>>>> Report on Business Magazine
>>>> December 2004
>>>> Page 38
>>>>
>>>> Small, Lennon, the gods and ME
>>>>
>>>> Geoff Stirling pioneered TV in Newfoundland and FM rock across Canada.
>>>> The next goal for the last media maverick? Reincarnation
>>>>
>>>> Susan Bourette
>>>>
>>>> The lights are up, the cameras are in place and a microphone is clipped
>>>> to the sweater of the man who is at once mogul, mystic and prankster.
>>>> Geoff Stirling is ready for his close-up. It's the latest take in The
>>>> Geoff Stirling Story, starring Geoffrey William Stirling, produced,
>>>> directed, written and lived by the selfsame Geoff Stirling.
>>>>
>>>> The show has been in production for almost a half century, ever since
>>>> Stirling erected Newfoundland's first television broadcast tower and
>>>> began transmitting shows like Hopalong Cassidy.
>>>>
>>>> Here in St. John's, they joke that Geoff Stirling is 4 million years old
>>>> and 17 feet high. But in person, he's utterly human. Standing 6 feet
>>>> tall, he's thin, "all skin and grief," as the locals say, and all the
>>>> more so dressed in black save for the red bandana around his neck and a
>>>> silver crop of bedhead that lends him the worn chic of an aging rock
>>>> star.
>>>>
>>>> At 83, Stirling knows the production can't go on forever. There's only a
>>>> decade or two left to tie up loose ends. The rushes have been seen only
>>>> by friends and family -- and by late-night viewers of Stirling's NTV,
>>>> the dominant station in Newfoundland and an increasingly popular
>>>> diversion elsewhere via satellite. In the episode filming tonight, the
>>>> unwitting guest star is a writer from this magazine.
>>>>
>>>> "Sit down right there, honey," Stirling commands in a lilting voice,
>>>> pointing to the chair next to his at NTV headquarters, a low-slung
>>>> building on the edge of the Atlantic, a 10-minute drive from St. John's.
>>>> "I hope you don't mind the camera," he says. Before I've had a chance to
>>>> answer, he's bellowing to the technician, "Mike, have you got her in the
>>>> centre of the frame?" I see my head bobbing in a monitor. I can't help
>>>> noticing it's not a flattering look -- slack-jawed, eyebrows hoisted in
>>>> italicized disbelief. "Okay, we're ready to roll," he thunders. Never an
>>>> enthusiastic performer, I meekly ask, "Mr. Stirling, what are you
>>>> planning to do with this?" He leans in close with a wild-eyed stare and
>>>> points to my tape recorder. "What are you planning to do with this?" he
>>>> asks with mock incredulity. Then he stretches his mouth into a wide, sly
>>>> grin.
>>>>
>>>> It's just another day at the NTV funhouse, a station unlike any other in
>>>> the country, or perhaps the world. The corner office likewise is
>>>> occupied by a media mogul unlike any other, one who diverts a
>>>> conversation about corporate strategy into reflections on crop circles
>>>> and reincarnation. At one point, Stirling declares, "I am whole.
>>>>
>>>> I am perfect. I am unlimited." But the singularity goes beyond the man's
>>>> passions and persona: Stirling is the last of a breed, the independent
>>>> broadcasters who pioneered privately owned television in Canada (see
>>>> "Local moguls sign off," p. 43). In a business now subsumed into a
>>>> handful of media conglomerates, Stirling is a lonely lion in winter.
>>>>
>>>> For decades, Geoff Stirling ruled as if the island were his personal
>>>> media fiefdom. He didn't enjoy a monopoly, to be sure, but Stirling was
>>>> the dominant player, with major outlets in print, radio and television.
>>>> Today, he serves as chairman of privately held Stirling Communications
>>>> International -- an enterprise he oversees from his ranch in Arizona
>>>> when he's not in St. John's. His holdings include a printing business
>>>> (Stirling Press) and three province-spanning platforms: NTV, rock radio
>>>> station OZ-FM and The Newfoundland Herald, a once-scrappy tabloid that
>>>> is now largely a television and entertainment guide. His television
>>>> station is the only one in Canada with deals to broadcast both CanWest
>>>> Global and CTV programming, much of the former imported from the U.S.
