From John Doyle of the Globe and Mail:
- CBC Television: From arts champion to glorified karaoke club
Fair question I’m asking here, I think. Not for the first time, I put it to you that the arts have essentially disappeared from Canadian television. And that CBC is reneging on its responsibility as a public broadcaster by failing to present the arts to us on TV. Read more.
I have to agree with this article and it’s quite depressing. Not only is it becoming harder to find quality scripted Canadian programs but arts related programming is even harder to find (reality show music competitions do not count in my book as either “arts” or “canadian content”). I’m limited by income and location, so most of my exposure to the arts comes fom the CBC and Bravo. Actually, even Bravo has gone the way of CBC as well, they used to tons of specials focusing on canadian artists, mucisians, photographers, dancers, indepedent filmmakers and authors. Now, I find their schedule is inundated with Law and Order and – good lord – Dancing with the Stars reruns!
That’s funny, Diana. I’ve been saying the same thing about the American Bravo for years. Back in the 80s, it would show all sorts of arts programming, foreign films, even the 15-hour German TV series Berlin Alexanderplatz.
Even in the late 90s, it was airing things like famed British stage and screen writer Dennis Potter’s Karaoke and Cold Lazarus and Armistad Maupin’s Tales of the City.
In the last 10 years, its schedule has been full of reality series and other nonsense. I don’t think I’ve even watched it at all since they burned off the unaired episodes of the dropped by FOX series Keen Eddie.
It’s part of what some of us are calling the homogenization of cable. All the niche cable channels are losing their focus and shifting toward schedules of generic “product” in order to try and increase their market shares. Sticking to their respective niches just isn’t profitable enough.
Thankfully, PBS (our public broadcaster) is still sticking to their programming mission.