Don't mistake the headline for my own words. That's a cop-out I saw in a Toronto Star blog. It's not so much that we don't know what to do with it. By and large, I think we just don't care.
I don't purport to have all the answers to the CBC dilemma, but in the spirit of giving a shit, I'll ramble off a few considerations:
First, the federal government has quietly launched what will likely be a disassembly project for our public broadcaster - i.e., "the nature of media in the 21st century" or something to that effect.
Why, under a Conservative government, would it be anything other than "free market?"
On the one hand, if the whole point of the CBC is to tell Canadian stories, it's not the be-all-and-end-all of national storytelling. Theatre, radio, books, and oral narrative all cover that ground.
But as far as pure TV is concerned, the CBC does a better job than non-public main-networks, which don't make much of an attempt to tell Canadian stories. Commercial networks struggle just to meet Can-con requirements with homogeneous copy-cat TV. Rarely do these attempts come to represent local culture gleaming through a barrage of externality.
On cable, the situation is different. On cable, a certain number of channels are "Canadian," but cable presents a different kind of "story." Many programs are neo-aristotelean slop. On music, news, entertainment, sports, business, food, gardening, or weather specialty channels, the form, currency and aesthetic are all more important than "content" - which can hardly ever be passed off as a "story."
In that case, it's pretty easy to gather that the CBC shouldn't be competing with the bulk of main-network TV or cable. It should be competing with narrative-focused programming: some main network content, and such specialty channels as learning, history, women, bravo, showcase, children's, etc. There are between five and ten stations out of about fifty that might be more inclined to focus on the quality of narrative rather than simply filling an aesthetic template with "content."
The CBC should therefore ditch the "me too" syndrome that paralyzes it - especially the teen-audience 'ganster' speech pattern in the afternoon - and instead concentrate on what it was designed to do in the first place. More meaningful long-format exchanges. A collaboration between the NSI, NFB and CBC. Find ways to make bestselling Canadian books and plays into mini-series. The CBC could be a place for us to showcase what's already out there but what mass audiences don't see or hear. I think we'd see a better product - maybe even something Canadians want to watch.
Should the CBC trade it's literate audience for "me too" and reality TV, the whole point of a public broadcaster would be dead long before the institution itself is. In that direction, the CBC will have forfeited it's mandate. The CBC will have killed itself.
I don't purport to have all the answers to the CBC dilemma, but in the spirit of giving a shit, I'll ramble off a few considerations:
First, the federal government has quietly launched what will likely be a disassembly project for our public broadcaster - i.e., "the nature of media in the 21st century" or something to that effect.
Why, under a Conservative government, would it be anything other than "free market?"
On the one hand, if the whole point of the CBC is to tell Canadian stories, it's not the be-all-and-end-all of national storytelling. Theatre, radio, books, and oral narrative all cover that ground.
But as far as pure TV is concerned, the CBC does a better job than non-public main-networks, which don't make much of an attempt to tell Canadian stories. Commercial networks struggle just to meet Can-con requirements with homogeneous copy-cat TV. Rarely do these attempts come to represent local culture gleaming through a barrage of externality.
On cable, the situation is different. On cable, a certain number of channels are "Canadian," but cable presents a different kind of "story." Many programs are neo-aristotelean slop. On music, news, entertainment, sports, business, food, gardening, or weather specialty channels, the form, currency and aesthetic are all more important than "content" - which can hardly ever be passed off as a "story."
In that case, it's pretty easy to gather that the CBC shouldn't be competing with the bulk of main-network TV or cable. It should be competing with narrative-focused programming: some main network content, and such specialty channels as learning, history, women, bravo, showcase, children's, etc. There are between five and ten stations out of about fifty that might be more inclined to focus on the quality of narrative rather than simply filling an aesthetic template with "content."
The CBC should therefore ditch the "me too" syndrome that paralyzes it - especially the teen-audience 'ganster' speech pattern in the afternoon - and instead concentrate on what it was designed to do in the first place. More meaningful long-format exchanges. A collaboration between the NSI, NFB and CBC. Find ways to make bestselling Canadian books and plays into mini-series. The CBC could be a place for us to showcase what's already out there but what mass audiences don't see or hear. I think we'd see a better product - maybe even something Canadians want to watch.
Should the CBC trade it's literate audience for "me too" and reality TV, the whole point of a public broadcaster would be dead long before the institution itself is. In that direction, the CBC will have forfeited it's mandate. The CBC will have killed itself.
5 Comments:
Indeed!
I think you should send this blog to the media, including the Free Press and CBC James. It's articulated, inovative and well-researched.
Just a thought ...
MEL
P.S. why no Friday shows of "the dog"???? I won't be able to see it!!! NOOOOOOOOO ....
thx mel... bah, complaining is more fun that reading proposals from a hack! bread and circuses...
and there are lots of friday shows of the dog - three i think - we have another one next friday...
not next friday - next saturday and sunday. i've got it straight now.
True, even with classic cbc staples this hr has 22minutes they have made they're humour American I've noticed and not kept what made them great. Show has gone down a bit.
God Bless
take care
love ya
jp
Maybe after we get this theatre company up and running, we'll start our own TV station? Yes?
The wonder of our generation is that we're too naive to know that we can't do it ... therefore we can do anything!!
MEL
P.S. Yeah, I clearly was on crack when I read your play schedule. We're coming Sunday!
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