Media Centre > News Releases > Archive > 1996

TELLING THE CANADIAN STORY

I know I wouldn't be standing up here without the help of so many of you in this room.

Broadcasting is a team sport after all and I have been fortunate in having had great teams around me over the years. That's why I've always regarded my own successes as a team victory.

So let's shift the emphasis away from Robertson and onto something much more important -- our national broadcast industry and the thing we live for... "The Canadian Story".

Let us celebrate our broadcasting successes together. We have lived all of our lives next to the largest and most aggressive media Mecca in the world. Nonetheless, we have built a thriving broadcast industry in this highly competitive environment. The record is impressive.

Canadian radio has been making its mark in a distinctive way since the nineteen twenties. It was accepted long ago that if we were to have U.S. programming flowing freely over the border, our electronic media would have to compete for the hearts and minds of the Canadian audience with good programs that would entertain and inform, while at the same time giving voice to this country's dreams and ideals. We would have to be first with the Canadian story.

Our predecessors were fast out of the gate with radio, and the industry has been so successful over the years that Canadian AM and FM radio firmly rules the waves.

The result is that the impact of powerful American stations, in spite of their resourcefulness and funding, is minimal at best. In Quebec, René LeCavalier was the voice of hockey, while Foster Hewitt reigned in English Canada. They had their news equivalents in French and English radio as well. Even in those early years, Quebecers were making sure their cultural territory would be protected by programming that would appeal to their exclusive market.

The advent of television presented an enormous challenge, but here again, we proved more than ready to meet the extraordinary demands of the new medium. For every Lucy and Dinah Shore and Perry Como, we had our own Juliette, Tommy Hunter, "Stars On Ice", "Pig & Whistle", "Le match de la vie", and "La famille Plouffe"; for every "Sixty Minutes" and NBC "Today Show", we had "This Hour Has Seven Days", "W5" and "Canada AM".

The Canadian broadcast system, with its mix of private and public sectors, has been extraordinarily successful in serving the needs of so many different interests in our national, regional and local communities.

It is impossible to point to the success of one sector without mentioning the other. That's why it's perplexing to see these two sides so energetically throwing rocks at each other from time to time. Obviously, it's bound to happen once in a while, but too often these arguments take on the characteristics of a Capitalism versus Socialism fight. In this corner Adam Smith, in the opposite Karl Marx -- well okay...maybe Tommy Douglas.

The reality is, each side has a long and honourable tradition and each is firmly grounded in Canadian broadcasting history. The first radio station in the country, and widely acknowledged as the first in the world, was the private broadcaster CFCF in Montreal (CF - Canada First). It signed on in 1919 to be followed by CKCK Regina in 1922.

Public broadcasting, which was later to be centered in the CBC, started up under the CNR's aegis in 1923. I am a modern day offspring of both sectors and know we need the CBC as surely as we need the private broadcasters.

While I started in the private sector, I spent twenty two important and formative years at the CBC. Mother Corp. helped mould me and I still have many friends there. The CBC doesn't realize its potential often enough, but remains one of the jewels in our system and deserves protection.

There has always been vigorous competition between the private and public sectors, with the broadcast regulator trying to control the balance, making sure the private sector, which is becoming an increasingly important player, shoulders its share of the mushrooming program burden now that the CBC is facing the economic realities of the times. Generally, the balance has worked in favour of each side with a little help, of course, from our separate lobbyists.

Lobbying probably brought about the unique Canadian innovation "cable substitution". It allows Canadian stations the right to displace the American origination on cable of programs like "ER" and gives the Canadian ads in those shows exposure on two channels instead of one, while keeping the advertising dollars in Canada.

Has the result been better Canadian programs as the substitution policy intended? Certainly it has helped broadcasters work closely with independent producers, which is all to the good.

There is no doubt shows like "ENG", "Street Legal" and "Due South" all highly successful Canadian exports, are the shining examples of the positive results flowing from that policy. "Traders" is another excellent example of a show borne out of the dollars flowing from substitution.

