A window or a mirror? A new book produces startling ideas about the future of Canadian television.

A window or a mirror? A new book produces startling ideas about the future of Canadian television. Canadian Television Canadian television may refer to: Television in Canada - general information about the Canadian television industry CTV television network - a specific Canadian TV network; CTV is sometimes interpreted as "Canadian Television" Today Bart Beaty and Rebecca SullivanUniversity Sullivan University is a university based in Louisville, Kentucky. With campuses in Louisville, Lexington, and Fort Knox, Sullivan has approximately 6,000 students and is Kentucky's largest private university [1]. of Calgary Press 168 pages, paperback ISBN ISBNabbr.International Standard Book NumberISBNInternational Standard Book NumberISBNn abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m9781552382226 If you're a television person, like me, your curse is to lookat everything in life as a possible TV show. Let's take the authorsof Canadian Television Today. Could they be a show? They're young,they're gorgeous, they live in Calgary. Excellent start--anothergreat Canadian regional sitcom! Okay, but they're academicsspecializing in communication theory. How can we make that work?Let's give them academic sidelines. One can write about comics andthe other about sexuality. We'll throw in a best friend, say aslacker, girlie girl��iealso girl��y ?adj. InformalFeaturing minimally clothed or naked women typically in pornographic contexts: girlie magazines. professor of feminist studies. We'll make the deana small guy from Toronto who insists on wearing cowboy gear. It's"The Bart and Becky Show"! Major points for regional and wecan work in the multi-culti stuff later. There could be a little problem with the releases. ProfessorRebecca Sullivan and Professor Bart Beaty have different ideas abouttelevision. For them, "The Bart and Becky Show" would be justanother wasted effort in the ongoing paternalistic pa��ter��nal��ism?n.A policy or practice of treating or governing people in a fatherly manner, especially by providing for their needs without giving them rights or responsibilities. attempt to impose thedominant values of western culture on a Canadian audience that,increasingly, neither needs nor wants those values. They propose an entirely new model of Canadian television, a way tounshackle un��shack��le?tr.v. un��shack��led, un��shack��ling, un��shack��lesTo free from or as if from shackles. it from its pathological dependence on and rejection ofAmerican programming. They argue that a fresh concentration on localprogramming and an openness to television from around the world couldbring Canada's people to a more relevant and rewarding citizenship. It's an audacious and original idea. I happen to think it isprobably wrong and perfectly impractical, but maybe it's me who iswrong and impractical. More importantly, though, the need for innovativethinking and a good kick in the shibboleths for Canadian television isso necessary that I would suggest that anyone in and around broadcastingread Canadian Television Today. And I'd extend that invitation toanyone who occasionally thinks about the idea of Canada--because this isreally a book about being Canadian and it has some startling star��tle?v. star��tled, star��tling, star��tlesv.tr.1. To cause to make a quick involuntary movement or start.2. To alarm, frighten, or surprise suddenly. See Synonyms at frighten. notionsabout that. Canadian Television Today will not be a comfortable read fortelevision people. Beaty and Sullivan don't pull any punches. FromBen Mulroney Benedict Martin Paul "Ben" Mulroney (born March 9, 1974 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian television host. He grew up in Ottawa, Ontario.He is the second of four children born to former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mila Pivnicki Mulroney. to the House of Commons House of Commons:see Parliament. Standing Committee on CanadianHeritage, no one gets out alive. The authors' fellow Calgarian,cable baron Jim Shaw Jim Shaw is the name of: Jim Shaw (artist), artist and musician Jim Shaw, Australian actor Jim Shaw (businessman), Canadian businessman Jim Shaw (baseball player), athlete Jim Shaw (hockey player), athlete , achieved broadcasting industry infamy Notoriety; condition of being known as possessing a shameful or disgraceful reputation; loss of character or good reputation.At Common Law, infamy was an individual's legal status that resulted from having been convicted of a particularly reprehensible crime, rendering him this fallwhen he slagged Canadian television programs. This book makes Shaw soundlike an ACTRA (language) Actra - A multi-processor exemplar-based Smalltalk.[LaLonde et al, OOPSLA '86]. executive. Although, unlike the cable guy, I think theauthors are partial to Trailer Park Boys. They call it lowbrow, but in,you know, a good way. Overall, Beaty and Sullivan give a failing grade to almosteverything about Canadian television: the Radio-television andTelecommunications Commission ("embedded paternalism paternalism (p·terˑ·n " ..."increasing irrelevance"), the production industry("bemoaning the poor viewing habits of Canadians while seeking outnew funding opportunities"), private television ("[many]efforts ... to reduce or evade their licence obligations"), the CBC (1) (Cell Broadcast Center) See cell broadcast.