Ottawa: CBC’s Richard Stursberg fired back at critics at the CFTPA Prime Time conference last month, defending the performance of CBC president Robert Rabinovitch within hours of presenting his own plan to revive the pubcaster with mainstream shows looking for big audiences.

‘Since [Rabinovitch] has come [six years ago], English radio is stronger than it’s ever been,’ Stursberg, EVP of CBC Television, told the press. ‘French radio is stronger than it’s ever been. French television, which was in a death spiral, has completely recovered and has gained four to five share points – depending on which season you’re talking about – and the share erosion that was going on for CBC English services was completely halted. He’s done this in a circumstance where, over the last 15 years, the net amount of money coming from the government to CBC has gone down $400 million in real terms. That’s an outstanding accomplishment.’

The comment came in response to a press release issued by ACTRA and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting on Feb. 17, the final day of the producer powwow. The release, titled CBC Drops the Drama Ball, sharply criticizes both Stursberg and Rabinovitch for their recent cancellation of the scripted series Da Vinci’s City Hall, This Is Wonderland and The Tournament.

It includes figures indicating that the pubcaster lagged behind CTV in terms of Canadian drama series aired between September 2003 and August 2005. According to the data, compiled by Canadian Media Research, CTV aired 219 hours worth of Canadian drama series, compared to 122 for the Ceeb.

‘These numbers should embarrass CBC’s management who appear to be ignoring CBC’s mandate to showcase Canadian programs, especially in the powerful drama genre,’ writes Ian Morrison, spokesperson for lobby group FCB, in the release.

However, the same data also shows that when including primetime domestic movies, MOWs and comedy programs, the Ceeb comes out on top of CTV, 620 hours to 400. In terms of overall Canadian primetime programming, CBC wins hands down, 2,353 to 871.

Morrison describes last year’s lockout of 5,000 CBC staff a ‘calculated decision’ by management and calls on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to relinquish the government’s power to appoint the CBC president and board members.

‘CBC management is unaccountable for their poor performance because of Prime Ministerial patronage,’ says Morrison.

While the statement calls for change only in terms of how top CBC management is selected, ACTRA national executive director Stephen Waddell clarified its underlying point.

‘[Heritage Minister Bev Oda] and the Conservative Party have been talking about reforming the CBC,’ Waddell told reporters at Prime Time. ‘This is an opportunity – a message to the government to replace Stursberg and Rabinovitch.’

As for his bailiwick of English television, Stursberg acknowledged that a fix was needed. Since his arrival at the network more than a year ago, exec director of network programming Slawko Klymkiw was replaced with Kirstine Layfield and exec director of arts and entertainment Deborah Bernstein was shown the door.

At the close of Prime Time, Stursberg met with producers, laying out the goal that all CBC scripted programs should attract one million viewers, and documentaries 800,000. He told the crowd that, following network research, the Ceeb does not want programs that are ‘didactic,’ ‘boring’ and ‘highbrow,’ nor comedies that are ‘not funny.’ Some producers had hoped to receive more concrete information about the status of their shows currently in development.

‘His idea was ‘Let’s go out and do tons of research and find out what people want to watch,” notes one producer. ‘And – surprise, surprise – people want to watch stuff that’s not boring. It was really self-evident stuff.’

As for the recently cancelled series, including Da Vinci’s City Hall – in which the coroner from Da Vinci’s Inquest assumes the mayor’s seat – Stursberg told reporters it was strictly about low ratings.

‘Da Vinci’s City Hall opened at 550,000, fell to 350,000 and sat,’ he explained. ‘And if you look at the numbers for Da Vinci’s over the course of the last eight years, they were slowly sliding down. They had a little pop when City Hall came in, then people said, ‘No, I don’t think so, thank you.”

City Hall had the disadvantage of launching just two weeks after the end of the lockout. While Stursberg now argues that the show’s failure ‘has nothing to do with the lockout,’ at the time he said that ‘People just didn’t know it was there,’ in reference to the series’ lack of promotion. Series creator and executive producer Chris Haddock agrees with the latter assessment.

‘For sure there were people who took a long time coming back [to CBC],’ Haddock tells Playback. He adds that if the show had been launched in January instead of October, ‘perhaps that would have bumped the numbers a little bit.’

But Haddock and the CBC remain in business together. The producer confirms that the Ceeb has ordered 13 one-hour episodes of the drama Intelligence, based on the MOW that aired in November, drawing a lukewarm 500,000 viewers. Haddock describes the series’ storyline as ‘the ongoing war between West Coast weed gangsters and the head of the organized crime unit.’ The MOW stars Ian Tracey, Klea Scott and Matt Frewer, and the producer says he intends for the principal cast to return.

As for Dominic Da Vinci, the CBC has ordered an MOW featuring the character.

Regarding the rest of CBC’s drama series slate, Stursberg was tightlipped.

‘We don’t want to show the entirety of our next fall’s schedule for reasons of commercial caution,’ he said. ‘Why would we go out and give our competitors a huge advantage by announcing now what we’re going to do next September?’

-With files from Sean Davidson

www.cbc.ca