A recent report from the lobby group ‘Friends of Canadian Broadcasting’ exaggerates the amount of foreign programming on the CBC.

According to Ian Morrison, a spokesperson for the group, “A full 25% of CBC’s prime time schedule is now devoted to foreign, mostly American, programs.”

^{A graph showing the number of hours of Canadian content on CBC TV during the spring season.}

Morrison made that remark on June 30th as the organization released a report examining the amount of foreign programming on the CBC between Feb 21st and March 13th, 2009.

What the report didn’t say however, is that the amount of foreign programming on the CBC varies widely according to what’s on the schedule in any given week. Although it’s true that there was 25 per cent foreign content on the network during the weeks they studied, more half the time that percentage drops to about 18 per cent.

It all depends what’s movie is playing in the Sunday night movie slot. If it’s a foreign movie, running for two hours, then you get 25 per cent foreign content for that week. If it’s a Canadian movie, which more than half of them are, then the amount of foreign content drops to 18 per cent. (Click here to see the Spring 2009 schedule).

The report also says “Canadian content during prime time on CBC English TV has reached a 20-year low.” But it’s worth noting that the real low point for foreign programming on the CBC was reached in 1981, 28 years ago, when more than 40 per cent of the schedule was foreign (click here to see the 1981 schedule).

In the eighties the CBC schedule looked a lot like an American network with shows like M*A*S*H, WKRP, Three’s Company, Mork & Mindy and Happy Days filling almost half the slots.

By the mid-nineties, the CBC had reversed course and introduced an all-Canadian lineup, but the prime-time audience share suffered, which is why CBC executives made the decision to bring back some American shows into the lineup.

What do you think? Should the CBC go back to airing as much Canadian content as possible, or should it stick to its current approach of about 80 per cent Canadian content?

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	CBC Television, Programming	Posted at 12:10 pm (02 Jul 2009)

Despite the growth of handheld video devices and TV shows on the internet, people still spend more than 9 out of 10 hours watching TV the old-fashioned way, on regular sets.

According to a survey from CBC’s research department, people spent 97 per cent of their time watching programming on regular TV sets, or with PVR’s, DVD’s or video on demand. Only two per cent of the total watching time was committed to watching television online.

The results seem to indicate that although Canadians spend a lot of time surfing online, they are not yet spending much of that time watching television shows. The average Anglophone Canadian now spends just shy of 14 hours a week online, compared to 15 hours a week watching TV.

Of the video content that is being watched online, amateur video is still the most popular, but it’s not growing in popularity. On the flip side watching professionally produced television online is growing quickly. More than one quarter of Anglophone internet users said spent time watching online TV in the last month, an increase  of 50% since last year.

And what are they watching? News. Of all the types of online TV content, news clips or newscasts are the most popular by a mile - 73 per cent of respondents said they had watched news clips or shows in the last month, sports came in a distant second at 46 per cent.

The survey results are based on 6,000 telephone interviews with Anglophone adults residing in all regions of Canada. The interviews were conducted from October 20, 2008 to December 21, 2008 and are considered accurate within plus or minus 1.3 percentage points 19 times out of 20. For more information on the survery contact the CBC/Radio-Canada Research and Strategic Analysis department.

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	Integration, Interactive TV, Programming	Posted at 12:21 pm (30 Apr 2009)

It looks like the CBC’s Calgary-based drama Wild Roses will not be renewed next season. A petition is circulating online that reads: “We, the Undersigned, are fans of CBC’s Drama Series, Wild Roses, which has reportedly been canceled.” The petition has been signed by over 1000 people. 

The petition was created by Tom Niles. He said the news was announced on Facebook by Paul Christie, an actor on the show, who wrote a message on the
Facebook fan page:

As some of you may already know, we got word last week that the CBC has decided to pass on producing a second season of “Wild Roses”. To the disappointment of many, I’m sad to pass along the news.

Jeff Keay, the CBC spokesperson, said the CBC is currently figuring out which shows to renew for next season, and no announcements will be made for the next couple weeks.

Wild Roses averaged about half a million viewers during it’s thirteen-episode run. The petition says the show could have been more popular if it had received more promotion from the CBC.

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	Programming, Wild Roses	Posted at 8:23 am (16 Apr 2009)

Sun Media is saying Heritage Minister James Moore expects between 600 to 1,200 people across the country will lose their jobs at the CBC.

