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 Moving
his young family to Toronto in the mid seventies, Clive found a TV industry
that was hostile to entertainers and so he became a broadcasting executive
who promoted Canadian talent. He also began to work his special kind
of magic behind the scenes changing Canadian TV production from a pig's
ear into a silk purse. Some trick!
Accepting a challenge from CRTC Chairman John Meisel in 1981,
Clive came up with the concept of turning the Canadian Film Development
Corporation into a $30 million TV program development investment fund which
became known as the Telefilm Broadcast Fund. The fund was designed A visit to Las Vegas in the early nineties rekindled his enthusiasm
for performing and he transformed his casual cowboy conjurer character
into the persona of The Funslinger, an 1880s style traveling comedy
magician from the Old West. With the dawn of the new century, Clive is
forging a new career as a cyberspace cowboy conjurer as the old frontier
of television fades into the wallpaper waiting desperately to be
infused with some new creativity. Meanwhile, his work as an educator,
lobbyist, and communications consultant now leaves him even less time for
his first love-- making people laugh. The story of The Funslinger continues.... |
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to
encourage the development of Canadian drama, variety and children's programs
which the broadcasters were reluctant to produce. During 1981-82, Clive
lobbied the federal government and industry leaders to accept the fund
concept which was launched as the Canadian Broadcast Program Development
Fund in 1983. 
During the eighties, Clive continued to promote Canadian talent and TV
production through his feature writing in various international TV business
publications including Europe's Broadcast magazine. However, despite the
government pouring millions of dollars into domestic program production
and making Canada the world's 
No.2
exporter of video programming after the United States, Clive found that
Canadian broadcasters were still reluctant to produce variety programs.
He came to the conclusion that Canada gave TV licences to people who disliked
working with Canadian entertainers.
Career wise, with a mortgage to pay and two children to raise, it was time
to move on. The opportunity to help develop Canada's first degree program
in public relations took him to Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax
as their first program co-ordinator. In the early nineties, after
several years in public affairs and government relations work, he moved
to Canada's west coast to teach
public relations and broadcasting at Kwantlen University College, Canada's
largest university college just outside Vancouver.
but he still enjoys every minute of it and those minutes have become a
precious commodity not to be wasted. He now prefers to emcee concerts
and festival shows for family audiences and, for nostalgia's sake, he is
always happy to consider TV work in Britain. Australia, and New Zealand.