>>>> Indeed, although Stirling fulminates about protecting Newfoundland's
>>>> cultural sovereignty, he's made his fortune by broadcasting American
>>>> shows such as Survivor, The Apprentice and The Young and the Restless.
>>>>
>>>> Still, there's no denying him his reputation as a trailblazer.
>>>>
>>>> His TV station was the first to broadcast 24 hours a day in North
>>>> America, and he is credited with revolutionizing the FM radio dial in
>>>> the late '60s. A 1974 documentary in which he co-stars, Waiting for
>>>> Fidel, is a cult classic, credited as the first "stalkumentary," an
>>>> influence on the likes of Michael Moore.
>>>>
>>>> "Geoff Stirling's been a visionary," says Rex Murphy, the CBC
>>>> broadcaster and fellow Newfoundland native. "In many ways, he was a
>>>> somewhat awkward anticipation of Moses Znaimer." A visionary is bound to
>>>> run into static and interference, and these days the noise is coming
>>>> from all sides for Stirling. He's in the fight of his life with the
>>>> Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC),
>>>> which is demanding NTV produce more Canadian content than ever before.
>>>> OZ-FM, meanwhile faces fiercer competition for rock listeners. And The
>>>> Newfoundland Herald is losing eyeballs to on-screen TV-listings
>>>> services: Its circulation has tumbled by more than 50% since 1997, to
>>>> 20,000 across the province.
>>>>
>>>> He's also confronting bigger powers in TV who would love nothing better
>>>> than to fold Stirling's profitable venture into their own empires.
>>>>
>>>> He'll wage those quixotic battles in due time. Meanwhile, there are
>>>> hours of programming to fill. That's why, in the early morning hours a
>>>> week after our meeting, my phone rings. It's Stirling, informing me that
>>>> my interview with him -- largely unedited and including more than a few
>>>> cuss words and testy exchanges -- will be beamed across the province at
>>>> 3 a.m. Talk about reality TV. I didn't even sign a waiver.
>>>>
>>>> The Geoff Stirling Story has played out in episodes like the one I
>>>> wandered into -- vignettes captured almost surreptitiously, aired late
>>>> in the Newfoundland night and then immediately archived for "the time
>>>> capsule" (Stirling's term). The story stretches back to the time before
>>>> television.
>>>>
>>>> Reel 1. Establishing shot: Wide angle of Stirling in his early 20s,
>>>> lying on an embankment beside a swamp in the Honduran jungle.
>>>>
>>>> It's 1946. He's dressed in hip waders and has a rifle at the ready.
>>>>
>>>> He's a long way from home, fresh out of university, doing an improbable
>>>> thing for the sports-star son of a St. John's restaurant owner.
>>>>
>>>> But it was here, in Honduras, that he had the vision. It came down from
>>>> the sky while he was hunting alligators -- stacks of tightly bound
>>>> newspapers. Stirling wondered: If The Miami Herald can get all the way
>>>> to readers in the Central American jungle, why can't I get a newspaper
>>>> to the outports of Newfoundland? Stirling didn't much like shooting
>>>> gators for the shoe-and-handbag trade anyway. He headed home with a
>>>> scheme to launch his own tabloid.
>>>>
>>>> He'd already developed a taste for journalism, having worked as a
>>>> stringer for Time and the Chicago Tribune while studying pre-law at the
>>>> University of Tampa.
>>>>
>>>> Back home, his plan met with a collective sneer. Among the most vocal
>>>> skeptics was the journalist and politician Joey Smallwood.
>>>>
>>>> How could Stirling succeed, Smallwood pressed him, when his own paper
>>>> had folded? Stirling told him: "Joe, you've got nothing but politics.
