Cinema Canada (Feb 1982)

The pay-TV hearings, held by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in October 1981, were carried live by the cable companies, and generated an unprecedented amount of media coverage. In November, Cinema Canada published extracts from the verbal presentations by First Choice and Performance. In December/January, Astra-Tel and Telecanada outlined their strategies. In this issue, Moses Znaimer speaks for the Premiere application while Edgar A. Cowan and G. Hamilton Southam plead the case for Lively Arts Market Builders, Inc. Let's begin, with the tension between the National Model that we espouse and the ideology of Regionalism as it has been forcefully argued before you by others and let me try to connect that tension in turn to the very different kinds of Broadcast System that flow from each. What is Regionalism anyway ? Is ita state of mind ? Oris it an address? Does the word speak to a tangible philosophy of content or can it sometimes be a cover for a policy of economic advantage? Maybe I should say economic redress... and maybe we can all agree that there is areal need for that redress — but even if that were so, then I say let’s call it by its name and let's stop pretending that there is some nobility of the Alberta spirit which is expressed when, it’s Englebert Humperdink in front; Jack Jones in front; Jose Feliciano and Bernadette Peters in front ; and the Edmonton Symphony in back. It is our thesis that if a Regional had come along and applied for a National license and had advanced as one of its unique values precisely the fact that it was domicile in Calgary or Vancouver or Halifax and not in Toronto or Montreal... it is our thesis that such an application would have had significant appeal, in today’s political climate. But such an application has not manifested itself ; and why not? Because Regionals who confronted the business of doing business in the less populous Provinces found the dollar potential less than bright... because no-one could pursue an analysis very far in Quebec without confronting the often funny, the sometimes exasperating, but the ultimately rewarding problem of finding room in this new medium for the full expression of our country’s basic constitutional French dimension, (It costs not only considerable millions... but more than money, and beyond money, it costs a serious per sonal commitment to painstakingly work out who does what and where and when and to what degree ; and just how do channels functioning as a single service, a single company.) Let's be frank: It's hard work... it’s simply easier and therefore better business to take the cream right off the top of the well-to-do English Provinces ; how about the one in the centre, the one with the old muscle? And how about the one out West, that one with the new clout? They make for a pretty interesting combination. A powerful axis. One that conveniently leaves all the messy servicing of the other language or of the other less lucrative territories to somebody else. Would someone please explain to me how Regional cultures can be said fo get their fullest, most legitimate expression from an approach to licensing that undeniably, as of this date, yields no application for Regional service to Saskatchewan; no application for Regional service to Manitoba ; no application full Regional service to Newfoundland and no appiication for Regional service to Quebec. By way of distinction, we at Premiere advance a different theory of Regionalism ; one that we think the country can really use at this time. It is based, as is our application overall, on the theme of Rapprochement. On the theme of many forces pulling together. (We think Regionalism need not be the separatism of old grievances. We profess that it can be an approach that leads to meaningful exchange through a centre whose understanding of itself is precisely that it is no less than the sum of its component parts, and more.) The theory of Regionalism that Premiere stands for is the one that we know the Canadian Independent Production Industry wants and desperately needs; and it is also the one that we predict the Canadian people as a whole will prefer and most benefit from. What Premiere is interested in is the discovery and expression of a consensus that inclu des, that must include the idea. of this whole’ thing we call Canada; as well as the joyful acceptance of the plurality of geographic and ethnic and re in our population. In short, as far as pay-TV is concerned, healthy Regionalism ; What we would call “positive Regionalism” can be honourably expressed as widely-based, independent production plus access: believable, fair-minded and constant access. (To turn this sentiment into real action, we have in Premiere a concrete program for the support of Regional expression, about which I hope you will ask us further detailed questions). The line that connects these dramatically different approaches to Regionalism to the paramount objective which this Commission has set for itself; namely that the advent of Pay Television yield fresh quality Canadian programming from independent sources is the line that faces squarely the distinction between a_ productionoriented system and an exhibition-oriented one. Here’s proof: consider the position of the typical Torontonian. On any given day, it is this person’s inalienable right as a Canadian citizen to see M*A*S*H three times. Were that same viewer living in the underprivileged American cities of New York or Los Angeles he or she would be able to get their “Mash-fix’ only once a day. In short, what we have today on Canadian conventional television is an immensely diversified, array of channels, many of them American. But the largest part of them are local and Regional and they too featurea . great deal of American pro gramming. It