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Television producer Larry LeClair rarely does local press. Part of the reason is practical: when aiming for an international market for television shows, you aim for international press. Part of the reason is cultural. “On PEI, the great sin is bragging,” he says. “When we ask, ‘Who do you think you are?’ it sounds like a question you’d like to answer, but that’s not the intent at all.
“The Island is the perfect antidote to New York,” he laughs. “In New York, that same question is a cue for hyperbole about how important you are.”
Larry sums up his own story as succinctly as a pitch. “I started at UPEI at sixteen years of age,” he says. “I had gone to a country school, where if you were annoying enough you skipped a grade. I published my first book of poetry at seventeen, and it was received well, took me on national tours. When I graduated, I received a Canada Council grant to write a novel and went to Spain, where I arrived the week that Franco died…
“When I came back to Canada, I sold a show to CBC radio. I wrote a couple of television shows, but there were not many to write, There were very few done at that time—and still are. The problem in a small place like here was that you were out of the loop. You might be writing a spec script for a series that had been cancelled, and you wouldn’t know.”
Eventually, family and responsibilities led to day jobs. Then, “Ten years ago, I didn’t have the same responsibilities, so I was free to fail.” He turned once again to television, to production and distribution as Seahorse Entertainment.
Ten productive years led to over sixty episodes of “Adventures of the Aftermath Crew,” more than two dozen episodes of “Steeplechase,” and even a bit of writing—“Little Buck’s Christmas,” a special animated in Cape Breton, Right now, in production is a history series, “Voices in Time: Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century.”
Producing for an international market takes cultural astuteness. “The Canadian television system in its heart is bureaucratic,” Larry says emphatically. “When you deal with someone in the the United States the first question is, ‘Can we make any money?’ The same conversation in Canada, the question is, ‘Does it meet the regulations?’ It’s a fundamental kind of schism!”
In evidence, he submits, “Small producers and small companies in Canada spend more time with lawyers, bankers and accountants than with writers, directors, and producers. This suggests why we tend to clone what works elsewhere…Risk and regulation do not go hand in hand.
“I look forward to the dismantling of the Canadian television broadcasting system,” Larry says. “It hasn’t served the regions well, it hasn’t served creative people well…I’m a big supporter of public television,” he says with a twinkle, “and I live for the day we have public television in Canada.”
Larry’s clear-eyed skepticism may be valuable savvy in the television industry. “We misjudge television when we say it has to do with creativity,” he says. “There’s a cliche in television that a ‘show is what accidentally happens at the end of the deal.’”
But deal-making of this kind, Larry observes, may go the way of the dodo. “The television industry is recognizing that in five years, it will barely recognize itself,” he says. “The twelve to fourteen year old demographic is fleeing television in droves, and it’s not that they aren’t watching shows—they’re watching them on-line.
“With user-generated content like YouTube, when the audience can connect directly with the talent, what do you need a broadcaster for?
“I’m delighted that today some young woman in Estevan, Saskatchewan can create content that connects with her audience and that she didn’t need me, she didn’t need a broadcaster, she didn’t need a monolithic broadcast system,” Larry LeClair says, and seems quite hopeful that in talking up new kinds of television, he might be talking himself out of a job.