Cinema Canada (Feb 1978)

REVERB Competing with Conventional Cable I both agree and disagree with the letter Kirwan Cox wrote in response to my article on what I called closed-circuit TV in Saskatchewan and what he calls Pay-TV. I agree that emphasis should be placed on the degree to which our system will rely on American programming — heavily in some areas — and that is a disadvantage. But Mr. Cox’s last sentence is pretty ferocious. ‘‘However, no rhetoric can hide the fact that Saskatchewan’s sell-out of its proposed Pay-TV system is worse than a disgrace, it’s a catastrophe.” I’d like to ferociously disagree with that sentence. I sympathize with its purpose: to go out into the world and change it. So the sentence roars, makes a simple uncluttered point, and tells people who’s good and who’s bad. It’s not such an attractive sentence though, if you’re on the wrong end of it and have to play the part of the villain, and while in one way I dislike attacking nationalist fervor, because it’s a rare and valuable commodity and I like it. I find it necessary in this case, because it obliterates other important ideals. ‘In order to create its simple sense of evil (disgrace, catastrophe), the sentence simplifies the situation in Saskatchewan. In fact, the sentence has no interest in clarity (unlike most of the letter), just in winning. One inaccuracy is to use the term Pay-TV, since that sounds like the one-channel, American-feature-film package so much talked about. And we will have one channel like that, and the programming on it will be American. As well, we’ll have two other channels (down from three in my earlier article): a children’s channel, a general interest channel. On these two we can rent programs from whatever source is available. It is our stated intention to maximize Canadian programming on these two channels. I can’t say what percentage of Canadian programming that will mean because, as you'll see at the end of this letter, we haven’t been able to finalize contracts yet. But it’s not just a Pay-TV system, and the term “sell out’? might better apply to conventional cable, its licenser, and even the Canadian public that seems to want the service enough to pay for it. But why a premium movie American channel at all? Well, we’re going into the marketplace and will compete with conventional cable. Our projections say the premium channel is a major selling point and without it we’d likely not be viable. Do away with the channel and we do away with ourselves. Will the commercial nature of our venture destroy our ideals? I don’t know. I'd like to live in a better world, but un 4/ Cinéma Canada fortunately I live in the world that includes the CRTC. The most important point in response to Kirwan Cox’s sentence is this. The encouragement of Canadian-wide programming, or Canadian feature films, is an excellent goal, worth the fighting for, and I’ve liked Kirwan Cox’s articles, and Cinema Canada, for keeping me informed on what’s happening on that front. But it’s not the only ideal we’re working for in Saskatchewan. We think the goal of television without commercials is worth fighting for, and regional and local programming, and the challenge to business monopoly of the media, and, most important, local and public control of a media outlet. The fight, like all good fights, is to have people take more control over their own lives. You can’t reduce all that to a sellout to the United States without distorting a worthwhile battle, and one that presumably would strengthen the sense of Canadian identity. And if the co-ops here were to disappear tomorrow, and the Saskatchewan option go down with them, what are the odds that PayTV would be introduced creatively into Canada? It’s hard for us here to see the CRTC as anything but a regulator of business, whose main chore it is to keep the competitors from killing each other, or from appearing in too bad a light before the Canadian public. I also want to correct one mistake in Mr. Cox’s letter. I didn’t discredit Madame Sauvé’s 15% national levy, and in fact made no comment on the amount. Readers might like an update on what’s happening in Saskatchewan.The CRTC made a decision to change the conventional cable headends from Outram, Saskatchewan, to Tolstoi, Manitoba. The sole real difference of that decision will be to enable Saskatchewan .to receive three rather. than two commercial American networks. Thus does the CRTC obey its mandate on a Canadian broadcasting system. And Kirwan Cox may not have to worry about Saskatchewan queering the pitch on Pay-TV. The provincial government is having second and third and fourth thoughts about closed-circuit TV; it wonders whether we're viable — and it hasn’t guaranteed a loan for the co-ops; conventional cable will ' likely be on stream in two or three months. The CRTC granted North Battleford the right to sign a contract with Sask. Tel. that gave the common carrier hardware ownership up to the houses, and after some further sparring the CRTC has approved a contract between North Battleford and Sask. Tel., one that reserves the mid hand for provincial use. So, at the very least, we’ll soon have every rotten quiz show and soap and a whole new battalion of advertising clogging that clean Saskatchewan air. Don Kerr Saskatoon Having the Last Word Don Kerr’s letter really shows the depth of the “Canadian dilemma”. I sympathize with his position because we agree on the ends, but we don’t agree on the means. I won’t defend the cable system in Canada, or the CRTC decisions which have wrought that system. However, whether an American movie channel is called Pay-TV or closed-circuit TV or premium TV and whether it is privately or publicly owned, federally or provincially regulated, it must be opposed Ferociously. The idea that we solve our cultural or social problems by importing yet more American programming (only to pay for better Canadian programming, of course) is a mistake. This logic has brought the CBC to the point where its president says the network must be ‘“Canadianized’’, and I won’t mention CTV or the promises of performance it gave to the Board of Broadcast Governors. We cannot afford this “solution” to the problem of a small TV market again. Finally, I didn’t mean to say Don Kerr discredited Madame Sauvé’s 15% levy for Canadian production. I meant to say that that figure was discredited as ‘too low’ by groups and individuals too numerous to list. Kirwan Cox Toronto Who Created the Impact? To confirm my telephone statement of this morning, much as I respect and admire Mr. Stephen Chesley, he did not found Impact Magazine as stated in Cinema Canada, (Number 42, page 25). The magazine was solely my idea, founded by myself and Mr. Malcolm Bennett. Mr. Chesley purchased our share interest in a company created to publish it long after it was founded. In no way did he originate or “found” the magazine. I expect Cinema Canada to publish a retraction of the claim that he did. Ian A. Stuart President Summerhill Media Limited Mr. Chesley replies: While I will allow that Mr. Stuart is correct on one or two points, for the most part he seems to carry a different definition of ‘founder’ than I do. He was there, along with Mr. Bennett, before I came on the scene, and he did participate in registering the name Jmpact and