Pierre Poilevere To End CBC If Elected

By Manning Centre c/o: Jake Wright - Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32870907

The leader of the Official Opposition has made it is mission to defund the CBC. For his base supporters, this has been an objective for decades. In actuality, he wants to defund English CBC while keeping Radio-Canada which would require a change to the Broadcast Act. And likely an explanation why Canadian taxpayers should support one over the other.

The defund the CBC platform is right on the Conservative website. But why not Radio-Canada in Quebec? The answer is votes in Quebec. The Conservatives need to find votes there or some way to win a majority. The big question is whether Quebecers will believe that Conservatives would actually stop defunding at English CBC and not continue to gut the whole corporation.

Outside of the Conservative party, it is unclear whether is support for ending CBC. In recent weeks, Poilevere has been trying get Twitter to classify CBC, among others, as government funded. He succeeded in doing so and says this is evidence of the network being a propaganda arm of the Trudeau government. This is an accusation he has made against all forms of media in Canada for twenty years. It is a dubious accusation because he has never able to show marching orders coming from the Liberal government to slant stories. His argument is that it is self evident which requires no proof. This may be adequate for the base but to win an election on this will require a little more substance.

People will want to know what actually happens if the CBC is actually closed. Does it include radio? Does it include northern Canada? Will assets be sold to the private sector? Will Hockey Night in Canada have less of a reach in the country where some places won't be able to get it without difficulty? Will government support also be dropped for other print, radio and TV. Will Canadian content guidelines and ownership rules be eliminated?

One question leads to another and even some who might be allies ideologically with the Conservatives might come to realize implications beyond a victory of seeing the CBC ended. The big companies that own the media, including the Sun and Postmedia, also receive money from the government. Ending the CBC doesn't necessarily help if it ends their supports too. And if their supports remain, the base of the Tory party might ask why. Quite simply, the Conservatives will have to explain why they pick winners and losers for support. Keep in mind the Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg Sun and all the private stations including CJOB receive some sort of government money, protection or support. Does everyone get cut off? And if they do and news rooms shut down around the country, does this serve the nation well?

As for cozying up to Elon Musk and Twitter, it seems seeking legitimacy in someone who receives government money for Tesla as well as SpaceX while devaluing his overpaid asset in Twitter, is shortsighted. I left Twitter some time ago. I'm not sure what the future is there and who knows if anything will survive AI. Even Elon Musk is afraid of AI because the veracity of real human beings on the site is near impossible. A blue check make might not keep AI from flooding a site like Twitter with inhuman conversations.

But back to CBC. it seems to generate the same hatred in the far right that Trudeau does. It is a deep and ferocious anger that is slightly deranged which is ironic because that is what they often accuse the left of in terms political leaders on the right. One wonders what happens if they truly get their wish and end CBC's existence if that will make them happy. Or will they be like the dog chasing bumpers finally catching one and then not knowing what to do with themselves after as in the case of conservatives defeating Roe v Wade in the U.S.

In the case of the U.S, some Republican are wondering now that they have achieved their goal on abortion, how do they win elections after if the feeling is that they are the wrong side of how Americans actually think? For Conservatives in Canada, if they achieve a majority and end the CBC, do they find that the decision produces another majority or makes them a one term government? Do they care? I suppose they should because as demonstrated by south of the border, elections have consequences. And if your record is one of competent governance, fighting culture battles seems a waste of time and energy.

The $1.2 billion in government funds and the $500 million of commercial revenues helps run a coast to coast to coast network. Eliminating English CBC means that Radio-Canada won't have source material to provide nation-wide information in Quebec. Presently, no other network does that. And in the north, will resources still be left if place there for non-English and French programming? Or do they only get information from the south...in non-native languages? 

If Conservatives become the government, actual legislation has to be introduced to indicate what the plan is. Will the network be sold? Will assets be sold? Will the government allow international players to come in buy CBC, other Canadian networks? Will they eliminate Canadian content regulations? Will they eliminate Canadian ownership rules? It is can of worms where the outcome is unknown. Will it end up with U.S. owned media that eliminates all news in Canada and even hockey coverage because there is no mandate to produce content made in Canada?

While it might appear to be controversial bringing attention to this policy of Pierre Poilevere, it is something that he brings up in every speech. Not Ukraine, but this. He wants his policy to be known and in the absence of a defined way a Conservative government achieves this, we can envision almost anything. It is no wonder that Conservative MPS in Quebec don't want to say anything on this. They are literally hiding under their desks as Radio-Canada remains popular in Quebec. Even if this branch of CBC is preserved, questions about what changes to the Broadcast act and budget will invariably have to be discussed. 

