Sesame Street and Canadian Nationalism

Document generated on 09/29/2021 7:32 a.m. Journal of the Canadian Historical Association Revue de la Société historique du Canada Brought To You by the Letters C, R, T, and C: Sesame Street and Canadian Nationalism MATTHEW HAYDAY Volume 27, Number 1, 2016 Article abstract The wildly popular educational program Sesame Street arrived in Canada during URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1040526ar a key transitional period for Canadian broadcasting policy in the early 1970s. An DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1040526ar American-made program, it was threatened with cancellation by stations seeking to meet their Canadian content (CanCon) quotas with the least possible financial See table of contents cost. A heated debate that included public protests and lobbying ensued, involving the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the media, parliamentarians, parents and even Publisher(s) children. Each group advanced their particular interests regarding the issue of Canadianizing television. Ultimately, the CBC provided a compromise solution The Canadian Historical Association / La Société historique du Canada with the Canadianization of Sesame Street, whereby a portion of the program’s segments would be replaced by Canadian-made material that aimed to provide ISSN messages about Canada for young children. This tumultuous debate and its ultimate solution reveal the ambivalent attitudes held by Canadians, private 0847-4478 (print) broadcasters, and even the CBC about both the CRTC’s Canadianization policies 1712-6274 (digital) and the quantitative approaches used to meet its objectives. It also demonstrates the roles that activist groups and more established interests such as Explore this journal broadcasters have played in shaping Canadian broadcasting policy. Cite this article Hayday, M. (2016). Brought To You by the Letters C, R, T, and C: Sesame Street and Canadian Nationalism. Journal of the Canadian Historical Association / Revue de la Société historique du Canada, 27(1), 95–137. https://doi.org/10.7202/1040526ar All Rights Reserved © The Canadian Historical Association / La Société This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit historique du Canada, 2016 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Brought To You by the Letters C, R, T, and C: Sesame Street and Canadian Nationalism MATTHEW HAYDAY Abstract The wildly popular educational program Sesame Street arrived in Can- ada during a key transitional period for Canadian broadcasting policy in the early 1970s. An American-made program, it was threatened with cancellation by stations seeking to meet their Canadian content (CanCon) quotas with the least possible fi nancial cost. A heated debate that included public protests and lobbying ensued, involving the Canadian Radio-Tele- vision Commission (CRTC), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the media, parliamentarians, parents and even children. Each group advanced their particular interests regarding the issue of Canadi- anizing television. Ultimately, the CBC provided a compromise solution with the Canadianization of Sesame Street, whereby a portion of the program’s segments would be replaced by Canadian-made material that aimed to provide messages about Canada for young children. This tumultuous debate and its ultimate solution reveal the ambivalent attitudes held by Canadians, private broadcasters, and even the CBC about both the CRTC’s Canadianization policies and the quantitative approaches used to meet its objectives. It also demonstrates the roles that activist groups and more established interests such as broadcasters have played in shaping Canadian broadcasting policy. Résumé Le très populaire programme éducatif Sesame Street est arrivé au pays pendant une période charnière pour la politique canadienne de radiodiffusion au début des années 1970. De mouture américaine, ce programme fut menacé d’annulation par les stations cherchant à respecter les quotas sur le contenu canadien (Cancon), tout en endiguant le plus possible les coûts fi nanciers. Un débat houleux animé par des manifestations populaires et des groupes de pression s’ensuivit, incluant le Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes (CRTC), la Société JOURNAL OF THE CHA 2016 REVUE DE LA SHC 2016 New Series, Vol. 27, No. 1 Nouvelle série, vol. 27, nº 1 95 JOURNAL OF THE CHA 2016/ REVUE DE LA SHC Radio-Canada, les médias, les parlementaires, des parents et même des enfants. Chaque groupe fi t valoir ses intérêts particuliers autour de l’exi- gence de « canadianiser » la programmation télévisée. Radio-Canada fi nit par proposer comme compromis la substitution de certains segments du programme par des thèmes canadiens assurant la « canadianisation » de Seasame Street et par là, la promotion du Canada auprès d’un jeune auditoire. Ce tumultueux débat, ainsi que sa résolution défi nitive, révèle les attitudes ambivalentes des Canadiens, des télédiffuseurs privés et même de la Société Radio-Canada à l’égard des politiques de « canadianisation » du CRTC et des méthodes quantitatives pour atteindre ses objectifs. “Bring Back Bert!” reads the giant sandwich board carried by pigtailed three-year-old Margot Irvine as she marches in front of the CKWS-TV station in Kingston, Ontario, on 18 September 1972. Together with about a dozen other preschoolers, bearing signs stating “Where is Ernie? I Miss Him” and “CKWS-TV Unfair to Kids,” Irvine was protesting the cancellation of Sesame Street by her local CBC-affi liated television station.1 This demonstration, organized by a group of mothers led by Dot Nuechterlein, was part of the latest wave of protests in Cana- dian communities determined to save Sesame Street, the wildly popular and innovative new children’s educational program, from being dropped from the local airwaves. The Kingston protest was a success. The following day, station program director Lorne Freed announced that Sesame Street would return.2 The children were doubtless delighted that Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, and Bert and Ernie would return to their television screens, thanks to their precocious engagement with social activism. The creation of Joan Ganz Cooney and her team at the Chil- dren’s Television Workshop (CTW), Sesame Street was hailed a breakthrough in educational television when it debuted in the late 1960s. It was based on the concept that educational television must recognize and accept the expectations that commercial television had created in its youngest viewers. Educational programs had to be lively, fast-moving, and dramatically presented, with slick and expensive production values, if they were to com- pete with commercial offerings.3 Sesame Street followed a variety 96 BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LETTERS C, R, T, AND C: SESAME STREET AND CANADIAN NATIONALISM Figure 1: Margot Irvine Leads the Pro-Sesame Street Protestors Outside CKWS-TV, Kingston. Source: Kingston Whig-Standard. show-inspired format. “Street” scenes, set in an urban neigh- bourhood loosely based on Harlem, New York, provided the continuity for each one-hour episode, featuring a multiracial cast of adults and children who interacted with Jim Henson’s Muppet characters. A series of short segments, both animation and live action, ranging in length from a few seconds to a few minutes, were interspersed between the street scenes. Sesame Street focused on the cognitive development of preschool children, based on a formal curriculum developed by a team of psychologists and educational researchers who worked in tandem with experienced television producers. The entire process underwent extensive independent evaluation.4 Although aiming to reach all children, Sesame Street was born in the era of the so-called “preschool movement” and President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and Head Start programs, and the producers believed that poverty 97 JOURNAL OF THE CHA 2016/ REVUE DE LA SHC could be overcome through education. Poor, urban preschoolers were thus the primary targets of the show.5 To understand why the very popular Sesame Street was on the chopping block in 1972, we must consider the broader landscape of Canadian broadcasting in the early 1970s. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) acquired the rights to air the program in 1970, at the same time as the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC) was rolling out new quotas for Canadian content in television. Sesame Street became one of the focal points in the ongoing debates over nationalism in broadcasting policy. As Marc Raboy notes, three major themes have shaped debates about Canadian broadcasting: “national identity and national unity; tensions between public and private enterprise; [and] broadcasting as an instrument of social and cultural development.”6 Until the early 1990s, it was largely taken as a given by Canadian television scholars that cultural and political sover- eignty were linked. Broadcasting policy had mostly been shaped by the belief that Canadian television required protection, was benefi cial for Canadians, and was crucial to the survival of the Canadian nation.7 Richard Collins challenged the premise that Canada’s political

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