Canada before Television

Canada before Television PDF Author: Len Kuffert
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773599819
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Before screens could be stared at, listeners lent their ears to radio, and Canadian listeners were as avid as any. In Canada before Television, Len Kuffert takes us back to the earliest days of broadcasting, paying particular attention to how programs were imagined and made, loved and hated, regulated and tolerated. At a time when democracy stood out as a foundational value in the West, Canada’s private stations and the CBC often had conflicting ideas about what should or could be broadcast. While historians have documented the nationalist and culturally aspirational motives of some broadcasters, the story behind the production of programs for both broad and specialized audiences has not been as effectively told. By interweaving archival evidence with insights drawn from secondary literature, Canada before Television offers perspectives on radio’s intimate power, the promise and challenge of US programming and British influences, the regulation of taste on the air, shifting and varied musical appetites, and the difficulties of knowing what listeners wanted. While this mixed system divided Canadians then and now, the presence of more than one vision for the emerging medium made the early years of broadcasting in Canada more culturally democratic for listeners who stood a better chance of getting both what they already liked and what they might come to like. Canada before Television offers an insightful look at the place of radio and debates about programming in the development of a cultural democracy.

Canada before Television

Canada before Television PDF Author: Len Kuffert
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773599819
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Before screens could be stared at, listeners lent their ears to radio, and Canadian listeners were as avid as any. In Canada before Television, Len Kuffert takes us back to the earliest days of broadcasting, paying particular attention to how programs were imagined and made, loved and hated, regulated and tolerated. At a time when democracy stood out as a foundational value in the West, Canada’s private stations and the CBC often had conflicting ideas about what should or could be broadcast. While historians have documented the nationalist and culturally aspirational motives of some broadcasters, the story behind the production of programs for both broad and specialized audiences has not been as effectively told. By interweaving archival evidence with insights drawn from secondary literature, Canada before Television offers perspectives on radio’s intimate power, the promise and challenge of US programming and British influences, the regulation of taste on the air, shifting and varied musical appetites, and the difficulties of knowing what listeners wanted. While this mixed system divided Canadians then and now, the presence of more than one vision for the emerging medium made the early years of broadcasting in Canada more culturally democratic for listeners who stood a better chance of getting both what they already liked and what they might come to like. Canada before Television offers an insightful look at the place of radio and debates about programming in the development of a cultural democracy.

Recasting History

Recasting History PDF Author: Monica MacDonald
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773558098
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Since 1952, CBC television has played a unique role as the primary mass media purveyor of Canadian history. Yet until now, there have been no comprehensive accounts of Canadian history on television. Monica MacDonald takes us behind the scenes of the major documentaries and docudramas broadcast on the CBC, including in Explorations (1956–64) and the series Images of Canada (1972–76), The National Dream (1974), The Valour and the Horror (1992), and Canada: A People's History (2000–02). Drawing on a wide range of sources, MacDonald explores how producers struggled to represent the Canadian past under a range of external and internal pressures. Despite dramatic shifts in the writing of history over this period, she determines that television themes and interpretations largely remained the same. The greater change was in the production and presentation, particularly in the role of professional historians, as journalists emerged not only as the new producers of Canadian history on CBC television, but also as the new content authorities. A critique of public history through the lens of political economy, Recasting History reveals the conflicts, compromises, and controversies that have shaped the CBC version of the Canadian past.

Making History

Making History PDF Author: Mark Starowicz
Publisher: M & S
ISBN: 9780771082573
Category : Canada, a people's history (Television program)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"How to make a successful television series when there's no money, " "everyone has been laid off, and" "your bosses are fighting Canada: A People's History" was a monumental undertaking for the CBC and its executive producer, Mark Starowicz: thirty-two hours of film, aired in seventeen episodes over two years, and the first ever co-production between the CBC and Radio-Canada. "Making History" is Starowicz's shockingly candid account of the making of the series. Proposed at a time when the CBC was laying off veteran staff en masse and shutting down its production facilities because of government cutbacks, the very idea of the series was more like the last gasp of a dying corporation than a sound proposal. The obstacles the series faced were enormous: the incomprehension and lukewarm support of some of the CBC brass; the technical and political challenges of being the first ever French-English co-production in Canadian television; the exasperating job of searching for corporate partners. Despite these huge obstacles, when the series went to air, it took the country by storm, gathering record numbers of viewers each episode. A madcap adventure story, an insider's account of a major corporation at its nadir, and the story in microcosm of relations between English and French Canada, "Making History" is brutally honest and often very funny.

Canadian Television Policy and the Board of Broadcast Governors, 1958-1968

Canadian Television Policy and the Board of Broadcast Governors, 1958-1968 PDF Author: Andrew Stewart
Publisher: University of Alberta
ISBN: 9780888642561
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
With the establishment of the Board of Broadcast Governors in 1958, Canada entered into a watershed decade in the development of Canadian broadcasting. Andrew Stewart offers his unique perspective as the first Chairman of the BBG. William Hull provides an in-depth analysis of the functioning of the BBG as a regulatory agency.