>>>> I'm going to have ghost stories and comics and all kinds of stuff." With
>>>> a start-up fund of $1,000 that he'd saved from working at his father's
>>>> restaurant, Stirling purchased 60 tonnes of newsprint from Smallwood's
>>>> defunct paper and launched The St. John's Sunday Herald, a striking
>>>> alternative to the St. John's dailies, the Evening Telegram and the
>>>> Daily News. For the first four years, he wrote practically everything in
>>>> the 100-page weekly save the letters to the editor. To build readership,
>>>> he had the Herald air-dropped onto the ice floes where sealers toiled
>>>> for long stretches during the winter hunt.
>>>>
>>>> "I think the Herald's beginning says something about the cornerstone of
>>>> Geoff's thinking," says his son, Scott, who, although he took over the
>>>> operational reins at the company 15 years ago, still relies on his
>>>> father as counsellor and corporate persona. "He's always been a free
>>>> spirit and a freethinker. Somebody once said that while people typically
>>>> have two or three voices going on in their head, Geoff must have eight
>>>> or nine. He just sees things that other people can't. He's not afraid to
>>>> try something everyone else believes will fail." The Herald hadn't been
>>>> around long when Stirling waded into a debate over nothing less than
>>>> Newfoundland's destiny: Should it become part of Canada or not? He and
>>>> the Herald joined forces with some of the island's most prominent
>>>> businessmen -- led by Ches Crosbie, father of future federal minister
>>>> John Crosbie -- in an anti-Confederation crusade. To the
>>>> anti-confederates, the best option for Newfoundland, which had been
>>>> reduced to a virtual ward of the Crown by years of hardship, was
>>>> economic union with the United States. Stirling threw himself into the
>>>> cause: When he wasn't lobbying senators in Washington, he was
>>>> proselytizing in the Herald.
>>>>
>>>> It was a battle his side nearly won. Newfoundland became the 10th
>>>> Canadian province in 1949, but with just 52% of voters having opted to
>>>> join Confederation.
>>>>
>>>> Reel 2. Establishing shot: Medium shot of Premier Joey Smallwood sunk in
>>>> a red leather chair. Seated beside him are his friends Don Jamieson and
>>>> Geoff Stirling. They raise a glass in a toast to a new beginning.
>>>>
>>>> It's the early '50s. Stirling has licked his wounds and put behind him
>>>> the bitterness over his beloved Newfoundland's fall into the embrace of
>>>> the Canadian federation. Although he'd worked to defeat Joey Smallwood
>>>> and his plan, the two men bonded thanks to their shared love of their
>>>> newly minted province.
>>>>
>>>> It was a time when politicians and journalists freely associated with
>>>> each other and made common cause when their interests coincided.
>>>>
>>>> Along with Jamieson, another vehement anti-confederate who would serve
>>>> as political minister for Newfoundland in Pierre Trudeau's cabinet in
>>>> the '70s, Smallwood and Stirling formed a powerful triumvirate in
>>>> Newfoundland's new era. In a place that had long been ruled by a few
>>>> merchant-class family dynasties, the three men were eager to exploit the
>>>> power shift that came with Confederation.
>>>>
>>>> Stirling and Jamieson, the latter well-known in the province as a radio
>>>> announcer, dreamed of a broadcasting empire. They planned to bring their
>>>> own radio station to the province (which had only the CBC and some small
>>>> religious outlets on the air), to be followed by a television station a
>>>> few years later. Smallwood smoothed the way with federal regulators so
>>>> that Jamieson and Stirling were granted their licences for TV and radio,
>>>> both with the call letters CJON.
>>>>
>>>> Stirling then went to CBS-TV in New York, cramming an in-house, two-year
>>>> television course into six weeks. By the summer of 1955, his station was
>>>> on the air; Jamieson was featured as news anchor, seeding his political
>>>> popularity. Nationally, CJON joined the loose band of independents that
>>>> would eventually form the CTV network.
>>>>
>>>> Stirling's monopoly lasted until 1962, when the CBC was granted a TV
>>>> licence.
>>>>
>>>> He spent two decades building his empire, picking up radio stations (or
>>>> sometimes contracts to run them) across Ontario and Quebec.