The minister said the public broadcaster should return to its mandate of showing Canadian content in a multitude of platforms instead of being a “taxpayer-supported competitor to private broadcasters… stop chasing revenues and eyeballs.”

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	Layoffs, Programming	Posted at 12:32 pm (17 Mar 2009)

Richard Stursberg held a town hall meeting in Toronto today to update staff on the CBC’s financial situation, saying CBC’s advertising revenue have fallen “off a cliff,” and the CBC is considering asking the government for bridge financing to weather the recession.

The update focused on the financial health of the corporation for the rest of this year and next year. Given the tough financial climate across the media industry, the news was not good. “We have not been able to bail the boat as quickly as the water is coming in over the gunwales,” Stursberg said.

He predicted that CBC English services would face a $12 million shortfall for this fiscal year, and forecasted a continued slump in advertising revenue for next year. He said the advertising revenue shortfall began last summer: “The revenues fell off a cliff… I have not seen a slide that precipitous and that deep in my entire life.”

Stursberg said the CBC is considering bridge financing with a line of credit or by pulling forward future appropriations. “But.. the money would be paid back.” The money would be a bridge loan he said “not a hand-out.”

A spokesperson for Heritage Minister James Moore told the Toronto Star he was already in discussions with the CBC and indicated the door was open to help the corporation.

“In these difficult economic times all broadcasters, including the CBC, are facing challenges, and he is open to working with everyone in a way that will serve all Canadians,” Deirdre McCracken told the Star.

But the Executive Vice-President, English Services added that “we don’t know how receptive the government will be to the request.” Bridge financing would be a new approach for the CBC. Stursberg also said before the request is formally made the CBC would need to get a final view of the financial picture, and then get approval from the board.

Discussions on this approach are already underway. “We’ve been in discussions with the federal government about (the bridge financing option) for the past month,” Jeff Keay, the broadcaster’s head of media relations said.

If the bridge financing approach fails Stursberg said “We’re looking at the company as a whole… everything’s on the table,” in response to question about potential lay-offs and cuts.

Stursberg kicked off the presentation with an overview of the tremendous progress CBC Radio, Television and cbc.ca have made this year. CBC Radio One has exceeded its target, he said, “These results are nothing short of astonishing,” and CBC Television hit “the highest share this decade. We are actually, in the 2+ demographic, beating Global. Our Canadian shows are beating their American shows.”

“It’s terribly frustrating that things should go so well and we’re faced with such financial difficulty,” he said but  the CBC is much better off than if things had been going badly.

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	Parliament, Programming, The Media Landscape	Posted at 10:07 am (24 Feb 2009)

There were some big changes unveiled at the CBC News Renewal announcement yesterday. Overall the strategy will envisions CBC News becoming more immediate, better utilizing digital channels, and improving local news.

The meeting was held to update staff on the ongoing process.

Todd Spencer the Executive Director of News Content, said he sees breaking news being feed directly into Newsworld and cbc.ca. “Online and Newsworld will be the first place we break news,”  Spencer said.

There are also big changes envisioned at The National. Jonathan Whitten the executive producer, said The National will be extended to seven nights a week. Sunday and Saturday Report will be absorbed into the new format. These changes will not take effect for the better part of a year.

The project will also bolster World Report. The show will have more daily editions, and will add another weekend edition.

There were no layoffs or cutbacks announced as part of the project.

Jennifer McGuire, the interim publisher of CBC News, and who spearheaded the meeting yesterday said it was called to share and reveal “what we think is the best strategic direction for CBC News… It’s not about revealing the end stage,” McGuire said, it’s “to share our thinking, to fully engage in this process as it moves forward.”

So what do you think? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

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	CBC Newsworld, Programming, The National	Posted at 6:29 pm (04 Dec 2008)

Richard Stursberg has announced a partnership between Al Gore’s Current TV and the CBC to launch a new web site and digital channel called Current Canada.

Current TV is both web site and TV channel. Visitors to the web site are encouraged to essentially act as producers and vote to filter what will appear on the TV channel. The users can also submit content, which makes up about one third of the TV channel’s on-air material.

“It collapses the distinction between the programmers and the audience, so that the audience becomes the programmers. Stursberg said yesterday. “You have to think of it not as a conventional broadcast network, but as something utterly flattened. It’s much more like a social network.”

Stursberg also added that this is not the CBC’s version of YouTube. “This is different in the sense that this is actually programmed. [Youtube] is not programmed.”

