Transcript
00:00:02 Speaker 1
The rest of weird, weird spent two years on that.
00:00:06 Speaker 1
There’s a oxygen was a very great guy.
00:00:09 Speaker 1
I I like them.
00:00:10 Speaker 1
And actually in the in the book I find some.
00:00:12 Speaker 1
I found something very strange where he takes a real plaque at commercial broadcasting.
00:00:20 Speaker 1
Well, Austin, weird.
00:00:21 Speaker 1
As a matter of fact, was the manager of the Commercial division of the CDC.
00:00:26 Speaker 1
And it was us and Weir who created it.
00:00:29 Speaker 1
He came to me and told me the idea of creating the Dominion network.
00:00:34 Speaker 1
For no other reason that we were overloaded with commercials on the national network.
00:00:44 Speaker 1
When did I leave? December 31st, 19.
00:00:49 Speaker 1
15 minutes.
00:00:51 Speaker 2
Just about the time the BVD within, maybe before and they were considering licensing and elevation.
00:00:57 Speaker 1
That’s right, yeah.
00:00:59 Speaker 2
Why at that time?
00:01:01 Speaker 2
Which I believe well.
00:01:04 Speaker 1
I’ll be very frank with you.
00:01:09 Speaker 1
During this period of stress.
00:01:12 Speaker 1
On the 9th of January.
00:01:15 Speaker 1
Mr. Mamet took six.
00:01:19 Speaker 1
I shouldn’t say this, but.
00:01:22 Speaker 1
I was going to say.
00:01:23 Speaker 1
In the lead heart attack.
00:01:28 Speaker 1
His brother-in-law was a doctor.
00:01:33 Speaker 1
With a new board.
00:01:36 Speaker 1
I found it pretty heavy going in a container.
00:01:44 Speaker 1
Al had another condition that I knew about and should have.
00:01:47 Speaker 1
When operated on back in the 1930s, when he.
00:01:54 Speaker 1
I think it was.
00:01:57 Speaker 1
I admire the man.
00:01:59 Speaker 1
He was one of the most brilliant.
00:02:05 Speaker 1
In the think theological field, radio side television side, I guess if anyone in Canada.
00:02:16 Speaker 1
Another thing that I admired him.
00:02:18 Speaker 1
He was brought up in a very poor family.
00:02:22 Speaker 1
He was getting an allowance.
00:02:25 Speaker 1
Miss Alice told me himself he was given the allowance of $0.10 a week. If he was number one in his class.
00:02:36 Speaker 1
He had a driving ambition, no question about that.
00:02:40 Speaker 1
I think he is one of the most articulate.
00:02:46 Speaker 1
In both languages.
00:02:48 Speaker 1
Expresses themselves, and I am envious of.
00:02:52 Speaker 1
Expresses themselves extremely well.
00:02:57 Speaker 1
Al was a good engineer, but he was not a good administrator.
00:03:02 Speaker 1
He took a course in business administration from textbook.
00:03:07 Speaker 1
You would put tracks up on the wall.
00:03:10 Speaker 1
Pins and it was the string from here to there.
00:03:13 Speaker 1
As a matter of fact.
00:03:15 Speaker 1
I don’t know that I could find it for you now, but.
00:03:17 Speaker 1
Down in this library.
00:03:20 Speaker 1
From their textbooks.
00:03:23 Speaker 1
From one of the which one of the American universities on administration.
00:03:32 Speaker 1
And al graph.
00:03:35 Speaker 1
Or an exact duplicate of some of the things that applied probably to General Motors or boots and shoe factory, but certainly not the broadcast.
00:03:44 Speaker 1
He was a great theorist.
00:03:47 Speaker 1
But I used to say to him, oh, look, that’s fine.
00:03:52 Speaker 1
But when are you going to put some flesh and brought blood on some of those pins that you’ve got in there?
00:03:57 Speaker 1
Who are the people?
00:03:59 Speaker 1
Well, he didn’t know, but this is the way it should work.
00:04:01 Speaker 1
I said it won’t work out until you get the people to rock your side those position.
00:04:06 Speaker 1
Now who they are, it’s for you to decide.
00:04:10 Speaker 1
But I don’t think there’s too many of them in a kind of a complicated administrative set up which you’re proposing.
00:04:22 Speaker 1
We had one little quarrel.
00:04:27 Speaker 1
When Dave Duncan was in there, I could use Dave as a point of reference.
00:04:32 Speaker 1
Wasn’t too bad.
00:04:33 Speaker 1
And then Dave laughed and he became president.
00:04:36 Speaker 1
And I, vice president.
00:04:40 Speaker 1
And actually, we were only given the jobs because George Darling couldn’t find anyone else to take the job.
00:04:46 Speaker 1
Who the hell wanted it?
00:04:50 Speaker 1
And that’s the fact George told me that himself.
00:04:53 Speaker 1
Said I I I I didn’t know, he said.
00:04:56 Speaker 1
I had to appoint ahead of the new.
00:04:59 Speaker 1
DVG and he said there’s there’s two Stewarts and I don’t know which is which, he said.
