Cinema conundrum?

If you work at Fort Dork, your tastes in private commercial broadcasting probably run more along the lines of CITY-TV. The old CITY, before it got ass-raped by cableco kleptocrats.

How is Rogers borking now? By ignoring its licence requirement to run a Canadian movie every week.

It’s not much of a ploy. Even with today’s compliant CRTC, so unfamiliar to those who cut their gums on yesterday’s compliant CRTC, I don’t see how Rogers is gonna squirm out of this one. They’ll be stuck with the requirement and will get slapped on the wrist for having ignored it.

The CITY CanCon ghetto was a good deal. I saw a lot of decent pictures. Contrary to what Rex Reed thinks, Canadian movies don’t all suck. Ginger Snaps, Waydowntown, Hard Core Logo, Goin’ Down the Road, Last Wedding. These are not bad movies. Seriously. (Now, Pontypool I didn’t like. But it was a great night out at the Fox.)

So why aren’t these movies also on CBC?

The whole late-movie slot is badly programmed. I remember a job posting for a movie programmer a couple of months ago; was it ever filled? Doesn’t look like it.

A lot of the time, the Friday-overnight (i.e., the before-you-go-to-bed-Thursday) movie slot is Canadian. Do you even watch those movies? I always check the program guide to see what’s coming up. (It doesn’t work in any reasonable way: You have to peer at each day’s program grid; there isn’t a permalink for each movie.)

Anyway, tonight’s movie is 20h17 rue Darling; last week’s was Ginger Snaps: The Beginning; next week’s is Once in a Blue Moon. Not fantastic.

This can’t cost a fortune. Why can’t CBC run way more Canadian movies, maybe twice a week? It’s already happening. Why not more, and better? Isn’t this an easy win?

9 Comments

  • Fake Ouimet says:

    How original, Anonymoose.

    I check my mail frequently. If inside information is, according to you, the raison d’être here, let’s have some.

  • Anonymous says:

    Wow. The insider info on this blog is just astonishing! There’s been nothing but talk about running Canadian movies late at night in the halls of CBC for the past week. It’s really the chief concern among CBC insiders these days. Kudos, teamakers, you’ve got your finger on the pulse!

  • Anonymous says:

    Never mind more Canadian movies, how come we broadcast almost nothing produced by the National Film Board? There is shitloads of good programming there that is ghettoized to film festivals and church basements.

  • Duckboy says:

    When will private broadcasters come and poach Richard S. from CBC TV? We can tell them he’s the Fecan of the 00’s.

  • Fake Ouimet says:

    This has been discussed for years (check old Sid Adilman articles [RIP]), and is put into practice from time to time, just not every week of every year. You have to subtitle (not really dub) and also caption all your shows. This is not inexpensive or quick. Plus there are second- or nth-window rights to deal with.

    Actually, it would be a great post to dig up the French-language shows CBC TV has presented over the last ten years. Omertà was my favourite.

  • Doug says:

    I’ve always thought that English TV should feature one night a week of the best from French TV. All you’d have to do is subtitle the content (movies, programs, news, docs).

    I’m sure there’s lots of great stuff over on Radio-Canada, but unless I go back to language class, I’m not likely to watch.

    This way, you get a whole evening of programming – CHEAP – and you fulfill the mandate of showing Canada to Canadians.

    I suppose that’s probably too outside the box…

  • Daley says:

    How about not telling that they are Canadian movies. Most viewers wouldn’t know unless you told and would watch and enjoy in their blissful ignorance.

  • Anonymous says:

    Why aren’t they playing on CBC?

    For the same reason that CBC seems to ignore entire demographics of the people they are charged to serve: focus on tv prime time to feed his highness’ drama “reinvention”.

    This lands at the feet of Richard S., but shame on other toadies around him for not speaking up.

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