>>>>
>>>> In the mid-'70s, his TV station took the novel step of broadcasting
>>>> around the clock. Night-owl viewers didn't know what to expect -- they
>>>> might catch licensing hearings or the company Christmas party, or one of
>>>> the heated dialogues between Stirling and Smallwood, often on the same
>>>> themes as their National Film Board documentary, Waiting for Fidel. (The
>>>> two never do get to interview Fidel Castro; while they're waiting, they
>>>> talk.) In these wee-hours exchanges, Stirling, the free-enterpriser,
>>>> took the right-wing position; Smallwood, the onetime socialist, the
>>>> left. Spurred on by a few bottles of Blue Nun, they would often debate
>>>> till dawn.
>>>>
>>>> Stirling's outlets championed whatever cause inspired their proprietor.
>>>>
>>>> Still sniggering over Stirling's claims to have been cured of rheumatoid
>>>> arthritis by liquid gold injections, few Newfoundlanders paid attention
>>>> in the early '70s when he got on his hobbyhorse about gold again, urging
>>>> them to buy the stuff, as he'd been doing. Stirling says he'd got an
>>>> insight from talking to a man in Tahiti: Prices had to go up. True. The
>>>> price of an ounce of gold sank as low as $35 (U.S) in 1970; by 1980 it
>>>> had soared as high as $892 (U.S). Stirling made a killing.
>>>>
>>>> Memorial University business professor Dan Mosher says Stirling's
>>>> attempt to share the wealth says something about the man. "Any other
>>>> individual might simply worry about amassing more for himself. But
>>>> [Stirling has] always tried to help improve things in his own way for
>>>> the people here." Reel 3. Establishing shot: A studio booth in London.
>>>> Inside, there are four people: Scott Stirling, his father, Geoff, Yoko
>>>> Ono and John Lennon.
>>>>
>>>> It's 1969, shortly after the Beatles have released Come Together, a
>>>> Lennon number that began life as the campaign song for acid-guru Timothy
>>>> Leary's intended run against Ronald Reagan for governor of California.
>>>> The song, cryptic though it was, mesmerized Geoff and Scott, a Lennon
>>>> fan. From the Londonderry Hotel, where the two were staying on vacation,
>>>> Stirling telexed a note to Lennon. It said, "I've heard your Come
>>>> Together. So here I am. Geoff Stirling." A few hours later, they were
>>>> seated in Apple Studios, recording the first in a string of interviews
>>>> with Lennon that Stirling would later broadcast on his Canadian radio
>>>> stations.
>>>>
>>>> "I look back on that first interview and I realize how profound it was,"
>>>> Scott says. "It was a philosophical discussion about the forces of good
>>>> and evil, and how Lennon was trying to use his music to socially improve
>>>> civilization." Stirling used it to revolutionize FM radio in Canada. By
>>>> the late 1960s, FM radio was a profitable niche offering easy-listening
>>>> and light classical music. Stirling was determined to turn his stable of
>>>> stations into a different form, one already reverberating south of the
>>>> border -- "tribal radio." His Montreal radio station, CHOM-FM, was the
>>>> first such experiment in Canada. It was the quintessential hippie FM
>>>> rock station, a smoky crash pad where listeners could tune in for an
>>>> hour and never hear what time it was, let alone a word about sports or
>>>> the weather.
>>>>
>>>> One of Stirling's new crew took to the airwaves and cast the I Ching for
>>>> four hours to figure out if the format change would work. There were
>>>> endless spins of the Beatles' Abbey Road, interspersed with meditation
>>>> chants and discussions on cosmic consciousness.
>>>>
>>>> Jim Sward, who later became president of Global Television, was 24 when
>>>> Stirling hired him to run his mainland radio operations from Montreal.
>>>> "We were a mix of those on a social mission and button-down,
>>>> professional broadcasting types like myself," Sward recalls. "Somehow
>>>> the professionals co-existed somewhat harmoniously with this group of
>>>> goddamned hippies.
