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For the past few months, Canadians have been bombarded with TV and Print advertising encouraging them to either “Stop the TV Tax” or to “Support Local Programming”.  Today Canada’s Broadcasters & Cable Companies started their CRTC-mediated cage match in Gatineau, Quebec.    In the middle?  The media-savvy people of Canada (or at least those with a subscription to cable services).  It’s hard to find a truly unbiased report of what is happening, as many of the newsmedia resources are owned by Canada’s broadcasters (Canwest, Global, CTV).  You have to read between the lines, but what it essentially comes down to is this:

Broadcasters would like to charge cable companies a fee-for-carriage to carry local stations/network TV.  For the time being, these stations are bundled, per CRTC mandate, into your Basic cable package as long as broadcasters include a certain amount of Canadian content.  I’m not sure about the amount of local content they actually need to generate.  Bear in mind that while you can opt out of other fee-for-carriage stations like Discovery Civilization or Mystery TV, right now you do not have this option with your basic cable package.

Cable Companies obviously don’t want to pay more for channels that are not only available over-the-air for free (this means you can pick up reception on these stations with a pair of bunny ears if you can’t afford cable), but also mandated to their basic cable package just because they show a news program at 6pm.  We have seen plenty of disagreement with many of the Canadian Broadcasting Funds that the CRTC already has in place to support the production of Canadian Content (The CTF and the Local Programming Improvement Fund).  If the Cable Co’s have to fork over more money, they’ll pass the savings (not really) on to the consumer.  They’re pretty up-front about it.

What sticks in my throat is this whole issue over “Local Programming”.  What I see on TV these days has very little to do with local programming.  Okay, so I may wind up being charged an extra $10/month for my House and Glee.  That’s a (hopefully) worse-case scenario.  But at least I’m honest about what I’m watching here…US Network TV.  What Local Programming is really available for me to watch these days?  The news?  Sure, it’s local, but I can get my news from Google.  In fact, I prefer to.  I can access it any time I like, I get differing opinions, and I don’t destroy any trees.  I can also eat dinner during the dinner hour without having to eat in front of the TV, and I’m in bed well before the 11 o’clock news.

Local Programming is a thing of the past.  Local programming were shows made by locals for locals.  I grew up with shows like “You Can’t Do That On Television”, “Romper Room”, and “CUCUMBER”.  TV Ontario was chock-full of Canadian (and local!) programming.  The local access station sometimes showed hockey, sometimes showed church, and generally had a sign-language interpreter in the lower-right corner of the screen during the lunch news broadcast.

I can remember visiting my Grandparents in Brantford, Ontario…and watching TV off my Grandfather’s Ham Radio antenna in the back yard.  There was a little device that turned the tower, and sometimes this brought a TV station into better focus.  Sometimes it brought my Grandfather barrelling out of his Ham Shack in the basement, yelling about damned kids ruining pefectly good conversations with wacky Australians.    He didn’t have cable, but if we were lucky we could watch Tiny Talent Time on one of the local stations.  Heck, we grew up with Hilarious House of Frightenstein before it was cool!

When I moved to Toronto in the early 90’s for art college, I couldn’t afford cable.  I remember scrimping and saving for a little black & white TV that cost me a about $50, and my aunt and uncle snuck me a pair of rabbit ears.  I remember being able to tune in TV Ontario, City TV (in the Moses Znaimer years), maybe CBC, and if I was lucky…FOX from the US if the RF signals were bouncing it off the CN Tower just right.  I couldn’t get The X-Files on TV unless I went to someone else’s home.   I watched a lot of CityTV, I seem to recall — they had a fresh way of doing the news that I actually liked, and they stuck videographers out in the field all day to report on things happening around the city in between programs.  They actually had locally-produced daytime talk shows and other similar programs.  In the evening, if you were lucky, they would show a “big ticket” movie.

I grew up in the land of The Beachcombers and The Littlest Hobo.  For laughs, I watched Four on the Floor and Smith & Smith (where do you think Red Green came from?).  Nowadays, you’re lucky if you get a hit like Corner Gas, or something like Littlest Mosque on the Prairie.  Canadian shows are few & far between.  If you’re looking for Canadian TV, you’re going to find reruns of Debbie Travis or Holmes on Homes interspersed with the latest US hit TV shows.  Once in a while something like Flashpoint makes a splash.  On the whole, however, we’ve stopped innovating our TV shows & just become a clearinghouse for the latest trends from the US.  Hell…now we remake US Reality TV (Canadian Idol, anyone?  I’m surprised we haven’t seen Survivor: Tundra yet).

And your local TV network wants more money to make us more American every day.

I don’t have an answer.  Frankly, I’m a little concerned that my kids (when I have them) won’t have much of a Canadian Identity at all.  And if that’s the case, what’s the use of the CRTC in regards to TV?  Might as well just let us have all the US programming we want.  Heck, give us BBC programming; we could use the culture.

(but then, I have a spouse who would prefer that we only used the TV for the XBox, so hey…maybe the solution is to ditch the TV and buy more yarn)