3 LUM MU MCU AUC ee eee ne aT a } R HLM By JOHN STEWART THE announcement that the CBC has made a new 50-50 deal with the *big US. television corporations to import U.S. commercial T shows on the CBC stations in Toronto and Montreal, is bringing ~ @ flood of protests to the CBC. One Toronto radio TV columnist p Ported two weeks ago: “People who had never bothered to con- statulate CBLT before, lit up its switchboard to deplore the sign- ing of the contracts, They feared American imports would kill the anadian, flavor of CBC-TB.”® eral c a Vicious attacks by advertisers advertising agencies, most of singe ve boycotted CBC-TV Ce its inception last September. Giga Victory for the Canadian Roe ot of Broadcasters, the Sho, of privately-owned stations J on = to restore Canadian radio pri to the tender mercies of vate enterprise. cava group putting the heat sigh € CBC is made up of televi- ne Manufacturers, most of como ee their allegiance to U.S. an rations, The manufacturers can ¢ “we CBC-TV shows so they sets, Bore highly profitable TV of en the restricted facilities diffic a at present, it would be duit: t for it to extend its pro- ‘ which from noon to midnight, want, 1S what the manufacturers auctor of expanding CBC pro- the n facilities for more shows, time» ™Ment edict is to sell the to U.S. shows — at the ex- Canadians. Chier Spokesmen for all these ups in the House of Commons the “en George Drew, leader of “hits Gove Conservatives, and Pte ef lieutenant, Donald Flem- ae fall, when the CBC an- » Yo Cd it would refuse to accept : fereq Programs on the terms of- Da an which would have meant the & 70 Percent of the fee to Public. Station, it wom enthusiastic Where reProval. Canadians every- ® Way geass upon the decision as gram, © develop Canadian pro- Os ed Canadian talent. ° develo * Y staffs went to work to Praig P programs that won high in Oe: €ven, from many viewers Teceive Pape U.S. points that could ‘Nertiser BLT signal. Some ad- began S; notably Ford of Canada, Show Producing a live’ Canadian . ahd p at gave Canadian actors theip Y ¥tights a chance to show ie Wares, ‘ its in December Ford cancelled Be (at will under the new deal and Product udtless import its U.S. Ff the On. The same will be true as Other big advertisers such esti » ang othenshouse, General Electric The deal with the U.S. networks is a capitulation by the fed- Sovernment, and in particular by Revenue Minister Dr. J. J. nn, who is responsible to the government for the CBC, before The federal government, repudi- ating the recommendations and advice of the Massey Commission, is turning CBC-TV over to the control of big U.S. corporations and killing Canadian initiative and development in this tremend- ous new form of mass art. Prague trials - and By ADAM LAPIN Hens the coming year Israel will pay a minimum of $110% million in interest, profit and other charges arising from the invest- ment of United States private cap- ital and government loans. Of the $250 million in foreign capital invested in Israel, about _ $100 million, or 40 percent, is owned by U.S. interests. The U.S. government has over the past few years extended $350 million in loans and grants to Is- rael, including a $185 million loan from the Export-Import Bank. The position of U.S. capital is further bolstered through sale of Israeli government bonds. A\l- though the bonds are usually bought in small quantities by Am- erican Jews of only moderate in- come, the capital raised by their purchase is often funnelled into enterprises controlled by big U.S. interests. Thus, initial allocations of funds from the Israeli bond drive includ- ed $1 million to Potash Worlds Ltd., partly owned by the Pales- tine Economic Corporation along with British capital and the Israeli government. Another $1.4 million went ‘to Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd., or- ganized by the Palestine Economic Corporation together with South African, Canadian and _ British capital. (PEC. is. a U.S. private invest- ment trust owned by prominent American Jews who are linked with such powerful financial in- terests as Kuhn-Loeb, Lehman It is a move that must not go unchallenged. e Canadians, already sickened by and protesting against the flood of cheap U.S. radio shows and comic books, have no desire to see Canadian television screens domin- ated by what a New York Times columnist admitted were “eye- wearing monstrosities” that filled the U.S. TV airwaves “morning, noon and night.” ~ o The Massey Commission report- to the government: “We do not think that American programs, with certain notable exceptions, will serve our nation’s needs.” It reported, on the basis of briefs from many _ organizations, including the trade union centres and the CBC management itself, that: “Canadians will welcome good American programs in tele- vision as they now do in radio, but as we have been informed, they do not want them at the cost of a Canadian national system.” The commission recommended that the government make statut- ory grants to aid CBC production; to control “excessive commercial- ism”; to cooperate with the Na- tional Film Board for Canadian production; and in the develop- ment of this new art form it urg- ed: ‘Television producers must have the greatest freedom for ex- periment in their work and the most favorable working conditions possible.” The demand must be madé upon the federal government: @ To implement the recommenda- tions of the Massey Commis- sion to grant CBC-TV suffi- cient funds to underwrite all- Canadian ‘production. @ Specifically, to advance im- mediately, $50,000,000 for CBC-TV production, exclusive of capital costs for extending CBC-TV networks to other centres across Canada. This does not suggest unquali- fied support of what the CBC pro- duces — some of which is open to the sharpest criticism. But the first job is to ensure that CBC radio and TV are Canadian, sub- . Brothers, the Mellons, the Boston financial group of the Cabots and Lodges. Actual control of most of these aggregations is by non- Jews, and Jewish business men and public figures merely play a front role for these interests both in investments in Israel and in other enterprises. U.S. capital is in a favored posi- -tion growing out of devaluation of the Israel pound and other econ- omic measures approved by the Israeli government under U.S. pressure. In addition, foreign investors are favored with