It is possible the Conservatives believe they lost the last elections, including the one when Harper was prime minister, because of the CBC and the media. His supporters seems to think so and it isn't likely anyone can convince them otherwise. It is not much different than Republicans believing the election results were altered and instigating an insurrection. This belief that media is for the left flies in the face of print media across Canada endorsing Conservatives pretty much across the board. As for TV, they don't do editorial endorsement and every news show have Conservatives on their panels to explain policy.

Sadly, many government and opposition parties are frequently avoiding media and are more reluctant to share any information or take questions. Case in point is Joe Biden has down fewer news conferences than Ronald Reagan. This is deliberate on his part. Canada's House of Commons makes it more difficult to hide from questions. However, Question Period is a poor format for information and is more about talking points. It is why journalism can be so effective. It is this journalism that Poilevere depended on this week to reveal Prime Minister Trudeau's visit to Jamaica to a billionaire's house.

Poilevere reaching out to Twitter feels childish and angry. Elon Musk is pushing all the buttons there while the adults in business are heading for the doors. There has to be some serious concern with Conservatives being a freaking train wreck firing Bank of Canada Governor, ending the CBC and ending all the carbon taxes in the first 100 days and watching some serious responses. Not all of it will come from Canada. Much of it will come from world markets. 

It isn't entirely clear that Poilevere can pivot from Opposition to Government. His permanent campaign of anger and accusation that nothing is working means his approach might be a bull in china shop. It also doesn't bode well for letting his cabinet operate independently. It could very well be him in the Prime Minister's Office not telling anyone what he is doing akin to Brian Pallister. Except, you can expect it to be more of a disaster than a premier ditching WWII ceremonies to go on a tour of Europe and visit businesses without their staff.

If the Conservatives expect to win the next election, they need to look less unhinged. They really don't appear to be able to show they are competent enough to take over for a government that walks into rakes all too regularly. It doesn't look great that they walk into rakes just as much.

CJOB Returns Downtown

On Monday, July 27, CJOB returned to downtown for the first time since 1962. They will be go to 201 Portage Avenue on the 30th floor where they will join their colleagues at CKND Global Winnipeg. It will bring together a significant number of broadcasters in one building on the same floor. In the picture above, 201 Portage is the slender of the three Portage and Main towers. With a touch of green.

The station operated in downtown Winnipeg Lindsay building where they baroadcast at 1340 on the dial from 1946 to 1957. They de-camped to 930 Portage Avenue in 1962 into the basement of what once was a Sun Life insurance office built in 1956. The 10th floor of the Lindsay was pricey and also too small for the growing station.

By 1957 the station was operating at 680 on the dial and Winnipeg was booming. Polo Park was built in 1959 and the second span of the St. James Bridge was complete in 1962. The feeling must have been that all of Portage Avenue was becoming a High Street for the city. The location at 930 Portage in a building still very new must have seemed like a no-brainer even if Postal Station D got the main floor and the windows.

The station grew from its crowded basement surroundings and moved upstairs when Postal Station D moved. From 1948, CJOB always had its sister station with it. It was western Canada's first private FM station. It initially just simulcast the AM signal but eventually came to have its own identity and programming. In 1960 it changed from 103.1 to 97.5 on the dial and took on the Town and Country format. In 1965, the sister station became Canada's first true country station. However, by the late 1970s the format became rock and has been soft to hard to classic as the times dictated.

Peggy FM joined the group of two as a jazz refugee from Canwest in 2007. It went through various incarnations from smooth jazz to Christmas music but currently is a soft rock station. If there is one true-ism it is that radio is a dog eat dog world. Big money can be made and lost. And private radio has felt the influence of satellite, Internet and loss of certain types of advertising as much as any in the entertainment business.

In 2011, all three Corus stations moved to the site of the former CKY TV and radio building. The move was instigated by the need for space and to bring the whole operation into the digital world. At 17,000 square feet and a full floor it was larger than their old site at 930 Portage Avenue

Why the move to 201 Portage? It is likely the space open that can been shared with sister TV broadcaster CKND Global Winnipeg. As part of the Corus Network, the 30th floor of the former TD/Canwest building might bring about a new synergy between radio and TV. Once part of the Asper group of companies, the top floors had Canwest executive offices, newspaper offices and CKND Global Winnipeg.

In 2020, can there by synergy between TV and radio companies? They are different animals and attempts have been made with varying degrees of success. A clever company might be able to utilize the talent they have for commercial success. A dumb company might attempt to gouge and forget that the whole thing falls apart if you don't work on content.

In the end it is very interesting that not since near the end of World War II, media is beginning a slow but steady return to downtown Winnipeg.