>>>>
>>>> "Geoff was so courageous. He did do things that offended and disgusted
>>>> me. He can do things that are hurtful. But I've never met another person
>>>> with that kind of charisma. I have great affection for him and if I saw
>>>> him now, I'd give him a big hug." Listeners in Montreal were impressed
>>>> too. The station's novel sound gave CHOM a lock on the teen and
>>>> young-adult market. Stirling introduced the rock format to the rest of
>>>> his radio empire, which swelled to 13 stations, including CKPM in Ottawa
>>>> and CJOM in Windsor.
>>>>
>>>> Reel 4. Establishing shot: High atop a mountain in the Himalayas in the
>>>> '70s. Holding beads and wearing long flowing robes, Geoff and Scott
>>>> Stirling are seated in the lotus position next to a swami, in deep
>>>> meditation. Cue sitars.
>>>>
>>>> Just as his stations devotedly played Lennon's work, so did Stirling
>>>> follow the Beatles up the mountain, embracing Eastern mysticism,
>>>> meditation and the same group of holy men.
>>>>
>>>> The search for meaning was inspired by the spectre of death. Scott was
>>>> 20 when his doctor found a large lump in his neck and diagnosed
>>>> Hodgkin's Disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system. A second doctor
>>>> told him not to worry: It was a cyst. Scott headed for India, wanting to
>>>> believe his second doctor and hoping that medical treatment could wait.
>>>> Geoff followed him a month later.
>>>>
>>>> "Geoff told me that he was going to devote all his energy to finding a
>>>> cure for his son," recalls Sward, Stirling's radio boss. "He left and I
>>>> didn't see him for nearly a year." During the trip, war broke out
>>>> between India and Pakistan, and the Stirlings found themselves stranded
>>>> for months. As bombs dropped around them -- and with Scott's health at
>>>> the forefront of their minds -- they began to seek out India's holy men
>>>> for answers.
>>>>
>>>> "We went through that together and I think it changed me and it changed
>>>> Geoff. That's why India was so significant to both of us," Scott says.
>>>> Father and son both became ardent proponents of yoga and meditation.
>>>> Scott believes it was his conversion to vegetarianism that prevented the
>>>> lump on his neck -- which was in fact a cancerous tumour -- from
>>>> growing. His cancer went into remission.
>>>>
>>>> After the India trip, Stirling was wont to spontaneously show up at CHOM
>>>> with his swami and put him on the air. But Eastern religion was no mere
>>>> dalliance for the Stirlings. Clicking through the corners of the NTV
>>>> website (ntv.ca) can resemble a lecture in world religions, with links
>>>> to New-Age websites and Stirling's self-published book, In Search of a
>>>> New Age. The NTV site also features a Stirling father-and-son creation,
>>>> a comic-book spiritual superhero called Captain Newfoundland, who fights
>>>> evil with telepathic powers and a keen understanding of the collective
>>>> consciousness. The backstory is that Captain Newfoundland is descended
>>>> from divine creatures that once inhabited the lost continent of
>>>> Atlantis, now the northern tip of Newfoundland.
>>>>
>>>> Scott believes that daily meditation is crucial to steering the family
>>>> empire. "This job demands a lot of concentration and a lot of focus. I
>>>> think the business has benefited from my meditation.
>>>>
>>>> I don't think that either Geoff or I could live without it." The two had
>>>> to rely heavily on their practice in 1977 when tragedy struck. Scott's
>>>> 19-year-old sister, Kim, was killed in a car accident.
>>>>
>>>> It was a life-changing event for the elder Stirling.
>>>>
>>>> "When that happened, I think Geoff reassessed where he was," Scott says.
>>>> "He thought: What's this all about? Do I want to just keep expanding? Or
>>>> is there something more to life than this?" Stirling consulted his
>>>> family, asking them what assets they wanted him to keep. But his family
>>>> left the decision to him. Stirling sold off all of his radio stations on
>>>> the mainland and retreated to Newfoundland.
