Why I Preferred Watching Canada’s Debate over the U.S. Debate

In some sort of bizarre collision of fate in the universe, or some sort of sick joke on the part of television schedulers, the much anticipated U.S. Vice Presidential debate and the Canadian election Leaders’ Debate ended up on the air live at exactly the same time last night. 

I was following Twitter, of course, to see what people were saying leading up to the two events. There was lots of chatter was going on about the U.S. debates, of course, but then again, many of the people I follow are American, so it stands to reason. What I was really interested in was what was going on with my fellow Canadians. The camps seemed divided. Some people were going to flip back and forth between the two, and remarkably, some people were ONLY going to watch the U.S. debate! 

Now, I am absolutely not anti-American. But I have to say, I much preferred the Canadian debate over the U.S. one. To me, it was just better television, plain and simple. And here’s why:

Format. The CBC shook things up a bit this time ’round (pun intended), and did away with stiff podiums, going with a round table format instead. The 5 leaders (for the benefit of the non-Canadians, they are Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois, Jack Layton of the New Democrats, Stephane Dion of the Liberals, incumbent Stephen Harper of the Conservatives, and Elizabeth May of the Green Party) sat around an oval table emblazened with a red maple leaf. The moderator sat at the head of the table. This format, of facing each other, as difficult as it was for the TV crew to shoot, did one thing well – it enabled conversation. And conversational it was! With the leaders facing each other like this, I kind of half expected to see someone come out and serve up a round of beers. I liked the laid back feel, and I think the leaders seemed to enjoy it too. 

Lack of Glitz. Compared to the U.S., Canadians are decidedly un-glitzy. This isn’t a bad thing, in fact, quite the contrary. We don’t do the CNN-big-flashy-animations-with-Wolf-Blitzer-dancing-around-in-front-of-a-jumbotron thing very well, like our U.S. counterparts – so we just don’t do it. Instead, we opt for a simple, to the point, get on with the show attitude. In fact, last night, the pre-game show featured CBC anchor Suhanna Merharchand talking to voters via phone, email and even Skype video. It was a great way to kick things off, talking to real Canadians instead of political pundits to get their views on what they expected to hear in the debate. The after-show had the regular slew of analysts, but they were brief, not overly analytical, and in fact made some good points.

Real People. Real Issues. Some will argue about the “human qualities” and “personalities” of some of our party leaders, to be sure. But I’m not one to get into my personal political leanings in a public forum such as this, so if you want to have that discussion in the comments, fill yer boots. My point is, I found the Canadian debate to be lively and at times heated, but the leaders all did a good job of addressing the issues and presenting their parties’ respective platforms. What I enjoyed about the 5 leaders is that like them or not, they all come across as having real personalities. These are just regular people, standing up for what they believe, and I think all of them did a pretty good job of representing the views of their supporters. There was some humour at times, which I think adds a real human element. And at the end of the day, I, as a voter, came away with clarity on where each leader stands and with a much better sense of which box I’m going to tick on October 14th. 

I’m Canadian. Perhaps this is the most important reason to prefer the Canadian debates. Yes, I know that what is happens in the U.S. affects us greatly, particularly the current economic crisis. Yes, I know it’s important to keep up with American issues. But, we are not the United States. We are an independent nation, with our own economic uncertainties, and our own serious issues like homelessness and climate change. Home turf comes first. The decisions that are made in Parliament affect us more directly than the laws that are passed through Congress. So while it’s all fine and well to get caught up in the glitz and glamour of the U.S. electoral process, we don’t vote for their President. We vote for our Members of Parliament. And on October 14th, that box you check is much more important to our country than whether Sarah Palin is going to make a good Vice President. 

I believe firmly in Canada’s democratic process. But it only works if you get your butt out to vote. So pay attention to the issues, make your decision, and I’ll see you at the polling station.

Why I Don’t Watch TV Anymore

I have a confession to make.

I, Suze, don’t watch TV anymore. In fact, I’m pretty much turned off of just about every show out there. It’s an interesting irony, really. After all, I produce TV. Right now I co-produce a series that airs on our local cable station. We have a bunch of other shows in various stages of development and pre-production. I contribute directly to the industry, but I don’t really participate as a viewer.

Here I am, on a Friday night, flipping endlessly through the hundreds of channels that I have available to me on my digital box. And aside from one or two interesting documentaries, a few movies, the odd cooking and home reno show and, well, our show, of course …I can’t get over how little actual, good content there is on mainstream television anymore.

Now, before I continue, I must admit that I have never been a dramatic series watcher. Aside from the occasional episode of Law and Order or CSI, I really have never been able to commit to watching a series week after week. I do appreciate that there are some good series out there – Lost, Heroes, Grey’s Anatomy to name a few – but if you look at the current lineups of the major networks, even those types of shows are becoming the minority.

It seems to me that the major networks and U.S. specialty networks are obsessed with drama. And I don’t mean “E.R” kind of drama. I mean the staged, exaggerated, over-the-top “reality-based” Drama Queen type of drama that makes up a good majority of mainstream television these days.

I love video. I always have. It has the power to impress, to entertain, to really move people to change for the better. But these “reality” shows are an insult to the medium and frankly, an insult to my intelligence. These programs seek only to bring out the worst qualities in people – they are stories about greed, revenge, deception and negativity. Why anybody finds this sort of show entertaining is really beyond me.