Jerry Lewis Telethon and the Start of CKND 1975

The star in the middle is supposed to represent Winnipeg for the Jerry Lewis Telethon.

It was 44 years ago this week (August 31, 1975 to be exact) that CKND went on the air. A half hour program called Introducing CKND aired at 9 PM and then at 9:30 PM the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon came on the air. At 10 years old I had never really seen a Jerry Lewis film before. We had only gotten cable four years earlier after starting the decade in 1970 with a black and white TV and only two English channels CBWT and CKY.

We got cable in fall of 1971 which brought KTHI, WDAZ and KXJB from Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota. Suddenly a flood of new television programming was flooding in from five English networks and one French network. In 1975 they were joined by two more channels Prairie Public Television and CKND.

CKND was anagram for KCND which broadcast into Winnipeg from Pembina, North Dakota from 1959 to 1975. Izzy Asper and partners bought all the equipment from the station, set up in an old supermarket on St. Mary's, hired 17 of the former owner's staff and on Labour Day weekend went on the air. The 21 1/2 hour MDA Telethon would dominate the airwaves that weekend. There was a lot of excitement and the live performances by so many stars would captivate people the city in a major way.

Our family was home that weekend after camping for a month to Florida. Like most people in the city, we tuned into the new channel. I went to bed after midnight and was up at the crack of dawn fascinated that the same program was soldiering on. And on. The cutaways to local call ins for Winnipeg would not start till a year later so the program pretty much was non-stop Jerry Lewis.

The telethon would be the first time I ever saw Frank Sinatra perform live. I was actually more familiar with Nancy Sinatra (picture below) as her song These Boots Were Made For Walking was played on Winnipeg radio stations and on the Cliffords department store ads. Watching Sinatra perform though with his orchestra was a command performance.

The year 1975, as mentioned, was also the year Prairie Public Television came to Winnipeg. Its starts was less glitzy but together with CKND brought older movies to the screen that the rest of the networks did not. History films like Where Eagles Dare with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton would air on PBS. CKND, on the other hand, would broadcast The Bowery Boys and all the Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin movies.

By the time 1976 came along, many young people were up to speed up on Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin and a host of others. The 1st anniversary of CKND would bring another WDA Jerry Lewis Telethon and at the behest of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin would go on the Labour Day show. It would be the first time since 1956 that Lewis and Martin would re-unite.

The 1976 telethon would be the most watched of all the Jerry Lewis broadcasts ever and include the most stations. Families in Winnipeg watched together because many kids by this point were as familiar with the stars as their parents were. CKND featured cutaways to their call center and local celebrities were on and MDA took in the most donations in their new history at the time.

Despite seeing so many Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin movies in the first year of CKND's broadcast, I had felt that Dean Martin was the bigger celebrity and movie star. Although, I was really too young to see it, I was aware of the Dean Martin Show on NBC. To be honest, as a kid I was more happy with the Saturday morning cartoons of the U.S. major networks and Space: 1999 on CBC. As as family we were more likely to watch the Sonny and Cher or Carol Burnett shows.

However, on NBC in 1973, the movie Airport was shown on TV and had the highest ratings ever since Love Story broadcast by ABC the previous year. Our whole family watched Airport which had been released theatrically in 1970. I was probably too young to see it as I was scared about flying after. In my mind though, Dean Martin was a star.

It is no surprise then that when Dean Martin appeared with Jerry Lewis and Frank Sinatra on stage at the 1976 MDA Telethon that it was a huge moment in TV history. It was also a fairly amazing 1st anniversary for CKND as well.

The 1970s was really when cable exploded in Winnipeg. TV might have been around since the mid 1950s but for many families like ours, it was no longer just two channels and black and white.

City TV's Breakfast Television Blown Up

Breakfast TV on City TV Winnipeg was the first to really do local content on early morning TV in Winnipeg. They had the market to themselves. CBC, CTV and Global were all latecomers to the game.

The first version of the show was called The Big Breakfast and started on the old A Channel way back in 1997 and featured Jimmy Mac and Jon Ljungberg. The Craig family-owned stations mimicked Toronto's CityTV program The Big Breakfast started back in 1989.

CityTV used to be a very cutting edge television enterprise and Winnipeg's A-Channel used quite a lot of their programming to fill their Canadian content regulations. However, for their local broadcasts, they had The Big Breakfast which did very well and seemed to not attract any notice from the big players in the market.

For years CKY was content to play Canada AM from Toronto in the Winnipeg market. The ratings were probably sufficient to justify it. CBC also used Newsworld programming in the early hours.