(2) (Cipher Block Chaining) In cryptography, a mode of operation that combines the ciphertext of one block with the plaintext of the next block. ("the idea of the CBC is far more powerful than its reality"),Parliament's Heritage committee ("easily distracted by theirpet issues and the issues of their campaign contributors"), DonCherry Don Cherry may be: Don Cherry (ice hockey) (born 1934) hockey coach & commentator Don Cherry (jazz) (1936-1995), trumpeter Don Cherry (singer/golf) (born 1924) ("racist and sexist remarks") and Canadian Idol Canadian Idol is a reality television show on the Canadian television network CTV, based on the popular British show Pop Idol and its American counterpart American Idol. The show is a competition to find the most talented young singer in Canada. ("dull, homogenous homogenous - homogeneous ... the worst of Canadian television"). It's all rather fun, as long as you are not in the index. Andyou won't be if you are from Quebec. The authors acknowledge thatQuebec has got television right and they have nothing to contribute.Like every other English Canadian See also: and English Canadian is a Canadian whose principal language is English or who is of English ancestry; it is used primarily in contrast with French Canadian [2][3]. interested in broadcasting, they canonly stand outside in the perpetual gloom watching, as through Frenchwindows French windowsNoun, pla window extending to floor level, used as a door , the bright lights, beautiful people and the rich nourishmentthat Quebec television provides. Real stars! Top ten shows! Culturalspecificity! And yet, even in Quebec, television cannot survive withoutsubsidies. The threat by Quebecor's Pierre Karl Peladeau towithdraw his support from the program funding agency, the CanadianTelevision Fund The Canadian Television Fund was created in 1996 to support the broadcast and production of quality Canadian television programming. It is financed by the Canadian government, cable television and DTH satellite providers. , has received oceans more ink and air in Quebec than JimShaw's similar threat in the rest of Canada. Editorial cartoons,libel suits, accusations of moral failure and hooliganism--even intelevision policy, Quebec produces better drama. Back in English Canada, the authors' widespread disapprovaldoes have a theme. They believe Canadian television has a history ofmaking two calamitous ca��lam��i��tous?adj.Causing or involving calamity; disastrous.ca��lami��tous��ly adv. mistakes. First, Canadian television definesitself only in relation to American television. "The anxiety overAmerican influence is so keenly felt in Canada that it circumscribesnearly every facet of national cultural policy. In particular, thisanxiety defines Canadian television." Second, Canadian televisionpolicy has always, from the Aird report in 1929 to the Lincoln report in2003, seen western culture as dominant and has never acknowledged a needto share real power with other cultures. One of the surprises of this academic book is that it takes thepower of television seriously. The authors are convinced that televisionis "of vital importance not only in media and cultural debates butin discussions about the flow of world order on national, global, andlocal scales." They are entirely correct. Television is, quite simply, the most seductive form ofcommunication known to humankind. In Canada, the average viewing timeeach week is 23 hours. Most readers of the LRC (Longitudinal Redundancy Check) An error checking method that generates a parity bit from a specified string of bits on a longitudinal track. In a row and column format, such as on magnetic tape, LRC is often used with VRC, which creates a parity bit for each will watch much less.That means that your fellow Canadians are watching much more to make upfor you. In a lifetime, the average viewer will spend more time watchingtelevision than going to school, work or church; more time than playingwith children, talking with friends, exercising or going to all sports,cultural and public events combined. The internet? Since it arrivedsignificantly about ten years ago, television viewing has gone not down,but up. Television is ubiquitous--in 99 percent of Canadian homes. Themajority of homes have more than one set. Around the world, businessleaders, governments, advocacy groups and charities spend more than $75billion in television advertising. All these groups believe thattelevision can change not just our brand preferences, but also ourpolitics, our religious life, our sexual habits and our socialconscience. And yet, as Beaty and Sullivan point out, television is almostignored by academics. "What struck us most was the lack ofattention [Canadian television] has received from scholars and critics... The issues had been dealt with more forcefully in the practice oftelevision viewers than in the theories of television scholars." Beaty and Sullivan also distinguish themselves by actually lookingat and writing about Canadian television programs. Unfortunately, theyspend so much of this section dissecting dis��sect?tr.v. dis��sect��ed, dis��sect��ing, dis��sects1. To cut apart or separate (tissue), especially for anatomical study.2. (or beating up) what's onnow that they have little time to make the programming case for theirtransformation of television. They are convinced that a return to local programming is key to amore confident and responsive Canadian television, but little evidenceis provided of the demand they say is "pronounced." Perhapsthey think it is obvious, since the provision of local news is one ofthe few television events that rouses politicians at every level, drawshundreds of letters and submissions to the CRTC CRTC Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications CommissionCRTC Combat Readiness Training CenterCRTC Cathode Ray Tube ControllerCRTC China Railway Telecommunications