Globe and Mail Review on ZeD (CBC Television) - 2002

ZeD aims for the 'sweet spot'
- By Amanda Gill

Vancouver - It's around midnight. What you're doing up this late on a Wednesday is nobody's business but your own. Aimlessly surfing through an endless stream of TV talk shows, droning infomercials and last year's sitcom repeats, you suddenly hit a bold warning sign.

"Everyone knows the Web contains 80-per-cent smut," the disclaimer reads. "ZeD contains a lot of Web content."

Smut? On CBC-TV?

"Come on inside," the host beckons in a sultry voice.

"Tonight on ZeD,we celebrate all things Canadian," announces Sharon Lewis, as she struts through glittery gold curtains wearing a big auburn wig and lusciously glossy lips. "But this won't be the Canada you know," warns the host.

"There will be no beavers, no Stompin' Tom and no five-hour curling matches," she continues, curling up on the couch and pulling the legs of her spangled jumpsuit up past her knees.

"Oh, okay. There might be one beaver and maybe even some hockey. But no curling."

Welcome to ZeD,a new hour-long arts program that airs Monday to Friday at 11:25 p.m. And as you may have gathered, it's not like any TV show you've come to expect from Canada's public broadcaster.

"We like to call it extreme public broadcasting," says executive producer McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves.

ZeD is not just a TV show. It's the first truly interactive television/Web concept that gives the on-line community an opportunity to participate in creating and shaping what goes to air (beyond voting for your favourite video).

Twenty per cent of the content you see on the TV show has been uploaded onto the Web site (http://www.zed.cbc.ca) by artists from around the world. And there are even more viewer-submitted short films, music files, animation, visual art, writing samples and taped performances to browse through on-line.

Of course, you can always just sit back on the couch and watch. If you tuned in last week, you might have seen a Cree man named Joe in a red lumber jacket and long braids, ranting about how he doesn't collect welfare, drink alcohol or own a TV. I Am Indigenous, a short video takeoff on the famous Molson Canadian commercial, was one of the five contest finalists for ZeD's"Ain't 50 Nifty," CBC-TV anniversary celebration.

Other segments featured an interview with a visual artist who has been busy writing letters to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, one every day for the past three years; live performances from pop bands, spoken-word poets and dancers; and several installments of a slightly demented animated miniseries called Kozik's Inferno. (To find out whether the plump little piggy sees the light or becomes a baked ham, you'll have to go on-line.)

Of course, there were several smutty short films as well, including one called Threesome. You knew it was coming because another warning popped up on the screen. "The grass is always greener on the other side," this one read.

"At ZeD, it's sharp and pointy and full of weeds."

Extreme indeed. But who ever thought the CBC could be so hip?

"Are we hip?" Lewis asks. You might recognize the actress, writer and broadcaster (without her wigs) as the political mediator who took over last year as the host of CBC Newsworld's counterSpin.

"Define hip," says Mashingaidze-Greaves, who firmly believes the concept died with Miles Davis. The former Silicon Alley "cyberstar" will admit, however, that many have trouble believing he's a CBC executive when they see the silver stud on his chin and the fountain of dreadlocks on his head.

The only true believer, it seems, is CBC's Rae Hull, who's in charge of producing and developing ZeD. "I didn't have a doubt," she says.

It was slightly more than a year ago when CBC's Slawko Klymkiw, executive director of network programming, came to Hull and asked her to create the new program. "Innovate and nurture new talent," he said.

"Okay," she thought. "If this is a space about creativity and innovation and telling stories, we wanted to say to Canadians: 'This is your space, too.'"

When ZeD'sfour-week-pilot phase aired last spring, it attracted 30,000 guests to the Web site. From that, more than 2,000 works of art were uploaded. The ZeD community has continued to grow since the regular season began six weeks ago. Each night, the show averages 70,000 viewers and there are now 5,000 registered members on the Web site.

All this talk about the show being viewer-driven is not just a lot of "hooey," says Mashingaidze-Greaves, who previously worked with HBO/AOL-Time Warner as vice-president of content for its urban new-media division. In the first three weeks that ZeD was on the air, he says more than 300 pieces of art submitted by viewers were used on the show.

So how did these independent artists find ZeD if there wasn't any publicity campaign? Mashingaidze-Greaves says the quiet launch was deliberate, in keeping with the show's grassroots, underground approach.

"To target the people we're targeting, you can't hit them over the head or go the traditional route."

The program targets a media savvy, 20- to 30-something demographic. Or in ZeD-speak, they're after the "sweet spot" of open-minded, independent thinkers who were "raised on TV, hooked on the Web, plugged into pop culture and tired of predictable formulas."

Mashingaidze-Greaves was Hull's first hire. After graduating from British Columbia's Institute of Technology in the mid-nineties, he went to New York to work as an editor of Paper, a national fashion magazine. At that time, he also worked as a correspondent for CBC Newsworld's Big Life and On the Arts.

In addition, he built a Web-development company called Virtual Melanin Inc., which drew praise from The New York Times for creating a niche in the black community and putting the inner city on the Internet.

To reach the so-called hipsters they were targeting, Hull and Mashingaidze-Greaves made a point of hiring a like-minded staff. They made sure the hires weren't all white and they lived a "convergent lifestyle."

The average age of the ZeD production crew is 30. And most (about 35 out of 50) came from outside the CBC.

After the pilot season, which featured a weekly rotation of test hosts, they still hadn't decided on anyone in particular. Mashingaidze-Greaves was in Toronto the day Lewis quit counterSpin. He remembered her from Toronto's Queen Street art scene in the eighties and called up her up right away.

"We need to talk about ZeD,"he told her.

Back in the land of ZeD,Lewis swings around in the makeup chair and kicks her leg over the arm. In her sassy wig and racy jumpsuit, she appears to have spun at least 180 degrees from her previous gig.

"You think?" she says coyly. "I used to be asked the same thing when I worked at counterSpin. 'You're an artist,' people would say. 'Isn't this a 180-degree spin into politics?'"

As a former theatre director, actor (she played the lead in Clement Virgo's film Rude)and writer (now finishing her first novel), Lewis says ZeD taps into a side of her personality that counterSpin didn't.

"We're blurring the lines between drama and an arts or current-affairs show," says Lewis. In addition to interviewing guests, chatting with correspondents via video and introducing clips, Lewis acts like an in-house artist. In an upcoming episode, she presents the entire show in haiku.

The performance is a bit too much for some.

"Why does ZeD feel it has to have an oh-so-cool host?" one of its viewers complains. "Please, just deliver the goods. We simply don't need the pompous posturing!"

Reaction within the CBC has been positive.

The brass, says Hull, have been "unconditionally supportive." Laughing, she adds, "Even though on any given night they might watch it and go 'Huh? Someone's enjoying this?'"

They might not get it, but you can be sure they're watching closely. Hull and her crew weren't just out to create a new show. They're creating a template for cross-platform convergence within the CBC. That's one of the reasons she never calls ZeD a "show."

"It's more of a specialty channel. There has been and will be more crossover among programs within CBC . . . that have a like-minded sensibility."

It was no coincidence that CBC's version of extreme public broadcasting was located in Vancouver.

Besides being home to Hull, who is regional director of CBC-TV in B.C., Vancouver is the home base for CBC's alternative, youth-oriented on-line radio network.

"RadioThree was here and the synergies that could emerge would make much more sense if we shared the same space," Hull says.