In 2004, the Craig family sold their interests in A-Chanel to CityTV and The Big Breakfast was replaced with Breakfast Television in 2005. Not much really changed as the format was pretty much identical. Aside from hosting changes, BT had the local market to themselves.

However, in 2011 and 2012 CTV and Global Television  entered the local breakfast television market and it appears the first one to blink was CityTV's Breakfast Television.

This week 14 or the 25 staff were given the axe and 11 were assigned to a new radio and TV format hosted by 92 CITI FM star Wheeler and his co-hosts Phil Aubrey and Rena Jae. Two CITYTV hosts Drew Kozub and Jenna Khan have survived the cut and will join the new 6 to 9 program.

It is hard to know how this program will look and feel. It will be shot in the studios of CITYTV at The Forks. The understanding is that when music is played for the radio show, the cut away will be to the CITYTV hosts. If this sounds confusing them you're not alone.

CBC Manitoba will also be doing a radio and TV hybrid where their morning radio hosts will be seen on TV. This is more akin to what we saw with Q, the big CBC radio product formerly hosted by Jian Ghomeshi. The show was routinely broadcast for television as well as radio.

The big difference for CBC's entry into the market is that it really is just a radio show being televised.

It is very difficult to know what this new radio and television concept will look like for CITYTV. However, it is obvious that it has fewer staff, it won't be doing any location work and probably will conduct less community content.

My big question is for 92 CITI is: what do you get out of this? The Wheeler show is one of the top rated radio programs in Winnipeg. Will this help or hinder your status as being on top.

My big question for CITYTV is: Are your costs that much higher that you have to dump so many staff from one of your marquee local programs? Is Rogers looking to get every dollar they can from committing to $5 billion for NHL hockey?

I guess we will also see next week how this plays out.

Bird's Hill Park is NOT Siberia

It is kind of under the radar as far as summer series go but NBC is broadcasting a faux reality series called Siberia on Mondays opposite Stephen King's series Under the Dome on CBS and Global. It was probably a gamble placing anything against an adaptation of a famous horror writer's book but given the tendency of King works in TV and film to fail, a good bet.

In the end, Under the Dome is a success out the gate. Not so much Siberia.

It is likely few Winnipeggers are watching it if they are watching anything at all. The fact that it premiered on Canada Day doesn't help either.

The premise of Siberia is that 16 contestants are flown by helicopter to a very remote area of the Russian wilderness in late summer and are expected to survive with no set rules till winter's end. The area picked is Tugunska where a strange event occurred in 1908.

The producers recreate some cabins on a spot where the population of a village disappeared a long time ago. With only the clothes on their back and what is provided in the cabins, a race begins to where the contestants will live. The last two to arrive are eliminated.

It is from here that the standard Survivor eco-challenge thing goes off the rails. A contestant is killed and the producers go on with the show.

As mentioned, this is a faux reality series. What we are watching is a scripted drama set around a reality show.

Moreover, it isn't filmed in Siberia. It is filmed in Bird's Hill Park.

Not surprisingly, the Russians are very unhappy with the series. Some seem to think it is our fault but the truth is that the series is a Hollywood conjured up series filming in Canada because of the costs. The producer of the show is long familiar with Manitoba and filmed Capote in Winnipeg. The actors seems to be from all over and many have quite a few TV and film credits.

The second episode just aired and there are 11 more to go if the series doesn't get cancelled first or the Russians attack.

The series look to move to supernatural and Lord of the Flies in the next while.

If contestants hear music in the background, it is a good possibility that it is the Winnipeg Folk Fest they are hearing.

Where Do You Get Your News? Part 1

Where do you get your news?

It isn't an idle question. And it just doesn't refer to news, sports and weather. Nor does it mean just newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. For many people news is information. However, not all information is news.

The dictionary says that news is selected information based on current events. The earliest news was most likely disseminated orally by those who travelled between communities. Perhaps the first written news was actually government edicts from the Pharaohs in ancient Egyptian times around 2400 B.C. These communique were delivered via a courier system throughout the land.

By the time of the Romans, Julius Caesar, 44 BC to 100 BC, the Acta Diurna was the daily system or gazette for delivering news from the government.

Various nations around the world used the written gazettes to inform the public about what was happening. However, the first newspaper didn't appear till 1605 in Strasbourg. It was called Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien.

The literal translation for this German language paper is:

Account of all distinguishable and commemorable news.

And so it has gone with news. It is the dissemination of information by governments, organizations and individuals.

The New York Times says it publishes "all the news that's fit to print." That is a lot. And if you work for FOX News, you find what the Times say laughable because they say that only they publish is "fair and balanced."

