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In the hours and
days after last September’s terrorist attacks on the United States, the
power of television to relay breaking news to the world was made abundantly
clear. Audiences around the globe turned on their sets to see the live
reports, video and analysis that only television could provide.
A year later, the
medium that showed the world the attacks and their aftermath is wrestling
with how best to revisit the day. Currently, coverage plans are as different
as the range of channels on the dial. CBC plans wall-to-wall coverage with
both television services and its radio networks, for example, while the A&E
network will replace its regular programming that morning with a silent list
of the names of everyone killed in the attacks, beginning at 8:46 a.m.
One of the few
certain things about television on Sept. 11, 2002, however, is there will be
few or no commercials.
Ad sales staff at
U.S. networks have found few companies want to buy spots in such sombre and
potentially harrowing programming; most say commercials would seem
insensitive or crass. Some companies — Volkswagen, Pepsi Cola, McDonald’s
Restaurants and Dell Computer, to name four — aren’t running any commercials
anywhere on U.S. TV that day. And most viewers don’t want other companies to
advertise, either. A survey by Advertising Age magazine found 51 percent of
the respondents thought companies shouldn’t run commercials on Sept. 11.
Networks have been
trying to sell low-key sponsorship packages for some of their Sept. 11
programming, but those aren’t finding buyers either. NBC says it has a
sponsor for its prime-time offering — a Concert for America, hosted by First
Lady Laura Bush — but won’t identify the company. Fox forestalled such
questions by refusing to sell advertising in its network documentary, The
Day America Changed, or on its news channel. It is estimated the lack of
advertising will cost the networks about US$32-million.
No estimates are
available for Canadian outlets, though media buyers in this country are
advising their clients to avoid buying spots on that day.
“We’re doing it on
a client-by-client basis,” says Lorraine Hughes, president of OMD Canada,
the nation’s biggest media planning and buying firm. “We don’t have any
standing policy, ‘do not advertise that week or that day.’ But there’s a lot
of sensitivity to the creative and the content — making sure that what we do
is appropriate and sensitive.”
OMD’s clients are
also considering who’ll be watching what on Sept. 11. “It’ll be interesting
to see how much Canadian audience gets drawn to the U.S. coverage,” Hughes
says. “We’ll be watching the numbers, definitely. You’d certainly be looking
for compensation” if the network can’t deliver the audience advertisers are
paying for.
Jack Tomik,
president of CanWest Media Sales, says the tenor of that particular day and
its coverage will limit advertising. The U.S. programming the network would
normally be running won’t be available, and Global will be airing its own
special coverage.
“A number of our
advertisers have asked us not to air commercials on that specific date, and
we’re respecting that wish,” he explains. “Likely as not, most of the day
will have limited commercials, largely because of the wishes of the
advertisers not to be on the air.” He says advertisers who didn’t want their
commercials to run on Sept. 11 bought time before and after the date, so the
number of spots will balance out.
CBC’s approach is
simple: no commercials. It will not carry any spots on the main channel or
Newsworld that day, says spokeswoman Ruth Ellen Soles. The radio networks,
of course, never run commercials.
“A lot of that [the
Sept. 11 programming] is going to run commercial-free,” says Fred
Auchterlonie, senior vice-president and director of planning services for
Harrison Young Pesonen & Newell Media Management. “If it is carrying
commercials, we’re not really interested in having our clients in it. We
just don’t think that people are in a very receptive mood.”
No representatives
from CTV’s advertising sales department would comment, despite repeated
requests.
The programming and
coverage question presents Canadian networks with a unique challenge.
European broadcasters and others outside North America
can choose which of the American networks’ coverage to carry. But Canadians
can get that from U.S.
channels. Sept. 11 is primarily an American story, and Canadian television
has to cover that as well as the relationship between the two countries and
how it has changed in the past 12 months. It’s safe to say the Canadian
networks as well as local channels will be trying to include Jean Chrétien,
the Prime Minister, in their coverage. He is expected to be in Gander, Nfld., with U.S. ambassador Paul
Cellucci.
