Years passed. The seasons came and went, the short Commissioners’ lives fled by. A time came when there was no one who remembered the high expectations that came with the appointment of Juneau and Boyle and the creation of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.
Citizens soon forgot that the airwaves were public property, and that a licence to broadcast was not a licence to make excessive profit at the public’s expense. The principle that Canadian television should promote a Canadian identity through Canadian works of art, as poorly understood as might have originally been, was all but ignored by the Commissioners.
Citizens who were still interested would have been surprised to find all of the Commission’s rhetoric boiled down to one simple rule:
ALL PROGRAMMES ARE CANADIAN
BUT SOME PROGRAMMES ARE MORE
CANADIAN THAN OTHERS
The Commissioners were so proud of the communications network which they had constructed that they invited American broadcast executives to inspect their work. Many broadcast executives from neighbouring states did so, to the disgust of the citizens in the arts community.
The Commissioners showed them commercial television stations across the nation, which were filled with American shows, As the broadcast executives coohed in approval, the Commissioners explained that the American programming was necessary to get large enough audiences to gain enough commercial revenue to put out more Canadian productions. None of them explained why the vast majority of such revenue did not go into new production, why, in fact, the owners of the licences for such stations kept most of it for themselves. The subject simply never came up.
The Commissioners showed them the cable networks which, in addition to carrying Canadian stations dominated by American programmes, gave Canadians many American stations. As the broadcast executives talked appreciatively among themselves, the Commissioners explained that cable subscriptions helped subsidize even more Canadian production, especially of local programming. If anybody was aware that the concentration of ownership of cable companies was making programming more homogenous, and that the money which was theoretically slated for local programming more often than not was kept by the licensees, they didn’t mention it.
The Commissioners showed them the latest technological advancements which brought Canadians another wonder: pay television. As the broadcast executives marveled at the achievement, the Commissioners explained that pay television revenues could create a whole new era of Canadian/American co-produced programming. The citizens that were watching the proceedings wondered why nobody mentioned the fact that these “co-productions” had no appreciable Canadian content, making them worthless in light of the Commission’s own policy of the advancement of Canadian culture.
In their offices overlooking the Rideau, the Commissioners entertained the visiting broadcast executives. “You know,” one of them said, “when your Commission was originally set up, we were worried that you might push this public broadcasting idea too far, putting an electronic curtain up along our mutual border…”
Those citizens who were paying attention held their breath, not able to believe what was being said.
“But,” the broadcast executive continued, “it is obvious that such a situation does not exist, nor is it likely to in the foreseeable future. I think I can speak for the rest of my colleagues when I say that we like the balance of public and private interest which governs your industry, and we look forward to Canada’s continued patronage of our programmes.”
The Commissioners and the broadcast executives drank champagne amid cheers of “Here! Here!” and “Good luck to us all!” Then, the Chairman of the Commission stood up and, bending over for a moment to fill his glass, offered up his own toast.
“Gentlemen,” the Chairman said, “the Commission has toiled for many years to make the Canadian broadcasting system what it is today. It is by no means perfect…after all, nothing regulated by the government ever is…” Polite laughter. “But, it is our opinion that, given the vagaries of the entertainment industry which we are here to serve, we have done one hell of a job. One hell of a job. Gentlemen, to the future!”
Everybody drank once again. One of the broadcast executives suggested that the assembled group watch some fine programming. Within seconds, a television set was brought into the room, and the Chairman set it to a local station, which happened to be in the middle of an episode of Gilligan’s Island.
Soon, the room was filled with laughter.
Twenty voices howling with glee, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the morals of the Commissioners. The citizens on the outside of the process looked from Canadian to American, from American to Canadian and from Canadian to American once again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.