00:05:05 Speaker 1
I know one guy is there was a banker and he said there’s another guy that’s a professor or something out in Edmonton, Calgary, Edmonton.
00:05:14 Speaker 1
But he said.
00:05:17 Speaker 1
We’re just looking for people, that’s all, so he said.
00:05:20 Speaker 1
Right.
00:05:20 Speaker 1
He called us over 1 evening the night before the announcement was made.
00:05:25 Speaker 1
And he said, look, you fellas.
00:05:28 Speaker 1
Are going to be appointed president and place President.
00:05:32 Speaker 1
We thank them very much.
00:05:35 Speaker 1
We went.
00:05:37 Speaker 1
But Alan, I did not see eye to eye on the administrative side and I’m not the greatest administrator in the world either.
00:05:44 Speaker 1
But I believe in giving.
00:05:48 Speaker 1
Responsibility with authority. Al didn’t.
00:05:52 Speaker 1
It all had to follow a certain defined administrative pattern, no matter who had the job he was supposed to act in a certain way and never cross those damn lines.
00:06:05 Speaker 1
That’s nonsense in my opinion, so we didn’t get along too well.
00:06:13 Speaker 1
Well, the preview calendar is.
00:06:19 Speaker 1
This phrase is famous phrase.
00:06:22 Speaker 1
Heads will roll.
00:06:23 Speaker 1
Sure I use it.
00:06:26 Speaker 1
Because I had been told that after that.
00:06:29 Speaker 1
Six or eight?
00:06:30 Speaker 1
Well, six months.
00:06:32 Speaker 1
Seven months, I guess.
00:06:35 Speaker 1
Real difficulty, real problems.
00:06:40 Speaker 1
Right.
00:06:43 Speaker 1
I wasn’t told bluntly or directly, but it was insinuated at least.
00:06:48 Speaker 1
That the CBC was in serious difficulty and that it we didn’t sharpen up, hence would roll.
00:06:57 Speaker 1
Who told me that?
00:06:59 Speaker 1
It was just sort of general background knowledge.
00:07:01 Speaker 1
That you get from.
00:07:03 Speaker 1
Being here in Ottawa, you know you run into.
00:07:08 Speaker 1
Heads of.
00:07:09 Speaker 1
As the.
00:07:12 Speaker 1
Departments and that sort of thing.
00:07:16 Speaker 1
Paul Martin was one of them.
00:07:17 Speaker 1
To be quite frank about it.
00:07:20 Speaker 1
It’s always a very good friend and then he said, listen boy, you thought it’s better pull up your socks or else there’s going to be a change on that thing.
00:07:28 Speaker 1
You didn’t consider this an avoidable?
00:07:32 Speaker 2
This is a threat.
00:07:33 Speaker 1
No, no.
00:07:36 Speaker 1
Well, it was obvious.
00:07:37 Speaker 1
Look, you cannot really be responsible in the running of an organization that big and have all these things happen in six months time that create such a furor in the press.
00:07:49 Speaker 1
And indeed, on the air, everyone is being very critical and with a great deal of justification.
00:07:57 Speaker 1
When we took the Members of Parliament, Astronauta and annual tour of our facility parliamentary committee.
00:08:06 Speaker 1
With a club for dinner.
00:08:10 Speaker 1
Because of.
00:08:11 Speaker 1
And then and then that Members through the kitchen.
00:08:16 Speaker 1
With a lot that’s about the start of the interview.
00:08:18 Speaker 1
These various Members of Parliament might throw them out.
00:08:22 Speaker 1
Just like that told him to get the hell out of there.
00:08:25 Speaker 1
You know that you can’t put me up.
00:08:26 Speaker 1
And I said, I’m not gonna put you out to put a bunch around here and now get out before he throws you.
00:08:32 Speaker 1
And he did.
00:08:34 Speaker 1
Because the press had been warned that this was a private dinner.
00:08:38 Speaker 1
Not to appear anyway.
00:08:42 Speaker 1
Then I get a telephone call at the valley was calling.
00:08:50 Speaker 1
Bud Walker was there, Charlie Jennings was there.
00:08:52 Speaker 1
I called him endlessly.
00:08:54 Speaker 1
And I told them that this was a serious now this is a serious situation.
00:08:58 Speaker 1
They said look, all if something isn’t done and done soon.
00:09:03 Speaker 1
I can’t remember my exact words, but to improve the situation as far as the CBC is concerned, heads will roll.
00:09:13 Speaker 1
Bud Walker heard that.
00:09:15 Speaker 1
Charlie Jennings, service Charlie’s didn’t mention again, but did.
00:09:21 Speaker 1
And that sounds that out.
00:09:24 Speaker 1
And I think it is a fair assumption.
00:09:29 Speaker 1
So anyway, I came back, I admit, quite frankly, that during that summer I was drinking rather heavily.
00:09:35 Speaker 1
I went up to the cottage, they gave me a leave that for for two months.
00:09:41 Speaker 1
That’s the cottage up there.
00:09:43 Speaker 1
It’s just 17 miles from here.
00:09:44 Speaker 1
It’s not quite like that now, but that’s the waterway it’s on.
00:09:49 Speaker 1
Now there’s a question of.
