American vs British TV Drama

With each passing year the chasm between the style of American big box programs and their British counterparts grows wider. Increasingly American mystery/detective/police programs - and to some extent Canadian dramatic ones - rely on violence and action elements and less on the cerebral.

The latest low point of US drama was the so-called CSI trilogy. The writing was so bad in the first episode - CSI Miami - that one wonders if would even get past an inept high school drama teacher. Making matters even worse was David Curaso's affected style and the surprisingly bad acting of Laurence Fishburn.

Things improved only slightly in the second episode - CSI New York ( which incidentally I believe is the best of the three CSI's ).

The Final episode left so many holes in the plot, it could double for swiss cheese. (For example why did the girl who was abducted in Nevada, end up back in Las Vegas after being Shanghai's to New York?) But, there was violence, and action, and, I suspect that's all the Bruckheimer people were happy about.

Then you tune in to British programs like New Tricks, Midsomer Murders, Hustle, Waking the Dead and their ilk and you find programs that test your deductive skills with cunningly crafted plots, not one but several red herrings, fine, often brilliant acting, and violence only when absolutely essential.

Ah Well .. there is always Sports.

The Local Carriage Pissing Match

I've spent a fair amount of time considering both sides in the "Local Station pay for Carriage" slug fest going on between the Canadian networks and the Cable and Satellite TV industry. In the end .. as the saying goes .. it's a pox on both their houses.

At the advent of cable TV service, it was used exclusively to deliver US Network signals into Canadian homes too far away from the border stations. Somewhere along the line, the Canadian networks coerced the regulatory body to mandate the carriage of local stations in their respoective areas. A complicated tier system was set up which forced the cable companies to place local stations on the Channels 2-13 basic tier ahead of any US station.

This turned out, of course, to be a winning situation for both parties. Cable penetration grew as a coaxial cable could deliver a much cleaner and consistent signal than rabbit ears or roof antenna. Local TV stations benefited by being being able to reach all homes clearnly and thus augment their advertising revenues.

Once satellite distribution arrived, there was a serious push to ensure that local stations would be carried by the ExpressVu and StarChoice. Again both parties reaped the rewards.

In fact, I remember occasions where local stations were fighting for a place on the satellite grids and aggressively lobbying the satellite providers.

Then along came Speclaity Channels - mostly, it must be said owned and operated by the existing networks. While they became an excellent source of revenue for their owners, they also cut in to the viewership of the conventional stations and that meant a cut in their revenue streams. Of course, they had ignored those pointing out that the amount of TV viewing hours was really finite and there was only so much to spread around.

Then, some genius at the networks got the absurd idea to due away with the strong local brandings built up of years and replace it with the network brand. So ATV in Atlantic Canada became CTV, CFCF-TV in Montreal became CTV and on and on. CBC and Global were no different. This same genius did not look south where stations carry both brands - the network and the local brand and do so with great effect.

So, now that they've thoroughly destroyed the stations's local identity - ( at the sane time cancelling non-news local programming in most cases ) - they call for a carriage fee to help protect local television, which they have done everything to destroy in the first place.

Both the Cable and satellite companies are not getting off easy. They have been cashing in on the penetration of their services and generally enjoy outright monopolies in their areas. (Agreed, There is no satellite monopoly, but both companies work very hard at keeping foreign satellite providers out of the market - providers that would offer more competitive pricing.) Their threat to simply pass along what they're calling a "tax" to the consumer is a crass cash grab and cannot be tolerated.

The fact,is both parties need each other and it's about time they recognized that fact. Because of this mutual reliance, might it not be to the betterment of all for the CRTC to just wash its hands of the whole matter all the while insisting that both sides live up to the promises of performance they made when applying for their licenses? I suggest it's the best course - and the least damaging course on you and I the customer of delivery systems and the viewers of programs.

Media Created H1N1 Hysteria

Finally, somebody has called the media to task for raising the Swine Flu hysteria to a fever pitch. Dr. Richard Schabas, chief medical officer of health for Hastings and Prince Edward Counties in eastern Ontario has, in effect, slammed the media and some medical officials for overstating the seriousness of the flu and its effect on the population.

He points that on average there are 4000 deaths annually from seasonal flu in the country. He says that when all the dust settles we're looking at 200-500 from Swine Flu. My God, if you listen to shrill reporting of CTV, Global, CBC and most radio outlets you'd think the Swine Flu was going to leave us with barely enough people to keep the country running.

So why the media hype? I suspect the the news media decision makers felt betrayed by the non-appearance of the Avian Flu which they virtually predicted a decimation of the population. So they needed a replacement. Irresponsible? Of course - but from long experience in the business you can never really accuse the decision makers of being overly responsible or at the very least stopping to take stock of what their reporting will do in the general population.

This doesn't mean don't get a flu shot. Of course, get one. But put the whole threat into perspective and get on with normal living. And when you think about it that is probably the best way to get back at the panic drivers in the news boardrooms.

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