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Polling Booth: "Kick a Ginger" Controversy
Toronto has always had a love affair with labels. What can you expect from the town that seized upon the idea of "no name" and turned it into a brand? Through our obsession runs the secret paranoia that our local product names just don’t cut the Heinz mustard compared to those from south of the border: while we stockpile President’s Choice Cola in our basements and slink into Mark’s Work Wearhouse under cover of darkness, publicly we storm the gates of American Apparel by the thousands, leaving a sea of emptied Pepsi cans in our wake. And though we may silently subscribe to Canada’s The Movie Network, we have always loudly coveted America’s HBO. Now, finally, thanks to the upcoming launch of HBO Canada on October 30, Torontonians are finally getting a movie channel that it will be cool to be seen watching. Even if the "new" channel is, in reality, simply PC Cola packaged in a Pepsi can.
Torontonians are not alone in salivating over the promise of this forthcoming network—our whole country suffers from a label fetish. "Canadians see great value in HBO's distinctive brand," says Paul Robertson of Corus Entertainment, the company that, together with Astral Media, will be presenting the new network. "It is very exciting to be able to deliver a robust inventory of HBO programming under an HBO-branded destination," chimes in Charles Schreger, President of Programming Sales at HBO. The message is clear: Canadians need this new channel. Blinded by this need and the sleek name of HBO, it’s easy to forget that this "robust inventory" has already been available in Canada for years.
HBO Canada will be home to such shows as Curb Your Enthusiasm, True Blood, Big Love, Entourage, and In Treatment, all currently available on Astral’s TMN and Corus’ Movie Central. Subscribers to these channels will receive HBO Canada for free—only fair, considering it will, in effect, render these home-grown stations redundant. No longer need Canuck viewers feel like imposters, turning down the sound as the static-coloured logo that graces all HBO programming etches itself onto charlatan networks. Canadians may now feel free to crank up the volume, announcing to their neighbours that HBO is in the house!
The "previously unavailable" content that HBO Canada will be offering—mainly comedy shows such as Real Time with Bill Maher and Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger—will now also be available on demand on TMN and Movie Central for the first time. But why watch them there when you can see them on a new channel with a much sexier name? HBO Canada will also be earning its maple leaf by borrowing some of TMN’s Canadian series such as Durham County and Terminal City. Bad news for TMN, but good news for these award-winning shows—an "HBO branded destination" will surely mean a spike in their ratings, as viewers accidentally mistake them for American products and eagerly tune in.
Images courtesy of D. Cohen and HBO.
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Just make all TV on demand.
This is all kinds of ridiculous. Will TMN/MC shows on HBO Canada be more entertaining on a different channel? Will they produce any Canadian "HBO quality" shows or just shuffle them around from other Corus channels? Was there something preventing them from producing "HBO quality" shows without the HBO branding?
the bigger problem is/always has been with Astral/HBO is content rights to HBO.
HBO would (at times) withhold content from Canada sometimes for months at a time. This dedicated channel will avoid that whole kurfuckle.
As far as producing shows, Astral and Corus are networks not television producers.
The double up (TMN on Demand and HBO) is simply Astral/Corus capitalizing on their new found content rights.
I 'think' you can get TMN on demand w/o subscribing to TMN, no? So perhaps a different market entirely?
Not to make a mountain out of a molehill but Corus does produce kids shows via their Nelvana studio, and produced ReGenesis (with Shaftesbury, for TMN) and movies such as Blindness and Eastern Promises (in association with Astral); Astral used to produce shows in the 70s and 80s and is a movie production company (recent titles include Eastern Promises, Everything's Gone Green, and Fido), so nothing would stop them from expanding/getting back in the business of producing shows. (Astral and Corus aren't "networks" either, they're corporations that own, among other things, television channels.)
Sorry I'm referring to Astral Television Networks.
ReGenesis was not produced by Astral it was produced (as you pointed out) by Shaftsbury. Astral's only role in that project was the Bell Funding aspect (you need a network to get funding)
Astral had nothing to do with the production of the show whatsoever.
Astral 'distributed' movies such as Porky's but again they are not the production house in charge of creating that content.
There is a huge difference there. That's all I wanted to clear up that neither company really does 'content creation' as you referred to earlier. Corus moreso now I believe since integrating the 2 companies in 2006. But then again Nelvana doesn't produce any content that HBO would be interested in at all anyways.
Btw, Astral Television Networks is a network (hence the name) and they are made up of the following:
Family Channel
The Movie Network
Viewers Choice
Super Ecran
Canal Indigo
and about 50% of Teletoon
Forgot about MPIX (I forget about it too on the tele lol)
Hooray for the Videodrome still!
IMDB says Astral and Corus were production companies on the titles I listed (and others), are they wrong or just not being clear about what they mean by Production Company (when not "in association with" could muddy the role)?
I noticed that too on IMDB. I mean 'legally' they might be the production company, but I know for a fact (I worked on the internet side of Regenesis) that Astral didn't produce it the way we're talking here.
There is also muddy waters between the Harold Greenburg Fund (notice Harold Greenburg is listed as a producer for Porky's) and Astral as he was the president before his death.
Harold Greenburg Fund, although, located in Astral TV's headquarters isn't 'technically' associated with Astral at all (cause they are non-prof), they just leverage the relationship.
You've gotten me curious now, I'm going to send an email to a friend that works at ATVN and see what they say cause it's going to bother me now lol.
Just got a response...
Astral's role as 'producer' is merely $$$ and distribution control.