CBC is making an
effort to ensure all of its services work in concert. “Everybody is aware of
the perception that the different parts of the CBC don’t always work well
together,” the CBC’s David Barnard says. “This is an example of the way this
company wants to operate.”
Radio aims for
intimacy by examining the day through individual points of view. Loss and
Legacy: Reflections of September 11th is a 6½-hour program that will begin
at 8:30 a.m. and include the memorial ceremonies scheduled to begin at 8:46
— the time the first plane struck the North Tower
of the World
Trade Center
that morning in New York.
CBC Television and
CBC Newsworld will be running the same programming on Sept. 11, 2002. Peter
Mansbridge will anchor 17½ hours of television coverage, starting at 6 a.m.
and running until 11:30
that night. “There will be a lot more pundits,” as well as CBC reporters,
Barnard says. “There are a couple of special documentaries, including one
hosted by Mansbridge, which is specifically the story of what Canada’s government and the military did
on the 11th.”
At CTV, the focus
will be on finding a balance between remembering the events of Sept. 11 and
looking at how the world has changed since.
“The day provides
us with two important opportunities,” says Kirk LaPointe, CTV’s senior
vice-president of news. “One, to revisit and try to learn the lessons from
that day without reopening wounds, but without whitewashing what took place.
The second opportunity is to understand how the world has changed, how we’ve
constructed our society differently and how we intend to move forward.”
That begins at 6:30
a.m. with the network’s morning show, Canada AM, coming from New York and
Toronto and running for five hours. At 8 p.m., Lloyd Robertson anchors a
60-minute news special revisiting the events of Sept. 11, 2001 and examining
their implications.
CTV’s news channel,
Newsnet, devotes all its programming that day to marking Sept. 11, including
live coverage of the memorials in New York, Washington
and Shanksville, Pa.,
where Flight 93 crashed.
“Unless you can
provide the Canadian context to those events, there really is almost no use
to mount that kind of an effort,” LaPointe says. “Our challenge is to tell
the story through the Canadian lens. How do we make sure we really do
justice to a massively complex story so that it’s internationally
competitive as journalism, but much more nationally relevant than anything
someone could get from another news source?”
Global News is
thinking along similar lines. “We’re neighbours with the largest country in
the world, economically and geopolitically,” says George Browne, the
executive producer of Global National. “What was the impact of the change in
our relationship since 9/11 happened? Having to fight terrorism together,
how much of ourselves are we giving away? It’s sort of an exploration of
that, trying to understand. Has Canada changed? Has our relationship with
the States changed? What’s different today since that moment in time last
year?”
Global National
plans to explore those questions with a week’s worth of stories leading up
to the 11th, with Kevin Newman anchoring the newscast from different
Canadian cities. On the 11th, he’ll be anchoring from New York, where he
used to work for ABC News before he left for Vancouver and Global just a
month before the attacks.
The network and the
National Post are collaborating on a poll probing how Canadians’ views of
their country and its relationship with the United States have changed in
the past year. As well, Global will show Facing the Century, an hour-long
documentary hosted by Newman that will examine the issues facing Canada a
year after the attacks and will include interviews with high-profile
politicians and pundits, including John Manley, Brian Mulroney and Andrew
Coyne.
All three big U.S.
networks plan expanded morning shows on Sept. 11. Then their plans diverge.
ABC will stay with
news anchored by Peter Jennings through prime time.
CBS’s plans are
unclear; the network says it is trying to determine what its audience wants
and how best to deliver that. Prime time for CBS will be 60 Minutes and 60
Minutes II, featuring the exclusive interview U.S. President George W. Bush
granted CBS reporter Scott Pelley. On Sept. 8, the network will rebroadcast
the 9/11 documentary it first aired in March to an audience of 39 million.
NBC’s six-hour edition of its Today show will segue into an afternoon
town hall meeting anchored by Tom Brokaw. |