>>>>
>>>> Reel 5. Establishing shot: Close-up of Geoff Stirling in the St.
>>>>
>>>> John's studio. The clicking sound of a camera shutter fills the
>>>> otherwise silent room. Stirling's smiling, but he's not happy.
>>>>
>>>> The photographer is politely asking Stirling to work with him, but he
>>>> proves to be a reluctant subject. If these were promotional stills for a
>>>> Stirling production, he'd be more co-operative. But, no, it's a shoot
>>>> for the magazine that you're reading. It's one thing to star in your own
>>>> biopic, it's another completely to yield creative control.
>>>>
>>>> The photograph really isn't what's bothering Stirling though.
>>>>
>>>> It's something the lens can't capture, something happening behind the
>>>> scenes. The office is a flurry of paper and faxes. Today is the deadline
>>>> for the next round of documents to be filed with the CRTC explaining why
>>>> NTV can't possibly meet the regulator's demands for increased Canadian
>>>> content.
>>>>
>>>> The CRTC is fiddling with NTV's broadcast day, effectively shortening
>>>> the time period in which the station has to air its allotment of
>>>> Canadian content. The way NTV sees it, it's vicious and punitive.
>>>>
>>>> Under the regulator's new rules, the broadcast day goes from 7 a.m.
>>>>
>>>> to 1 a.m., instead of the formula of 6 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. that's been in
>>>> place since the 1970s -- a concession from the CRTC that allowed NTV to
>>>> take advantage of simulcast opportunities despite its unique time zone.
>>>> The upshot is that the station can no longer count its early-morning
>>>> newscast toward its Cancon quota. NTV will have to generate more
>>>> programming, and that won't be cheap.
>>>>
>>>> And it could put a serious dent in the new hybrid model that NTV has
>>>> become. Today, not just Newfoundlanders, but some 1.3 million people
>>>> between Vancouver and St. John's -- and as far south as the Caribbean -- 
>>>> watch NTV each week.
>>>>
>>>> Adding satellite transmission to conventional signals, NTV started
>>>> broadcasting continentally in 1994. In 2002, its growing
>>>> non-Newfoundland audience led to a parting of ways with CTV, of which it
>>>> had been an affiliate. Paul Sparkes, a spokesman for CTV parent Bell
>>>> Globemedia Inc., says that while NTV wanted to keep airing the network's
>>>> top programs, it didn't want to show the corresponding national
>>>> commercials.
>>>>
>>>> So NTV was competing with CTV for both viewers and advertising.
>>>>
>>>> "One reason our relationship with NTV is different is because one-third
>>>> of its audience is now outside of Newfoundland," Sparkes says. "They are
>>>> competition in a way that they weren't before they went to satellite."
>>>> Still, CTV continues to allow NTV to air news shows such as the evening
>>>> national news and Canada AM, in exchange for NTV news reporting.
>>>>
>>>> So the network that NTV most resembles now is Global -- a lot of shiny
>>>> American imports and a few perfunctory domestic productions, done on the
>>>> cheap. The local content consists of news programming and
>>>> live-entertainment shows like the surprisingly addictive Karaoke Idol
>>>> (which is just what it sounds like, filmed in a bar) and George Street
>>>> TV (sketch comedy featuring two comedians, a couch on the sidewalk and
>>>> whoever happens by).
>>>>
>>>> Stirling could, of course, pledge to do more and better original
>>>> programming. But the best-behaviour face that private-sector
>>>> broadcasters put on to satisfy the CRTC has a nervous tic in Stirling's
>>>> case -- his tendency to mouth off.
>>>>
>>>> It's true too that Stirling's causes these days don't have the historic
>>>> sweep of the battle over Confederation. He has used his media machine to
>>>> promote various New Age ideas and to lobby the producers of Survivor to
>>>> locate the next edition of their show on Kellys Island, an uninhabited
>>>> scrap of rock near St. John's. But he does still take on matters of
>>>> public policy, calling for the renegotiation of Newfoundland's Churchill
>>>> Falls energy agreement with Quebec and decrying another Labrador deal -- 
>>>> the one the province struck with Inco for the Voisey's Bay nickel
>>>> development. In 2002, Stirling suggested that members of the provincial
>>>> legislature who voted for the Voisey's Bay deal should face criminal
>>>> charges.
