Virginie, the daily evening soap opera on Radio-Canada, has recruited Quebec premier Jean Charest to do a quick video clip to welcome users to the site.
Politicans have done cameos on programs like the Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and CTV’s Corner Gas, but this is the first time I’ve heard of a politician acting in a kind of promotional capacity for a show.
Virginie airs Monday to Thursday on Radio-Canada French TV. It is produced externally.
What do you think? Is having a politician appear in this manner a good thing? Improper? Maybe you couldn’t care less?
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Mercer and 22 Minutes make some sense, since satire is about as close as the media gets to political discussion in North America, but this is a bit bizarre. I suppose, much like Harper’s Corner Gas appearance, it’s a free(?) party political broadcast, but a soap opera?
I noticed that you did not post the link to the show’s special launch website.
Virginie is a school based soap and has always promoted literacy and a parallel world with Quebec schools.
And M. Charet didn’t do anything other than say ‘School is open’
There is no endorsement, just a simple announcement.
There are bursary contests on the site and they visit schools: link | link
But then Mr. Maffin off in the wet coast may not understand the language of Moliere.
Quebec has always been different in how its media interacts with the general populace outside of Montreal/Toronto/Vancouver.
Yknow… CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded… and CTV has prostituted themselves in almost every bit of material they own with almost every bit of promotion they got… let’s just say this is a version of synergy a la CBC.
Course, you political folks will start blasting me about how the FEDERAL government deals with CBC/Radio-Canada and some of you may blast me for the comparison. Some of you may even support CTV and their raunchy activities and may blast me for talking like this.
But that’s only my far-off farfetched view on this. Yes, synergy at the CBC.
It seems they intended to say that the campus is officially open, which would have been “le campus est officiellement ouvert,” but the Design Dept failed to notice the distinction between “est” and “et.” This is a pretty rookie mistake. And it’s especially surprising that such an error would be associated with “Jean Charet” (Google: 1260 results).