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Nobody outside Canada watches Canadian TV. Here’s how to fix that.
A think piece about how Canadian TV can better appeal to other markets in the world, which Schitt's Creek has proven is possible. It's a long article, but it makes some interesting points, including how the CRTC regs. about CanCon can get in the way.
Nobody outside Canada watches Canadian TV. Here’s how to fix that
- mace
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Re: Nobody outside Canada watches Canadian TV. Here’s how to fix that.
When I watch Coronation Street, there are occasional promos for CBC Gem where a short clip from a past CBC series is shown with the end tagline It's a Canadian thing. They recently showed a clip of Kids in the Hall, which I found to be absolutely not funny nor even mildly amusing. All the clip did was reinforce why I don't like Canadian television, other than local news, HNIC and CFL Football.
- paterson1
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Re: Nobody outside Canada watches Canadian TV. Here’s how to fix that.
Actually there is more Canadian TV being watched around the world than ever before. Oddly the most popular are stories based in Canada. But exactly what is a hit show?
The writer claims that Schitt's Creek was a hit. Really? Not if ratings were the criteria. Critics loved the series and characters and of course it won a truckload of Emmy awards. So the fact that the show had very ordinary to poor ratings with viewers, but won lots of TV awards automatically makes it a hit?
Our beloved SCTV was never a hit with viewers. The show did ok in ratings when it was on prime time on CBC but rarely in the top thirty. In the US it was pretty much in the basement of surveys since the show ran at a poor time when not many were watching TV at all. But critics and industry people loved the show. Several late night talk show hosts claim SCTV changed their lives when it came to comedy. Today SCTV is in a class by itself and considered as one of the greatest sketch comedy shows of all time by critics. But did it click with viewers? Other than Bob and Doug and a couple of hit songs, not really.
A couple of weeks ago CTV's Sullivan's Crossing was the most streamed acquired show on Netflix in the US. It appeared in the top ten for a few weeks and now it is gone. Is it a hit?
There seems to be a lot of Canadian programming internationally shown. Look at the ION network and CW network in the US. ION almost went belly up about 20 years ago. Endless repeats of old Canadian series like Flashpoint, Republic of Doyle, Wynonna Earp, Rookie Blue and many others were instrumental in the network surviving. Today ION still shows some cancon and is in a much better financial situation. CW is a work in progress and has always shown a lot of Canadian product.
I find the writer, like many tend to get bogged down with the point system, and tries to make it more complicated than it really is. And the endless dissecting of what is or isn't Canadian gets boring. Like I have said many times, a show does not ALWAYS need to be about all things Canadian to be a Canadian show.
If the financing and production company, crew and director, writer and ownership are Canadian that qualifies it. Even if the program itself is a documentary on the life of JFK or Taylor Swift it should technically qualify as cancon, since the money and any profit all stays here.
That's how you build a successful movie and TV industry. And like I said, so far the most popular Canadian exports are shows that are set in Canada and also have universal themes that anyone can relate to.
Last edited by paterson1 (September 4, 2025 10:17 am)