>>>>
>>>> "I'm not anti-anything. I'm just pro-Newfoundland," Stirling says of his
>>>> pronouncements. "Communicating is everything. I am in the unique
>>>> position to have the opportunity to contribute to the culture that's
>>>> unfolding here." But the line between Stirling's role as a media owner
>>>> and his role as a citizen is too faint, according to Noreen Golfman, a
>>>> board member of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and a professor of
>>>> English and Film Studies at Memorial University in St. John's. "He owns
>>>> the station and uses it to promote his own ideology," Golfman says.
>>>>
>>>> "He'll get right on television himself to say what Newfoundland should
>>>> be doing, or what Canada should be doing. Just imagine if [Bell
>>>> Globemedia president] Ivan Fecan did the same. It would be a huge flap."
>>>> In a place that's still rich with shared family history, where the first
>>>> question is always, "Who do you belong to?" the answer in Geoff
>>>> Stirling's case isn't so clear. Who is going to defend his interests
>>>> now? In another era, a phone call from Premier Joey Smallwood might have
>>>> fixed everything. Stirling has indeed enlisted Premier Danny Williams to
>>>> write the CRTC, but it's not like Stirling's calling up his buddy any
>>>> more. In a different time, faced with bureaucratic intransigence,
>>>> Stirling would have stood aligned beside a powerful group of independent
>>>> broadcasting affiliates across the country, staring down the CRTC
>>>> together.
>>>>
>>>> Today, seated against the black backdrop of the cavernous room, peering
>>>> into the blinding studio lights, Stirling looks vulnerable.
>>>>
>>>> "I'm not ashamed of what I've tried to do. Maybe I've bitten off more
>>>> than I can chew," he says, pausing reflectively for a moment.
>>>>
>>>> "They'd love me to sell," Stirling tells me. He won't say who wants to
>>>> buy his crown jewel, although there are whispers in the industry that
>>>> all of the private-sector national broadcasters -- CTV, Global, CHUM -- 
>>>> have designs on his station. None is expressing interest publicly. All
>>>> Stirling will say is that he's had four informal offers in recent years.
>>>> But with three generations of Stirlings now working in the family
>>>> business -- grandson Jesse is in charge of marketing -- Stirling says
>>>> the family is here to stay. Indeed, the eve of the 50th anniversary of
>>>> his introduction of television to Newfoundland would hardly be a
>>>> suitable time to sell.
>>>>
>>>> "I'm sure that if NTV were sold to a national company," Stirling says,
>>>> "we'd lose our sovereignty, which is the only sovereignty we have right
>>>> now -- television and radio owned by Newfoundlanders.
>>>>
>>>> "No," he continues, his voice shaking now, "I'll never sell out.
>>>>
>>>> They'll never drive me out. I'm going to keep doing it my way." With
>>>> that, the interview is over. The lights are dimmed. Stirling removes his
>>>> microphone and heads to the door, bidding me goodbye as he steps into
>>>> the foggy night.
>>>>
>>>> Two days later, he calls me. I can hear it in his voice. He's in much
>>>> better spirits. Even an auteur and resident philosopher-king is entitled
>>>> to a bad day. Now, the clouds have lifted, the view from the mountaintop
>>>> is clear. He'll soon be off to Arizona. Meditating on all of his
>>>> accomplishments in this lifetime, and what's left to come on life's
>>>> stage.
>>>>
>>>> "This is my movie. I'm the writer, the producer, the director and the
>>>> hero," Stirling tells me. "In my new movie, my reincarnation, I may not
>>>> come back to Newfoundland. I may not even come back to this planet."
>>>> Wherever he is, he'll look back on this movie and smile broadly, knowing
>>>> that it was he who was truly Captain Newfoundland.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ===============

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