Tuesday, January 13, 2009

DMc blogs about Michael Arpin, Vice Chair for Broadcasting of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), who said:

Playback:Will Canadian drama on our television screens be an issue again at hearings in 2009?

Arpin: The decline in Canadian drama is an issue that the unions regularly put on the table. It's documented. I'm sure they will bring it to the top of the pile at the hearings.

Playback:What are your favorite television programs?

Arpin: I'm a news and documentary consumer. I'm not that interested in televised fiction or even feature films. I would prefer to read a novel.

McGrath wonders if the guy in charge of broadcasting ought to be a little more excited about, y'know, broadcasting. You wouldn't have a Hockey Commissioner who'd skip a Habs-Leafs game to catch up on the latest Joan Didion. Would you? He proposes various ways we can try to bring Mr. Arpin around, and otherwise work around and through his contempt for our industry. Including, cleverly, to send Mr. Arpin some boxed sets of the best Canadian broadcast TV.

I volunteer for one boxed set, Mr. McGrath. Can I send the first season of SLINGS AND ARROWS? (Pay cable to start with, but it aired second window on broadcast.)

If Arpin is anything like my parents (and it sounds like he is), he's probably more familiar with his DVD player than his cable remote. Assuming he has cable.

It occurs to me that all the CRTC commissioners might appreciate what we're trying to do here if they got some boxed sets. If you work for the CBC, Global or CTV, please bring this up through the proper channels.

Everyone likes a freebie. The broadcast companies have the right to inform the government agencies regulating them what they're up to. And the best way to do that is, I think, boxed sets.

Labels: Canadian politics

10:15 AM

1 Comments:

Alex,

Slings and Arrows is certainly on my list to send (in fact, there's a very reasonably priced) disc set of all 3 seasons now available.

But the idea was not to bombard them all at once. That's just a more industry-focused version of bombarding them with pencils or fake teeth or nuts or something like the fans of canceled shows do sometimes.

I want to work on the Yann Martel model. Once a month, I'd love to talk about it. Then write a letter and decide what to choose.

It would be wonderful, of course, if someone undertook a concerted effort to send items like this to the commissioners. Unfortunately, we live in a country where the woman who runs the top info site on our TV is a volunteer, and most networks can't get it in to phone you back. A concentrated efforts to send box sets would be a bloody miracle.

By  DMc, at 11:30 AM  

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