The DEFinition of high quality

Along with the flu this winter, tv critics across Canada should be contemplating the damage they could suffer if they catch the highly contagious Limp Brain Syndrome, characterized by hollowed-out grey matter, glazed eyes, and synaptic amnesia. You know there are signs of disease among the critic populace when a column entitled ‘crap’ becomes a semi-regular feature in a national newspaper’s tv listings guide. When you recognize that critics have begun recycling synonyms for ‘worthless’ and ‘waste of time’ in their reviews, and can’t find the word ‘worthwhile’ or such simple phrases as ‘well done’ in their lexicon. When, to paraphrase and update Bruce Springsteen, it seems as if there are 157 channels, but nothin’ on.

To be fair, although television has been a cultural force in Canada for close to 50 years, lbs has proven to be a wax-and-wane type plague rather than a chronic virus among critics or the general tv audience. Still, the prognosis for a high volume of high-quality tv does not look good: senior producers are warning that the crtc’s new television policy will exacerbate the symptoms of disease.

Good blood and bad, of course, started flowing minutes after the regulator transmitted the policy last June. Broadcasters were virtually alone in their delight, anticipating improved economic health and promising to air the quality programs needed to retain ratings.

Meanwhile, producers and their advocates and creators and their lobbyists reacted as if allergic to the policy. Several months later, the sour notes persist, ringing digitally clear through the clamor of world trade that was mipcom. There again came the warning that since private, over-the-air broadcasters will no longer have to meet minimum spending thresholds as of next fall, they will license or pre-buy even less Canadian drama than they do now. There is already evidence, say producers, that drama slots are drying up.

Did the crtc enact its changes in anticipation of pressure from the World Trade Organization to remove cultural subsidies? That’s a popular theory, but why should Canada dilute its Cancon policies in advance of diplomatic efforts to retain protective measures via the wto? And if the crtc policy was aimed at increasing the volume of export-friendly programming, did anyone mention that export levels are currently quite strong, and have been for some time? And did anyone consult with the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild, actra and others before allowing broadcasters to perhaps dictate cheaper content with fewer Canadian hallmarks? Is it not the craftsmanship of artists and creators which will be on the screens of the nation next fall and beyond?

All the while, at a polite Canadian pace (and, it would seem, more slowly than Mexico), the country moves towards the long-promised land of digital and ‘high def’ tv. But the question remains, when we finally get there, what will we see?