Popularity Poll

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED -- and a link has been changed.

Turns out that the ratings for CBC-TV's two-part biopic Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story attracted a bigger audience than the suits expected. Sunday night, against the much-hyped return of The Sopranos and an original episode of Desperate Housewives, it managed to hook 950,000 viewers, with 750,000 coming back for part two on Monday.

This unexpected success -- all things considered, it is a success -- might be making CBC management, who recently issued a programming manifesto about popularity, think twice.

The Ceeb commissioned some research and has concluded that it does not want documentaries that are preachy, boring and highbrow. It does not want comedies that are unfunny. What it does want are dramas that are entertaining, enjoyable and well written. One can only hope that the network's previous brain trust did not think differently.

Stursberg went on to say that all CBC dramas should draw one million viewers, and documentaries 800,000. He looks at CTV and sees that Corner Gas gets seven-digit audiences, and so why shouldn't CBC shows do likewise?

Well, not to knock CTV but it's not a public broadcaster. CBC should be looking at those stories that the commercial networks don't want to tell but need telling anyway. Nobody says CBC needs to dig up Canada's roots and drape them all over the branches but aren't there more difficult and challenging and less lowest-common-denominator dramas to be done?

Just a thought.

Here's another: I am picking up rumours that CBC will be reformatting Star Academie, the huge reality show hit on Quebec's private TVA network. Can you say Canadian Idol with an accent?

UPPITY DATE: You know, it occurs to me that, what with two-thirds of the country voting against the Conservatives, and Prairie Giant being about a socialist, that (average 850,000) audience should come as little surprise. Despite what right-wingers say, perhaps CBC would best serve the most Canadians by tilting more to the left.

Just another thought.

Comments

[RRS]

We have our own weapon of mass deception...THE CBC.
I wonder why they decided not to inform Canadians about some interesting truths about Tommy Douglas.I'm sure many do not know that up until his mid 30's, Tommy was a passionate leader in EUGENICS ! Interesting, but not surprising.

[Bill-Muskoka]

Tonight the FINAL episode of 'This Is Wonderland' airs on the CBC!

Last night I tuned in 'At The Hotel' and changed the channel after 3 minutes. If I wanted a boring soap and could sit with my wife and watch her's! LOL

The 'TIW' site lists a new movie by the 'TIW' producers called 'Niagra Motel'. It looks like a good DVD to look for in a few months. It will premiere in Toronto theaters March 24th.

http://www.thisiswonderland.com/

I am glad the 'Tommy Douglas Story' faired well, but wonder if the CBC management can grasp why?

Maybe they should consider the long term succes of PBS programs like 'Nova', the eternally timely works like 'The Day The Universe Changed', or my favorite 'Connections'!

Did they draw a huge audience? No! Why, because only people interested in improving their minds with knowledge watch such programs. Will they be herald as classics? Yes.

[Bill Lee]

The Francophone press is saying that
English CBC has bought "Rumeurs" (live behind the
scenes of a gossip magazine) from SRC by way of the NFB.
See:
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20060315/CPARTS/603150909/1017/CPARTS
It is to start 20 episodes in three weeks.

It is a translation and not a dubbing.

Will it take?

La Presse speculates about the lack of CBC interest in
the popular sketch series "Un gars, une fille,"
which, if the stars had time, could be done
and written by the originals.

Shades of the early Plouffe Family days!

Further to RRS's comment about Douglas supporting eugenics, see the discussion at Wikipedia, which quotes actual sources (Walter Stewart's biography and Douglas's own MA thesis).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tommy_Douglas#Notes

It goes on to note that, when given the opportunity, Douglas did not attempt to implement any of the proposals in his thesis. In other words, while the miniseries---which was *not* produced by the CBC, but independently by Minds Eye Entertainment---omitted a minor fact, it had no bearing on Douglas's status as a historical figure and social reformer.

At no time was Douglas a "leader" in eugenics, passionate or otherwise.

[Elvid]

Considering that the NDP took 2.5 million votes in the election, if 750,000 viewers, much of an audience for a "national hero".
Graham Fraser's take on Douglas as opposed to the movie version was pretty entertaining in the Star last week was quite entertaining. Did the CBC whitewash Douglas' personna for televison consumption.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1142031018264&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630

....How do you make a TV series in 2006 about a pioneer of Canadian socialism, a man who was at the 1933 convention that issued the Regina Manifesto, the blueprint for Canadian social democracy, and the first socialist premier in Canada?
To begin with, you don't let him utter the word socialism — and you make the series about health care.....Douglas was a social democrat and a moderate, but he called himself a socialist, and he was a critic of capitalism.

...Although his moral rectitude is made clear in his criticism of a colleague who gets a divorce and leaves politics, Douglas is presented as a man of unfailing modesty. Stewart saw a more complex figure who was distant and hard to know....."He always lived modestly and never put on airs, but he had, inevitably, developed a certain self-assurance of the kind that caused one of those who worked closely with him to comment `If you want me to be absolutely frank, he was an arrogant little son-of-a-bitch,'" he wrote.
.

[Antonia]

Elvid, everybody knows NDPers don't watch TV because TV is a tool of the corporatist enslavers of the people.

[Johan i Kanada]

Why should my tax dollars fund an NDP progaganda movie?

Would you be happy if your tax dollars funded a Reform propaganda movie?

[Dwight Williams]

Johan: Why? Because when they act sanely, they should be rewarded for it. The same logic applies for anyone of any political stripe.

Also, I'm pleasantly surprised to see the merchandising arm of CBC acting as swiftly as Antonia's shown via the CBCShop link. Nice to see they've got their eye on the "long tail" theory of spinoff sales.