His remarks make me think of Mark Cuban’s distinction between the internet and TV. “TV is about getting away from hassles and relaxing. Its about choosing to be entertained, educated or informed. Its not about working to do any of these,” Cuban said a few years back.

Watching television is a lean-back exercise. You sit on your couch, eat popcorn and zone out in front of the tube.

The internet, especially video on the internet, is the opposite. It’s about searching, grousing, clicking around. It’s 51 seconds of a dog on skateboard.

Watching video on the internet is a hunched-over-the-keyboard lean-forward exercise.

So what is Current TV? It is both. And that’s a challenge. It’s asking viewers to both lean forward and lean back, both filtering online and then watching on TV.

So will it work? I don’t know. It has been picked up the U.K. and Italy, so it has had some success.

It is the best model? I don’t think so.

What do you think?

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	, Programming, iO! intranet	Posted at 11:33 am (11 Nov 2008)

At a conference for the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television last Thursday, Hubert Lacroix pointed out that the CBC can not accurately plan its programming on 12 month cycles, and requires a seven year funding plan. The full text of the speech is available here.

He also reiterated that the CBC needs an extra 215 million dollars to maintain quality programming, or $40.00 per capita rather than $33.00 per capita. These requests are based on the February 28 report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

Other highlights of the speech were the fact that he plans to strengthen relations between management and the CBC union, and the fact that the CBC is reliant on ratings and advertising revenue in order to stay viable. The funding increases would help offset some of that reliance.

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	Executives, Financial, Programming	Posted at 11:06 am (26 May 2008)

CBC Television has announced its new summer lineup. Highlights include:

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?
Broadcast Premiere: Sunday, June 15th, 8:00pm
This reality show takes 48 contestants and promises to shape one of them into the new star of a live stage version of the movie “The Sound Of Music”. I’m  guessing that Canadian reality TV starlets will be a bit more restrained than their compatriots on “Girlicious”, but who knows? Catfights, dancing, and rousing renditions of “My Favourite Things” - does it get any better than this? (That was rhetorical, folks.)

Othello
One-Time Broadcast: Sunday, June 15th, 9:00pm
This 2 hour adaptation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece stars Carlo Rota (Little Mosque on the Prairie) as the tortured moor and Christine Horne (The Stone Angel) as his wife, Desdemona.

Test The Nation: Sports
One-Time Broadcast: Sunday, May 25th, 8:00pm
Ron MacLean (Hockey Night in Canada) joins host Wendy Mesley for a trivia brawl involving sports fans, athletes, and, er, NHL mascots.

Everest
Broadcast Premiere: Sunday, Aug 31, 8:00pm
This four hour miniseries is a dramatization of the 1982 adventure of the first Canadians to ever climb Mount Everest, Laurie Skreslet and Pat Morrow. Jason Priestley (Don’t Cry Now, 90210), William Shatner (Star Trek, Boston Legal) and Leslie Hope (24) headline an incredible ensemble cast.

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	CBC Television, Programming	Posted at 12:06 pm (22 May 2008)

CBC president Hubert T. Lacroix spoke to Parliament’s Heritage Committee Thursday afternoon. I was recording the speech on my computer as it streamed but, uh, I ran out of hard disk space. <sigh>

Never mind. The federal government probably would have asked me to take down video of the committee hearing.

(UPDATE: As Mike mentioned in his comment, the Heritage Committee has now posted the video online.)

After the jump, the text of his speech.

Relax, enjoy, and smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

[Read more →]

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	Executives, Our Mandate, Parliament, Programming	Posted at 8:15 pm (01 May 2008)

In a report to staff [internal link only], CBC president Hubert Lacriox revealed that he plans to create a “joint programming committee” to focus on content and programming across all platforms and both English and French services. “It will absolutely not be involved in decision making on schedules,” he said. “But it will have a decision-making role on cross-cultural content, programs and projects.”

Lacroix will chair the committee for the first six months, and then the chair will rotate between the heads of both English and French media (Richard Stursberg and Sylvain Lafrance).

Membership has not yet been determined.

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	Programming	Posted at 4:23 pm (28 Mar 2008)

There’s a great discussion underway at CBC Radio, bouncing around from email box to email box, about whether the word “pre-tape” is redundant or not. At the Corp, people use “pre-tape” to mean they’ll record something now for airing later.

Which led a producer from As It Happens to blast an email out saying:

Could we please add “pre-tape” to the list of redundancies! Please! We don’t “pre-tape” or “pre-record” anything. We tape or record.

