TV Continues it's decline

Before I start I should state that I must not be a TV person, or at least my tastes in Television do not match those of the audience they are after. Despite my high hopes last fall, my 'must watch' schedule for next fall is shorter than it has been in a long, long time. The new shows I liked the best from the AmNets this year (namely Studio 60 and the Black Donnely's) were axed, then Lost, 24 and House all proceeded to jump the shark.

For it's part the CBC cancelled Venture freeing up another half hour. The new programs they introduced didn't do much for me, and I'm less inclined to watch 'the Hour' than I was last year. For me talk shows are all about who the guests are and most of the time the Hour's guests this year just didn't do it for me. I like Gill Deacon generally, but her guests generally didn't do alot for me either (again, not it's target audience).

As for the rest of the CBC's new offerings, as I said at the beginning, I must not be a TV person. Sitcoms are not my thing. I liked BBC's the Office (not the US one though) and I liked CBC's the Newsroom but for the most part sitcoms become too predictable too quickly for me, the jokes become repetitive and I lose interest. Beyond that game shows and 'reality' shows stand almost no chance with me and medical dramas and police dramas (including courtroom, and espionage shows) have been done to such an extent in recent years that they face an hard, uphill battle from the word go. They must basically bring something brand new and exciting or I will tune out half way through the first preview. There was Dragon's Den, it was good. We'll see if it holds up in season 2.

I also have to say that the horizon is not promising. If you take out the sit coms, reality shows, game shows, police and medical dramas there isn't much (at least that has been announced so far) that sounds promising for next season. There is the CBC co-production the Tudors but personally, in all of European history, I can't think of a subject much less interesting than Henry VIII. Then there is Exposure, an idea I pitched to PBS back in 2001 so, obviously I like the idea. But in it's 11 pm Sunday timeslot I doubt I'll ever see it unless it is podcast.

So it turns out that the CBC had it's worst ratings in 5 years despite Rabinovich's statement of the opposite and the CRTC has decided to make it more profitable to import American programs, thus less desirable to make Canadian ones.

You might think that given everything I've said that I wouldn't care about the CRTC decision after all, if no one is making much that I like why should I care about how the funds are distributed? In fact I do care, very much. I just want them to make better programming.

I'm more than happy to advocate for greater arts and cultural funding in Canada overall. Arts and culture are woefully underfunded by any reasonable measure in Canada and, after all, great nations are remembered by their great works of art and other cultural expressions much more than for their economies, or militaries or anything else.

So I will continue to do all that I can to get more funding and exposure for Canadian artists in all fields, but please TV people - stop copying the Americans and importing formulas from Japan and Britain. Take risks, be creative, try new things, some of it will surely bomb, but some won't and I know that I am not alone when I say there is a vast audience in Canada waiting to watch new, original, compelling programming. You just have to meet them half way.