00:09:52 Speaker 1
Well, I guess we have a cocktail before lunch and wife and I.
00:09:57 Speaker 1
I go down to steal a couple of beers in the afternoon.
00:10:00 Speaker 1
Then you’d have dinner and you better have another drink before dinner and go up to the club.
00:10:03 Speaker 1
The Golf Club play bridge and the first thing I knew I was drinking about 1/2 a bottle of liquor a day.
00:10:12 Speaker 1
So, and it was known that I love.
00:10:18 Speaker 1
I came back in the fall.
00:10:20 Speaker 1
Al had discussed with me the idea of creating several vice presidencies.
00:10:28 Speaker 1
And I agreed that it might be wise.
00:10:30 Speaker 1
I was the 1st place, the one and only place president at that time.
00:10:35 Speaker 1
He was following the pattern of General Motors with all their vice presidents at the Bell Telephone or somebody like that.
00:10:42 Speaker 1
And I agreed when I came back, they had a meeting.
00:10:46 Speaker 1
Or the board in Halifax.
00:10:50 Speaker 1
And Al had taken over.
00:10:52 Speaker 1
I think the 1st of September and he called me and one day and said Bush, I don’t think he’d better attend that meeting.
00:10:58 Speaker 1
They said why not?
00:11:00 Speaker 1
Well, he said there’s certain things we want to discuss.
00:11:04 Speaker 1
Maybe you wouldn’t be to your liking someone.
00:11:09 Speaker 1
Well, I was a little bit.
00:11:11 Speaker 1
Wisconsin about it.
00:11:12 Speaker 1
I can tell you.
00:11:15 Speaker 1
I didn’t go.
00:11:18 Speaker 1
And Al got his.
00:11:21 Speaker 1
New administrative group the permission from the board to create these vice presidencies.
00:11:26 Speaker 1
And he began looking around to see who he would who should be appointed.
00:11:31 Speaker 1
Didn’t consult me.
00:11:33 Speaker 1
Be quite frank about it.
00:11:34 Speaker 1
We weren’t getting along very well.
00:11:37 Speaker 1
So I had some friends from Toronto who.
00:11:42 Speaker 1
I’d known and.
00:11:44 Speaker 1
And moving picture business.
00:11:47 Speaker 1
And 20th Century Fox.
00:11:50 Speaker 1
20th century theater.
00:11:54 Speaker 1
And Mr.
00:11:55 Speaker 1
Nat Taylor and David restore.
00:11:58 Speaker 1
They called me one day and said Bush was coming down to Ottawa.
00:12:01 Speaker 1
We’d like.
00:12:01 Speaker 1
To breakfast with you.
00:12:06 Speaker 1
Did come down and I had breakfast with them and they said you must be tired of this rat race that you made.
00:12:11 Speaker 1
How about farming a company?
00:12:16 Speaker 1
They didn’t mention the plane for a life television station.
00:12:21 Speaker 1
Percent Pharma company for distribution of films and public relations, that sort of thing.
00:12:27 Speaker 1
So I began thinking about it and being.
00:12:31 Speaker 1
Pretty hurt.
00:12:33 Speaker 1
I’m pretty annoyed at what was going on in the CBC.
00:12:36 Speaker 1
I thought it over and.
00:12:38 Speaker 1
Make a Long story short, we we.
00:12:42 Speaker 1
Organized for the company and I put in my resignation and.
00:12:50 Speaker 1
What? November, December.
00:12:54 Speaker 1
I guess.
00:12:55 Speaker 1
It was the latter part of November.
00:12:57 Speaker 1
Snyder fired in November.
00:12:59
Right.
00:13:01 Speaker 1
Actually I see listly about it.
00:13:04 Speaker 1
If you can’t get along with your boss.
00:13:06 Speaker 1
We better get out.
00:13:07 Speaker 1
Either he’s gotta go or you’ve gotta go because it’s bad for the organization.
00:13:12 Speaker 1
If you have two rightly differing points of view as to how an organization should be.
00:13:20 Speaker 1
Well this little.
00:13:23 Speaker 1
The business would be started.
00:13:28 Speaker 1
Actually I I became a consultant for two Africans from Western Canada.
00:13:33 Speaker 1
As I said before, the operation was successful, but both patients dying didn’t get the light.
00:13:42 Speaker 1
Well, then, Mr.
00:13:43 Speaker 1
Taylor said to me one day.
00:13:44 Speaker 1
What’s the matter with you?
00:13:45 Speaker 1
License going begging down here because there’s no license going.
00:13:48 Speaker 1
They’re all they’re at.
00:13:49 Speaker 1
They’re at the moment.
00:13:50 Speaker 1
There are four applicants, and they’re all respectable people.
00:13:55 Speaker 1
Lori freeman.
00:13:57 Speaker 1
God knows who was into the act.
00:14:00 Speaker 1
So he said we were frightened and he said no.
00:14:04 Speaker 1
And how much it will cost, that won’t cost me anything.
00:14:08 Speaker 1
I haven’t got it, he said.
00:14:10 Speaker 1
That’s what I asked you.
00:14:11 Speaker 1
What will it cost?
