Videoage International March-April 2020

26 March/April 2020 V I D E O A G E M oishe (Moses) Znaimer was born sometime in 1942 (he isn’t sure of the exact date), while his father, Aron, who was from Latvia, and his mother, Chaya Epelsweig, who hailed from Poland, were on a train to Kulyab in Tajik (which was then part of the USSR, but is now known as Kulob and is in Tajikistan) to escape the Holocaust, each as a sole survivor of their respective families. After World War II ended, the Znaimers went to Poland, then West Berlin, then a Displaced Persons camp in Hessisch Lichtenau, Germany, before finally arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, as refugees, in 1948. Shortly thereafter, they settled inMontreal, andeventually the young Moishe went to Toronto. This nomadic existence allowed him to be able to eruditely argue in four languages: Russian, Hebrew, French, andEnglish. As an undergrad, he even served as president of McGill University’s Debating Union, and changed his official name from Moishe to Moses. Znaimer documented his parents’ escape from the Nazis in the book Passages: Welcome Home to Canada (Doubleday Canada, 2002) by Michael Ignatieff and Rudyard Griffiths. In its 2010 edition, The Canadian Encyclopedia reported that “Znaimer developed a reputation as the ‘bad boy of Canadian television’ due to his aggressive pursuits of opportunities, as well as his ‘aggressive sexuality,’ which the Toronto Star referred to in a 2009 [article] as his ‘most vivid personality tic.’ He is known for his tight control of his image in the media, and the way he crafts an enigmatic persona through the numerous contradictions in his work and life.” However, the Encyclopedia continued, in 2006, “in recognition of Znaimer’s contribution to the Canadian media landscape, the City of Toronto designated the area around Citytv [the TV station that he founded] at 299Queen StreetWest asMoses Znaimer Way.” The street sign wasn’t actually erected until 2008. (There is also a Marshall McLuhanWay on nearby St. Joseph Street, to honor the acclaimed Canadian media philosopher). For this report, VideoAge contacted three of Znaimer’s former associates, each of whom declined to explain the “challenging” relationship they had with him, while a fourth one, a 25-year veteran of Citytv, answered: “He would very quickly get frustrated by the failure of others to see and execute his vision. He got frustrated when it took an idea of his a long time to roll out. He was prepared to be wrong, but his ideas and concepts were usually very well thought through, so it would take a very solid set of arguments to move him from a position. And... he was usually right.” Znaimer’s interest in television first manifested at age 13 when he became a naturalized Canadian citizen and used C$200 of his bar mitzvah money to buy his family a 1955 Admiral TV set. This was just three years after the inauguration of television services by the state-owned CBC. That must have left a lasting impression on him, since in 1992, 37 years after that first TV set, he founded the Moses Znaimer TV (MZTV) Museum, with has a large collection of TV equipment dating from the early days of television that he began collecting in the 1980s and originally kept in the Citytv building. That particular Admiral TV set is not at the museum, but “there are other Admiral models in the collection, mostly from the 1940s,” he said. Considering that this journalist wrote a book on the history of television in 1975, he quickly accepted an invitation from Znaimer to visit the MZTV Museum’s opening reception, which was held during a blizzard in December 1995 at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. This reporter was also on hand in February 2014 when the museum relocated to the Liberty Village in Toronto, the same site as Znaimer’s new company, ZoomerMedia Group. Included amongst the rare artifacts were inventions by such scientists as Charles Jenkins, John Baird, Vladimir Zworykin, Lee de Forest, Boris Rosing, and Allen B. DuMont, among others. (Zworykinwas one of the inventors this reporter had an opportunity to interview.) The very first time this reporter encountered Znaimerwas in1990duringa conference in theBlue Mountains of Australia, west of Sydney. It started out rather unpleasantly as Znaimer was seated behind him, nervously kicking his chair’s legs. However, when Znaimer went up to the podium to make a presentation, this journalist quickly became a “Znaimerista,” as his followers are called, as the presentation — about innovative forms of television — was mesmerizingly funny. A feature story followed in the October 1991 issue of VideoAge after a visit to his station. However, the amusing tone of the article was not appreciated by Znaimer for whom amusement is a serious business. Not that writing about Znaimer is easy. A Google search produced 49,400 results and it is this abundance of information about him that makes the writing harder, as there are so many discrepancies and distortions out there and it’s hard to sort them all out. In 1990, Znaimer was running Citytv, the To- ronto TV station he had co-founded in 1972. After Znaimer left the CBC in 1969, following the rejection of an experimental program he’d proposed, Znaimer became an analyst at Helix Investments, a venture capital firm. There, he was introduced to Israel (Sruki) Switzer, chief engineer at MacLean Hunter’s new Toronto cable- TV service. At that time, Znaimer was already known nationally, having hosted a popular CBC radio show, Cross Country Checkup , and the CBC TV show The Way It Is , as well as co-hosted the TV show Take 30 . He also wrote and produced a series on the history of the Russian Revolution. Znaimer started at the CBC in Toronto in 1965. Then, following a corporate dispute, he was “exiled” to Ottawa, but he returned to Toronto two years later, before leaving in 1969. Switzer offered Znaimer the opportunity to become a partner and to create and run a local TV station that could be re-broadcast via cable. With all of the VHF television licenses in Toronto taken, the key partners — Znaimer, Switzer’s journalist wife Phyllis, film producer Edgar Cowan, Canadian senator Jerry Grafstein, LorneMichaels (creator of Saturday Night Live ), and financier Ben Webster (Znaimer’s boss at Helix) — applied and, in 1971, were awarded the city’s first UHF commercial broadcasting license, on channel 79 (the frequency was changed to 57 in 1983). The call letters of the station were CITY-TV, and, under the Citytv brand, they began broadcasting the following year with a C$1.5million investment from a total of 36 investors. That was Canada’s first TV license since 1961, when CTV was created as Canada’s first private TV network with nine affiliates. Before 1961, private TV stations only re-broadcast CBC programs. Citytv studios were located at 99 Queen Street East, a 15-minute walk from its current address at 299Queen StreetWest. (Phyllis, then Citytv’s vice president, was also the mother of Jay Switzer, who passed away in 2018, and who, in 2002 became the group’s president.) Citytv became Toronto’s first independent (i.e., not affiliated) and privately owned local TV station, which in 1996 became a “superstation,” expanding its cable TV coverage up to Ottawa. By Dom Serafini Moses Znaimer: A NewMcLuhan, But With a Mission To Reinvent Television Int’ l TV Distribut ion Hal l of Fame (Continued on Page 28) Znaimer in 1972 when City-TV was on channel 79 Znaimer and his partner, actress Marilyn Lightstone