CenterCRTC Cold Region Test CenterCRTC Continuously Regenerated Trap Column , and occasionallyattracts picket lines, print editorials and other forms of harassment oftelevision executives hoping for a quiet life. As president of CTV CTVCanadian Television (Network Limited) , Iwas preremptorily summoned to Ottawa for emergency meetings with theminister of Canadian Heritage over some cuts to the local news operationin Timmins, Ontario. That was nothing compared to the living hell thatCBC president Robert Rabinovitch went through when he attempted toeliminate CBC's local newscasts. And yet, I timidly admit that I am not completely sure that thedevotion to local television beats so fiercely in the Canadian breast.My apostasy apostasy,in religion: see heresy. ApostasySee also Sacrilege.Aholah and Aholibahsymbolize Samaria’s and Jerusalem’s abandonment to idols. [O.T. began a few years ago when satellite dishes were marketedand sold in large numbers to people around small towns where cable didnot reach. Even though people knew they would not receive their localnews, they chose the satellite, with its movies and professional sportsofferings. The local news audience in areas like Yorkton declined by asmuch as 40 percent. And there are other straws in the wind: just beforeCHUM was sold to CTV, the network announced it would trim itsaward-winning City Pulse news operations and move to a talk format foreconomic reasons. Local advertising is the only genre of televisionadvertising to decrease in the last ten years, and it has trended downfor four of the last five years. Although viewers tell opinion surveysthat local news is the most important television for them, theuniversity-based Canadian Media Research Consortium mega poll in 2005showed no difference in the actual consumption of national versus localnews. The highest audience gain for any news program in the last fiveyears has been to a national news program: Global News. Ratings are upfor both national news services, CBC Newsworld and CTV Newsnet. There are counter-arguments. The total cross-country ratings forCTV's Evening News make it one of two or three Canadian programsregularly in the top 15 ratings list. CBC radio has had enormous successby redefining community programming. CBC television has ambitious plansto revive its local news service, with MyCBC, now under development as apilot in Vancouver. MyCBC would combine citizen-engaged journalism ontelevision with a strong online community-based news offering. CBCradio's successful community shows would join the partnership. Ihope my doubts are shown to be comprehensively wrong, and that CanadianTelevision Today is prescient pre��scient?adj.1. Of or relating to prescience.2. Possessing prescience.[French, from Old French, from Latin praesci . But perhaps the authors' main concern and their great hope forCanadian television is that its future could be truly multicultural.Now, they say, that future is blocked by CRTC policies. As evidence, they cite the decision of the CRTC to deny a licenceto Italy's RAI rai?n.A form of popular Algerian music combining traditional Arabic vocal styles with various elements of popular Western music and featuring outspoken, often controversial lyrics. , after objections by the Corus-owned Telelatino (adecision later reversed), and the restrictive licencing of Al Jazeera.At the same time, the CRTC licensed the Fox News Network, which theauthors describe as ethnically, culturally and linguisticallyintolerant. The regulator was wrong, they say: The CRTC's policies minimize foreign-language intervention into Canadian airwaves, keeping linguistic minorities in secure cubbyholes that ensure Anglophone cultural dominance. Foreign culture is restricted to the marginalized space of multiculturalism, where values of folk, tradition, and heritage prevent them from influencing the aesthetic authority of English Canada. At the same time that the authors urge regulators to provide morespace for minorities, they propose less space for traditional Canadiantelevision. They would like more co-productions with countries outsideNorth America, more subtitled programs from other countries and morelocal programming. Fundamentally sane, they do not propose the droppingof American programs. What should go, they think, are the programs thatcling to a nationalist dream of unity and identity. Instead, theyadvocate "a globalized outlook of heterogenous (spelling) heterogenous - It's spelled heterogeneous. culture." Them's fighting words fighting wordsn. words intentionally directed toward another person which are so nasty and full of malice as to cause the hearer to suffer emotional distress or incite him/her to immediately retaliate physically (hit, stab, shoot, etc. . But first, Beaty and Sullivan blithelyadmit their plan would mean smaller shares, lower ratings, viewerfragmentation and reduced profits. That's okay, they say, becauseit is happening anyway. In their dismissal of economics, they join theirdespised nationalists in the traditional belief that if it is a worthyidea, finances do not matter. They do. They always have. If there is apresent and worsening failure of Canadian television, it is not afailure of creativity or entrepreneurship or ideals, or even ofaudience. It is a failure of a business model. In that model, Canadiantelevision programs do not have to be profitable. They are madeavailable by regulation and financed by subsidies of public televisionand independent production, or by profits from the purchase andexhibition of American programs. As for subsidies, public television's budgets have beenwhittled away for 30 years. CBC television executives refer to