Crossed out promotion

Here's just one reason media concentration is bad news: TV critics who work for papers affilitiated with networks don't write the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Consider today's column by the Globe and Mail's Andrew Ryan, who is backfilling for John Doyle.

Headed "ABC Suffers Nightmare after Nightmare," it's an account of the dismal summer season suffered by the Mickey Mouse network which has launched, if my count is correct, five reality shows this summer, including the ill-fated The One: Making of a Music Star.

Ryan not only once again catalogs the grisly details of The One, which was simulcast by CBC-TV, but he also dumps all over ABC's equally ill-fated One Ocean View, Buy It Now, Master of Champions, and How to Get the Guy.

This summer has been one long bad dream for ABC. The Disney-owned network was riding high in recent years, but ABC has been knocked down a peg this off-season with a string of tasteless TV mistakes. Each week, it just keeps getting worse for ABC -- and the summer isn't over.

Tonight, for example, should have yielded the third episode of ABC's One Ocean View, a summer reality series about New Yorkers who spend each weekend sleeping with each other in a Fire Island beach house. How could it miss? ABC canned the show last week, citing wretchedly low ratings. Starting tonight, ABC replaces One Ocean View with rebroadcasts of Supernanny.

At first it appeared ABC's summer campaign had simply gotten off to a bumpy start. The network tried something a little different with the reality-dating series How to Get the Guy, in which two relationship experts coached a gaggle of single women trying to find their Mr. Rights -- in San Francisco, where they say it's raining men. It lasted two weeks.

Now here's the thing: Nowhere does Ryan mention CTV which is owned by Bell Globemedia which also owns the Globe. And yet, CTV bought One Ocean View and How to Get the Guy -- something else Ryan neglected to mention.

Don't forget, the Globe went ape over CBC's simulcast of The One, making it front-page news.

So ask yourself this: If they're willing to obfuscate the little things, how will they handle the big ones?

Comments

[Ouimet]

To be honest as soon as I see the name "Andrew Ryan" I turn the page. He's not even trying anymore.

Doyle is supposed to be back near the end of the month. I wonder if they'll get to him, too?

[Too Blue]

Not only did he neglect to mention the CTV connection, he neglected to use proper grammar. Ryan worte :in San Francisco, where they say it's raining men. Cute. But correct is: in San Francisco where, they say, it's raining men.
Ryan is frequently heavy handed and mostly boring (his critics' tour coverage was as interesting as one of the critics' tour cocktail parties)
Oh for the Days of Doyle.

[Roberta]

Thankfully at last there is someone out there prepared to point out The Globe’s indiscretions. Thank you Antonia for shedding the light on this!

How about that! CTV bought TWO of ABC’s five reality shows that failed this summer and yet The Globe fails to mention this in their newspaper! Disgusting!

Double standard don’t you think. The Globe seems to very narrow view of ethics these days!

[Terry Towell]

Give it up with your dross.
You, of all people complaining about lack of disclosure. I don't ever remember reading in your blog about your close, close friends at the CBC. Are you afraid if you poo-poo on them there will be no more parties at Cynthia's? YOU deserve a medal (maybe a job)for trying to protect the ailing dinosaur (CBC).
Noone else cares, and most won't cry when the color bars come on for good.
Where is the "sloppy editing" excuse you rushed out to protect Christina Lawand?
YOu really discredit CTV, and the hundreds of hard working people who take the craft of journalism as serioously as the bloated piffle-pushers of the Mother Corpse.

[Olaf]

Why, in an article entitled "ABC Suffers Nightmare after Nightmare", should Ryan have focused on, or even mentioned, CTV? What obligation does a reporter have to always try to squeeze Canadian content into a story about an American network? The article was assumedly to be about ABC, not CTV, and thus not mentioning CTV was a matter of focusing on the article's topic, as opposed to obfuscation.