00:14:12 Speaker 1
They said.
00:14:12 Speaker 1
Well, at the time, matter of fact to pay my salary, happily salary and and.
00:14:19 Speaker 1
An engineer salary and the lawyer salary and.
00:14:23 Speaker 1
Maybe half a dozen others.
00:14:25 Speaker 1
Compare the application. It will cost to somewhere between 40 to 50, maybe $60,000. And he looked me square in the eye and he said, So what?
00:14:37 Speaker 1
OK, brother.
00:14:38 Speaker 1
You want it? Let’s go.
00:14:41 Speaker 1
OK.
00:14:44 Speaker 2
Between 2-3 or eight five years and.
00:14:49 Speaker 1
Why you got involved?
00:14:53 Speaker 1
Well, that was a dead duck to start with, actually.
00:14:56 Speaker 1
Never been born an architect.
00:15:00 Speaker 1
As a matter of fact flight for the life.
00:15:02 Speaker 1
I was with the no, it was before that.
00:15:04 Speaker 1
I I opposed it at the time of the year, he, when he flied to this license, I was in the CBC and I opposed the.
00:15:12 Speaker 1
We’re granting the relations and.
00:15:16 Speaker 1
Economic and economic grounds, actually, they couldn’t succeed but.
00:15:22 Speaker 1
He was deaf.
00:15:25 Speaker 1
He was in the hotel business, actually, and there’s a marketplace as well.
00:15:29 Speaker 1
But what he wanted was the right to sell Commercial Services in Montreal.
00:15:39 Speaker 1
And when the BBG wouldn’t permit that, he was opposed to the Marconi people.
00:15:44 Speaker 1
That was really one of the reasons for his downfall.
00:15:48 Speaker 1
Furthermore, it costs a lot to set up a television station. He put about a million and 1/2 in the.
00:15:55 Speaker 1
Much too much equipment.
00:15:56 Speaker 1
As a matter of fact, or or down on that side.
00:16:01 Speaker 1
And then the first.
00:16:04 Speaker 1
Nine months for the first year, he lost three or $400,000.
00:16:12 Speaker 1
He was throwing the signal into Montreal, but he was allowed to sell there.
00:16:17 Speaker 1
And the selling spot announcements as a matter of fact for $10.
00:16:25 Speaker 1
So, like George, who was then general manager of Marconi Field of mine.
00:16:33 Speaker 1
I don’t know who called.
00:16:34 Speaker 1
Which was called the other.
00:16:38 Speaker 1
They said this Cornwall station is going rather broke.
00:16:42 Speaker 1
And they’ve resource knew this dad.
00:16:44 Speaker 1
They were both Jewish persuasion and.
00:16:48 Speaker 1
And the rumors gotten around that.
00:16:52 Speaker 1
Cornwall was in bad shape.
00:16:56 Speaker 1
So I called Dave, who was one of our directors of the station and.
00:17:00 Speaker 1
Would you be interested in buying Cornwell?
00:17:02 Speaker 1
They said I’d look into it.
00:17:03 Speaker 1
So he did.
00:17:05 Speaker 1
Then we went to Marconi.
00:17:08 Speaker 1
And we agreed, as a matter of fact, each take 50%.
00:17:13 Speaker 1
We bought it. For what?
00:17:15 Speaker 1
1958 hundred $1000 both the television and the radio station.
00:17:24 Speaker 1
It ran for a year.
00:17:26 Speaker 1
And they were still there.
00:17:32 Speaker 1
One day I was driving down.
00:17:33 Speaker 1
Crazy enough, I was running out with the cannot race track here.
00:17:36 Speaker 1
Oh my God.
00:17:39 Speaker 1
Vic had suggested that maybe Marconi should take the thing over and he set certain ground rules.
00:17:47 Speaker 1
And I thought, well.
00:17:52 Speaker 1
CDC elites needs coverage in that area.
00:17:55 Speaker 1
CSCF doesn’t.
00:17:57 Speaker 1
They’re coming in there going late at the moment.
00:18:02 Speaker 1
And why don’t we buy it?
00:18:05 Speaker 1
Like holidays, he starts.
00:18:07 Speaker 1
I asked him what he thought about it.
00:18:09 Speaker 1
Said, well, there’s a try, so I called Rick George and said look.
00:18:13 Speaker 1
You’ve laid down certain terms and conditions.
00:18:17 Speaker 1
And the deal with the whereby you would take over the Cornwall station.
00:18:23 Speaker 1
If we made you the same offer would have accepted, we said, well, I’ll have to discuss it with my board.
00:18:29 Speaker 1
But he came back in about two weeks time and said yes, we went ahead and bought it.
00:18:33 Speaker 1
The best thing.
00:18:33 Speaker 1
They ever did.
00:18:39 Speaker 2
Get involved in the.
00:18:47 Speaker 1
Famous players own part of the.
00:18:49 Speaker 1
Equity of the company.
00:18:51 Speaker 1
May God bless all of you and you say there’s a third thing you know.
00:18:54 Speaker 1
They were the proposals.
00:18:56 Speaker 1
That was why wireless is there, but.
