Canada tv critic

Spread this around, we’re on the cusp of very bad things and something must be done.

June 12 - Jim Prentice has finally announced his re-write of Canada’s copyright. As expected, Prentice plans to impose the same blanket ban on overriding DRM for any purpose that has so damaged American innovation. The text of the bill is now available; more analysis is available at Michael Geist’s site. If you’re concerned about Canada importing the DMCA, write to your MP now. We have a new template letter which spells out some of the problems of this bill, and demands Parliamentary oversight.

The big problem is that it gives industry open license through Digital Rights Management (DRM) to make the rules that the government is then to enforce. For example, you buy a dvd that has DRM but manage to put it on your ipod to watch it when you like. That would be an offense that you could be fined with. While it’s not illegal to do this according to Canada’s copyright laws, if you violate the DRM, you’re breaking the law. It’s complete garbage to put the lawmaking in the hands of industry. It’s like playing a boardgame with a five year old who keeps breaking the rules because they can’t keep up with the grownups.

Write your MP with this automated letter-writer:

http://www.copyrightforcanadians.ca/action/firstlook/

Join the Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6315846683

What was with the focus that Hell’s Kitchen had on maitre’d Jean-Philipe Susilovic? First he runs into the door and gets berated by Ramsay and then he keeps telling the waiters to push the meat and then the chicken? Not that I mind, he seems to be there for comic relief now and then, but was there just not enough footage to make the episode that they moved to the JP b-reel?

This season’s Hell’s Kitchen has been weird. There aren’t a lot of contestants that have really grabbed me or seem to have a hope of running a high-end restaurant.  Even Petroza, whom I do like, couldn’t pull it off, especially with Ramsay constantly calling him a pig.

All I know is I hope Jen is gone soon. Her complaining and superiority are driving me nuts!

Well, one of the better television shows from the late 80’s and early 90’s is back. It’s like Dr Sam Beckett leaped in to save us from a summer of terrible re-runs and sub-par reality shows.
Vision TV is airing the show from the very beginning every Tuesday night at 9pm e/p. Wouldn’t it be great if more stations could take a cue from Vision and put on some older shows instead of all the trash that we’re forced to watch? America’s got Talent?!?! I’d rather see Hasselhoff in Knight Rider reruns.

Teletoon will launch a new channel October first called Teletoon Retro, obviously aimed at an older audience, featuring cartoons from their youth. The programming, in my opinion is unfortunate. Obviously, retro cartoons would be stuff we’ve all already seen, but for the most part, all the programming that is being offered are shows that Teletoon was already playing, be it in regular programming or in their block of ‘grown up’ cartoons they play at night. We’re talking Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, Scooby Doo, Jetsons and Flintstones, etc. While I have no problem with these shows and do love them, why does it feel so empty that Teletoon Retro is just compiling what they’ve already aired and forgoing all the years of amazing programming that we all experienced as kids? One day, I really want to talk about how programming on many cable channels seems like a second thought, or always motivated by the bottom line. When are these channels, or parent companies, going to realize that it’s not enough to just have a concept, and get a CRTC license to have a channel. To be a good channel, the public has to get behind it. I love the concept of Teletoon Retro, but I feel sad that there was so little effort to program exciting television. I acknowledge that it isn’t easy to program a channel, but when done well, it can be awesome.

In the US, there is a channel called Boomerang, with the same concept which is an off-shoot of the Cartoon Network. It’s concept is the same as Teletoon Retro but they’ve clearly put thought into programming and really pushed the concept into something that people enjoy and watch. Of course, the grass is always greener, but as aficionado of retro culture and television, Canadian channels are terrible.

The biggest problem with this is that it really disrespects my memories of getting excited about saturday mornings and the great feeling of joy I’d get from all those old shows. What’s more, is that I’d like there to me more to a retro station than what I’ve already seen repeatedly even in recent memory. I’d love to see cartoons that were either a little before or after my time, or even those which ran in the states and only saw little play during the early integration of cable television. The huge Hanna Barbera catalog offers a wealth of cartoons that should be playing on a channel like this as opposed to Rocket Robin Hood which was reviled by everyone when they were kids due to the fact they were played to death. Back then, Canadian broadcasters seemed to care very little about Children’s programming and now it seems they’re disrepecting those same kids, as adults.

So even though I was getting sick of the Mudvayne video that had seemed to be in regular rotation for the last two years, my beloved ‘go to channel during commercials’ is now gone. According to the on-screen propaganda that Bell has, they are simply dropping them from Bell service. After scouring the web, there doesn’t seem to be anyone who truly knows why. Speculation goes from CTV acquiring Chum’s stations and are re-branding to Bell needing to make room on the satelite they were on for other channels… apparently the Military channel (ie: how the History Channel used to be) and another men-programmed channel called Bite-TV. If it reaches the high watermark set by MenTV in quality programming, we’re all doomed.

It wasn’t that MuchLoud was amazing, but it’s getting increasingly harder to just watch music video’s on television. Muchmusic has adopted the MTV model and has more non-video programming that videos these days. I just enjoyed being able to flip to MuchLoud and get a video in and then flip back to Monk and figure out how the killer did it.

I guess in the bigger picture, if ctv is either cancelling or rebranding these channels, we’re just going to get more generic in our music programming. On the forums, a lot of people feel there are too many as it is. I agree, even though it’s great they try and represent different genres and lifestyles, the disconnect of no vj’s or personality to the channels just turns them into commodity’s or even just added value to a channel theme pack.