In Winnipeg, how does one receive news? I would hazard a guess that being the city we are, we look for news that is free first and foremost. That would be television. I always like to point out that TV is hardly free. It requires a device to receive it and to get the best quality signal, you generally have to pay a distributor like a cable company a significant chuck of change. But whatever, people often believe TV is free when for the buck, the newspaper delivers more for less.

So what do we have for news shows on Winnipeg TV? Well, for all intents, we have four news slots in a day. Morning, noon and evening and late night. Not all networks avail themselves of all those times though. City TV, for example, only has a morning program from 5:30 AM to 9 AM. It is cut from the same cloth as Good Morning America in that it is very light on news and is more about information and entertainment. The news segments are basic reports culled from news service or other reporting sources. However, for the longest time it was pretty much the only act going when it came to local morning TV? The Big Breakfast is less about standard news and more community activities.

In 2011, CTV decided that City TV had the mornings too much to themselves and started running CTV Morning Live from 6 AM to 9 AM. They brought in experienced new staff from their local evening news and used them to do more reports as well as follow City TV's format of light entertainment and community programming.

The last entrant in the breakfast programming crowd in 2012 is Global TV's Morning News. It runs 6 AM to 9 AM. It has some experienced news staff on air with one notable addition brought in. They have a traffic helicopter for their reports. This is as tactic used by U.S. local programming to some success.

CBC Morning News runs on the main channel from 6 AM to 7 AM. It is a national news program very light on local content.

Suffice to say that, CBC, CTV and Sun News all have national news programming on their all news channels all day long, Throw in CNN and several U.S. and international news networks. The main U.S. networks run both local and national news and entertainment programs all morning.

However, for our purposes, we will only talk about the local ones here.

For many years, it has only been the City TV offering local news and entertainment in the morning. It is now three stations who actively compete for content to fill three or more hours every day now that Global and CTV have joined the fray.

So what is news can be derived from watching these morning programs? The most likely thing is traffic and weather and maybe quick re-caps of news and sports. Nothing is in depth on such programming but it is enough quick info that maybe useful for someone's day to start. Often times, the morning local programming amounts to a community bulletin board.

If someone wants more depth that than early morning TV, is radio the answer?

Continued in part 2

Crappy Coverage on Winnipeg Election...Update

I missed Brad Oswald's column on Saturday, the same day as I gave my thoughts on media coverage.

He also took CBC up on their not showing up on election night. If everyone has gone home for the night and you are interviewing the losing candidate, you are there too late.

Toronto had full TV coverage on both CBC, CTV and everything in between.

The TV news stations better have better provincial election coverage or they should turn in their licences.

Kudos to The Great Canadian Talk Show for taking the TV news to task on this.

Winnipeg TV Stations Part 1

From a Winnipeg perspective, one TV station has been a virtual non-entity in terms of local content. That station is OMNI 11 which as of September 1 will be JOYTV.

It was licenced to Trinity Television in 2002 as a religious broadcaster. Just as it was about to go on the air, Rogers bought the station and folded it into its Omni group of stations. While Onni Toronto was a cultural station that delivered news made in Toronto in a variety of the languages of the city, Winnipeg's Omni was religious broadcasting that was mostly produced elsewhere. Both stations padded the rest of their hours with American syndicated programs and an outrageous amount of paid programming.

In 2007, Rogers Communications bought Citytv which included its Winnipeg affiliate, the former MTN. CTVglobemedia had acquired the station in 2006, thereby giving them two stations in Winnipeg. At the time of the takeover, the station was called A Channel.

The Craig family, owners of A Channel had run into trouble in 2003-2004 with labour issues at their Edmonton A-Channel affiliate. Combined with the ongoing trouble keeping its Toronto 1 station afloat, the family looked for an exit. Toronto 1, awarded by the CRTC in 2001 had first looked to be a perfect fit for the growing network of station owned by the Craigs. Instead, it was money loser that dragged the company down.

It was CHUM that came knocking in 2004 with a $265 million buy-out. The Craigs gave up their attempt at another national network and handed the baton to CTV.

The first thing that happened upon the takeover was the axing of the local Citytv news. It seems astounding that it was allowed to happen by the CRTC.

The CRTC had bigger fish to fry. They effectively told CTV they couldn't own Citytv and CTV stations in the same city and forced them to sell off the division. CTV kept the other parts of the CHUM empire and Rogers Communications stepped in to buy the Citytv network.

And all this lead back to Winnipeg's Onni, Channel 11 station. Rogers Communications ended up running into the same problem CTV did: owning two stations in the same market.

The CRTC once again weighed in and forced Rogers to sell one of the two stations they owned in Winnipeg. That station was Omni.

(to be continued)



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