00:19:07 Speaker 1
I opposed back to me before the Ottawa Council and.
00:19:11 Speaker 1
At their annual meeting.
00:19:14 Speaker 1
City Council meeting, please, please.
00:19:18 Speaker 1
Cable system.
00:19:20 Speaker 1
Thing that was very much in the air at that time because I called the number of.
00:19:23 Speaker 1
Problems they would have in this particular area.
00:19:26 Speaker 1
I guess I would buy it.
00:19:27 Speaker 1
They didn’t want the damn thing to the truth in any event.
00:19:30 Speaker 1
They decided to go ahead with it.
00:19:36 Speaker 1
Famous players on.
00:19:39 Speaker 1
Equity in the Laurentian system across from holding.
00:19:44 Speaker 1
No, they didn’t own any of that thing, but they were interested in it.
00:19:46 Speaker 1
So the chat, the chat Montreal who owned it.
00:19:51 Speaker 1
The story got round and he was quite ready to sell, so famous persuaded.
00:19:58 Speaker 1
Listening to get interested in it, we bought there.
00:20:05 Speaker 1
I don’t know which came First off with the Lorentzian of the skyline.
00:20:10 Speaker 1
But in any event, the city of agreed that we should have.
00:20:15 Speaker 1
Yeah, go ahead.
00:20:16 Speaker 1
I think the first one, I’m not sure that meeting is over months apart, but.
00:20:28 Speaker 1
They the city agreed that they would grant the license for a cable system and eventually decided that the city should be scripted too.
00:20:37 Speaker 1
And Mr.
00:20:38 Speaker 1
George Nelms, the ex mayor of Ottawa and not Titian here, and I’ve been going for my glasses and my daughter had that sort of thing.
00:20:47 Speaker 1
So I happened to meet him on the street one day and I said George, sure thing.
00:20:50 Speaker 1
You’re organizing a a company to apply for cable system.
00:20:54 Speaker 1
In Ottawa.
00:20:57 Speaker 1
And he said by golly, he said, Ernie, that’s strange, he said.
00:21:00 Speaker 1
I just had a call yesterday.
00:21:02 Speaker 1
A lawyer here.
00:21:03 Speaker 1
Hi, Sally.
00:21:05 Speaker 1
And he met me just about where we’re standing here.
00:21:09 Speaker 1
He said he was thinking of getting into the cable television system Cablevision business.
00:21:15 Speaker 1
They said George, would you be interested?
00:21:17 Speaker 1
And I said sure.
00:21:20 Speaker 1
So you could have just passed like that, but he said like if we regard that as a commitment, like I said, we better all get together because we’re going to apply for it.
00:21:28 Speaker 1
We said alright and I said yeah.
00:21:32 Speaker 1
So we did get together and that’s how we got understanding.
00:21:36 Speaker 1
We held about 31 third of the equity and it finally acquired about 44%.
00:21:46 Speaker 1
We took over the wrenching thing, but back then.
00:21:53 Speaker 1
No, the cable TV in Montreal.
00:21:58 Speaker 1
550% of it. We bought the other fifty that we have voting control on.
00:22:04 Speaker 1
We got the first series this year, so that’s how we got into motion.
00:22:12 Speaker 1
But don’t let anyone tell.
00:22:13 Speaker 1
You that they’re gold mines.
00:22:18 Speaker 1
They show very nicely and show up well on your balance sheet.
00:22:22 Speaker 1
And neither Laurentian nor Skyline has ever faded dividends or any dividends has been paid has to be returned to the company for for its capital expenditures.
00:22:32 Speaker 1
Now if we get pay TV, God knows where any of us are gonna be before.
00:22:35 Speaker 1
Then, well, that, that’s.
00:22:36 Speaker 2
A good question.
00:22:37 Speaker 2
You didn’t even broadcasting in various ways were.
00:22:41 Speaker 1
50 years.
00:22:43
Thank you.
00:22:44 Speaker 2
Where does broadcasting go where you’ve got cable, which is fragmenting television audiences and radio audiences.
00:22:51 Speaker 2
You’ve got your over year stations, you’ve got your borders, American television, radio station.
00:22:56 Speaker 2
You’ve got satellite communications, you’ve got, and I don’t think this is anywhere near as close as though people would have us think this concept in the wired city where you shop and so on.
00:23:06 Speaker 2
So when?
00:23:06 Speaker 2
You got met him so many and.
00:23:11 Speaker 1
We’re going to get 23 million people.
00:23:13 Speaker 1
In this country, we’re oversaturated.
00:23:20 Speaker 1
You know.
00:23:23 Speaker 1
I suppose it was.
00:23:25 Speaker 1
Because of my.
00:23:26 Speaker 1
Fairly lengthy tenure as officer, the CBC.
00:23:33 Speaker 1
I honestly believe.
00:23:39 Speaker 1
We could have and should have had.
00:23:42 Speaker 1
A first class.
00:23:44 Speaker 1
Communications system in Canada for Canadians.
00:23:50 Speaker 1
And who’s to blame?
00:23:53 Speaker 1
I put the blame as a matter of fact, not necessarily on the CRT C, but on Parliament.
