At the CBC fall launch event this afternoon, I had the opportunity for a quick chat with Kirstine Stewart, the general manger of CBC English television. This will be a big season for the CBC, and for Stewart personally. CBC Television has made some impressive ratings gains in the last few seasons under her watch. Gains that she hopes will continue this fall. I asked about her vision for CBC television.

PM: What is your vision for CBC Television?
KS: I really believe that the public broadcaster has to be entertaining and engaging with the public. We get a lot of debate about whether we should be pandering to viewers, whether we should be trying to go out of our way to attract them, and I don’t think we do… You own us. We want to reflect your interests, your passions. Everything you’re curious about we want to explore with you.

That’s what I’ve tried to do, to really create a lineup that really whether it’s sport, entertainment, comedy, it really gives an offering to Canadians of how interesting they are. If we’re lucky enough to get you to watch us, it better be something that you really deserve.

PM: What demographic do you want to capture? Is there a particular demographic that you’re looking at saying ‘I’d like to have more of them’?
KS: I’m always trying to widen the demographic. CBC over the years has been excellent in delivering news and sports coverage, and largely the viewership was older and a bit male – it skewed male. And that’s great, I want to expand that, I don’t want to abandon those viewers because they’re very important to everybody. But a 22-year-old woman out West is equally a Canadian as an 85-year-old grandfather. I like to broaden the audience.

What you see on the schedule, what I’ve tried to commission is a real mix of programming that can engage, hopefully, as wide an audience as possible, but always has a bit of a slant… So I think what I’m really trying to do is offer up a menu of what it is we have, but with the core basis that they’re all great authentic Canadian stories, not just to attract a specific demographic but also to get more people to watch each show.

PM: I’d like to touch on the criticism about the American programming. What’s your reaction?
KS: Unfortunately it’s unrealistic. I would love to be in the position of having a 24-hour Canadian schedule; I honestly cannot afford it on the budget that we’re given. When we put on American programming we do it within the allowance of our license. We have to be careful, we try to be respectful of the rest of the schedule when we take American programming, but knowing that sometimes, and quite often, that American programming brings in larger viewership that can showcase our Canadian shows right after. We did find that after introducing Jeopardy to the scheduled last year our eight o’clock time slot grew thirty percent. That was in part in compliment to Jeopardy as a lead in, and part in compliment to the producers who are making better shows. It’s a combination we need to take advantage of to make sure we have the most viewers possible watching Canadian shows.

PM: Does it surprise you that that criticism always focuses on the American programming?
KS: And not the British ones? It was very interesting to me. Not surprising, but interesting always. Because we had Coronation Street on the schedule in the same slot that Wheel of Fortune is in now for years and years and years.

So yes, I believe because we need to be more sensitive to the cultural sovereignty of Canada versus the United States because we share the border, that can be a trigger for people who want to keep CBC Canadian. But I’ve got to say, it’s more Canadian now that it’s ever been in years. People get a bit myopic or have a short-term memory when it comes to schedules, but I have an old one sitting outside my office: Dallas was in prime-time; it’s got Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It wasn’t that long ago that we had a very U.S. schedule.

But we’ve kept it Canadian in prime time, we’ve got the only Canadian late-night talk show, we do a lot of things that push the boundaries, that let people know that we make all kinds of Canadian programming.

PM: The TD integration. Do you see this as something the CBC can take advantage of because of how much programming we make? Is there a flip side to that, is there a danger?
KS: We go into this with eyes wide open. We know that the bar is going to be very high for the CBC, in particular as a public broadcaster, when we look at integration. We look at other broadcasters who do this, and we know we are going to be more heavily scrutinized. We are so careful that the integrations are organic and very natural to the story lines and respect the characters and the characterization – that it doesn’t make them do anything wacky or weird. When it’s done well actually integration ends up looking like real life, you know, you take the brand cereal box off the shelf, and that’s what people do in their homes, nobody has blank cereal boxes in their cupboards.

Hopefully, if it’s done in the right way, it will look authentic from the beginning.

PM: Are intending to expand it, or are you at the testing phase?
KS: We’re doing well with it already. Expansion is probably not the right word as much as looking for the right fit with the right shows. We turn down a lot of things, and we only do this when we feel it’s the right fit for the shows. There’s a lot of matchmaking going on. Some shows, and some genres, like Factual Entertainment, reality shows and lifestyle shows in particular, can be really open to product integration, other shows that are editorial like news are going to be less or none. So we’ll take a look at the schedule and we’ll only do it where it makes sense.

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