Short Takes – March 25, 2007

Okay, I made the transition to the New Blogger and for the most part it was painless. All I had to do was create a new Google account and even that wasn't overly painful. Who knew? Apparently not the people who set up this transition process in the first place but that, of course, is a whole other story. Changes are coming; you may have noticed the addition of labels below the posts – and because I'm an anal sort I'll eventually get every post (over 500 of them) appropriately labelled – and then there's the long desired (by me) redefinition of my template. But that's for the future.

ABC renews shows for next year: I think this makes them the first network to do so. Among the shows renewed are new series Men in Trees, Ugly Betty, and Brothers & Sisters, and returning series Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Dancing With The Stars, The Bachelor, Boston Legal, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and Jimmy Kimmel Live. Significantly there is no word about Six Degrees (one of those rare shows that has returned from an early relegation to the status of "indefinite hiatus", but which has had a significant retooling by the network), nor is there any mention of the network's conventional comedy series including According to Jim and George Lopez as well as new shows Knights of Prosperity and In Case of Emergency.

Ratings show Canadians love US shows: In my last post I mentioned that of the Canadian broadcast networks CBC was the one I was most likely to watch because I chose to watch the other networks' offerings on the original American network. Here are the top 10 shows on Canadian TV courtesy of the BBM – essentially Canada's answer to the Nielsen Ratings:

1. American Idol (Tuesday) - CTV
   
2. Grey's Anatomy - CTV
   
3. American Idol (Wednesday) - CTV
   
4. Corner Gas - CTV
   
5. CSI: Miami - CTV
   
6. Amazing Race All Stars - CTV
   
7. Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? - Global
   
8. Criminal Minds - CTV
   
9. Hockey Night In Canada – Game 1 - CBC
   
10. CTV Evening News - CTV
    

Of the ten shows, only three are made in Canada – Corner Gas, Hockey Night In Canada, and CTV Evening News – and only Corner Gas is a scripted, non-news program. And we can see which network bought the most popular American programming.

Guidance and common sense: Patricia Harrison, the Republican appointed president of the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, recently made some wide ranging statements about the organization she heads. The principal thrust of her speech at a Media Institute lunch was primarily about seeking guidance from journalism schools to "define journalistic objectivity and balance on public broadcasting." According to Harrison, "public media consumers already believe noncommercial TV is nonpartisan and unbiased."

Harrison had opinions about other aspects of public broadcasting. She stated that she was shocked when the FCC fined a non-commercial station for airing profanities when it showed the Martin Scorsese Blues documentary. According to Harrison, "common sense could dictate that there is a world of difference between the casual, gratuitous profanity in a run-of-the-mill sitcom as opposed to its contextual use in a documentary like The Blues." She also worried about the effect that this sort of "censorship before the fact" will have a chilling effect on other stations and producers. She's a bit behind the times on this one. We know from the private sector that is has exactly that sort of effect. The decision by a large number of commercial stations not to air the movie because of profanity despite the fact that it had aired previously and had not been subject to FCC action is exactly the sort of chilling effect that Harrison is talking about. It is an action that says that it is better to be safe than sorry and it has become more pervasive in these days of increased FCC fines and advocacy groups mounting massive mailing campaigns with pre-printed form letters of complaint for people who are "outraged" even if they never saw the show in question.

Who does the PTC hate this week?: Well they're still hating on the same episode of The Black Donellys as they were last week. And they are continuing their assault on the V-Chip. In an address to the Association of National Advertisers' Forum on March 20, as reported in Advertising Age, PTC President Tim Winter alleged that 80% of the V-Chip ratings assigned to shows were wrong as determined by a study undertaken by the PTC. According to Winter, this represented "fraud by many of the broadcasters and the networks. ... They rate [the programs] inaccurately and that way the V-chip doesn't block the programming. You're duped. Families are duped. And if the rating system is wrong, the V-chip can't work." However, it seems to me that a study by the PTC on the V-Chip is on the lines of a self-fulfilling prophecy; the ratings are determined to be wrong by the PTC but it is in the interest of the PTC for the ratings to be wrong. If all you see a statement that "80% of the V-Chip ratings assigned to shows are wrong" aren't you being duped if you aren't told that the organization that is making that statement is vehemently opposed to the very idea of the V-Chip?

Who hates the PTC this week?: As a matter of fact it's the very organization that Tim Winter was addressing, the Association of National Advertisers. Winter repeated the usual PTC line; the V-Chip doesn't work, that there needs to be a la carte pricing for cable so people aren't forced to subsidise shows that have graphic content, and that the PTC wants to work with advertisers so that they don't fund "evil" shows. Among Winter's statements: "I believe there is a cartel … a fraud that the cable industry … has perpetrated on consumers," and "Our goal is to have collaborative efforts to help you reach your demographic market. We want you to win. We want to do it a way that hopefully does not encourage or sponsor graphic anti-family programming."

Winter was in enemy territory on this one though as reported by Variety's Multi Channel News. Dan Jaffe, the ANA's executive vice president of government relations stated that "What we have always said is that we don't want to have censorship in this society, where some group becomes a surrogate parent, for a surrogate person to decide what should come into the home. Parents should have that power." At least one delegate suggested that companies who are targeted by PTC letter and email campaigns should be able to sue for restraint of trade. One attendee wanted his money back because he felt that the forum was a waste of time: "This conversation is ridiculous as an advertiser. You have a television. You have a remote control. Turn it off tell your daughter to leave the room." In a poll taken during the ANA panel, a significant minority – 41% – felt threatened by advocacy groups like the PTC, but not one felt that advocacy groups like the PTC should be given the responsibility of shielding children from what they watch on TV.

