Size matters

This post was updated/edited for clarity.

Today's treeware column on the current obsession with quantitative models for picking programs at CBC-TV:

Developing and commissioning series is an art, not a science. There is no regression analysis that will spit out statistics to back a go-with-the-gut decision on hits such as Lost, The Wire or Desperate Housewives.

So why is CBC-TV management now touting "the PARC system, the Program Planner, the Public Value panels, the FIATS survey, and the new Audience Segmentation approach'' — tools that look to past performance and not to the future? Is this what passes for programming vision nowadays?

All these acronyms came up two weeks ago when CBC-TV executive vice-president Richard Stursberg, whose background is mostly as a planning and policy wonk, promoted Christine Wilson from senior director of strategy and planning to deputy program director. That makes the number-crunching Wilson, who briefly produced a radio show and served as deputy head of radio variety, one of the most powerful programmers in Canada.

This is a woman who, in 2003, told the trade magazine Playback: "If a show scored 7.6 out of 10 and that ended up bringing in an audience of x-hundred thousand, I can build models on that that I couldn't with qualitative research."

Which is great if you want the trains to run on time backwards but not very useful if you're trying to engage viewers forwards.

As I have remarked before, one of the beauties of blogging is that there are no space constraints. So I'd like to fill in some of the missing info that got cut here. Here's what I wrote:

Now it seems that all eyes — but not eyeballs — are on CBC-TV, as more news of its low ratings seeps out. Two weeks ago came word that the prime drama series Da Vinci's City Hall, This is Wonderland and The Tournament had all been cancelled because their numbers couldn't scrape near the 400,000 mark.

That prompted a joint news release last Friday from the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting lobby group and ACTRA darkly titled "CBC Drops the Drama Ball" and sub-headed "Management must be held accountable."

There's reason for ACTRA to be upset, since many of its members are going back to their day jobs. And Friends is always punching for more Cancon, especially if it can beat on CBC's current management, which frankly deserves a walloping. But when ACTRA and Friends toss numbers around, they should be sure they're correct.

"The latest data show that between September 2003 and August 2005, CTV presented 219 prime time (7 to 11 p.m.) hours of Canadian dramatic series, compared to only 122 hours during the same period by CBC," they claim.

CBC counters that, according to the CRTC definition of drama, it had 620 hours of Canadian drama, versus 390 for CTV (for that period).

I no longer have my collection of Star Week classics with which to verify either claim.

Here's the thing that was left out of the column: According to Barry Kiefl -- who used to be chief numbers guy at CBC, worked at the CRTC, and now heads Canadian Media Research Inc -- this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. As he wrote to me this morning, citing CRTC categories of programming:

I produced the numbers for Friends/ACTRA and they are correct. 

They refer specifically to drama series, that is, on-going drama as defined by the CRTC (category 7a). 

When CBC refers to 620 hours of 'drama', they are including not only on-going drama series but also on-going comedy series (7b), MOWs and drama specials (7c),  theatrical films (7d), animation (7e), comedy sketches/stand up comedy (7f) and other drama (7g). 

This means that shows like 22 Minutes, Air Farce, Rick Mercer, Winnipeg Comedy Festival, Red Green, Just For Laughs, Halifax Comedy Festival and Wayne & Shuster are counted as drama by CBC.   

These are important shows but to put them in the same category as scripted drama series? 

The CRTC calls this 7a to 7f category Drama and Comedy, not Drama, which CBC may have neglected to mention.  Programs in category 7a account for approx. 25% of all prime time viewing, more than all the programs in 7b to 7f combined, which tells you how important a genre it is.

The important point is not the comparison with CTV, which is interesting, but rather that CBC seems to have abandoned the most challenging and important program genre and airs more foreign 7a than Canadian (and more than twice as many foreign movies as Canadian).

Which leads me to conclude that CBC was being dishonest disingenuous yesterday when it refuted the Friends/ACTRA release. The truth is, CBC-TV has dropped the ball on drama series.

Meanwhile, the industry news site CARTT has a good report (sub. req'd.) on Stursberg's appearance last week at the annual CFTPA (Canadian Film & Television Production Association) confab in Ottawa.