00:23:58 Speaker 1
You tell me one thing that has happened in Parliament since that last broadcasting act.
00:24:06 Speaker 1
Was put into effect were put into force.
00:24:10 Speaker 1
They they have their, their, their, their, their their blasted committee.
00:24:14 Speaker 1
Will still come up.
00:24:16 Speaker 1
Under the Committee of Arts Letters.
00:24:19 Speaker 1
That sort of thing.
00:24:21 Speaker 1
There hasn’t been anything done about broadcasting in any one of these sessions in the last five years.
00:24:27 Speaker 1
That amounts to Hello Bean.
00:24:29 Speaker 2
You don’t think that the advertising and the build prohibiting or at least limiting?
00:24:37 Speaker 2
The ability of Canadian companies to advertise.
00:24:42 Speaker 2
Advertising American people.
00:24:44 Speaker 1
That reminds me, I heard something on our air last night.
00:24:48 Speaker 1
It was wrong and I must talk to the newspaper people, but they’re the news department about one of our younger reporters reported that the.
00:24:57 Speaker 1
Advertising in American stations are fully deductible and expense.
00:25:02 Speaker 1
He’s full of crap.
00:25:05 Speaker 1
It was 50% of it was. But I mean, we all pay income tax and then we take the 50% reduction. We’re not 100% for anything in general.
00:25:15 Speaker 1
I must admit.
00:25:19 Speaker 1
I’m not a.
00:25:21 Speaker 1
An ardent Canadian National.
00:25:24 Speaker 1
I think you have to live with your neighbors.
00:25:30 Speaker 1
I must admit that.
00:25:33 Speaker 1
I’ve never followed the.
00:25:36 Speaker 1
Doctrines, if you like, of the national NDP or the CCF, I suppose of anything, I’m.
00:25:42 Speaker 1
Politically, I’m a small C conservative, and maybe at times a big C conservative.
00:25:51 Speaker 1
That I voted.
00:25:52 Speaker 1
Both liberal and conservative, the person that I thought would be the best.
00:25:57 Speaker 1
Representative in Parliament.
00:26:03 Speaker 1
But I don’t like all this haranguing with the United States. We’ve got to live with them, for God’s sake, and surely some way there’s some kind of a of a of a.
00:26:13 Speaker 1
Basis for compromise.
00:26:18 Speaker 1
I cannot.
00:26:25 Speaker 1
They would.
00:26:26 Speaker 1
Kick out time.
00:26:28 Speaker 1
Magazine’s allow readers digest to carry on.
00:26:34 Speaker 1
Bring in the public broadcasting system.
00:26:37 Speaker 1
If they here again, that’s coming in your area, I assume as well.
00:26:44 Speaker 1
It’s a good service, but it’s American.
00:26:48 Speaker 1
It’s another American force coming in you, and if you listen to it, as I do quite frequently.
00:26:55 Speaker 1
It’s a good counterpart of the kind of propaganda the BBC was trying to put into the United States, and this is American propaganda, surely put on fine drama, surely put on fine musical.
00:27:06 Speaker 1
But listen to the to the spoken word and what you’re getting from that is nothing but American propaganda.
00:27:16 Speaker 1
Ah, they come in here and what do they do? They invite you and me and everyone to send 15, twenty, $25, whatever it is annually to support the service.
00:27:27 Speaker 1
Why, then, do they want to?
00:27:28 Speaker 1
Kick out these students.
00:27:31 Speaker 1
Really our time and we just, I guess we’re American corporate.
00:27:37 Speaker 1
I don’t agree with the idea.
00:27:40 Speaker 1
That they should not permit.
00:27:44 Speaker 1
American advertising to come in here.
00:27:47 Speaker 2
Well, really they’re concerned about Canadian advertising in the magazines and on the border stations.
00:27:52 Speaker 1
Sure they are.
00:28:02 Speaker 1
Let me put it to you this way that to me is a destructive way of looking at it.
00:28:09 Speaker 1
If you can’t meet your competitor, you damn well better find out why and take steps to do it.
00:28:16 Speaker 1
And let’s let’s let’s let’s strengthen Canadian broadcasters.
00:28:21 Speaker 1
And then we won’t have everybody listening to these American States and state news but illustration, if any, at one time.
00:28:28 Speaker 1
Everyone got his news from the Americans.
00:28:30 Speaker 1
Both radio and television, I don’t see everyone did.
00:28:34 Speaker 1
That a lot of people do.
00:28:35 Speaker 1
We’ve built up our news department here.
00:28:38 Speaker 1
There’s no bloody American news coming in here except through PBS and occasional person listens to Watertown.
00:28:44 Speaker 1
Same thing internatus the FDA. As a matter of fact, the CDC get 90% of the people listening to news. Why can’t we do that in the entertainment side?
00:28:54 Speaker 1
You can’t tell me if you sat there for nothing doing me that there aren’t people in this country.
00:29:03 Speaker 1
Experienced enough?
00:29:05 Speaker 1
Maybe not as experienced as they should be.
00:29:08 Speaker 1
But who has the ability?
00:29:10 Speaker 1
To create in certain areas of programming.
