning television is a cross between “The View” and CITY-TV’s “Breakfast Television”. Liza Fromer leads a band of four people who all seem to want to talk about every subject that comes up no matter whether they have anything of note to add. It’s nuts, all four, or sometimes only three interview the guests who’s subject matter is scarily similar to Canada AM and Breakfast Television, and everyone seems to have the right to interupt the newscasts with comments on the stories. The most frightening part is that Global News Director Ward Smith had the gall to call it a “groundbreaking new format.” I guess he has never seen “The View” or “Breakfast Television.”
Breqakfast Television is what it has always been so I will give it a pass. The format was created to be the anti-Canada AM. That was a smart way to compete and at the time it was pretty original. The format lives on even though the folks in the chairs have changed.
Finally, I want to note that the only game in town for news is CBC. CBC News Morning and CBC NN’s morning shows do try to bring Canadians a serious look at what’s going on in Canada and the world. Unfortunately there are a galaxy of hosts, seven the last time I counted, and the budgets are miniscule, so except for the odd interview, it is last night’s news again with some new footage grabbed from the U.S. nets when a big story breaks.
What happened? Are Canadians that uninterested in news? I suspect it is easier to fill with cooking, gardening and Kardashianalia than to work at finding guests to discuss the government’s latest cost cutting measure or how the cops nabbed another 60 in a child porn ring. Based on what I have seen in South America, it isn’t news that’s turning people off, it’s networks turning off the news.
There is one glimmer of hope though, CBS’s new morning show is once again trying to do serious news coverage. All I can hope for is major success for CBS so that everyone else will copy the idea.
PS…there is a rumor afoot that Canada AM is soon to be cancelled and replaced with local morning shows across the country. If that’s true, will they be more like what I’m seeing in Argentina or will they be more like “Breakfast Television clones?
Filed under: Uncategorized, Beverly Thompson, Breakfast Television, Canada AM, CBC News Morning, Global Morning, Helen Hutchinson, Liza Fromer, Norm Perry, Pamela Wallin, Ward Smith
I'm Mad as Hell 
Howard:
I hope that the Canada AM rumour is true. That show has become useless and is of no interest to anyone outside Toronto.
They can keep Canada AM for the Toronto market and let all the other stations create their own morning show, just like they used to do.
Here in Montreal, that would provide a long-overdue chance for people like Caroline Van Vlaardingen to get into the hosting chair and show more of her personality.
It’s time for Canadian broadcasters to get serious about drawing audience instead of putting out a half-assed product.
Therre’s no excuse for the poor product that I’m seeing on Canadian TV, except for laziness and contempt for the audience.
I agree with you Ibrahim…and from South America I missed it, CTV has already replaced Canada AM west of Ontario with local shows. I can’t tell you if they are good, bad or indifferent…I have to gues that they are at the very least more relevent to the local audiences in the west.
Now we in the east have to wait for AM to be put out of its misery, or is that our misery?
[…] Close Up blogger Howard Bernstein mentioned a rumour that CTV’s national news morning show, Canada AM, will be cancelled. The local CTV Morning Live format currently graces CTV stations in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, […]
Hi Joe…wow, I don’t remember any zingers, but I do remember disagreeing with you. Having said that it is ironic, you of all people, complaining about zingers.
More importantly, I stick by the simple fact that you should not publish what you can’t prove. That has always been a basic tenet of responsible journalism. The CBC cannot prove their allegations against Rob Ford…the end.