I know some people contend these programs aren't really Canadian, they could just as easily have been made in New York or L.A. Well, their casts are largely Canadian as is most of the production and technical talent. Yes, they have adopted international production values, but that has had the salutary effect of making them look more contemporary and has certainly made them more saleable on the international market. When was the last time you heard one of your teenagers say "Mom-Dad do we have to watch this...it looks so...Can-a-dian?"

In fact, this is something else we should have now proven to ourselves -- we can accomplish. We can build programs that will draw receptive audiences at home and also be popular abroad.

And what could be more Canadian than the story of a Mountie playing on CTV and playing again this year on CBS? If you're wondering why I've talked about drama -- don't forget, I have starred in an episode of ENG and then there was the smash hit duo of Mansbridge-Robertson on the Gemini Awards. We've been swamped with requests for spinoffs from right across the country. Well, we've had a couple of calls.

It has taken a very long time to build the kind of competitive drama programming Canadian audiences would come to accept as being up to international standards, but happily for those of us in TV news, we started winning that battle quite early and soon had a hammerlock on this important territory in Canada.

While Edward R. Murrow, Huntley-Brinkley and Walter Cronkite were undeniably great broadcast journalists, they began to pale in comparison to the people who were telling us about our own concerns and successes -- relating the Canadian story -- Larry Henderson, Earl Cameron, Harvey Kirk, Barbara Frum, Norman DePoe, Helen Hutchison, Knowlton Nash -- the list goes on.

In Quebec, with no American competition to speak of and with the rise of Quebec nationalism, news figures like Pierre Nadeau and Bernard Derome, and René Levesque before them, became heroes on the Maurice Richard and Céline Dion scale.

Television, as we all acknowledge, is a medium that thrives on the perception of personal contact. Just being on the box brought instant celebrity in those early times. Even in Canada, news anchors and reporters became stars, almost by accident, just because they were appearing on television.

But those of us in news also knew we had to have solid editorial content, high production values and people who were prepared to work hard and know what they were talking about in order to attract audiences for the long term.

News was soon to become the hallmark of a station or a network's identity and credibility...how seriously it treated the news came to be regarded, not just in Canada, but by broadcast regulatory agencies in the U.S. and all over the world, as the ultimate litmus test of a broadcaster's right to be trusted with a piece of the public airwaves.

To say we have been successful does not mean we have had an altogether easy ride in winning and holding on to Canadian audiences. Our Canadian news programs have been under the same kinds of pressure that persists in the United States. As tabloid formats found their way onto TV screens there was concern that the image of the standard evening national news program that dealt with serious issues would become pale and blurred in the public mind and perhaps even overtaken by the more vivid entries like "A Current Affair", "Inside Edition" and "Hard Copy".

It simply hasn't happened. Audiences continue to choose the genuine article and, in most cases, have come to regard the tabloids as electronic versions of their supermarket equivalents. We have held our own and grown, but I must admit not without a little trimming of the sails. We make greater use of teasers to keep people away from the clicker button. Major news programs are now more inclined to give prominence to people stories, and issues are treated in a way that deals first with how they effect the everyday life of the average person.

Surely there is nothing wrong with that; in fact, the public seems inclined to accept these adjustments as long as the messenger, the organization -- its anchors and reporters, can be trusted and professional standards and ethics are brought to bear.

As the television universe expands and audience fragmentation increases, there will be even greater pressure to help keep our companies in the black. We can live with these demands, but as newspeople we know where we have to come from when the subject of doing news and making money is being discussed.

That icon of broadcast journalism, Edward R. Murrow, set down one of the golden rules of the industry years ago... "in television news we must always do right while at the same time doing well."

If daily national news programs in Canada have far outpaced their American counterparts, there is reason to be concerned about another area that is getting away from us. It is a fast growing body of programming in which we have historic expertise, and it is crucial we reclaim this territory from the Americans.

