Moses Znaimer: TV's Revolutionary

President and Executive Producer, CITY-TV, MuchMusic, Musique Plus and Bravo! Moses Znaimer is known for his creative television production style. An outspoken advocate of the power of television to tell its story through the use of image, Znaimer challenged the hegemony of print in his video manifesto, TVTV: The Television Revolution (1996). MZTV Bio.

MZTV Manifesto

"As a transmitter of information and entertainment, television is acknowledged king. But it's also very effective as a reflector of values and teacher of ideals, often in ways you don't notice.
That's because television is enormously amusing and permanently on tap, everywhere. Even in the bedroom.

On one hand, this convenience has led television to be taken for granted. On the other, when TV is discussed, it's often in an atmosphere of suspicion and alarm.

Though it stands accused of being both a monumental waster of time and a cause of rampant sexuality and casual violence, ours is, in my opinion, the central business of the age, and a tremendous force for good.

There is as much honour in giving the public relief from the pressures of daily life as there is in arming the public with the information and philosophies needed to engage creatively in it.

Whether searching for meaning or searching for escape, viewers have instinctively understood what politicians, academics, clerics and TV's print critics have not - television is not a problem to be managed, but an instrument to be played."

TVTV: The Television Revolution

(A ChumCity Production in association with the CBC, 1995.) Znaimer summarizes his theories of television production in TVTV:

TV is the triumph of the image over the printed word.
The true nature of television is flow, not show; process, not conclusion.
As global television expands, the demand for local programming increases.
The best TV tells me what happened to me, today.
TV is as much about the people bringing you the story as the story itself.
In the past, TV's chief operating skill was political. In the future, it will have to be mastery of the craft itself.
Print created illiteracy. TV is democratic. Everybody gets it.
TV creates immediate consensus, subject to immediate change.
There never was a mass audience, except by compulsion.
Television is not a problem to be managed, but an instrument to be played.

TVTV Critiqued

Two Unintended Faces of Television (Moses Znaimer's TVTV) Robert Anderson (Canadian Journal of Communication (v.21(1) Winter, 1996 pg 39-43)
Moses Znaimer's Television Revolution Debra Clarke (Canadian Journal of Communication (v.21(1) Winter, 1996 pg 44-47)
The Citizen Kane of Cable TV: Moses Znaimer's TVTV Hart Cohen (Canadian Journal of Communication (v.21(1) Winter, 1996 pg 55-58)
Moses Znaimer, You've Met Marshall McLuhan, Now Meet Lord Reith...Marjorie Ferguson, (Canadian Journal of Communications (21.1, 1996)
Chairman Znaimer's "Sensual Pagan Torrent" (Some comments on Moses Znaimer's Documentary, TVTV): by George Gerbner. (Canadian Journal of Communication (v.21(1) Winter, 1996 pg 13-17)
TV or not TV: The Sound in the Fury (Moses Znaimer's TVTV)Paul Heyer (Canadian Journal of Communication (v.21(1) Winter, 1996 pg 59-61)
When a Showman Pontificates: In the Beginning was Moses (Moses Znaimer's Documentary TVTV), by Francois Proulx. (Canadian Journal of Communication (v.21(1) Winter, 1996 pg 27-30)
Is that really an issue? (Moses Znaimer's TVTV): Rene J. Ravault (Canadian Journal of Communication (v.21(1) Winter, 1996 pg 52-54)

Moses Znaimer on the Net

MZTV Museum of Television
Don't just change the channel. Change the rules. by Christina Novicki Photographs by Edward Gajdel.
Articles on Znaimer's activities on the Canoe website.
Canada’s Tele-Visionary Moses Znaimer Frees the Airwaves and Builds His Broadcasting Empireby Andy Walker in Digital Journal.
Bravo!Fact

Bravo!FACT, a Foundation to assist Canadian Talent, was established in 1995 as a non-profit corporation by the Bravo! Television Network to provide financial assistance and incentives for the promotion, development, production and exhibition of Canadian-made shortform arts videos, in a variety of disciplines and modes of expression; and to stimulate public interest in and appreciation of the arts on television.
Bravo!FACT is designed to encourage the creation of new ways of presenting the arts on television. The intention of the Foundation is to increase public recognition of, and demand for Canadian artists and their works and to induce greater attendance at Canadian artistic and cultural events.

History of Television

Eye of the World: John Logie Baird and Television, by Adrian Hills (in Kinema)
Eye of the World: John Logie Baird and Television (Part II): Malcolm H. I. Baird (Kinema)
Eye of the World: John Logie Baird and Television (Part III): Iain Baird interviewed by Gerald Pratley (Kinema).

J. L. Baird and his Television Apparatus

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