a five-year ex- emption on property taxes, bonus depreciation rates and a 25 per- cent ceiling on income taxes, as well as permission to withdraw substantial profits from Israel. e ; The result is that Israel has be- come a gold mine for various U.S. enterprises. A New York Times dispatch from Tel Aviv on April 14, 1952, report- ed that as a result of depreciation of the pound Barton’s, a New York candy firm, was expanding its op- erations in Israel. The dispatch said: : “At the new rates, union salar- ies in Barton’s enterprise here will be $18 for a 41-hour week as compared with a minimum of $30 for 40 hours a week in the United States.” U.S. economic penetration in Israel has thus depressed living’ standards. At the~same time it has increased Israel’s dollar de- ject to pressure from Canadian public opinion. ¢ : No one denies the expense of producing television shows or the establishment of TV stations. A TV fully-equipped producing sta- tion would cost about $2,000,000. A non-producing station, carrying only network program costs about $250,000. VINCENT MASSEY The recommendations of the com- mission he headed have been spurned by the St. Laurent gov- ernment. So far the CBC has refused licenses to private interests for TV stations in the big cities; but it has opened the door to them in areas where the CBC does not now plan to put stations, notably the Prairie provinces, perhaps North- ern Ontario and the Maritimes. Originally, CBC-TV advertising rates were set to provide revenues for the development of Canadian production. The fee includes all costs, including station time, tech- nical facilities, production staff and rehearsals, whether or not| the advertiser used them. The amount was $1,600 per hour (Toronto) down to $120 for eight seconds. Just prior to the deal with the U.S. corporations, a new rate card was introduced, after advertising ficit and its dependence on the U.S. because of the vast payments which must be made for U.S. in- vestments and loans. The above facts are all from a highly significant series of articles on the economy of Israel by Vic- tor Perlo; the progressive U.S. economist, in the magazine Jew- ish Life. The facts may sound dry as dust when presented here in highly con- densed and sketchy fashion. the Perlo articles, written before the. recent Prague trials, which charged the Israeli government and the Zionist movement had been actively involved in U.S. espionage operations in Czecho- slovakia, are essential to an un- derstanding of the trials. os: Czechoslovakia, along with the Soviet Union and the other Peo- ple’s Democracies, actively sup- ported Issael’s aspirations for in- dependence from British imperial- ism. Czechoslovakia also provided the new Jewish state in Israel with arms to defend itself. But instead of winning genuine independence, Israel was taken; over by U.S. economic interests, and both its domestic and foreign policies became geared to U.S. re- quirements. Thus while U.S. commercial newspapers find it quite incredible that Israeli officials should have cooperated with the U.S. in sab- botage activities in Czechoslovakia, they report quite matter-of-factly ethat arrangements to include Is- rael in at least an informal Mid- a Bat agencies had protested strongly against subsidizing CBC-developed shows. The new fee cut the hour show to $750 (Toronto) for sta- tion time alone and did not include anything else. If CBC staff is used it will be paid for extra. This means that a U.S. show, under the new 50-50 split arrange- ment, will net the CBC, after agency discount of 15 percent and allowance of 10 percent discount if Montreal is also’ used, a few cents over $286, a similar amount going to the U.S. chain. With the U.S. program microwaved in via Buffalo, (at. a cost to the advertis- er of about $150) most of the CBC production staff will watch the show at home. Bell Telephone gets the microwave revenue. It is likely, for instance, that the one-hour show which now do- minates the National Broadcasting Company Sunday night program will be seen in Toronto and Mon- treal. This will mean that. the best program time for developing a Canadian show will be sacrific- ed to the U.S. — by Ottawa order. Instead of getting $1,600 for a Canadian commercial show over CBLT, the publicly-owned CBC will now get $286 for a; mass-pro- duced U.S. show — and Canadian ‘talent and production staffs will twiddle their thumbs. No wonder private advertising agencies and corporations—along — with the Conservative party and. the Toronto Globe and Mail, chortle ower the new decision. As one “Eastern Ontario company ex- ecutive” quoted by the Globe, said: “CBC will have to come off _ its culture horse and get back to entertainment.” That now seems to be government policy. The betrayal of Canadian TV can be stopped if there is a barrage of protest to the government and the CBC. The issue is to stop the sellout of Canadian television te the United States, and to give every possible support to all-Can- adian production. U.S. investments dle East military alliance sponsor- ed by the U.S. are now being com- pleted. : e In his recent statement sharply denying anti-Semitism entered into ithe Prague trial, Czechoslovakia’s President Klement Gottwald said that the reason Zionism was in- volved in a counter-réevolutionary conspiracy was: “Because after the establish- ment of the state of Israel and the subordination to America, the Zionist organizations of all shades became branches of the U.S. intelligence service.” The essential question was whether there was such subordina- tion. The economic facts cited by Perlo prove it to the hilt. Onee that fact is established it is by no means so ineredible that Israel of- ficials and Czechoslovakia. sup- porters of Zionism attempted to undermine socialism in Czecho- *slovakia. Gottwald points out that “anti- Semitism is a variety of barbar- ous fascism” and that “the strug- gle against Zionism hashothing in common with anti-Semitism.” The struggle being waged against Zionism in Czechoslovalia is rather a struggle against the agents of those powerful and pre- domimantly non-Jewish U.S. fin- | ancial interests which have sub- ordinated Israel to their plans, at the expense of the Jewish people of that country, and would like to do the same to Eastern Europe and the whole world. PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 16, 1953 — PAGE 9