Keeping it Real…

Oh how the might have fallen! It almost brought tears to my eyes; certainly shock to my system!!  No, I’m not talking about Mayor-elect Gregor Robertson and his Vision team’s landslide victory at the polls: I’m still shaking my head in disbelief at the minimalist coverage of BC’s civic elections on the once mighty BCTV.

Actually, it clearly isn’t BCTV anymore in the way it covers municipal politics: it’s Global all the way now … and with their shares closing at 73 cents Friday,  another $61 million in staff cuts announced last week and possibly now even tighter-than-ever controls on overtime  spending, the station seemed to have abandoned all but the very basics in covering Saturday’s municipal election results.

The overthrow of the entire Vancouver city power structure and the results of voting in 161 other communities around the province, where 4.5 million voters (and potential viewers) live was dismissed on the 11 p.m. News Final in about nine minutes.  And the coverage even “felt” as dispassionate and disinterested as it looked.

Almost as if intended to add insult to injury (I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate though!) their minimal civic electon coverage was followed by … wait for it,  foreign video feed coverage of  a domino-toppling challenge (how appropriate) somewhere and, I’m not kidding, a full story on a seniors’ virtual bowling tournament in Connecticut!  Couldn’t they at least have found other BC or Canadian crud to fill the space before sports and weather?

On this night, BC’s Number One station fell to a paltry Fourth place in covering B.C.’s major news of the day and evening … behind CTV, Shaw and CBC … an embarrassment that top station AND newsroom management years ago would never have allowed to happen … but I suspect barely raises a ripple now.

Now, to be honest, I did not watch the news all day and/or all evening: with a Lions Game; the Canucks; and, dinner company … I didn’t even get to check for the results until 9:45 p.m.  So I have no idea who did best with those tiny cut ins between shows or advertising.

Of course, the old reliable, Shaw Cable was steadily plodding away, doing its solid Community coverage, with more live coverage than I expected to see around the Lower Mainland and results from around the province.

My first hint the dismal coverage that was to come on Global came at 10 p.m. when I was surprised, even between shows, to not even see a brief  “cut in” with major results or even scrolling results at the bottom of the screen.  I saw nothing.

But shortly after,  CTV kicked ass!    I don’t know how they did it: if it was a coincidence or they convinced the parties to co-operate … but there it was, at 10:10 p.m., just after the end of their feature Saturday night movie .. .Vancouver Mayor-elect Gregor Robertson just starting his acceptance speech.  Carried live! 

And after a few minutes of Robertson beamed LIVE into BC homes on CTV .. then came defeated NPA mayoral hopeful Peter Ladner, also starting to speak LIVE on CTV.  I’ve rarely seen better timing of post election speeches: it was as if perfectly scripted to fit into an available time slot. And that was followed by another 10 minutes or so, to the bottom of the half-hour, with other election results and more LIVE reports from various venues.

I was indeed impressed!

And on Global at the same time?  “Kenny Vs. Spenny” .. a frolicking Canadian comedy romp, exploring (according to the t.v. listing)   ”Who is funnier.  Spenny returns to his standup roots, while Kenny pulls his meanest practical joke on Spenny”  (Reality).   

No the meanest practical joke came later, at 11 .p.m  while CTV, CBC, Shaw were giving a complete election night review and coverage, serving their communities and honoring both our democracy and their viewers’ intelligence.

Global dismissed it, in my view, with minimal coverage.  THAT was their “Reality” show, a practical joke in itself, but I doubt it left anyone laughing.

Harv Oberfeld