CANADA: Northern Light

Wearing shorts and slim jims, a Stratford, Ont. Festival troupe in the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s Studio Seven in Toronto last week began a rigorous 100 hours of rehearsal before the mast of H.M.S. Pinafore. Six weeks hence, the Gilbert & Sullivan classic will open a Canadian fall television season full of attractions that many a U.S. viewer will envy.

In an ambitious series of dramas and operas, CBC will present Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Richard Strauss’s Elektra, Verdi’s Falstaff, Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, O’Neill’s The Great God Brown, Henry James’s The Pupil, and Anouilh’s Ring Around the Moon. After meeting its legally required minimum of 55% Canadian-originated fare, the publicly owned network will fill in with a mixed bag of U.S. imports including Have Gun, Will Travel, Dennis the Menace, Danny Thomas, Red Skelton, Perry Como, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Ed Sullivan. CBC will get some of these shows before U.S. networks, to help fight U.S. competition for the more than half of Canadian sets within range of U.S. stations.

The sum of CBC’s season may not be enough to make anyone move from the U.S. to Canada just for the viewing, since the U.S.—when it wants to use it—has the edge in talent, technique and salaries, all based on a population ten times as great as Canada’s. But Canada may well come out on top in terms of program balance and quality. Main reason: CBC gets a $62 million subsidy from the government, which frees it from advertiser control (sponsors buy spots but cannot control programing). CBC does not have to truckle to the common-denominator violence and gags of most U.S. television.