  Slawko Klymkiw |
The number of CBC managers scabbing for locked out employees just dropped by one.
Slawko Klymkiw, CBC's executive director of network programming, resigned this week to become the executive director of the Canadian Film Centre.
This is kinda like getting kicked out of the Senate only to land in the Governor General's mansion.
Klymkiw, a CBC lifer and Newsworld launcher, spent nearly a decade as the network's top programmer. He was passed over for the president's post last year when former Telefilm head Richard Stursberg was appointed.
Did this have a bearing on his departure? Oh, Nooooooo, Stursberg told a gushing typist at another Toronto daily this week. He called Klymkiw, "the kind of person you just can't replace."
Fast enough.
To be fair, the job is impossible. Programming CBC is like walking a tightrope over a political minefield, blindfolded, with both feet in pails of cement.
The disadvantages are endless. You can't buy American shows, as other Canadian programmers can. A 10 p.m. National newscast cedes five hours of prime-time ratings turf to wall-to-wall CSI and Law & Order hours on CTV. Trying to build a competitive network schedule based on 12 hours of prime time a week is a joke.
Hampered by funding cutbacks, multicultural mandates and regional headaches, Klymkiw vamped with Coronation Street and other Brit imports in prime time. (Nobody ever asks: Why is it culturally permissible for CBC to import shows from the UK and not from the U.S.A.?)
Klymkiw also had bad luck. The hockey lockout cost millions and took away his last Top-20 Canadian hit. CTV became super aggressive and bought its way to dominance just as federal cutbacks severely limited Klymkiw's options.
In short, even a programming genius like Brandon Tartikoff would have run screaming from this job.
Still, Klymkiw was sometimes his own worst enemy. He passed on shows that could have been the next generation of CBC hits, including Corner Gas and Trailer Park Boys. Instead, he gave a greenlight to a parade of shows that never caught on: Ciao Bella, Disclosure, Smart Ask! ZeD, Making The Cut, Rideau Hall, Jonathan Cross's Canada, The Sean Cullen Show, An American In Canada, The Great Canadian Music Dream, Tom Stone, Undercurrents, Dooley Gardens, These Arms Of Mine, P.R. and Nothing Too Good For A Cowboy.
To be fair, Klymkiw also was the dude of record for Trudeau: The Miniseries, Rick Mercer's Talking To Americans, Canada: A People's History and several other "high impact" specials and miniseries. The guy could always program for Sunday and Monday nights.
Trouble was, CTV was catching up there, too. CTV's upcoming Terry Fox TV-movie was once the kind of fare you'd see only on CBC.
Several of Klymkiw's most daring moves blew up in his face. Where NBC, CBS and ABC celebrated milestone anniversaries with hour-long specials, CBC spread its 50th bash over an entire fall, complete with a costly, coast-to-coast, promotional train ride. Two years later, the network still hasn't recovered.
"Theme Nights" (Comedy on Friday, Arts on Thursdays, etc.) was a colossal blunder, a bad radio idea slapped onto a TV schedule. Those "Hosted Prime" segments, meant to distinguish CBC fare, only gave viewers a few extra seconds to find the remote.
Only two sustaining dramas emerged during Klymkiw's tenure: Da Vinci's Inquest (returning this fall as Da Vinci's City Hall) and This Is Wonderland. Critically acclaimed, neither is the ratings hit it might be if it was on CTV or Global. The fact that CBC is sticking with them is a credit to Klymkiw. The fact that they're not bigger hits is also part of his legacy.
Slawko slams from Brioux
Aside from, well, Ben Mulroney, nobody has taken more grief from me over the years than Slawko Klymkiw. After every call for his job, the formidable -- and affable -- CBC programming exec would call the Sun the next day and invite me over to the CBC bunker for a little straightening out session.
Klymkiw never ducked a bad review and was always accessible to reporters as well as to CBC staffers and talent. The man has thick skin -- something his successor will need at CBC.
Here's some of what Klymkiw had to put up with from the Sun:
BROADCASTING CORPORATION, Canadian -- Passed away quietly in its sleep yesterday in its 50th year. Known to friends as "CBC" or "The Corp" (or "corpse" to others), the veteran broadcaster suffered a stroke, er strike, Dec. 6 and never recovered. Will be sadly missed by hockey fans, preschoolers and people over 70.
-- Friday, December 7, 2001
If the CBC were a hockey team, it would have fired its coach by now.
-- Friday, February 7, 2003
CBC programming boss Slawko Klymkiw branded his 2003-04 season as a new slate of "must see" Canadian programs. That would be different, I guess, from last year's "must see what's on the other channels."
-- Friday, May 30, 2003
Last weekend's big CBC Thanksgiving treat? A warm and fuzzy Hallmark or Disney movie? No, Sex Traffic -- a grim, explicit, disturbing exploration of international prostitution. It found 458,000 and 500,000 viewers last Sunday and Monday. Pass the turkey.
-- Saturday, October 16, 2004
Programming executive director Slawko Klymkiw and new CBC VP Richard Stursberg ... stressed they are committed to producing "high impact" programming Sundays and Mondays throughout the season. The only high impact on those days for CBC last year was the ratings craters left by Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy and CSI: Miami on rival network CTV.
-- Friday, June 3, 2005
