Aperture (October 15, 1979)

A newsletter with University of Lethbridge campus news.THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE c APERTURE ROGER RICKWOOD.... Roger Rickwood joined The University of Lethbridge political science department in 1973. He was a founding member of U of L's management arts department which he joined in 1976. Dr. Rickwood received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 1976. His thesis was entitled "A Study of Canadian Broadcasting Policy from 1936-1968". The management arts professor specializes in Canadian government and public administration and has a personal interest in Canadian communications. - 30 - **As you indicated, The Herald does have a photo of Dr. Rickwood. Dr. Rickwood informs me the photo you used for his March 15, 1975 Aperture column is the one which does him most justice. Could you please use that one with this current article?THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE c APERTURE ADVANCE CBC-TV OR DIE Twenty-five years ago this fall Canadian television first went on the air. Two small stations had been constructed in hastily converted quarters *in Toronto and Montreal with a skeleton staff recruited from Canadian radio and TV stations in the U.S. and the U.K. Telecasting took place only in the evening and the bill of fare was a hodgepodge of amateurish live shows, dated U.S. films and NFB shorts. Although CBC-TV's beginning was humble, brave were the hopes of its pioneers that they could provide Canadians with a national TV service that would link our country together, define and develop our culture and keep us entertained and informed"at the same time. Today CBC-TV has indeed bonded the country together with a network of 541 television trans­mitters and hundreds of hours of Canadian-content programing each week in both English and French. Yet these construction and programing successes of our national service are marred by the fact that Canadians across the country are switching increasingly via cable-TV to American stations. Even those who remain tuned to Canadian TV stations tend to view American programs on them rather than the Canadian ones. CBC officials hope they can win increased audiences for their Canadian programs by pumping more money into their shows. They argue that Canadians do not necessarily prefer American shows but that they do prefer expensively produced entertainment shows. ...../2THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE ( ( If CBC-TV pursues such a strategy, little ground can be regained. Canada, with a population of 22 million, can never hope to match the financial resources of the three American networks which serve a domestic population of 220 million and a world market as well. If Canadians try to co-produce programs with foreign networks, as some have advocated, we run the rist of having distinctive Canadian qualities edited out of the scripts. The answer lies in more imaginative programing where slick, high-cost production factors are kept to a minimum, and the entertainer or commentator is made the focus of the show. Already CBC has made considerable ground in this regard in its award winning radio service. Here, the game of winning mass audiences has been discarded for maintaining a small but fiercely loyal audience. Much of this CBC radio revolution was engineered by a Lethbridge man, Jack Crane. What we need now is a CBC-TV revolution of imagination. It is debatable whether the Canadian public will pay to provide a quality Canadian-content TV service which so few of them watch. Those who will watch it, however, might be vocal enough to swing the necessary political support. If they cannot, and the Corporation fails to win an alternative mass audience, CBC-TV may die as too expensive to operate. ....../3THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE c Whichever way CBC-TV goes, we will pay the cost. We should, however, be willing to give CBC-TV a chance for a trial period to try and win back lost audiences. A nation which does not try to give its population an opportunity to express itself will not for- long remain a nation. Sir John Aird said this in 1929 and it is just as true today. Our nation has been held together in part by the CBC Radio and TV services and we have got to know ourselves better, if not like each other better, through these media. A collective cheer is thus due to all those at the CBC who achieved so much in so few years. Happy Birthday CBC-TV and keep it up