CRTC PRESENTATION

March 18 1999

My name is Conrad Reitz, and I am here as an ordinary citizen, who listens to the radio, watches TV, and plays around on my recently-acquired home computer system. By profession, I’m a librarian, I work for the University of Windsor, and I’ve lived in Windsor for 34 years. I’m due to retire next year, and I can see me in my declining years spending my time listening to the radio, watching TV and playing around with my home computer.

In my presentation, I would like to make a distinction between CBC Radio and CBC Television. For me, it’s like comparing apples and oranges. Let me first address CBC Radio.

We have three radios in our family: two in our house and one in our car. All three are tuned constantly to CBE 1550. Why? Because CBC Radio provides us with a window to the world, to Canada, and to our local community. Through programmes such as Morning Watch and Crosstown we are kept informed about events and happenings in Windsor and the tri-county area, by people like Paul Vasey and Barbara Peacock, who come into our homes on a daily basis, and whom we look on as friends and members of our family.

On a regional and national basis I have come to rely on CBC Radio for authoritative news, features and current events, nationally, regionally and locally, through such great programmes as The World at Six, As it Happens, Cross-country Check-up and Sunday morning. For entertainment and culture, I turn to DNTO, Ideas, and CBC Radio 2.

The great thing about Radio is that I can do other things while listening to my favourite programme – driving my car, sitting at my desk at work, keeping busy on my home computer, reading, gardening, etc. So all I can say about CBC Radio is “Keep up the good work” and “More of the same.”

The problem is, of course, that the vast majority of people in CBE's listening area are usually tuned in to other stations. CBE has less than 7% of the audience share. 15% listen to its main competitor, CKLW, and 6% to CKWW. However, 64% of our local citizens tune in to American stations.

That in itself doesn't bother me. CBE caters to a small and select group of informed citizens. It does, however, raise an issue that is central to the questions that must be answered about CBC Television: where should the emphasis be placed: on popularity and market demand, or on quality?

My quarrel is not so much with CBC Television, as it is with television as a medium. I would probably be considered to be an atypical and deviant viewer, as my 15 hours or so in front of the tube each week, consists of watching movies, documentaries, musical shows and stock car racing. Almost all my TV watching is confined to the History Channel, Bravo, Space, Vision, Discover, A & E, and TNN, with the occasional network stock car race or movie, and a smattering of PBS - and, of course, Elwy’s Saturday Night at the Movies on TVO.

As far as I'm concerned, what we get from CBC’s local channel 9 is indistinguishable from the programming on the other Canadian commercial channels. It is not at all clear to me what is meant by "public broadcasting" in this context. Supposedly our tax dollars go to supporting the CBC, but surely the primary financial support comes from advertisers. Millions and millions of dollars are involved in sponsoring the Olympic Games, Hockey Night in Canada and the nightly news. Whenever I do force myself to watch the 11 o’ clock national news, I am bombarded with inane commercials about the merits of maxi-pads, detergents, mouth wash, mutual funds, hardware stores, antacids - on and on and on. The only difference that I can see between the CTV and CBC news is that one of the news readers has more hair than the other. So how does the CBC differ in this respect from CTV, as far as the viewer is concerned?

I have been told that "public broadcasting" will tackle themes that "private broadcasters" will avoid. If it wasn't for the CBC, who would carry Meech Lake discussions, political conventions and the Inuvik celebrations live - matters of vital concern to the majority of Canadians. It has also been suggested that a public broadcasting system will report with more integrity, honesty and openness on the issues of the day, because it is accountable to the public, whereas private broadcasters are accountable only to their sponsors. However, it is inherent in the nature of journalism, whether public or private, that reports should have integrity, honesty and openness. So what is the difference between having a sponsor, the government or a lobby group looking over the network's shoulder, trying to stifle stories or investigations that might cause controversy or embarrassment? (Dare I mention the examples of This Hour has Seven Days and The Valour and the Horror?)

While doing research for this presentation, I spent some time watching shows that I had previously avoided, like 22 Minutes, The Bette Show, Dooley Gardens, and The Red Green Show, and I can really see no difference between these shows and the inane dreck that pollutes the barren wasteland of American network television. But then, of course, it would be a dull world if we all liked the same thing. However, it does raise the question: is Canadian dreck to be preferred to American dreck?

