'The Doyle': Canadian private TV excecs are extremely rich, don't care about programming.
The owners of Big TV such as CTV, Rogers and Global have convinced Canadians they don't make much money. John Doyle says they own yachts and helicopters.
It's about time the CRTC dug into the finances of these companies, told Canadians the truth, and told these giants to start providing better content or they will lose their licenses.
Since the creation of Netflix and its high quality TV series', I've not paid a lot of attention to Canadian TV, which I expect to be mediocre. Skipping through channels, I recently watched an episode of CBC's Schitt's Creek. -- aside from a couple of excellent actors reading terrible scripts, it's a total embarrassment.
My lack of interest in Canadian TV means that I never heard about the sitcom Sunnyvale, which Doyle raves about. Rogers obviously didn't want it to survive as it ran opposite the Big Bang Theory. It won awards, but Rogers has cancelled it.
Meanwhile, I have just finished watching the best TV series I've ever watched. It's called Borgen (Parliament), and it's a totally wonderful and human series about political parties struggling for power in Denmark and the near real life people in the series. It's a must. Really, it just finished a four season run on TVO in Ontario, and is available for very reasonable amounts on the Internet. It's far better, more human and more realistic than House of Cards. Here"s information on Borgen:
John Doyle: Canadian TV is a place of squalor and neglect
A squall of knowledge recently struck the chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. In a speech, Jean-Pierre Blais declared that he is pretty sick of broadcast executives appearing in front of the CRTC to moan that the “cupboards are bare.”
He was speaking in particular about the issue of local TV news coverage, a task that Canadian commercial broadcasters don’t want to fulfill. “Local television news is failing us. But it need not. The system sits at a position of strength,” Blais said.
Then came the kicker: “I listened as Canadians spoke with intelligence and passion, while corporate executives who own luxury yachts and private helicopters came looking for subsidies.”
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