Tell us not in mournful numbers: Othello drew a measly 175,000 viewers across Canada Sunday. Talk about a tragedy! The Shakespearean drama, headlined by Carlo Rota from Little Mosque on the Prairie (left), was one of the select summer projects to get a P.R. blitz from the CBC’s outside promotional agency, Media Profile. Me thinks CBC corporate P.R. boss John Bozzo is leaving just in time (see post below).
Chris Haddock’s The Quality of Life: A Dominic Da Vinci Movie, drew more than twice as many viewers — 371,000 — despite being buried on Saturday night and receiving no promotional support from CBC’s outsourced P.R. firm. Kinda make you wonder how many viewers might have tuned in if these two projects had been flipped.
Beating them both was the talent hunt reality series How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? which drew 590,000 viewers Sunday night at 8 p.m. Give the people what they want: Gavin Crawford in a skirt!
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5 Comments
Ooh, too bad about Othello. It was a good effort to use star power to make people tune into a worthy program. I didn’t have high expectations given the heavy subject on a summer evening, but I hoped I’d be wrong.
Have to say that while CBC treated the Da Vinci movie shabbily, the PR people Haddock hired did a good job, anyway.
Any idea on Durham County’s Global numbers?
There was no PR because the shawarma machine and the camels had been booked prior…sheesh.
Ha Ha. CBC is run by morons right now ( Stursburg, Layfield, Fuchs) , and if the loss of the the “Hockey Night” theme isn’t enough proof, they can be accused of many things when it coms to trying to bury anything Chris Haddock does, and it’s all dirty. I think this turn of events is wonderfully revealing… and I had to suffer through their miserable Fall Launches where they promoted ONLY Little Mosque and the Tudors… Ha ha!
Didn’t Layfield hire her boyfriend to direct Othello?
Wasn’t there impropriety involved with Fuch’s Peace Arch and the sale of CBC archives?
Isn’t Stursberg good friends with Gossage over at Media Profile? Was Stursberg “thanked” somehow for awarding Media Profile CBC’s publicity contract after Stursberg fired the CBC publicists?
Did the managers in CBC Sales department face any discipline after they allowed their “clients” to use the theme from HNIC as a ring tone as long as they advertised on CBC?
It seems to me that people are constantly contradicting themselves when it comes to the CBC. I’m constantly hearing that “culture should be a priority and ratings shouldn’t matter because after all we are Canadian and this is the public broadcaster”
So what are we saying people? Ratings or quality? Do we need more high rated reality shows? It shouldn’t matter what the ratings are for an artistic endeavour such as Othello.
I saw Othello and was quite impressed with the entire production. This version cleverly created a context that was easy to understand. This was far more enjoyable then driving two hours to Stratford to watch a 3 1/2 hour play.
Giving Canada an opportunuty to experience this kind of literature SHOULD be a priority for the CBC no matter what the ratings.
As Shakespeare says ” To make fools laugh and the jewdicious grieve”