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The Public Eye BOOK REVIEW THE PUBLIC EYE By Frank W. Peers University of Toronto Press Tor on to - 1979 By Ronald Grantham Former Book Review Editor of the Ottawa Citizen The Public Eye, a catchy title, Since the chronicle is thickly continues The Politics of Canadian detailed, the reader would do well Broadcasting, 1920-51, now in to read first the concluding sum- paperback. These volumes are mary. indispensable to students of the subject. The Aird Commission's report on radio broadcasting, 1929, influ- Frank Peers knows that sub- enced all that followed in this field. ject intimately. He was, in turn, It warned that if left to their own 1947-63, a CBC program producer, resources private stations would public affairs program supervisor, become chiefly a means of pumping and information programming direc- American material into Canadian tor. He is now a political science homes. professor at the University of Toronto. (It is interesting that Sir John Aird, president of the Canadian Others write about broad- Bank of Commerce, was a Conser- casting in Canada in journalistic vative, as were Sir John A. style, recreating events in colorful Macdonald, author of the national prose, indulging in personal opin- policy of tariff protection, and ions. But not Dr. Peers. His Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, who book is a model of scholarship, declared that national control of thorough in research, clear and broadcasting was essential. Aird's quiet in style, with few but per- colleagues were Charles A. Bowman, tinent personal comments. editor of The Ottawa Citizen, and Augustin Frigon, Quebec's technical His subject is the development education director. ) of broadcasting policy, with its public and private components. He The Aird report was strongly was granted interviews, and access backed in the press and by the to private papers, by many persons Canadian Radio League, formed by who were prom'inent in the events Graham Spry and Alan Plaunt, two he chronicles. Some of this infor- of many idealistic young patriots of mation is newly published. their time. 32 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION (Spry had worked for the the CBC be given the security of International Labor Organization and statutory and capital grants. was secretary of the Canadian Clubs. Plaunt was an Ottawan of But controversy steamed up in French Canadian and Nova Scotia the 1950s, affected, more than Scottish parentage. He became a Peers indicates, by the cold war, CBC governor. He died at 37. and the McCarthy witch hunt in the Commemorating him, Carleton United States. It was stimulated, University sponsors the annual too, by the arrival of television in Plaunt lectures. ) 1952. Many newspapers cooled toward the CBC. Some proprietors In 1932 a broadcasting act had backed it in hope that it would established the Public Canadian not compete for advertising Radio Broadcasting Commission. revenue, but had become involved in increasingly profitable private (To counter hostile propa- broadcasting. ganda, Spry bought the Farmer's The controversies, continuing Sun, which he and Plaunt edited. for decades, had to do with the Brooke Claxton won from the Privy roles of public and private broad- Council in London rejection of the casting, personality clashes, claim by Quebec and three other diverse motivations--the drivers for provinces that the federal govern- money and power, dedications to ment lacked jurisdiction over broad- quality and public service. Peers casting. For C. D. Howe, in the deals with all these calmly, but Bennett cabinet, Plaunt drafted the high drama is implicit. 1936 bill that created the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In the 1950s the CBC (and the National Film Board), wanting to (Howe, powerful in cabinets reflect a changing world, offended, for 22 years, was the industrial of course, this or that opinion czar who got Canada into maximum element. wartime production. He was inter- ested in results. When state initia- Some Conservative MPs objected tive suited him, he was for it, and to radio programs critical of the in the cases of the CNR, the CBC, rearming of Germany (as was in and Air Canada's precursor.) tone the Liberal government and the third-party Co-operative Common- Characteristically, as Peers wealth Federation). Others asked records, in October, 1948, Howe why the CBC should regulate its convinced the cabinet that television "competitors. I' should be left to risk-taking private enterprise, since he thought it Powerful Liberal cabinet minis- couldn't be brought to most Cana- ters objected to a planned CBC dians for many years. program on unemployment. C. D. Howe "blew up," threatening mass The Massey Commission (1951 ), firings. Robert Winters purged the warning of pressure on the CBC to National Film Board of several "left- use American programs, asked that ists. " He found the commissioner, CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CCMMINICATION 33 J . ROSS McLean, "unco-operative, program that caused Peers and