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Wear just the facts, maam:

3 comments on Wear just the facts, maam:

Wear just the facts, maam
: Lost Remote reports that Naked News — the web show that is just that, naked people reading news — will now get on the air at Toronto’s CityTV, a real innovator (they created the Speaker’s Corner, in which people off the street record snippets — opinions, songs, jokes — and the best get on the air). Note a few trends here, born of the Internet: This is a show created on the Web that will now be on real TV. And this indicates a loosening attitude toward nudity (at least in Canada).

: Update: Cory Doctorow reports that CITYtv visionary — and I do mean visionary– Moses Znaimer may retire.

He launched community station CITY-TV in 1972, creating a blueprint for interactive TV that has spread across Canada and the world. He has been the on-air host of several series and specials, including The Originals on specialty channel Bravo and TVTV: The Television Revolution.

The accompanying ego is as monumental as his legacy. His west-end Toronto backyard was rearranged in the eighties to accommodate metre-high letters spelling out “Moses.”

3 responses to “Wear just the facts, maam:”

  1. Mary Avatar
    Mary

    I heard about this the other day and I wasn’t that surprised:
    1) Naked News is produced in Toronto
    2) CityTV has a history of on air nudity, such as the soft-core Baby Blue Movies offered on Friday nights in the 70s (recently revived) and the original Fashion Television show, affectionately called “Tit TV” by its fans
    3) Women can go topless in public throughout Ontario*, although commercial use of female nudity is restricted. This means the sweet and wholesome young women waving at everyone in the window of Miss Behavin’ on Queen West can wear thongs and bustiers, but they can’t go topless. (Queen West is a tourist-friendly artsy zone turned heavily commercial. This is not a red light district.) If you’re ever in Toronto on a Saturday, you must smile and wave back at them.
    *Weather permitting.

  2. marc weisblott Avatar
    marc weisblott

    There was an interesting situation about four or five years back when Citytv picked up The Howard Stern Radio Show (a/k/a his CBS weekly thing). They picked up, and even paid for, an entire season–yet decided at the last minute not to air it, despite having found a sponsor. There was lots of pressure on the part of parent company Chum not to continue doing business with Stern due to the curious system of self-regulation that Canadian broadcasters have (via a collective group called the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council). It’s a complicated story–one that was never fully explained in the press, or anyplace else, at the time–but the end result is that Stern’s E! show doesn’t run in Canada even though Citytv offshoot channel Star! carries every other program that E! airs. (Well, not Anna Nicole … yet.) So, the fact is that Canadian broadcasters can air absolutely anything they want–unless someone complains. And I think Chum Ltd.’s presumably profitable legacy of showing nudie fare, on Citytv and elsewhere, risked getting compromised by becoming too synonymous with Stern. (The company did get their knuckles gently rapped for showing Russ Meyer promos too early in the evening, though.)

  3. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Marc:
    As you know by now, I love Canada but its PC view of pop culture does drive me nutso. Nudity’s OK; Stern’s not. Huh? It’s a paternalistic view of the populice; it doesn’t give the people credit for having their own judgment and taste. I like Stern. I like CityTV (and particularly liked the Speaker’s Corner — a precursor to the Internet, giving the audience a voice). I like Canada. But, somehow, the three don’t go together.