Saskatchewan-based writer Patricia Dawn Robertson.
The Saskatchewan Communications Network, the province's shoddy, parochial television network, will go dark at the end of April. When I read the news, I had to stifle a fist-pump and a cheer. "Good-riddance to mediocrity!" I said aloud to my partner Grant as I skimmed the Saturday paper. "They've finally decided to axe SCN."
With potash revenues down, the Saskatchewan Party surveyed the books in search of underperforming fat. SCN is an arm's-length Crown corporation, dependent on the government to fund operations.
Why didn't SCN's management see it coming? Because these insular bureaucrats were too busy watching their own earnest educational documentaries.
Like many rural residents, I rely too heavily on satellite television in the colder months. Given the choice between The Good Wife and SCN's pastoral One Year and Forty Acres, I skew urban. I use television as escapist entertainment. I don't want to hear Canada geese, rider lawn mowers or Cherry Bomb truck headers when I watch telly. For that racket, I just have to set foot out my backdoor.
Naturally, there's much grumbling in the local media about the loss of government-funded arts jobs. Until the boom, Saskatchewan relied on three sectors: agriculture, natural resources and government bureaucracy.
Unlike the feisty farm lobby, only 300 people showed up on March 31 to protest SCN's demise. Corner Gas's former exterior set in Rouleau, Sask., now torn down, probably gets that many disappointed tourists who show up each summer for a CG bowling shirt or a Brent Butt sighting.
While critics may demonize Premier Brad Wall for cutting SCN, I think he's right. The network is included in my satellite package and I still don't watch it. I wouldn't have even noticed when it finally went dark - I'd probably have been entranced by the Emmy-winning social realism of AMC's Breaking Bad.
I'm not alone: The government says just 4 per cent of Saskatchewanians tune in per week. (SCN supporters say it's 18 per cent.) The government will be saving $2.5-million this year and $5-million in 2011 by eliminating the network.
And I beg to differ with the nostalgic boosters who consider it relevant. "It's a crucial part of Saskatchewan culture," they whine. "Now we can't view local stories." Apart from self-serving film producers, SCN's audience is made up of shut-ins, quilting clubs and captive hitchhikers in root cellars.
Don't ask taxpayers to foot the bill for sleepy content that was out of step even in the 1970s. If you want local stories, take up scrap-booking, host a family reunion and renew your subscription to Rural Roots. You can just as easily bore your relatives with a slide show. Don't expect me to endure SCN programming and proclaim to be "entertained."
Should government even participate in the broadcast business? SCN could have moved to a fee-for-service model. As long as they had an operating grant, there was no incentive to court viewers, generate revenue or create quality programming.
Provincial governments are practised at certain tasks: raising taxes, cutting rural hospitals, indoctrinating school children, protecting MLA pensions and mercilessly enforcing by-laws. They should stay out of the broadcast business and leave creative tasks to entrepreneurs who understand the marketplace - and narrowcasting.
Opposition critics say it's the final blow to the local film industry, which hasn't rebounded since Corner Gas aired its final episode. A province of one million inhabitants cannot feasibly support its own television network without government funding. But given the choice between losing SCN and AMC, I'll opt for sophisticated, slickly produced programming every time.
Saskatchewanians can get by without SCN. When the next election rolls around in 2011, most flatlanders will have already forgotten about it.
Patricia Dawn Robertson is a Saskatchewan writer.