00:29:14 Speaker 1
Programs that will meet the complications of the USA, particularly in certain fields.
00:29:22 Speaker 1
We haven’t got the great variety stars, a lot of these guys.
00:29:26 Speaker 1
As a matter of fact, that they had over in the United States, they’re not dying off.
00:29:31 Speaker 1
I listened to Tony Bennett last night in Neuron network.
00:29:33 Speaker 1
Who the hell cares about Tony Bennett?
00:29:37
Believe that.
00:29:38 Speaker 1
That people over here, one of the things.
00:29:41 Speaker 1
That’s been wrong.
00:29:47 Speaker 1
Right, with the CBC and Mr.
00:29:48 Speaker 1
Gladstone Murray, you could never build a star system in this country.
00:29:54 Speaker 1
No, no.
00:29:55 Speaker 1
Everyone had to be.
00:29:56 Speaker 1
At the same level.
00:29:57 Speaker 1
You couldn’t pick out one look at the.
00:29:59 Speaker 1
People that we did have.
00:30:01 Speaker 1
When we started television and where have they gone? I’ve got a list of them, for God’s sake. Right here on my desk.
00:30:07 Speaker 1
I think I have.
00:30:09 Speaker 1
And I don’t know whether true without or not probably idea.
00:30:14 Speaker 1
The Lauren green.
00:30:18 Speaker 1
Some of the best producers of television in the United States ailsworth.
00:30:23 Speaker 1
Where are they going?
00:30:24 Speaker 1
To God sake, that kid elsewhere.
00:30:26 Speaker 1
I went to high school with my daughter in Forest Hills Village back in the the early 40s.
00:30:34 Speaker 1
Dozens of them that you’ve made.
00:30:37 Speaker 1
Have gone over to the United States now.
00:30:39 Speaker 1
Not necessarily because of the money they made.
00:30:43 Speaker 1
But they just got.
00:30:44 Speaker 1
No recognition until you go to the United States or to Great Britain and make a name.
00:30:49 Speaker 1
You’re not regarded as being worth that much in this country.
00:30:54 Speaker 1
Now, who the hell has created this atmosphere in this country?
00:30:57 Speaker 1
I’d like to know.
00:30:59 Speaker 2
Pretty well.
00:30:59 Speaker 2
Got you this evening.
00:31:02 Speaker 2
At least origin.
00:31:05 Speaker 1
But we were never permitted.
00:31:07 Speaker 1
To do that, and in spite of it, we had great people like Andrew Owen, Tommy Tweed, the greatest, wrote some.
Part 2
Transcript
00:00:03 Speaker 1
Bill, what’s his name?
00:00:04 Speaker 1
Open Western Canada film woman.
00:00:09 Speaker 1
We did it before.
00:00:13 Speaker 1
We had good programs and we attracted.
00:00:15 Speaker 1
That they got him.
00:00:19 Speaker 1
I think then.
00:00:20 Speaker 1
I mean, you were a Canadian, you couldn’t be exploited.
00:00:23 Speaker 2
You wouldn’t have helped.
00:00:26 Speaker 2
Back when something could have been done about it.
00:00:29 Speaker 2
When they began to license the cable system because they had simply said you may not carry American programs, than the people on the board, you can get it by stick, which continued to get it.
00:00:38 Speaker 2
We would not be importing them to Flint along and.
00:00:40 Speaker 2
North be.
00:00:42 Speaker 2
Let’s bring in other places that normally wouldn’t get American programming.
00:00:46 Speaker 1
Right.
00:00:48 Speaker 1
Well before cable, and indeed before before television.
00:00:55 Speaker 1
Canadians, the CBC programs I think were respected and enjoyed by a reasonable percentage of the the total audience available.
00:01:07 Speaker 1
So that doesn’t happen today.
00:01:12 Speaker 1
I don’t know what it is now going back to what I think was really what what you’re interested in and that is the future of the electronic communications.
00:01:23 Speaker 1
I think it’s going down the drain.
00:01:28 Speaker 1
Something is done and done soon.
00:01:32 Speaker 1
To further to prevent further fragmentation.
00:01:37 Speaker 1
Of the signals in this count.
00:01:40 Speaker 1
You put pay pay TV in here.
00:01:43 Speaker 1
I don’t see any rush for it.
00:01:45 Speaker 1
Who the hell wants it?
00:01:50 Speaker 1
No, no advertising going to be allowed.
00:01:54 Speaker 1
No, they don’t want it.
00:01:56 Speaker 1
They’re not pushing for it.
00:01:57 Speaker 1
They don’t want it because they’ve got plenty of of opportunities right now.
00:02:03 Speaker 1
They tell you, as a matter of fact, that you, they they will tell you that they can’t get time on Canadian stations.
00:02:10 Speaker 1
Look at what happened to global.
00:02:13 Speaker 1
Global have spent millions of dollars. They’re still in the hall of the tune of 26 million bucks.
00:02:20 Speaker 1
But they just didn’t get enough to support it.
00:02:22 Speaker 1
They were too extravagant to start with.
00:02:23 Speaker 1
And thanks for that.
00:02:27 Speaker 1
There’s still time.