The more time goes on, it seems, the more shows like this are becoming the mainstream. Obviously, somebody is watching them. Why they are so popular puzzles me greatly. As much as I love the medium of television, I’m losing faith in it, fast. More often than not these days, I am turning off the TV and turning on my laptop.

The Internet is so ripe with awesome content, it makes me want to burst. I can watch shows about any topic imaginable, produced by people who have skill and talent and heart and passion. I can do it on my own schedule, from my bed, my livingroom, my coffee shop or my backyard. Through the Web, I have regained the capacity to be impressed, entertained and moved by video.

And that’s where I start to see hope for the future.

What do you think? Where does TV sit in your life these days?

Making a Brand for Yourself

Here’s a guy that totally gets it. Gary Vaynerchuk, of winelibrary.tv didn’t just throw up a little web site with a few videos on it and then sit back and wait for it to go viral. He didn’t think – “gosh, nobody else is talking about wine on the Web”, because he KNEW that lots of people are out there talking about wine on the Web. Instead, he developed a brand – HIMSELF.

10,000 of the people who watch his show don’t know or care anything about wine. But they are interested in Gary. Why? I think it’s because he is not at all the kind of personality that is normally associated with a wine expert. He’s loud, bold, and cusses a lot. His abundant enthusiasm for the subject of wine is enough to draw you in, and his personality gets you hooked. The implementation of his site is fantastic. First, he’s using Viddler, my favourite new video app. Second, his site is all about how you can link up and connect with him. I follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Viddler , I subscribe to the RSS feed for his show so it’s in my Google Reader, and if I wanted to I could follow him on LinkedIN, Pownce and Cork’d too. What does this mean? He’s EVERYWHERE! I can’t go a day without seeing some sort of update from the guy. And that doesn’t even count all of the other blog posts he’s appearing in these days.

Here’s what I find really interesting about the success he’s had with the Gary Vaynerchuk brand (besides the fact that now just about everyone can spell “Vaynerchuk”). He’s had to get an agent. Mainstream media is noticing him and putting him on their shows (Ellen, Nightline, Conan, to name a few). Hollywood is calling about doing reality TV shows. As he says, mainstream media is beginning to source its new talent from the web.

It’s like an open casting call out here on the Internet right now. You can be sure that the talent scouts are spending more time surfing YouTube and vlog posts than ever before. But I don’t think they are necessarily looking for the next big talent. They are looking for people who are making a brand for themselves and building their audience based on that brand.

What does it mean to content producers? The time to start building your brand is NOW. Quick, before someone else does it.

Watch what Gary has to say about this here:

http://www.viddler.com/explore/richschefren/videos/50/

Oprah’s Web Event

I have a confession to make. I watch Oprah. I LIKE watching Oprah. It’s my unwind-from-a-long-day, think-about-something-completely-different, guilty pleasure. But at this moment, I’m glad, I watch Oprah.

For all you non-watchers out there, Oprah is doing something cool these days in the online media space. She is touting a new Book Club Book, called “A New Earth”, by Ekhart Tolle. I don’t usually pick up the Oprah books, but I have always been interested in spirituality and religion, so yes, I picked up the book. It hasn’t transformed my life yet but it raises some very valuable and interesting concepts that I’m willing to continue to explore.

But this post isn’t about the book. Do a Google for Ekhart Tolle and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of reviews. This post is about how she’s talking about the book. On March 3rd, she is hosting a “web event”, what is being called an “online classroom“. There, she and Tolle will discuss the book and take video, audio and text questions from the audience. The class will be running Monday nights (EST) over 10 consecutive weeks. As of yesterday, over 300,000 people had signed up.

What I find fascinating is how this is being implemented. If one wishes to sign up for the class (which is free, by the way), they go to oprah.com and sign up for an account (And it’s nice that you can opt out of all the newsletters, etc. up front). Then you just register for the class, and at 9pm EST on Monday, March 3 you tune in.

I was wondering how they were going to do this. 300,000 people (sure to AT LEAST double or even triple by next week) all logging on at the same time, can you say, crashy crashy? But today, they sent me an email prompting me to download and install the Move Networks media player onto my computer. Of course I went to check them out, and yah, these guys have pretty much got their #$*@ together. They offer superior quality (it’s spectacular) and a scaleable system that allows simultaneous streaming to millions of people at once with no crashy crashy. It also collects lots of data about the users – experiences, demographics, geography – all the juicy tidbits of information Oprah’s advertisers could dream of. They’ve got it down.

As far as interactivity goes, well, viewers can record video or audio questions, and submit text questions as well. There are discussion forums so that if you are not one of the lucky few that gets to actually talk to Winfrey and Tolle, you get to talk to each other about the class and the book.

Maybe I’m expecting too much, maybe not, but this seems to me like a pretty nifty idea. I’m sure it will be successful. 300,000 people, including celebrities like Jim Carrey and Valerie Bertinelli have signed up already. (The star factor will only make it more popular.)

This could be the beginning of a trend with mass-market broadcasting, possibly the beginning of true interactive television. And I’m so in. Maybe I’ll get a spiritual awakening, maybe I’ll just be entertained. Maybe I’ll get both. Say what you want, but if there is anyone that can move millions with online media, it’s Oprah. I’ll let you know how it goes – but then again, you’ll probably sign up too…won’t you.