What Television Remembers

What Television Remembers PDF Author: Jennifer VanderBurgh
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0228019869
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Television in Canada has been undervalued as a cultural form. Despite being publicly funded, Canadian television programs are also notoriously difficult to access once they go off the air, which has compounded the problem. In What Television Remembers Jennifer VanderBurgh intervenes in the story of the medium in Canada by exploring the long relationship between TV and the city of Toronto. From the first demonstration of television at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1939 and the mass viewing of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation broadcast in 1953 to the late-century installation of TV screens in public spaces around the city, television has shaped Toronto’s collective imagination and affirmed viewers in their multiple identities as local residents, national citizens, and transnational consumers. In a close reading of Toronto-based CBC dramas from the 1960s to 2010, VanderBurgh explains how the city has functioned as a strategic location in CBC programming, reflecting dramatically changing ideas about Canadian identity, community, and citizenship. At a time when many are suggesting that the era of television is over, What Television Remembers sounds the alarm that we are in danger of forgetting TV in Canada without appreciating the complexities of its contributions and legacy.

Documentary Television in Canada

Documentary Television in Canada PDF Author: David Hogarth
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773523391
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Since the inception of Canadian television in the early 1950s, documentary television, consistently a favourite among viewers, has been misunderstood and often maligned by its critics. More popular, and arguably more innovative, than its cinematic counterpart or than dramatic Canadian television, Canadian documentary television has decisively shaped the form and function of public service television in this country. David Hogarth traces its history back to its roots in radio in the 1930s and 1940s and examines the variety of forms of documentary television that developed in the decades that followed, focusing on newsmagazines, science programs, historical essays, docudramas, and verité investigations. He concludes with a discussion of the recent international success of documentary television as one of Canada's leading cultural exports, examining the effects of globalisation and looking forward to the future of this genre. While principally an overview of the last half century and an analysis of current conditions, Documentary Television in Canada also includes detailed analysis of selected programs, such as the For the Record series on schizophrenia, "Warrendale" (by Allan King), "Images of Canada" (by Vincent Tovell), "The Valour and The Horror" episode, "Death by Moonlight" and "Shooting Indians" (by Ali Kazimi) among others.

When Television was Young

When Television was Young PDF Author: Paul Rutherford
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802066473
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 676

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Book Description
A decade after the first Canadian telecasts in September 1952, TV had conquered the country. Why was the little screen so enthusiastically welcomed by Canadians? Was television in its early years more innovative, less commerical, and more Canadian than current than current offerings? In this study of what is often called the 'golden age' of television, Paul Rutherford has set out to dispel some cherished myths and to resurrect the memory of a noble experiment in the making of Canadian culture. He focuses on three key aspects of the story. The first is the development of the national service, including the critical acclaim won by Radio-Canada, the struggles of the CBC's English service to provide mass entertainment that could compete with the Hollywood product, and the effective challenge of private television to the whole dream of public broadcasting. The second deals with the wealth of made-in-Canada programming available to please and inform vviewers - even commercials receive close attention. Altogether, Rutherford argues, Canadian programming reflected as well as enhanced the prevailing values and assumptions of the mainstream. The final focus is on McLuhan's Question: What happens to society when a new medium of communications enters the picture? Rutherford's findings cast doubt upon the common presumptions about the awesome power of television. Television in Canada, Rutherford concludes, amounts to a failed revolution. It never realized the ambbitions of its masters or the fears of its critics. Its course was shaped not only by the will of the government, the power of commerce, and the empire of Hollywood, but also by the desires and habits of the viewers.

A New History of Documentary Film

A New History of Documentary Film PDF Author: Jack C. Ellis
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826417510
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
This history of documentary film concentrates mainly on the output of the film industries in the US, the UK and Canada. The authors outline the origins of the form and trace its development over the next several decades. Each chapter concludes with a list of the key documentaries in that time period or genre.

Canadian Television

Canadian Television PDF Author: Marian Bredin
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 1554583888
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Canadian Television: Text and Context explores the creation and circulation of entertainment television in Canada from the interdisciplinary perspective of television studies. Each chapter connects arguments about particular texts of Canadian television to critical analysis of the wider cultural, social, and economic contexts in which they are created. The book surveys the commercial and technological imperatives of the Canadian television industry, the shifting role of the CBC as Canada’s public broadcaster, the dynamics of Canada’s multicultural and multiracial audiences, and the function of television’s “star system.” Foreword by The Globe and Mail’s television critic, John Doyle.

The Television Studies Reader

The Television Studies Reader PDF Author: Robert Clyde Allen
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415283243
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Book Description
A discussion of a truly international range of television programs, this title covers alternative modes of television such as digital and satellite.