More U.S.- Style News North of The Border   

Canadians say yes to all-news programming but no to tabloid TV.

Baseball isn't the only American pastime making inroads in Canada. Canadian broadcasting is beginning to develop a distinct American flavor. News managers there historically have tried to avoid U.S. influences, but all-news radio and television programming, U.S.-based consultants, fast-paced video and increased ownership concentration are becoming more commonplace.

Canada's first local all-news radio station, CHFI, went on the air in June in Toronto with the help of one of the United States' all-news pioneers, Westinghouse Broadcasting. CHFI's owner, Rogers Communications, now is planning to launch a local all-news cable channel in Toronto modeled after New York 1 News in Manhattan.

"Our company's emphasis has been that if it works in the U.S., we ought to look at it," says John Hinnen, news vice president and executive editor of CHFI. "When we decided to go into all-news radio we discussed it with Westinghouse and they agreed to help us. Their top people helped train our news and sales staffs. We even borrowed a little from their all-news slogan, 'Give Us 22 Minutes We'll Give You the World.' Our slogan is '20 Minutes of News Every 20 Minutes.' "

U.S. news consultants also are showing up in Canadian newsrooms. "I was the first Canadian client for [Frank N.] Magid [Associates]," says Ron Johnston, news director at CKCO in Kitchener, Ontario. "That was four years ago. People here were just as dubious about consultants as they were in the states, but they've definitely helped improve our reporting and our newscasts."

One of those consultants, Eric Braun of Frank N. Magid Associates, says American viewers wouldn't notice much different about Canadian newscasts. "The form and reporting is the same, although Canada's tough libel laws minimize their investigative reporting," he says. "There also is less live reporting. The one notable difference in style is that Canada has lots of very well-established anchor-presenters who came from a print background. Canadians also do not have as many options or choices for news. And because there are fewer stations, coverage is more regionalized, covering the provinces and not just the local town or city."

Because much of Canada's population is located near its southern border, U.S. television programming is familiar to most Canadians. In the remote or less populated areas of the country where reception is poor or non-existent, programming from the three U.S. network affiliates in Detroit is carried via satellite and cable.

"The Detroit stations are our 'superstations,' primarily for the entertainment programming," says Johnston. "The CRTC [Canadian Radio-TV Telecommunications Commission] could have chosen Boston, Seattle or some other border city, but chose Detroit. It's a little eerie knowing there are little Arctic kids watching the street crimes in Detroit."

Some Canadians are uneasy about the increasing American influence on their television news.

"Some stations have too many gimmicks and too much emphasis on the means rather than the ends," says Dick Smyth, now at CHFI, whose biting radio commentaries have been syndicated throughout Canada for about 20 years. "TV news here is becoming too bland."

But Canadian news directors don't believe the U.S. trend toward tabloid news will move north.

"We'll see faster paced newscasts but not tabloid," says George Clark, a news director for three television stations in western Ontario who is based in London, across the border from Detroit. "The British [broadcasting] influence on us is still too strong for that. We've had the advantage of taking the best of what we've seen on U.S. TV and adapt it to Canadian TV. We're not into tabloid."

Johnston says broadcast journalism is more restrained in Canada than it is in the United States. "We go more for substance," he says. "The CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] has very strict standards of high quality and everyone else tries to emulate it on a local level."

It's the CBC's peculiar ties to the government and companies operating many of the radio and television stations that is the most significant difference between broadcasting in the United States and Canada.

The CBC is a cross between CNN and public broadcasting, funded by the government but independently controlled. It runs a 24-hour television news channel and also provides a separate feed to affiliates.

The CBC's only significant competitor is the Canadian Television Network (CTV), which is owned by independent station affiliates. The biggest shareholder of CTV, Baton Broadcasting Co., also operates the largest number of CBC affiliates.

"It's bizarre and getting worse," says Johnston. "Baton stations are competing against themselves in many markets across the country. I don't think anything like that could happen in the states." l