KNOWLEDGE IS ANTIDOTE TO PERILS OF GLOBALIZATION
Public broadcaster tackles roots and effects of process in upcoming documentary series
Joseph Stiglitz shared the 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics with George Akerlof and Michael Spence for the big idea that globalization’s success or failure would depend on how it is managed.
A year later, Stiglitz published Globalization and Its Discontents that expanded on the theory that free-market approaches that minimize the role of government will lead to increased poverty and income inequality.
Fast forward to 2008. The global economy had crashed, and Rudy Buttignol had been CEO of Knowledge Network for little more than a year. Curious about globalization’s roots and its effects, Buttignol started reading all the economics books that now line the shelves in his office.
If he was fascinated by the complexities, Buttignol figured that viewers might be as well. The result is a six-part series called Globalization and Its Discontents that runs over 10 weeks starting Oct. 17.
It’s an example of how B.C.’s public broadcaster does its work, educating, informing and provoking informed discussion as an antidote to fake news, the manufactured consent in mass media and the mind-numbing diet of reality TV, game shows and sitcoms.
As Buttignol describes it, Knowledge Network is the PBS of the North because of its crowdfunding model, and BBC West because of its programming ethos.
How Buttignol has managed it on a limited budget goes back to his early — and, at the time, controversial — decision to end in-house productions in favour of commissioning independent filmmakers. Then, to enhance the impact of those issueoriented, local productions, the network packaged them into series by putting them together with the best of similarly themed documentaries from around the world.
Globalization and Its Discontents starts with Vancouver: No Fixed Address. Directed by Charles Wilkinson and produced by Tina Schliesser and Kevin Eastwood, the first in the series is a stunningly beautiful but disturbing look at Vancouver, where homes have become commodities to be invested in rather than lived in, and where much of the so-called prosperity is driven by debt.
It will be followed up by five other documentaries that Knowledge Network has bought the rights to, including one that looks at the roots of trade along the Silk Road and another about how trade led to colonization by the British East India Company.
The others delve into the economics of oil, the power and influence of the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the real price of shipping calculated not only in terms of lives lost every year at sea, but also the cost to the environment.
Little more than a decade ago, Knowledge Network had a neardeath experience. Then-premier Gordon Campbell toyed with, but eventually rejected, the idea of selling it.
Since then, the public broadcaster has gone from being almost wholly dependent on government funds to now raising half of its $12.5-million budget mostly through donations, but also from sponsorships and grants from the non-profit Canadian Media Fund for original productions and revenue earned from subsidiary operations.
It bought BBC Kids, has developed apps that give free online access to all of its programming, and it is building a library of productions that can be livestreamed free and on demand.
With more money, rather than buying rights to documentaries and shows from better-funded organizations such as BBC, National Geographic and PBS, Knowledge Network would commission more local productions and participate on a larger scale in co-productions that tell British Columbian and Canadian stories.
“We don’t lack the talent. Canada has never lacked the talent. It’s the economics,” says Buttignol.
It’s ironic, but just as its globalization series is set to start, its perils have been brought to the public broadcaster’s door in the form of Netflix.
Canada’s new cultural policy announced last week will continue Netflix’s free ride. Unlike Canadian-based cable and streaming services, it is exempt from all taxes and exempt from all of the requirements, rules and regulations that other broadcasters must comply with in order to be licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
In exchange, the American colossus with 100 million customers worldwide has promised to invest $500 million over five years in Canadian productions of its own choosing. For context, Netflix’s 2016 production budget was US$5 billion — second only to ESPN, and $500 million more than NBC. Its annual Canadian revenue is estimated at more than $600 million.
It makes Buttignol furious. “If that’s the best the government can do, Netflix shouldn’t be spending the $500 million itself. If this is a public benefit, they should give it to a third body like the Canada Media Fund and then the money should be allocated according to broad public policy — linguistic diversity, regional diversity, children’s programming or whatever.”
Equally concerning is what Buttignol calls the deal’s “Trojan Horse effect.”
“How long before the big Canadian companies like Bell say: ‘You know what? Me too. We’re going to stop contributing. We’re going to be like Netflix.’
“And all of a sudden, this ecosystem that we’ve built up over three decades is in jeopardy.”
Welcome to globalization.