theirnetwork as half a public broadcaster, since they must now raise half thefunds to operate from the commercial marketplace. Subsidies forindependent production, mainly from the CTF CTF Capture The FlagCTF Child Trust Fund (UK)CTF Canadian Tax FoundationCTF Canadian Taxpayers Federation (lobby group)CTF Canadian Television FundCTF Canadian Teachers' Federation , came under fierce attackthis fall from the cable companies that must provide the funds for theCTF under regulation. Only a few dreamers still imagine that governmentwill provide more subsidy money for television. As for American programs, the costs to Canadian television networksare rising and margins are falling. Technology is threatening bothexclusivity and simultaneous substitution, which has allowed Canadiannetworks to show their U.S. buys on both their channel and an Americanone, reaping the benefits of the increased audience. Television companies are well aware that both the public subsidyand the "U.S. pays" models are weakening. They are looking atconsolidation, exclusivity, multi-platform content, and aggregatingrights and audiences as solutions. It is not likely that subtitledSpanish movies will be a big part of their plans. Multicultural nichecontent will be available, but only at prices that will produceearnings. For example, the "World Cup of Cricket" packageoffered to Canadian viewers in March was priced at a hefty $179. Thiscould produce another kind of marginalization mar��gin��al��ize?tr.v. mar��gin��al��ized, mar��gin��al��iz��ing, mar��gin��al��iz��esTo relegate or confine to a lower or outer limit or edge, as of social standing. . But more worrying than the economics of globalized television isthe philosophic vision presented by Beaty and Sullivan. They believethat "it is not as clear that Canada is a nation." And by thatthey mean "a cultural entity that can clearly define itself andassert conditions of membership based on shared experiences, values,language, and the like." The efforts to assert a national cultural identity have largelybeen unsuccessful and, indeed, have marginalized many Canadians, theysay. Instead, their dream is a "fractured, fragmented vision ofculture" where "western traditions" are just part of atruly multicultural society. It is a tremendously daring assertion at this time of Herouxville,the identity gap and a census that predicts that most of Canada'spopulation growth in the future will come through immigration immigration,entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. . For someit will be a stirring goal, a breakthrough that could make Canada agenerous leader in an inevitably globalizing society. For others, it isa turning of backs on hard-won principles and values, a future ofconstant instability and negotiation. It is a vision of separateness,all of us kept apart, in front of our cool blue screen that is no longera window, but a mirror, reflecting the languages, the jokes, the sports,the laws and the ideals of every place but this one. And yet, this isthe essential debate our country must have, and Canadian TelevisionToday enters the debate forcefully. At one point in this book, the writers shyly admit to being a bitromantic, as if this were a fault. If it is, I have it. I am completelyromantic about Canada, a country I see as inspiring and modestly heroic.Its identity is always a work in progress, but it is not a blank sheet.Canada does not begin with the last person who is born or moves here.Adrienne Clarkson, the immigrant who became governor general, once saidthat she advised new citizens to "take Canada on, all of it."The Inuit, the Riel rebellion, residential schools and Vimy, theMilgaard case and Expo '67. The last spike, the undergroundrailway, the cod fishery, the Hudson's Bay Company Hudson's Bay Company,corporation chartered (1670) by Charles II of England for the purpose of trade and settlement in the Hudson Bay region of North America and for exploration toward the discovery of the Northwest Passage to Asia. , the Bluenose bluenosea name used in the UK for a photosensitive dermatitis of the horse's face marked by a cyanotic appearance in the early stages of skin which later sloughs. The disease occurs in the spring and may be accompanied by such a severe edema that it resembles purpura hemorrhagica. .The Great Bear Rainforest The Great Bear Rainforest is the name given by environmental groups in the 1990s to a region of temperate rain forest, specifically Pacific temperate rain forest located on the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada. . Deepa Mehta and Michael Ondaatje. ReneLevesque and Bev Oda. The Stanley Cup. Winter. All of it. A nationaldream does not have to exclude or marginalize mar��gin��al��ize?tr.v. mar��gin��al��ized, mar��gin��al��iz��ing, mar��gin��al��iz��esTo relegate or confine to a lower or outer limit or edge, as of social standing. . It can comfort andinspire. And even the search for it can bring value to life. Canada,said the poet Patrick Anderson, is the wind that wants a flag. The people who will come to Canada in the future will bring manygifts to us and we will learn from them, and be changed by them. But ourpast and our present have much to offer them as well. Canadiantelevision that takes Canada on, all of it, could be one of our greatestgifts. Trina McQueen is the CTV Professor of Broadcast Management atSchulich School of Business at York University and a member of the boardof directors of the CBC. She has been vice-president of news, currentaffairs and Newsworld at CBC, was the founding president of theDiscovery Channel and served as president and COO of CTV, Inc. She isalso on the LRC's Advisory Council.