I'm talking about the increasing number of prime time American magazine shows now playing in the schedules of Canadian stations. "Prime Time Live" and "20/20" are but two examples of a trend we must nip in the bud.

The ratings surveys tell us the seepage of Canadian audiences to these hours is becoming significant, even though the stories are almost exclusively American. Because there are now so many of them -- "Dateline", for example is on NBC four nights a week - the producers often have to resort to recycling previously aired news items, such as another investigation of whether the bloody glove really fit OJ, or a well-hyped updated perspective on the life of Howard Hughes.

All of us in Canada have our own news divisions -- why aren't we doing more of our own magazines, with our own stories? Apart from magazine programs on CBC and dear old "W5", the landscape looks bleak in this territory. We have to re-capture this ground, for two reasons: One: the issues today are very complex, and often need more than the time available on the local or national news. And with most Canadians now depending on television as their primary source for news, it's important we give these issues the airtime they require.

The second reason is this kind of programming represents another of the keys in our continuing quest to keep the Canadian story front and centre and bring the Canadian perspective to international events. The U.S. programs could still be seen, of course, on the American channels in every region of the country.

Most of the items presented on the U.S. magazine shows have their equivalents in Canada; someone being ripped off by the system, an unusual tale of courage or discovery, or a young person with a unique talent. There is the story of the Ontario boy who has taken up the cause of child labour and was profiled recently on "Sixty Minutes".

There is no shortage of these kinds of stories on the streets of this country, and many of them could surely be promoted for sale in the U.S. and elsewhere through the developing business relationships that will be borne naturally enough as the television universe expands and we work out more international partnerships. For example, Australia has its own "Sixty Minutes" and it would appear that story material is often inter-changed.

To abandon this burgeoning field to others is to cave in to convenience at the expense of the industry and Canadian viewers.

And there is another threat to our carefully constructed system on the horizon. We are about to be swamped by an avalanche of all-new channels originating in the United States.

This means even more of the CNN genre, only this time we'll have NBC and other American networks as well.

It's foolish to think Canadians won't find these outlets and start watching them. We know we can't make people watch just because we're Canadian, but we also know if given the chance to compete we can have an impact. We shouldn't allow ourselves to be shut out of this new environment any more than we allowed ourselves to be drowned out by other people's signals in the early days of conventional radio and television.

Given the chance our talent can deliver, we know Canadians will come to watch. And let's regard this as a business opportunity, not as an obligation.

Going beyond news, we can look forward to building programming based mega-companies capable of competing internationally in the fields of drama, entertainment and magazine shows.

More outlets - more opportunities to relate the Canadian experience. That is what we want and that is the challenge we should relish meeting. Our broadcasting system must become more fearlessly Canadian. We know we can do it. We know we can sell the results.

My career has taken me far and wide through this territory we inhabit here to north of the 49th parallel. The glory of its physical beauty can still make me misty-eyed and I think I understand Quebec nationalism.

If I were a Quebecer, I too would be vigilant in the protection of my language and culture, a birthright passed down by ancestors, and I would expect my neighbours to recognize my traditions.

It would indeed make my part of the country different or distinctive - or whatever. Now, my neighbours might have to fudge all of that for political reasons, but it wouldn't change the reality. I would be one of the survivors of the proud French fact in North America.

The telling of that "central" Canadian story, the survival of a country, will continue to occupy us for the next several years, as it has for the last thirty for several of us in this room. Will it be recognition of Quebec as different or distinct -- a partnership of two nations, or something we haven't even thought about yet?

It is my quiet little dream that sometime between now and the new millennium, my colleagues and I will be able to tell Canadian audiences a new arrangement has been sealed; we will continue to be neighbours, not just in the geographical sense, but also as social partners and friends. We will continue our successes in broadcasting and other endeavours and help each other through the challenges of the new century.

This shared space we call Canada deserves as much.