Host Anna Maria Tremonti weighed in, arguing for the defence:

Given that this is a network that operates in 5 time zones, some interviews are taped, then taped again as the programs roll across the country. Ergo, they are pre-taped before they are taped again.

The discussion continued:

exactly - programs are recorded live, with some elements of them having been pre recorded - or recorded before the recording.

———–

Right. I appreciate that “pre-tape” or “pre-record” is a bit of cherished broadcasting jargon, but it is grammatical nonsense. “Pre-record/tape” is not a verb. Period. It must modify something, i.e. a “pre-tape interview” being a discussion one has with an interviewee prior to hitting the record button. The very act of recording something nullifies the “pre.” So, we record interviews prior to broadcasting them, and then we also record them as they are being broadcast. It may sound clunky or inconvenient, but correct grammar is sometimes like that. At CBC, we love to rail against corporate jargon — but get remarkably sensitive when it comes to our own. “Pre-tape”, or “pre-record” is pure jargon.

———–

I have a sneaking suspicion that the phrase originated as a “pre-show taping”. We just shortened it to “pre-tape”. That may help explain why it doesn’t seem redundant to some folks.

Where do you stand on pre-tape as a word? (Now, if we could only excise “onpassing” from the CBC’s vernacular.)

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	Fun Stuff, Programming	Posted at 4:13 am (12 Oct 2007)

On this date only a year ago…

CBC Television went to a 24-hour schedule. It was one of the last major English-language broadcasters to do so.

And yesterday happened to mark the 14th anniversary of Peter Mansbridge reporting about a new kind of computer network — a “revolution” called “Internet.”

The clip has become somewhat famous online, mostly because back then, people didn’t put the word “The” in front of “Internet.” It just sounds so, I don’t know, hokey now. It’s worth watching on the CBC Archives site if you have a moment.

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	CBC Television, Programming	Posted at 8:48 am (09 Oct 2007)

CBC Television is adding a new competition/reality show to its mix.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is looking for a Canadian actor to play the lead in a Toronto production of The Sound of Music. To find the person, he and CBC TV have concocted… wait for it… a TV show.

Like many popular reality and game shows, this one started in Britain. Last year, viewers of the BBC program How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? (it’s from the lyrics of the musical) picked a 23-year old to play the role made famous (infamous?) by Julie Andrews. Thousands competed to be among the ten finalists, which viewers eventually whittled down to one.

CBC Television has experimented with competition reality shows before.

• The much-maligned American show The One bumped The National out of its time slot one day a week — it was part of the contract with the show’s producers. The show was cancelled after a few episodes.
• And Garth Drabinksy is producing the three-part Triple Sensation which premieres October 7 at 8 p.m. on CBC Television. (The winner will get a scholarship to study at a leading theatrical institution.)

I will admit: I thought reality competition shows were a fad. I figured after a couple of seasons of Survivor, people would tire of the format. Clearly not. Turns out, it created an appetite for the format which still seems to be growing.

I’m of two minds about this whole thing.

1. On the one hand, you can’t argue with the numbers. CTV’s Canadian Idol is a ratings powerhouse, often leading the pack in the overnights. Even CBC Radio’s similar shows like Canada Reads (in which five celebs bring their favourite book and have to “compete” to have their book picked as #1) is one of the network’s top shows when it airs.
2. Then again, I’d like to think that Canadians are different — maybe a bit more discerning in how they spend their TV time. Shows like Canada: A People’s History proved we want to see compelling, well-produced programs that inform as well as entertain.

Have we gone too far down the reality show rabbit hole, Alice? What do you think?

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	Programming	Posted at 1:14 pm (25 Sep 2007)

CBC Television is on the hunt for someone to develop new comedy programs for the network. And it’s casting its eyes on the Internet.

The job description makes it clear that trolling the Internet for new ideas and people is part of the plan. The position “monitors and assesses comedy talent appearing on-line with an eye to CBC Comedy’s needs — new writers, actors, on-line co-prods, original comedy production for CBC on-line.”

Why don’t we give whoever this person will end up being a head-start?

What is your favourite online Canadian comedy show? (i.e. as amazing as Mr. Deity is, it ain’t Canadian).

For instance, Galacticast, a weekly comedy sci-fi series produced in Montreal by Rudy Jahchan and Casey McKinnon (pictured here). I also really enjoy Tom Green’s nightly Internet talk-show from his living room, but somehow the fact that his living room is in California probably disqualifies him.

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	Programming	Posted at 12:35 am (21 Sep 2007)