The CBC situation is completely different, in that it is a quasi-national, publicly funded broadcaster, and thus subject to greater public scrutiny. The issue was not that it delved into reality TV but that it bumped the National (supposedly a nightly news program is to be a cornerstone of public television) in order to do so, bringing up questions of why the taxpayer is supporting this public broadcaster. This issue is far more relevant to the general public, as it is a public policy issue, and should have been treated as such.

As a media critic, do you see no difference here?

[howard]

The Globe's coverage of The One is flogging a dead horse. Time to move on!

[DR]

It's true. CTV did pick up a couple of American shows that failed as spectacularly as The One. But that happens all the time. Ryan should have mentioned that CTV picked up those cancelled shows, but the CBC's situation was unique and deserving of most of the coverage it got because of the significance the CBC itself placed in The One.

[Elvid]

As long as Doyle doesn't go about his fond admiration/friendship for Mike Bullard, Doyle is palatable most of the time. Talk about a bizarro friendship.

[True North]

Perhaps this is a bit wide of topic - but today on CIUT (the antithesis of media concentration) The Taylor Report takes an interesting look at how Toronto Star and other MSM are twisting and burying the facts on anti-war protests in Toronto and Montreal.

You can hear it at
http://taylor-report.com/audio/index.php?month=2006-08

With the the corporate media serving its own interests first and always, we need more independent media. CBC can't be the only alternative - it is too easy to attack for one thing.

While CIUT and other college stations are nice to have - a serious alternative like Pacifica http://www.pacifica.org/ in the states would help counter the shrinking media diversity in this country.

[Antonia Z.]

To "Terry Towell" (cute, very cute.)

1. I have never made a secret of having worked many years at CBC, most recently as co-host of Newsworld's Inside Media in 2002-2003. I also worked there between 1975 and 1986 as a reporter. It's all over the Internet. Just Google me.

2. I have also admitted to having friends there (and at other networks and channels since many CBCers moved on elsewhere) but also a trail of ex-husbands at CBC/Rad-Can. Cynthia and I have been friends for more than 30 years.

3. I have disclosed this many times in my column which reaches 500,000 or more readers a day.

4. I edited out your comment about the Fox and Fiddle because I have never once darkened its door.

5. I have edited out your comment about my friend Brenda because it's not relevant.

6. If you read this blog you will see that I am highly critical of CBC on a regular basis.

7. I find it astonishing that, in a 1,000 word (more or less) column, Ryan could never once insert the words, ''picked up for simulcast by CTV."

8. [CENSORED!]

[bealefan]

Big whoop. The story was about ABC in the Excited States going in the dumper and the fact that a couple of the stinkers also wound up on the CTV sked isn't that important. Try finding objective TV coverage in Lenny and Squiggys rags. Lots of rah rah for Globals tepid lineup of shows. Never mess with anyone that buys ink by the barrel.

[Carla]

The Globe has been dumping on CBC an astonishing amount. Andrew Ryan has mentioned The One on more occasions that I believe has been necessary. Sure CBC went overboard promo-ing it, but no more so than Global with ET Canada, CTV with Canadian Idol and Citytv with Top Model. It's not fair to single out the CBC for its heavy promotion of a show they hope will do well, even if many didn't agree with their agenda in bringing reality TV to the public broadcaster. Things are a little out of balance in Canadian broadcasting. It's becoming more and more evident here, but in BC, with Canwest owning almost everything, it's been frustratingly so. Once the Bell Globemedia deal with Chum goes through it will be far worse. Where's the healthy and necessary competition which only makes networks try harder?

[Terry Towell]

wow.
You're right... it was the Court Jester.
I also shouldn't have mentioned Brenda... but I really feel as a reader trying to keep an open mind that when it comes to the CBC you really doth protest (and support ) too much.
Lucky you, you worked there when CBC News mattered. Like The Beachcombers.
What was censored? Was it necessary?
I usually support you!

[Antonia Z.]

Yes because there is no reason to drag other people's personal affairs into this.

Especially since you are doing it from behind a fake name.