Village Squire, 1979-04, Page 4Jim
Ewan
The low budget days
are over,
but the pressure's
tougher
on Morning Break
Jim Swan, a Bright boy makes good.
The old country boy hasn't completely disappeared. The
incongruity is there as the trim -figure in three-piece suit just off
the television set climbs into the old pickup truck to head across
town to lunch, proof again that you can't take the country out of
the boy.
He's a city boy now but like everyone, he carries his past with
him, and it shapes his thoughts and perceptions. For Jim Swan,
London is a big city and CFPL television is big time, as co -host of
MorningBreak, the flagship show of CFPL's local programipg
attempts he suddenly is living higher off the hog professionally
than ever before, and he's also living with the uncertainties that
the pressure of high -budget television brings.
In terms of network television of course, Morning Break is still
peanuts. The budget for the information entertainment package
of about a half million dollars a year would produce a little over
two hours of prime time television in the U.S. In London that
makes one hour a day, five days a week from September to June.
Still for a station like CFPL that is a major expenditure. There is
no way the show can pay for itself in advertising revenue. It is
what is known as community service broadcasting, something
that is done because television stations in Canada are supposed
to do more than just make money, they're supposed to serve real
needs in the community. But if people aren't watching, they
aren't being served and big budget burdens like Morning Break
quickly get chopped.
2 Village Squire, April 1979
And so for the staff of the show the tension is always there.
Ratings are checked carefully and even when they are good, the
worry is there that the next group might not be. Ratings have
been good for Morning Break this year, Jim says. Ratings show
that the audience has increased impressively since the show
came back for its third season in September. There is confidence
that the show will go into production for another season in
September and yet there is caution. And beyond next year...
"You're only as good as your last show." Jim says. And
ratings aside it's tough to know just who is out there watching
and listening and how loyal the audience is.
One senses the insecurity not only of the high pressure world
of television but also of the poor boy who is successful but never
sure how long it will last. It would be only natural because life for
Jim Swan has never been a rose garden. He grew up one of six
children in Bright, near Woodstock. He was 11 years old before
the family had running water. School was a two -room building
with a furnace in the corner and a teacher who strapped students
who came to school with wet feet. The family was in fact poor.
but it was something the children didn't realize until they were
older, Jim recalls.
It's the kind of life that sucks some people under into an
endless circle of poverty and spurs others on to escape to a better
life. Escape for Jim Swan carne with a fantasy of youth about
writing. His first interest was in writing for print and he wrote