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.
- 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.
- 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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There is no such thing as ‘Reality Television’…NBC’s ‘BIONIC WOMAN’ (Women Testing Mettle, and Metal testing Women) looms large. This B.M. extravaganza is more about fembot martial arts and slick “Matrix”-ish special effects than about character development and it is aimed at pubescent male viewers. Fortunately the young male television audience is preoccupied with kickboxing and their X-BOX’s. Television is a novelty wasteland and CBC-TV should not be be driven to distraction with goofy programs like this… the Neurotic Broadcasting Corporation suffers from blockbuster burnout. I wish for an excuse for P.P.-ABC’s ‘Private Practice.’ If you want to lure adolescent eyes back to the living room, produce programs that don’t insult them.
No girl kid wants to win a chance to be Marie except to please their mommies and Andrew Lloyd Webber. What’s the big prize? To play a singing nanny nun… to a family of male dominated stereotypical stooges. Where’s the Bionic Man… the 6 Million dollar refitted male Lone Ranger? First this stuff repeats, then you throw up. Stick to Canadian intelligent programming- how about a remake of Wayne and Shuster, if we’re so sucked out by nostalgia? They made it to the Ed Sullivan Show. There is no such thing as reality television except to the people starring in it. People want their imaginations stoked… not stroked and poked.
Has the CBC ever produced an original reality show? The One, Dragon’s Den, The Day the Women Left, Triple Sensation, etc. — they’re all either formats purchased from another network (ABC, BBC) or slight variations thereof. Even Canada’s Next Prime Minister, a format the CBC is now marketing internationally as “The Next Great Leader” (this was in the news somewhere last week - Playback?), originally appeared on CTV.
So you’d like to think that Canadians are more discerning?
What an absurd remark.
A TV viewer is more discerning by virtue of being a Canadian?
Think for a moment how ridiculous that statement is.
More discerning than whom I wonder. But not really - I know to whom the author refers. I only wish the CBC was more discerning with my tax money!
Another example of a CBC that is clearly out of touch with the television business. Airing after the playoffs and before the Olympics….isn’t the summer where historically all of our dogs have aired?
Maybe Maria will squeeze in a Canadian national anthem to up the cancon.
Allan: Ridiculous according to whom?
That is one strange question, Dwight. Odd, would also apply.
Where did I lose you?
Shall we re-trace our steps here, and look again at the statement that “Canadians (show better judgement) in how they spend their TV time”.
Perhaps, instead of labeling it ridiculous, I should have called it outrageous!
Would you care to suggest , Dwight, that it’s neither?
Hey Dwight, why so silent?
Come on, let’s hear your stirring defense of that stupid remark.
Is your lack of response, Dwight, yet another thing that typifies Canadians?
And do you see no difference in the TV viewing tastes and standards of Anglophones compared to Francophones?
And is Tod including the BBC when he says Canadians are more discerning?
Do Canadians tend to think before they speak? Or are you and Tod examples of how all Canadian behave and reason?
The first mantra in the 365 mantras in the Course in Miracles is the statement “None of this is real”… a perfect description of the Marketing Miracles we have made of television and the automobile. There are people who think that Greenhouse Gas can be purchased at Esso and Shell Stations… and is a lot cheaper and easier on their engines. In the New York Times there is an evocative article today (Thanksgiving…Cdn.) about the problems of “Reality Television”… It deserves to be part of this blogofsphere dialogue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/business/media/08reality.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
If that doesn’t get you there… you can log onto the New York Times and go read it in REAL TIME. Turning television off is not nearly as impossible as turning it around. Get the New York Times by typing it into your you(U) are(R) ill(L) window: http://www.nytimes.com/