Some independent producers, said they’d expected him to announce new drama programming. What they got instead was a snapshot of the Corp.’s new vision for its entertainment programming and a long list of do’s and don’ts for producer pitches.

“People say we’re not clear enough about what we’re looking for,” Stursberg continued. “They find our process complicated, expensive and difficult. We want to remedy this because (producers) are the most important partner CBC has.”

The plan is to make CBC the most important and popular video platform for Canadian news, current affairs, entertainment, documentary and kids programming in what he describes as “the most competitive TV market in the world.”

<SNIP>

To better carve its niche, he says, CBC will boost primetime drama and entertainment programming by 100 hours a year by 2008-09. “These extra 100 hours have to be financed outside the CTF because we’re tapped out” at the fund.

However the new shows are financed, CBC wants to see ratings in the one million range.

Hmmm. No more money forthcoming from the CTF (Canadian Television Fund) and yet drama and entertainment programming will be increased by 100 hours?

WTF????

These inflantasies -- yes I made it up -- come from the same brilliant minds who cooked up all those acronyms with which to develop programs.

PARC indeed. I'm told that the worker bees in the research department have been known to refer to it as CRAP, for costs, revenues, audiences and programming goals.

That sound you hear is CBC-TV swirling down the drain.

Comments

[Denis McGrath]

Thanks, Antonia.

That's the most ridiculous and depressing thing I've ever read about Canadian Television. This week.

Thank God I don't make any of my living off the CBC.

[Denis McGrath]

Thanks, Antonia.

That's the most ridiculous and depressing thing I've ever read about Canadian Television. This week.

Thank God I don't make any of my living off the CBC.

[Bill-Muskoka]

Sounds to me like Judge Gomery's next opus will be looking into CBC's lucritive funding of senseless scince at taxpayers expense.

Maybe its some of the folks who bombed out on the global warming model research?

[Jay Currie]

As a matter of principle I'd like to see CBC-TV sold to the highest bidder.

That said, if we are going to be forced to pay for it then it may as well produce programming which is interesting rather than popular. Let's face it, we are not going to be very successful competing against the mass taste created by American television. And, as there are a gazillion Canadian and American mass entertainment channels available, it is not as if American mass entertainment is going away. (For which the Aspers remain eternally grateful.)

So rather than crunching numbers and producing quasi-popular television shows which can't compete, wouldn't it make sense for CBC television to simply give up any pretence of looking for popularity? Make television that is watched by a relative handful of viewers who love it.

Sure it is a goofy business model; but strip out HNIC and the whole of CBC-TV is a goofy business model.

There is a wonderful episode of Yes, Minister in which Sir Humphrey is caught out denying funding for a new soccer stadium while signing off on grants to opera. Of course Sir Humphrey and his ilk have never watched soccer in their lives but have season's tickets to the opera.

For the remainder of its life in broadcasting - about three years by my calculation - CBC TV should get on with producing deeply unpopular, challenging, interesting and committed programing.

As Canadian philospher Neil Young puts it, "Better to burn out than to fade away."

Hi Antonia,

As a freelance writer for many years, I can centre on the one thing that cripples our media in all forms: the all-prevailing "Canadian Angle." Interviews I conducted with Roman Polanski, Michael Caine, Julie Andrews, John Barry (major film composer of Bond flicks) and others sold to markets in Europe and Asia with no problem. Magazines in Los Angeles took them without hesitation. But Canada? No. Every time I pitched a story, I was met with: "What's the Canadian angle?"

Why are we so Goddamned preoccupied with what is Canadian over what is interesting to readers and viewers? The worst culprit of all is Maclean's, which is reluctant to print stories on anything unless it features a bloody Canadian actor, singer or model (are there any Canadian models?) This is ROMAN POLANSKI, people! He's one of the most fascinating and controversial people you'll ever meet, and it's not like he just sits down for a chat with anyone.

