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Chapter 2 | John Meisel (continued) The issue of the extent to which small countries — in the realm of cultural creation, consumption and transmission — differ from large ones (and also how they differ from one another and why) is enormously important and badly neglected. It is too complex to be dealt with here, despite its relevance to the themes which have caused these papers to be assembled. A very much related question concerns the place of Canada in this context. Are we a small, large or middle-sized country? We are all three, depending on the subject under discussion. With respect to the arts, the number of potential creators and the size of their audiences is all important. In these terms, Canada is rather small, particularly when the linguistic divide of the country and the geographical dispersion of the people are kept in mind. And we are also dwarfed by our colossal neighbour, particularly in cultural domains where language is critical. In this sense, French culture in Québec is protected and enjoys a distinct advantage over English Canada. Comparative data on viewing American television drama provide an eloquent example. Although Quebeckers watch a great many American programs, they provide massive and loyal audiences for home-made television plays and films. On the English side, the creators of such domestic fare face daunting obstacles in reaching reasonably sized audiences, to large measure because American shows sweep the domestic product off the screens but also because there is no widespread interest in Canadian productions. These obstacles can, however, be overcome, as is evidenced by the currently very popular CBC television series Canada: A People’s History. English Canada is at last coming to realize that when it enjoys a comparable advantage, it manages to perform well. Thus English radio in Canada is quite outstanding, far superior to American programming. The explanation is largely structural: the presence north of the 48th parallel of the CRTC and particularly the CBC, has made all the difference. Government involvement has enabled the quality Canadian radio to surpass that attained by the much larger United States. There is a lesson in this for the theme of this conference and this volume: the reason radio has preserved its local appeal and has not succumbed to too much Americanization is technological and political. Radio waves, and particularly FM signals, can only travel relatively short distances and, although national networks exist, the reach of radio is limited. It is essentially a local medium — a characteristic it has retained despite the advent of satellite delivery. More important, however, Canada has, by political means, created institutions ensuring that radio served certain national goals. It is primarily public broadcasting that is Canadian and of very high quality. The private broadcasters have, for the most part, usually strenuously fought CRTC regulations when they assumed (often falsely as with their Pavlovian attacks on the FM policy requiring that 30 per cent of the records playlist must be Canadian) that to abide by them would diminish their revenue. The persistent and stubborn opposition by the private broadcasters to exhortations and regulations intended to increase Canadian content reminds us that the currently flourishing philosophy denigrating governments and extolling the virtues of so-called free markets has telling effects on cultural life. The marketeers reject regulations and public funding support for Canadian cultural creations, advocate the privatization of the CBC, TVO and Radio Québec, and favour unrestricted competition in the arts sector, as they do in all domains. This philosophy now dominates many seats of government, including Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver, not to mention Washington. The implications are very serious for the arts, and life threatening for forms of cultural expression which, like opera, ballet or museums — cannot ever pay for themselves out of revenues. The reasons, particularly for a country like Canada, are well known and need not be reviewed here (Meisel, 1986; 1996a). Some aspects of the situation nevertheless are relevant to the problems confronted by small countries and communities and so touch our present discourse. Creating works of art for small audiences necessarily often increases the cost of doing so, compared to catering to a large, mass market. This has two serious implications. One is that there is an incentive for artists to fashion works which are appealing, easy to understand and enjoy, and which conform to popular taste. By the same token, “difficult,” complex, “deep” and seemingly obscure items are known to speak only to a few and hence present obstacles to creators which may be difficult or impossible to overcome. In large populations, those of New York, for instance, even groups with minority tastes may be numerous enough to provide a reasonable clientele for recherché, challenging products, but in smaller settings the critical mass required for this may be absent. Smaller states, and smaller communities, may therefore be deprived of incentives and opportunities to create for themselves works of art and experiences which are particularly desirable because of their high quality. They hence may have to import or borrow these, thus running the risk of ceding the ground in cultural leadership to outsiders. |
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