00:02:28 Speaker 1
It might be between 8:00 and 10:00 o’clock seven nights a week, but it’s there.
00:02:34 Speaker 1
And it’s there in the daytime.
00:02:35 Speaker 1
This station is never, never has been completely sold out.
00:02:42 Speaker 1
If you can get 80% as a matter of fact, you’re damn lucky. That’s the.
00:02:45 Speaker 1
Highest that it ever will be.
00:02:47 Speaker 1
There’s time there, but these bloody advertisers all want between 6:00 and 11:00 o’clock at night.
00:02:54 Speaker 1
Not to them.
00:02:55 Speaker 1
Let them take at lower rates.
00:02:57 Speaker 1
Let them take some other time.
00:02:59 Speaker 2
What would you suggest we do and that we are in this fragmentation?
00:03:05 Speaker 1
Well, in the first.
00:03:06 Speaker 2
Looks to be getting.
00:03:07 Speaker 1
Well, it is obviously going to get anywhere, in my opinion.
00:03:14 Speaker 1
Again, I go back.
00:03:16 Speaker 1
To what I mentioned before, let the CC.
00:03:21 Speaker 1
Give it more money and this is not the right time. As a matter of fact, for any political party or any government to provide another two hundred $250 million.
00:03:32 Speaker 2
And on the long term, beef rescheduling annual.
00:03:35 Speaker 1
That rate, certainly this bloody nonsense of having you look.
00:03:41 Speaker 1
And you get right down to it.
00:03:42 Speaker 1
It’s so damned easy to con that Treasury board.
00:03:45 Speaker 1
And I know I’ve done it.
00:03:50 Speaker 1
We never went before Treasury board in our life.
00:03:54 Speaker 1
That we didn’t make a careful assessment of the amount of money that we needed as a matter of fact, both for operations and capital expenditures, and we cracked on 10%.
00:04:05 Speaker 1
Automatically on the.
00:04:07 Speaker 1
Bottom right hand second there to us, we gave justification for it.
00:04:12 Speaker 1
In our capital expenditures, we usually put in somewhere between 7:00 and $10 million. We didn’t have the engineering department, for God’s sake, to spend more than three and 95th any any anytime in our life.
00:04:25 Speaker 1
And what happened?
00:04:26 Speaker 1
The money was transferred then to some other department.
00:04:28 Speaker 1
We went ahead and spent it putting on programs.
00:04:33 Speaker 1
Never nonsense.
00:04:34 Speaker 1
Let them set of six figures for five years.
00:04:37 Speaker 1
So the CDC, as a matter of fact, can work ahead.
00:04:42 Speaker 1
And know where it’s going.
00:04:43 Speaker 1
Now, mind you, there’s got to be some breaks on the CDC 2 where it’s extended.
00:04:50 Speaker 1
But on the.
00:04:50 Speaker 1
Other hand, they should be given the money.
00:04:54 Speaker 1
Look, let’s expand global right across this country.
00:04:58 Speaker 1
And it’s funny for me to be talking to an affiliate with the CDV.
00:05:02 Speaker 1
I don’t give a damn.
00:05:03 Speaker 1
They’re in Winnipeg.
00:05:04 Speaker 1
They’re in the in, in, in, in in Vancouver.
00:05:08 Speaker 1
Let the CBC there’s a kicker in this thing.
00:05:11 Speaker 1
What is the?
00:05:12 Speaker 1
What are the private affiliates?
00:05:13 Speaker 1
Going to do.
00:05:15 Speaker 1
That are on the CBC network at the moment, like the CTV, and let the global people take them over.
00:05:21 Speaker 1
And make them pure for God’s sake. But give that I don’t call it the third service. I call it the first service of the CBC.
00:05:30 Speaker 1
For those people who really want an end, can we talk about?
00:05:35 Speaker 1
We talk about uniting Canada.
00:05:37 Speaker 1
Well, for God’s sake, or anybody with any brains at all, can’t use television and radio to do more than that ever been done in a certain way.
00:05:47 Speaker 1
I’m I don’t know anything about broadcast.
00:05:51 Speaker 1
It can be done and it should be done.
00:05:56 Speaker 1
And let the the commercial stations go like, sure, they’re going to get, there’s a balance, let’s say of 70% of the audience there.
00:06:04 Speaker 1
They’ll get CV, you’ll get 3540% of the global get. It makes it possible.
00:06:11 Speaker 1
In my opinion, to provide.
00:06:15 Speaker 1
Entertainment, if you like.
00:06:17 Speaker 1
Don’t let the CTV or the global people go for all Americans. Go sure. Give them a restricted Canadian content to say 4050%.
00:06:30 Speaker 1
And they’ll get the audience.
00:06:31 Speaker 1
But to see these deep can provide a useful alternative.
00:06:37 Speaker 1
For those people who really enjoy that type of program, for everybody, for everybody, and in other words, you’ve got the thing divided up.
00:06:52 Speaker 1
Nobody seems to want to listen to me.
00:06:56 Speaker 1
And that wouldn’t be the first night.
00:06:57 Speaker 1
It wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong either.
00:06:59 Speaker 1
Let me assure you that.