Winters reportedly appreciated the difference in opinion but "I think it's unfortunate that it has to be so venomous." Perhaps he should ask himself and his group who made it so venomous - I don't think it was the advertisers. Certainly through its Family Friendly Programming Forum and the Forum's Script Development Fund, the ANA has done more that is positive in terms of getting family friendly programming on the air than anyone at the PTC ever has.

This Old Show

I think I've mentioned that I like home renovation shows. The grand-daddy of all home renovation shows in North America is This Old House. Through twenty five years and three very different hosts, the show has been a standard on most PBS stations with some, such as WTVS Detroit (which serves eastern and central Canada including Saskatoon) airing the show in prime time, along with its much newer companion show Ask This Old House.

I haven't seen every episode of This Old House. I pretty much missed the fifth or sixth season when the nature of the show changed radically from what it had been and would be later. Until that time the show would buy a property, renovate it and put it on the market. One season they actually built, from the ground up, an energy efficient house that had all of the bells and whistles that, at the time, were expected from an energy efficient property - solar heating, partially buried structure, heavy insulation, and solar cells for power generation. It was a nice house but I gather they had trouble selling it because the next season was spent doing "small" one or two episode projects in and around the Boston area in a style much like the current Ask This Old House. Subsequent jobs have primarily been "sweat equity" projects where home owners have been required to provide some of the labour and more importantly, most of the money.

Over the past 25 years the show has had three very different hosts. The first host was Bob Villa, a Miami born contractor who hosted the show for the first ten years (1979-89). He was selected as host because of his background in journalism and because his work on restoring an Italianate style house won an award from Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. In the beginning he very much was the show, but over the next couple of years carpenter and (at the time) general contractor Norm Abram effectively became the show's co-host and is the only on-air personality who has been with the show since the beginning. The Villa-Abram relationship was at least in part the genesis for the characters of Tim Taylor and Al Borland in Home Improvement. Villa left the show in 1989, reportedly over a conflict over advertising that Villa had done for Time-Life Books and his relationship with Sears. He was replaced by Steve Thomas. Thomas, who had previously worked in the construction industry in various capacities, but at the time probably best known as a sailor who had written a book and made an episode in the PBS television show Adventure about his experience learning about star path navigation from a master navigator in Micronesia. Thomas was with the show from 1989 to 2003, a period which saw Abram secure his position as co-host as well as a start his own PBS show The New Yankee Workshop. This period also saw the emergence of general contractor Tom Silva, plumbing and heating contractor Rich Trethewy, and landscaper Roger Cook as major figures on the show. In Thomas's last year as host a companion show Ask This Old House was started. This show had the This Old House experts travelling around the country (although the country seemed to consist mostly of the Boston area) helping ordinary people with home renovation questions. One of the people who appeared on that show was a young man named Kevin O'Connor. He became the current host of This Old House and Ask This Old House in 2003.

A lot of factors help make the show work. O'Connor is an ideal host because, while he is articulate he is also an every man. A vice president in Sports Finance with the old Fleet Bank, O'Connor isn't a professional in the building trades. As a result there's a feeling that he's learning something at the same time as the audience. He contrasts nicely with master carpenter Norm Abram. Another factor is that the principal trades people are not only proficient in their areas but are actually doing the jobs,because they are. Indeed Villa has said that while he was hosting the show he was also continuing to work as a contractor - the salary for doing This Old House was never great enough that he could make a living from doing the program. While Rich, Tommy and Roger are polished and capable of explaining what they're doing, you are never permitted to forget that they are in fact amateurs in the TV business, and if it went away tomorrow they'd still make a very good living in their respective trades.

Another factor of This Old House is the projects they undertake. One of the complaints about the show is that the projects are bigger than what the average person would undertake. They aren't renovating a $100,000 bungalow or ranch style house, a lot of the projects have renovation budgets larger than that. However big projects allow them to do two things that the show does very well: show the techniques that are used, and show innovative products. In the episode that aired this Thursday on WTVS, viewers not only saw the manufacturing process for polyurethane moldings but also the installation process for installing a window casing using the product. Even failures can be used to illustrate a point. In the same episode it was revealed that the oak lintel that had been intended as a fireplace mantle wasn't approved by the local building inspector despite what the people involved in installing it regarded as adequate protection. To appeal the decision test results were needed that proved that the installation was safe. The testing techniques were explained as were the standards that had to be met. When the tests were completed it was discovered that the lintel was in fact inadequately protected and because of time constraints on the project it would have to be replaced rather than been brought up to standards. It's true that few of us are going to try to turn a 150 year old barn into a home, but it's also true that the techniques for installing a wood laminate floor don't change much whether you're putting down 1000 square feet or 50.

This Old House is an interesting combination of a instruction and entertainment. Most home owners have renovation projects they need or want to undertake - I know I have - and it is also a fact that most guys who have been through a couple of shop classes think that they're capable of at least trying most jobs. What This Old House does is show the wannabe handyman how to do projects and new ways to do projects. They also make clear that there are some projects that the home owner needs to hire professionals for. And in a rather strange sort of way it's sort of entertaining to watch professionals doing their job and trying to explain it.