After a career at the CBC, Barry Kiefl established Canadian Media Research. His study of international trends in TV was recently published by the CRTC.

Television is the primary means we use to entertain ourselves, especially to tell national stories. TV is our most important source for news and information; it informs our opinions about politics, the family, sex, religion and most other areas of life. TV creates and promotes celebrity, fashion and trends of all types, some perhaps not so endearing or enduring. TV has become the most popular art form, on the same plane as literature and the fine arts, when it excels.

Television occupies an immense amount of individuals’ time and has a played a role alongside the discovery of electricity and the invention of the computer in changing the world’s economy from a basic commodities market to the global market of the 21st century.

Canada will lag behind other nations if it fails to nurture and develop a strong domestic TV industry. In the global economy, a country is as defined by its television programs as by its education system. Visitors, be they businessmen, diplomats, politicians or tourists, learn about and judge a country by what they see on local TV. Exported TV programs establish a nation’s reputation and are one of the most important ambassadors that a country possesses. If Canada cannot produce distinctive, quality TV programming in all genres, we will be viewed as second rate.

Recently, I reviewed the TV industry in Europe and Australia, as part of a larger study grappling with the issue of how to make English-Canadian TV drama competitive with drama programming from the U.S. The U.S. makes the most compelling, salient TV programming in the world, which is more accessible here than anywhere else in the world, and Canadian broadcasters and producers must compete with this programming.

The U.S. is the only country in the world with a large enough free-market economy to sustain domestic TV programming without resorting to government intervention and financial subsidy. The TV industry in the U.S. generates over US$54 billion in ad revenue annually, compared to approximately US$2 billion in ad revenues generated by the Canadian TV industry. The money available for domestic programming in Canada is dwarfed by the U.S. system.

Everywhere else in the world, government subsidy or direct public fees are necessary to fund domestic TV programming. In every country I examined there has been a concerted effort in the past decade to develop first-class domestic drama and other entertainment programming. Billions of dollars are provided by national and other levels of governments to fund domestic programming, either by government grants or in the form of household TV licence fees that are often several hundreds of dollars per year.

European countries determined some time ago that they must compete with U.S. TV, which comprised a major share of primetime TV schedules in Europe only a few years ago. This is no longer the case.

Europe and Australia recognized that substantial public resources had to be committed to domestic television because TV had joined more traditional forms of state-sponsored culture. They understood the economic as well as the cultural importance of TV, even though many European countries can boast of a traditional arts history spanning two millennia.

Even some smaller European countries outspend Canada on domestic TV, and today the majority of primetime drama in Europe is of domestic origin. In 2001, the five largest European nations spent approximately $5 billion on first-run domestic drama alone, many times that of Canada.

What is the current market situation in Canada? The average Canadian spends over three hours per day watching TV and the typical Canadian household spends over $1,000 annually on video equipment, subscriptions and rentals.

Ninety-nine percent of Canadian homes have at least one TV, over 60% have more than one set, about 90% of homes in most cities subscribe to either cable TV or satellite TV, four in five have a VCR, and one in four has already purchased the newest TV technology, the DVD player. Ask your local video dealer and he or she will tell you that DVDs are flying off the shelves and that most new TV sets being sold are HD ready. That is, they will be capable of receiving high-definition TV, which will bring even more compelling programming and services.

The numbers I have quoted are national averages, meaning that there are many in society who spend considerably more time and money on TV. Lower-income Canadians spend a disproportionate amount of their time on TV, being among the heaviest users.

Canadians have spoken with their wallets and their time – they are willing to pay for world-class TV programming and, like other peoples, they want a Canadian TV system they can take pride in.

Yes, there are lighter users of TV and some point to the Internet as more important to society than mere television and claim that the Internet will displace TV. However, TV viewing levels are higher today than before the widespread adoption of the Internet.

The accompanying chart shows that weekly hours spent watching TV on a per capita basis breached the 30-hour per week level recently. TV viewing levels are at record levels this TV season, and this following a year when a new all-time viewing level record was set.

While almost two in three Canadians now have the Internet at home, the average time spent surfing, e-mailing, downloading, etc. is but a fraction of the time spent watching TV. Use of the Internet at home accounts for about three hours per week on a national average. Even teenagers, the most devoted Internet users, spend an average of just over five hours per week using the Internet at home, compared to an average of about 15 weekly hours watching TV.

Canadian governments have yet to realize that TV is the most important activity in our lives, next to work or school. TV viewing is not an idle activity, a waste of valuable time that could be better spent reading or visiting a museum. TV is interwoven with our lives and is now a necessity, not a luxury, central to daily life in Canadian society, whether it be to partake in a live political debate, monitor the war on terrorism or celebrate the latest masterpiece from Denys Arcand or Atom Egoyan.

The recent cuts to the already paltry amounts that the Canadian government spends on TV are misguided and destructive to the long-term development and financial health of the country. Our politicians should watch a little Canadian TV to see for themselves what most Canadians already know, that TV reflects the essence of a modern nation.