As much as I love Canada, I am so sick and tired of hearing "What's the Canadian angle?" How's this for a solution: just for one year -- one single year -- all media in Canada are forbidden to ask that question of staff and freelancers? I seriously doubt The Star, Maclean's, The Globe, CBC, or any other station or publication will come to a craching thud.

The scary thing is, I've read articles form the Thirties talking about this same subject.

[PhantomObserver]

I know the "Yes Minister" episode in question. What Sir Humphrey opposed was using Arts grants to support what would be popular instead of what would be "educating," and suggested (as an example) that if cultural policy were conducted with popular measurement, the People would prefer using government money to renovate Wembley Stadium instead of subsidizing opera performances.

There are certain things that CBC English Television can do exceptionally well. News and documentary programming. Sports coverage (especially HNIC and the CFL). Live performance specials. Scripted comedy, which is actually harder to do than scripted drama because it depends on a specific reaction from the audience. And limited-series scripted drama; that is, drama series with a definite ending.

It is in the area of continuing series drama that CBC's artistic taste falls down. Too often it comes across as imitative of American programming.

I think the CBC should confine its dramatic programming to the limited series format --say, 13 hours or less per series. That should allow for greater variety in filling the dramatic programming hours and a less expensive commitment in the long run.

[Philip Sullivan]

I like the CBC, and I'll tell you why: because I know that, regardless of how many CSIs they come up with, no matter how much prime time television is dominated by foreign shows with foreign actors and foreign locales, the CBC will always ensure that there is a place for Canadiana (from whatever Drama "letter") on the boob tube.

I have no problems putting money towards the CBC.

That said, I think Jay Currie is right: the CBC should toss ratings out the window - if the existence of your channel is ensured, why not go for the gusto?

If I'm not mistaken, some of the CBC's most successful, popular, interesting drama has come in the form of mini-series ("Trudeau", "Anne of Green Gables" etc.). So why not turn our backs on the American ideal of 100 shows for syndication and instead adopt more of the British model - create shows that are only MEANT to last 13-22 episodes - one season - win, lose or draw? Imagine that: you could bump off all the characters you wanted knowing that, well, they would have ceased to exist come the end of the season anyways. Now THAT would make for compelling television.

Of course we should not be throwing money at the CBC, but so long as the powers-that-be have their eyes fixated on the bottom line, that's exactly where the CBC will spend its existence: at the bottom.

[Denis McGrath]

This "interesting and not popular" stuff is as much twaddle as what the CBC is doing with metrics and quantifying the unquantifiable.

What you describe is an easily-killed PBS north model -- I know that the privates would dearly love this, but it's out of step with what a public broadcaster is supposed to be.

BBC is a bureaucratic nightmare, and the UK has roughly twice the population as Canada -- yet BBC does manage to commission dramas and comedies that do well. What do they do right? What does the CBC do wrong?

You can't put a formula on it and expect it to work. Emily's Reasons Why Not was an extremely high testing show in the US and it lasted one episode.

what you need is vision, and people in charge, making the calls who respect talent and allow them to craft shows that are appealing, and then get out of the way of them. The execs top job is to choose the talent. Then get out of the way of the talent - and let them make the @#%@ show. Then promote the show. If the show doesn't work, go on to something else.

What the calls for "why do drama series" and lets do 12 or 6 like the Brits miss is the fact that your promo costs to launch, and promote a new series or a one off doesn't go down. If you do it right and actually build word of mouth drama series can provide a lynchpin to your schedule because you're not constantly reinventing the wheel.

The problem is that the people who have been making the calls at CBC are, and continue to be, woefully out of touch.

If you don't understand that the Ron Maclean / Don Cherry combo is your biggest star draw (which CBC brass proved with the bumble of almost losing Maclean a few years ago) then you don't understand Canada.

They talk a lot about "the regions" and lord knows they love to put on those Newfoundland shows...but all these people camped in Fort Dork don't understand the country. They need to be kicked out on their asses and get people in there who do have a clue.

The Canadian defeatist "the CBC shouldn't try to be popular" types are wrong. The problem is that the CBC HASN'T TRIED TO BE POPULAR.

Saying you're doing a thing and doing it are two very, very different things.