his and replaced him. (At issue here colleagues to resign, alleging politi- was control of filmed material for cal interference. TV--was it to be by the minister to whom CBC was answerable, or by In 1961 the new CTV network Winters, to whom the NFB was posed problems related to American answerable?) hook-ups, clashes of interests and personalities. Important Liberals blocked the CBC in favor of a private St. In late 1964 there began within John's station. Others complained the CBC the eruption caused by the that during the stormy pipeline weekly program This Hour Has debate in 1956 the CBC had been Seven Days, very popular, but unsympathetic to the government. adversely criticized as abrasive in interviews, unfair in treatment and In 1957 the Fowler royal com- unduly sensational. Peers thinks mission found Canada threatened by the producers' fight with manage- American pressures, via the air ment was questionable, for a few waves. It made a very Canadian programs were banned. Patrick proposal: public and private enter- Watson is quoted as wryly saying prise in a flexible system, super- later that he had seen himself as vised by a Board of Broadcast president of an empire within the Governors. Five-year money grants CBC! would enable the CBC to plan ahead. (Robert M. Fowler, presi- One of the most dramatic dent of the Canadian Pulp and episodes in Dr. Peer's book has Paper Association, was distin- roots in 1953, when history pro- guished for other important public fessor Arthur Lower of Queen's services. ) University injected into controversy the assertion that private ownership Support came from the Cana- of broadcasting would mean dian Broadcasting League (Graham American control. Lower called for Spry again), representing millions members in a defence of Canada of votes in organizations of labor, association. In 1954 the Canadian farmers, women, churches, co- Radio and Television League was operators, educators. But the formed. After the 1956 Fowler Progressive Conservatives favored Commission hearings, it became the private stations in nearly equal Canadian Radio League (1930-6). systems under a Board of Broadcast Radio and TV broadcasters attacked Governors, and so legislated in "egg heads" and "socialists." 1958. The curtain rises again in CBC1s "most productive years" September, 1961. Lower wrote to were also its "sea of troubles." Prime Minister Diefenbaker, begging Tight budgets, loss of much talent, him to prevent the Board of Broad- a Montreal producers' strike that cast Governors "selling out our left French-Canadian staff ag- television to one of the American grieved; cancellation of a radio 'chains."' Parties to that would be 34 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION "little better than traitors. I' Board resources, to be effectively owned member Eugene Forsey also blasted and controlled by Canadians to the proposal, which was dropped. safeguard and enrich the cultural, political, social and economic fabric Named by Lower was John of Canada. A Canadian Radio- Bassett, whose large modern CFTO Television Commission was given plant was opened with "much hoopla" authority over cable transmissions. on January 1, 1961, aiming at national as well as local audiences. Under CBC leadership, TV Chairman of the enterprise was growth in Canada had been the Bassett; financial backer, John fastest, and in total programming David Eaton; in and with the the largest, of all. Toronto Telegram they had control. To buy out the president, Joel Frank Peers deplores the Aldred, they wanted to bring in the increasing concern with commercial American Broadcasting Company, gain that has caused a massive owned by ABC Paramount, motion commitment to programs, many of picture makers . them American, that are "irrelevant to Canadian needs." He calls for a In 1966 color TV further better balance between the public fragmented the audience and inten- service and the private commercial sified competition. Peers frowns on principles. "We can drift no the CBC for imitating American longer. I' programs and catering to some "shocking" minority tastes. Moreover, "new technologies are forcing change--not only cable, A move next year to limit any but pay-TV, video recordings, and minister's control of broadcasting the possibility of international policy angered Judy LaMarsh, satellite penetration. I' secretary of state, who made an unproven charge of "rotten manage- Indeed so. ment" within the CBC. Fibre optics can bring Prime Minister Pearson then hundreds of channels into the pointedly thanked CBC for excellent home. coverage of Canada's centennial year programs and events, espe- Some want a public pay-TV cially those at Expo '67. system. The CTV network wants broadcaster control. It agrees, Pearson reaffirmed the original however, with the CBC (which has concept, missing in the 1958 legisla- not yet been given longer-term tion, that the air waves are public financing with annual increases) property, in a single distinctive that pay-TV profits should be used Canadian system.
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