Posts from ‘March, 2010’

Monday afternoon, just after the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) made public its intriguing but slippery plan to solve the infamous fee-for-carriage dispute, the nabobs of the TV and cable rackets unleashed their responses.

The cable guys were a tad miffed – dismissive even, in the usual manner of cable execs who believe they control the universe. The TV types were pleased, but in a hesitant manner.

Then it came – the sound of rattling cufflinks. Umbrage. Outrage. Steven Guiton, the CBC’s regulatory officer, stepped up to the microphones, looking furious. He proceeded to announce the imminent end of public broadcasting in Canada. “There does not appear to be a future for public broadcasting further to this decision” he said.

Horror! Murder in Gatineau, Quebec. The CRTC has killed the CBC. Driven a stake through its heart. Continue reading

There’s a large group of Canadians who are champion complainers. Whine, whine. Gimme, gimme. No fair. I want my MTV/HBO/Showtime/Fox News/that channel with all the celebrity news. I want it now and I don’t want to pay for it. Canadian content shoved down my throat? Screw that.

You know what I mean. Consumer greed for American popular culture disguised as a robust belief in the inherent integrity of the free market. Continue reading

There’s a tall woman, fortysomething, staring right at you. Skeptical look on her face. You know what’s she’s thinking: “Life is full of little pricks.”

When Nurse Jackie (TMN/Movie Central, 10 p.m.) first aired last year, Showtime promoted it to U.S. viewers with billboards bearing that provocative slogan – and a shot of a nurse with a needle. The show’s star, Edie Falco as the formidable wife of Tony Soprano. Here she was, returning to TV as a formidably complex nurse, a woman brutally sarcastic to doctors and brazenly manipulating patients she didn’t like. Continue reading

Hello and Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you.

“Ireland, Ireland, damp sod of earth/lost on the surf of the North Atlantic/Ireland, Ireland, mountains and mist/Vodka and chips, it’s so romantic.”

Those are part of the lyrics to an alternative anthem for Ireland, composed by a couple of fellas engaged in tomfoolery named the Duckworth Lewis Method. Ireland is our topic today. The Irish TV racket in particular. A dose of St. Patrick’s Day sobriety, if you will: Television in Ireland. And what we can learn from it. Continue reading

The Fox, Bill O’Reilly/John Doyle battle as reported April 25, 2004 by The New York Times:

TORONTO — American-Canadian relations have seen better days. Canada opposed the war in Iraq, and got a stern public lecture from the United States ambassador, Paul Cellucci, in return. The Bush administration does not like Canada’s liberal drug policies. Trade disputes involving beef and softwood lumber continue to fester. But such frictions rarely get much television coverage at a time when Washington has a barrage of international problems to worry about.

That may be changing. Two weeks ago, the Canadian cable industry filed an application with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to begin including the Fox News Channel among its listings. That would bring the channel to a country with a very un-Foxian knack for legalizing same-sex marriage and teasing Yanks for burning down their own White House in the War of 1812. The cultural divide burst into raw insult when Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly recently got into a public brouhaha with John Doyle, the television critic for The Globe and Mail, Canada’s most influential newspaper. Continue reading