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CBC Canadianized

© Jael Mehr

CBC has Canadianized it's shows. While one show, "Wonderful World of Disney", will stayed, shows that were deemed unCanadian (such as a soap with gay characters, regardless of the fact that "All My Children" is one of the few soaps in history to have strong Canadian characters, and one of the few soaps with Canadian actors, one of whom PLAYED a Canadian character) went, including (among various affiliates) "The Young and the Restless", "Caroline in the City", "Frasier", "Home Improvement", "The Rosie O'Donnell Show", "Days of Our Lives", "Friends", "Extra", "Cosby", "King of the Hill", "Dharma and Greg", and various other shows, including the Saturday morning cartoons many children watch. These shows were dumped because CBC was afraid that Canadians may actually LIKE American programming. (There were two considerations in mind while shows were being kept/dropped -- their level of Canadianness, and whether or not the shows were offered by other networks. Shows offered by other networks were supposed to be dropped.)

So instead, CBC decided to offer purely Canadian shows that were basically rip-offs of American shows -- shows like "Cover Me" (a separatist female Québecois spy and a Mountie), "DaVinci's Inquest" (a coroner searching for the truth -- what American show was that? it reminds me of something...), "Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy" (a young couple facing life on the WWII frontier life in cattle country, starring "Roseanne" alumni Sarah Chalke), and "Pit Pony" (about a mining boy and his horse). Since the start of the year, I have seen three of those -- "Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy" and "Pit Pony" were both made-for-TV movies ("Pit Pony" aired tonight on CBC), and "DaVinci's Inquest" (which is totally copied off of "Wodjek") airs Wednesday nights at 9:00 PM PST. And, lest I forget, the "hard-hitting" news show "Pamela Wallin Live". This is a Canadian version of Oprah, which while hosted by a Canadian, spends a lot of time interviewing non-Canadian celebrities. Doesn't make much sense, does it?

Obviously, I wasn't in favor of these changes. As a Canadian with two Canadian channels, I enjoyed being able to watch whichever programs I wanted, American or Canadian, without having one or the other shoved down my throat. I e-mailed CBC to express my dissatisfaction at what seemed pretty unfair of them, and they responded that it wasn't just American programs they were dumping -- it was any program that was not unique to CBC (in other words, any program that aired on any other station). Either someone needed to show the person who responded to me the CBC fall line-up, or someone needs to take a few courses in honesty. They only dumped American programming -- CBC continues to air non-Canadian programming such as "Coronation Street" (a British soap opera), and have contradicted themselves in their sports offerings -- CBC airs the American SuperBowl as well as many NHL games, neither of which follows the definition of "unique". Many CBC affiliates refused to follow these rules -- mine was one, and when I do tune in to CBC (which is seldom), I watch one of the American shows my affiliate chose to keep.

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