All-Canadian boob tube, eh?
CRTC tells new TV porn channel to use homegrown talent
Let’s talk about the importance of protecting Canadian culture.
Okay you’re probably already bored, but don’t be.
In case you haven’t heard, Canadian culture now officially includes televised porn.
Our federal broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), recently granted a licence to Northern Peaks, a 24-hour pornography cable channel.
And not just any porn channel, but one billed as “Canada’s first adult video channel programming significant Canadian content.”
It’s patriotism with a naughty twist. Why be content with American imports such as Debbie Does Dallas, when we can all take nationalistic pride in Wendy Whips Winnipeg?
Still, some might object to the CRTC’s approving such a channel.
Some might object on moral grounds—the moral grounds being their cable provider might not pick up the new channel.
And Quebec nationalists certainly won’t be satisfied until they get their own distinct and separate porn channel.
Yet, criticisms of the CRTC often fail to grasp the agency’s essential role, which to paraphrase its own mandate, is “To force feed Canadian content to consumers whether anybody likes it or not.”
That’s the way the CRTC has operated ever since it was invented back in 1968.
A NEW CONCEPT
Before 1968, we didn’t have a government agency supervising our cultural choices.
Back then Canadian TV networks and radio stations pretty much determined on their own what kind of programming they offered audiences.
It worked this way: TV networks broadcast programs on the basis of what Canadians wanted to watch; radio stations routinely played songs Canadians wanted to hear.
As might be imagined this “wild free market” approach often resulted in Canadians making politically incorrect cultural decisions.
Instead of watching true Canadian programming, such as the Pierre Berton documentary, The Long and Boring History of Railroad Tracks, Canadians were watching non-Canadian shows such as The Beverly Hillbillies.
This state of affairs appalled Canadian cultural nationalists.
Clearly, something had to be done, they argued, or else a whole generation of young Canadians might get dangerous American-inspired ideas about finding “Texas tea” and moving to a mansion in Beverly Hills.
So when Pierre Trudeau became prime minister and was confronted with this problem, he did what he always did when confronted with a problem; he asked himself, “What would Fidel Castro do?”
The answer was obvious: Create a Soviet-style government agency with sweeping powers to “Canadianize” the airwaves.
Thus the CRTC was born.
So now, instead of pleasing Canadian consumers, radio and TV executives must please the bureaucrats who run the CRTC.
And the way to please the CRTC is to air lots of Canadian content, whether it’s good, bad or indifferent.
Mostly it’s bad.
Canadian content movies, for instance, inevitably involve dreary stories about Cape Breton coal miners.
That’s why Canadians seek to avoid CRTC-sanctioned programming whenever possible.
Here’s a typical Canadian conversation:
Husband: Honey, what’s on TV tonight?
CAPE BRETON COAL
Wife: Well channel six is showing a Canadian content movie about Cape Breton coal miners and their grim struggle to find coal.
Husband: Hmmm, what else is on?
Wife: Channel seven is showing a repeat of the Des Moines Tiddlywinks championships.
Husband: Tiddlywinks it is.
It makes you wonder how long the “Canadian content” porn network will survive.
I mean how many movies can you make about naked Cape Breton coal miners?
| | Gerry Nicholls
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Gerry Nicholls is a Toronto writer and a senior fellow with the Democracy Institute. His web site is Making sense with Nicholls
Gerry can be reached at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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