[Swprograms] Another View of the CBC Lockout.

["Sandy Finlayson" <sfinlayson@xxxxxxx>]

Lockout spells commercial suicide for the CBC
John Doyle Tuesday, August 16, 2005 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050816/DOYLE16/TPEntertainment/Columnists

CBC Television is in tatters and, if this lockout lasts weeks or months instead of days, it will be in ruins.

CBC-TV has three strength -- news, sports and Canadian drama and comedy. In all three areas it has been weak in recent years. If it fails to deliver in those three areas -- and it can only fail during a lockout -- it faces a setback from which it can never recover.

The loss of NHL last year, through no fault of its own, was a disaster. Sure, the Hollywood movies that aired instead of hockey drew more viewers than expected. But if you can't get viewers with well-known, hyped, mainstream Hollywood entertainment, you're incompetent.

The problem is branding the CBC and maintaining the loyalty of Canadian viewers. Those viewers interested in Hollywood blockbusters will drift to any network airing the same fare.

The loss of NHL hockey was more than a financial disaster. It had a domino effect on all CBC programs and their ratings.

In many ways, broadcasting is not a complicated business. Certain truths hold true as much for the brash and often trashy Fox network as they do for a public broadcaster such as CBC. You have hits and you use those hits to promote and launch other programs. Fox has American Idol, a big, brand-defining hit and uses it to launch House, a hard-to-define drama about a difficult doctor. House is now an award-wining hit because it piggybacked on American Idol.

In CBC's case, the loss of viewers for hockey meant that news, documentaries and dramas could not be promoted to an audience already watching a CBC program. Those watching the Hollywood movies were not, necessarily, traditional CBC viewers open to Canadian programming. Now, with a lockout and CBC airing almost nothing that draws viewers, it has no platform to promote what's coming this new TV season. It is commercial suicide.

On the news side, CBC's flagship The National news program has had declining viewership for years. Apparently The National, like all of CBC's news programs, was undergoing a rejigging. Exactly what was going to happen is unclear but, right now, CBC can barely provide any news service at all. Naturally, viewers drift away to channels that do provide up-to-the-minute news reports delivered by real reporters and anchors. The likelihood that all those viewers will return to CBC-TV diminishes with each day the lockout lasts.

In the drama and comedy genres, every new and returning CBC program is now at a disadvantage. Commercial Canadian and American channels have been relentlessly promoting their fall programs for weeks. Viewers who tune in to news broadcasts, newsmagazine or sports events get a taste of a new program to whet their appetites. It's basic broadcasting business. It is how audiences are built and nurtured. With a lockout and a lack of regular programming, CBC is out of the game.

Worse, for CBC-TV, the ground has already shifted in the production of popular and critically acclaimed Canadian-made comedy and drama. CTV has the hits, not CBC. Corner Gas and this summer's Robson Arms are the key Canadian productions of the last few years. CBC is lagging behind in offering quality Canadian productions. In late September and early October, CBC expected to air such audience-grabbing shows as Trudeau II and Waking Up Wally (the Walter Gretzky movie) but those productions can hardly be promoted when CBC is doing minimal broadcasting in August.

Further, the lockout adds fuel to the argument that CBC-TV is irrelevant, out-of-date and a waste of public money. Those who feel that CBC is a waste of everybody's time and money in an ever-expanding TV universe will point to the current situation and point out that CBC-TV cannot even get its act together to do its basic job.

Exactly why CBC management is committing commercial suicide is a mystery. Like every broadcaster it has to adapt to changing circumstances. But to lock out 5,500 workers and, essentially, air nothing but repeats and reduced programming is a bizarrely combative, gambling strategy.

In "An Open Letter to Canadians" published in newspapers on Saturday and co-signed by Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of CBC-TV, and Jane Chalmers, vice-president of CBC Radio, the following statement leapt out: "No one wants a labour disruption. Yet this is a risk the CBC is prepared to take." 

The statement is blustering nonsense. To reduce CBC to minimalist broadcasting is not merely "a risk." It is playing Russian roulette with its audience and supporters, and handing ammunition to its detractors.



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