The problem with CBC Television as it is presently constituted, is that it tries to be all things to all people. It tries to cater to popular taste, while attempting to satisfy the more discriminating viewer; it tries to be a national network, promoting a sense of Canadian identity, while at the same time paying lip service to local and regional coverage.

As a result, it fails dismally on most counts. I think that its national news is superficial in the extreme, with very little hard news, and a surfeit of information-type feature stories. CBC news, and in fact, all Canadian television news, presents a selective and distorted view of Canada. Most Canadians, for instance have a preconceived notion of issues relating to Quebec that they have assimilated from television. The CBC has attempted to involve the public in debates on current issues such as this, through the medium of "Town Hall" meetings, but these have been selective, stagey, manipulative and lacking in credibility.

I suppose we in Windsor should be grateful that the CRTC has decided to pay us a visit, particularly in view of the fact that a group of citizens had to fight tooth and nail to keep a CBC station in Windsor a few years ago. However, the local news coverage still leaves a great deal to be desired. CHWI does a far better job with local news. I have yet to receive an explanation as to why it is necessary to have The National on three times in one evening: at 9.00 p.m. on Newsworld, and at 10.00 and 11.00 p.m. on channel 9. This means that the local news is shunted to 11.30 p.m., when all normal Canadians are in bed, and the rest are up watching Dave Letterman or Jay Leno.

Many of us only get home from work at 6.00 p.m., thereby missing the local CBC television news, and having to put up with the so-called "regional news" which consists almost entirely of the latest murders and real estate scams in Toronto. The only comprehensive regional coverage is provided by the Global Network in its 11.00 p.m. Ontario Report. Is it any wonder that some of us tune in to channel 6, or better by far, The World at Six on the radio? I have to admit, though, that Jay Leno did include an Essex County reference in his monologue a couple of nights ago, when he made a crack about the hullabaloo surrounding a local restaurant. I heard about this on the CHWI 6 o' clock news.

The value of CBC television is normally justified on the grounds that it provides the only real Canadian content that we have, and that this Canadian content must be protected at all costs. I grew up in a country that didn't have TV until the late seventies, supposedly in order to protect the large disenfranchised majority of the population from foreign (i.e. American) influences, and giving them ideas above their station. What is the inherent difference between this type of state control, and the policy of cultural protectionism promoted by the CRTC? I would be interested to know what share of the total local market the CBC has, and what percentage watches American television, in order to demonstrate how effective this cultural protectionism is.

Concerning the question as to the role that the CBC should play in the presentation of Canadian programming, my response is: why should the CBC present the programmes at all? Why can't the CBC be turned into a production company, possibly by amalgamation with the National Film Board? It could then concentrate on producing outstanding documentaries, dramas and feature programmes, like The Boys of St. Vincent, Butterbox Babies, The Avro Arrow, The Dionnes, Anne of Green Gables, Witness, Marketplace, The Fifth Estate, Man Alive, etc., or entertainment specials featuring Canadian performers (more Shania Twaine and Stompin' Tom, and less Celine Dion) and then marketing them aggressively to television stations and networks in Canada, the U.S. and the rest of the world. If they are of high quality, and sufficiently interesting and entertaining, they will find their own market, however specialised that may be.

Surely two objectives will be achieved: to inform Canadians about themselves and their country, and to inform the rest of the world about Canada.

In its present form, the Corporation is an inadequate and unsatisfactory hybrid - neither a public nor a private broadcaster, but a bit of both. I think that the time has come for the CBC and for Canadians to decide which it is to be.

I do not under any circumstances want my remarks to be construed as favouring the privatisation of the CBC. I am also not advocating the marketplace as the prime determinant, but rather acknowledging the fact that that is the way things are in the television industry.

I don't have any answers - only questions and concerns – but, to sum up, I think the major issue that CBC Television has to decide for itself is whether to focus on popular programming, or on quality programming, and whether or not it should concentrate on producing and marketing these programmes, rather than competing with the commercial networks in the very expensive and risky undertaking of transmitting the programmes to a fickle and diverse audience.

954 Windermere, WINDSOR, Ont. N8Y 3E4.

Tel. 973-7335

e-mail: creitz@uwindsor.ca

Web page: http://www.uwindsor.ca:8000/leddy/creitz/INDEX.htm