is a handsome system, rich in choices ; clearly and dramatically weighted to exhibition. Do consumers buy such a system? Yes! They sure do. Will consumers buy a parallel to such a system in Pay? Yes, they will: we have Mr. Meekison’s assurances based on his U.S. experiences that they will eat it up. But will an exhibitionoriented Pay system be, as the Broadcasting Act will have it, “predominantly Canadian in character’? I don’t think it. would be any more so, or could be any more so than the conventional TV system that’s already in place. You see, Canadian stations are all based more or less on the same strategy of deploying money made relatively cheap imported U.S. programs, to create Canadian ones. But with the licensing of one buyer too many in the Ontario heartland in 1974, the buyer's market for U.S. goods disappeared and became a seller's one ; and next to: OPEC oil few other commodities have enjoyed so dramatic an escalation in price, Since gramming is widely understood s the inevitable “what's left over’ after the fixed costs of U.S. product and overhead and return on risk capital are met; Canadians in the name of choice have paradoxically denied themselves the one choice you would think would come first. Structurally, “our champagne taste for extreme program variety has beggared our beer budget for domestic material to feed it. (To stretch the metaphor the result is that many people complain of dying of spiritual cultural malnutrition, even as we gorge ourselves on tasty American snacks.) Now to make the connection between what is undeniably true on conventional TV with what might become true on premium TV I need a theory and a maxim. My maxim is that those who ignore history are frequently forced to relive it; , and my theory — about which I would really appreciate your frank comments — is that rather than being on the threshold of something new, we are possibly in danger of recreating something old. Dr. Meisel, you yourself reflected on this sense of deja vu when you asked whether a universal approach might not be the CBC of Pay. (Other questions touched on _ indistinct management, programming by committee, and schizophrenia about foreign product). Now my question to you is, why stop ? If Universal is the “CBC of Pay’ then maybe a Confederation of Regionals as some applicants would have it, is the “CTV of Pay’? And even if we acknowledge that the CTV isa first class importer and mar keter American entertainment and Canadian information. We would be hard-pressed to show much co-ordinated effort in production of production of projects of scale, such as drama — even after twenty years. Plunging on in this vein, I come to the Alberta or the Ontario applications ; or, worse yet, the Albertario combinations. If there is a CBC of Pay and a CTV of Pay then these must be, ofcourse, the “Globals of Pay’ ; Enough said. Well, if there is any vitality to this theory, then it follows that all these particular scenarios represent not new ideas but old ideas ~ as is the idea that a pay-TV system could be controlled 100% by an already licensed broadcast group — as indeed would have been the idea of a pay-TV system controlled 100% by the cable industry. What is new, and difficult — and I suggest to you the fact that it’s difficult is pretty good Premiere wantsto putanendtooldgrievances — apparently “radical” idea that you can and should get past old sectarian enmities within the Broadcast system ; and that, in any case, there may be no alternative left for overcoming the enormous obstacles to the smooth introduction of this new industry. I'm referring, to what is generally held to be the weakness in our application : cable equity participation. The minority share position held in Premiere by approximately a dozen and a half separate or grouped cable companies. This negative reflex seems to have its origin less in reasoned argument than in the fact that quite a lot of people inside our business just don’t like cable for this historic reason or that. But they refuse to confront our proposition that this surprising willingness by leading elements of a powerful industry, to accept a fragmented and restricted minority position in someone else’s deal; my deal, our deal, signals exactly the kind of progressive involvement in the Broadcast System that these same people have been calling for all along. This baffles me. It confirms -my impression that there’s still a fantasy afoot thatintroducing Pay Television to Canada is going to be easy. Well, as an eight year veteran of this debate I am obliged to confirm what this hearing has made doubly clear :in this new medium nothing yields to simplicity. Questions trail in the wake of questions. And one question that the Commission is facing is whether the cable sector, without whose fresh investment and active enthusiasm pay-TV will simply not Get off the ground as robustly as it must, if it’s to come even close to satisfying everyone's expectations... whether this cable sector is entitled, (whatever its historic guilt) to any less comfort in the face of a difficult future than is either the broadcast sector, about which the call speaks solicitiously; or the Independent Production sector, whose conditions of life this whole process is meant to enhance. Those who prefer to engage in polemics choose to focus uniquely on Premiere’s cable partners. The fact is that we also have an open invitation out for carefully balanced par ticipation by public or private broadcasters as well as for representatives of producers’ associations. ’ Premiere prtachés' consensus because we thinkit fair and useful that various disciplines sit at the table and take comfort you keep two separate language _ligious backgrounds inherent the budget for Canadian proproof that its new — is our (cont. on p. 12) 10/Cinema Canada February 1982 |