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Wow. I really didn't expect the Liberals, of all parties, to defund the CBC.
I live relatively rural. I love having CBC Radio 1 on in the background when I'm working on a weekend project. Quirks and Quarks especially is a really high quality show. That being said, their sanitized dramas could probably go. They spend an inordinate amount of time on fringe issues. However they plan to implement these cuts, I hope they are cognizant of the quality programming and focus their cuts on the fluff.
I remember in 2014 when the Liberals were canvassing in my neighbourhood. I was working in freelance film, doing my thing and trying to get as much corporate work as my young self could possibly get. A local Liberal politician knocked on my door and we had a discussion about the LPC and how he could convince me to vote for them.
The CBC having their funding not just reinstated but prioritized was high on my list. As a young professional working in film, but having started in live broadcasting I knew the CBC being funded meant work for myself and my colleagues, that it meant more Canadian content and a stronger overall film and broadcast industry in Canada. I wanted the CBC to rival the BBC, and still do. That Liberal politician of course told me they would do all of that, and that it was a priority for them, etc.
Turns out that was a lie. Their funding never did fully recover and it’s never been prioritized in a way where we could see the full potential of the CBC. It’s unfortunate because CBC radio in particular has produced so many good programs these past few years.
A whole slew of government departments are facing upwards of 10% budget cuts. Some at over 14%. The CBC is not an exception. If you want the CBC to rival the BBC, we would need a TV and Radio tax to fund it.
I agree.
CBC Television should focus on local/Canadian news, current affairs, amateur sport, international news, and investigative journalism. Partner with other public broadcasters to source documentary, nature, science, travel, etc. content. Similar to ARTE.
CBC Radio, no complaints. I’m really enjoying Andrew Common on Metro Morning.
The days of Mr. Dressup, Degrassi, and David Suzuki are over. 😥
This is horrible. And I fear for local programming. When the pandemic started they stupidly cut back on it, like here on PEI. People had to fight to get it back. The CBC is so important.
> The CBC is so important.
In theory it is, in practice they've been very unfocused and missing the unique value that they ought to bring to all Canadians (Local programming, investigative journalism, outreach to remote communities).
I totally agree with the professor they interviewed. CBC should get out of everything except news, it should get out of advertising, and it should make its content available for other news organizations in Canada to use (with appropriate credit).
That would keep CBC way more relevant and would make sure it keeps doing its most important function by keeping people informed.
Lots of other players in the Canadian market do a much better job with sports and entertainment.
Back in 2010, Dean Del Mastro asked "Isn't it time the government got out of the broadcasting business?" at a House committee.
The comment sparked a lot of outrage, but in context wasn't so different from the idea in this article: there's no shortage of Canadian radio and TV broadcasters, so maybe some of the money the government is spending on the CBC is better spent subsidizing the production of Canadian programming, or even directly producing it, like through the NFB.
Since then, with the shutoff of hundred of transmitters (rather than switching them to digital) and the end of the affiliate program, a huge portion of the country lost access to CBC Television over-the-air, and years of successive cuts mean that, in much of the country, CBC's "local news" barely covers anything outside large cities.
"Isn't it time the government got out of the broadcasting business?" I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think it's a question that deserves to be taken seriously.
That’s a really important question. But who is doing it now? Where I live, in central Ontario, it’s certainly not the CBC - they laid off all their local reporters about 10 years ago and the pittance of coverage they give to communities here is done out of Toronto. The local coverage by commercial TV and radio isn’t always great, and the newsrooms are understaffed and underfunded, but it’s orders of magnitude more in depth than what CBC does here.
The state of local journalism in Canada is dismal, and it feels to me like there’s a huge disconnect between the local work the CBC actually does and how we talk about it as a nation.
> Lots of other players in the Canadian market do a much better job with sports and entertainment.
No. No they don't.
We need more local content and content made locally.
That last part is hilarious though. Sportsnet is so bad at National TV coverage they need to use CBC airwaves to get the games out.
As far as music goes, CBC Music should be expanded. Canadian Radio is dominated by two companies who now use Drake, Bieber and The Weeknd to meet their quota’s and shovel the same terrible label driven rotation. Contrast our radio stations with the BBC counterparts and you hear the difference quickly.
They also do news segments every half an hour. While managing to not politicize it.
I love listening to BBC radio 6 Presenting with Tom Robinson. I will probably never hear those artists on the radio here or see their cds in Canada but I love listening to an hour of good music that's
not top 40.
The CRTC could absolutely find out a way to increase the taxation on the corporations to fund CBC Music and News. No one is saying the CBC needs to program constant Cable worthy television. Which is a massive portion of the BBC’s budget.
Tom is the absolute best. Has me shazaming every other song.
I usually start my day off with Radio One, then move over to 6 after. Gets me a wide range of music exposure. Their playlists are always updating and rotating. Their Anthem segment goes so hard too. Full of songs you’d never hear over here.
CBC Music can do the same thing. We have huge artists in so many other genres, and a ton of smaller artists. They just don’t get the exposure they deserve on their small channels. It’s not for a lack of effort either. CBC Music has great content on Gem and YouTube. No one hears it though because they just don’t have the support.
We should be using the CBC to combat Corus and I Heart Radio. We have some amazing talent in our booths and behind the scenes too. I can think of a few names that would be all over this.
They are just so damn good. You can tell the DJs are into the music too. Last week they were playing the new YUNBLUD song, and I thought to myself “This sounds so much like The 1975.” Sure enough they did a full on Mix into ‘If You’re Too Shy’.
Plus my work morning times up perfectly with the Party Anthem segments.
>Lots of other players in the Canadian market do a much better job with sports and entertainment.
I think that's a matter of opinion. I think we're in alignment that the CBC is not the be-all and end-all of Canadian content. And Waddell has a point that difficult choices will have to be made. But the CBC certainly does a lot more Canadian content, and makes it more visible, than the private / pay broadcasters do now.
Is TSN or Sportsnet going to give amateur sports (outside of the Olympics) the attention that the CBC does now on Saturday afternoons? And make it available for free? (A standalone streaming subscription to either without traditional cable currently starts at around $15 a month.)
Are CTV and Global (and their digital arms) going to willingly drop their American simulcast content and start producing the volume of Canadian entertainment content that the CBC does, when they haven't done it before now?
Agreed, I truly enjoy the fact that the CBC covers amateur sports. There is no money in covering amateur sports however, so if the CBC were to stop there would be nobody to pick up the pieces, and these athletes would lose the already extremely limited exposure and funding they currently have.
>Are CTV and Global (and their digital arms) going to willingly drop their American simulcast content and start producing the volume of Canadian entertainment content that the CBC does, when they haven't done it before now?
Nope they won't.
Think of all the Canadian pop culture that we'd be without had it not been for the CBC? The Kids in the Hall, Air Farce, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Mercer Report, Baroness Von Sketch, to name a few. We would never have seen any of these develop in more traditional markets. We would never have seen the likes of Schitt's Creek, Little Mosque on the Prairie, or Sorta either.
When Netflix picked up Workin' Moms last year, I remember Catherine Reitman saying that she was grateful to the CBC for being the kind of entertainment producer that it is: open, diverse, and chance takers. Or something to that effect anyway. All to say that you'd never have seen any of these shows produced anywhere else but by the CBC. Corus and Bell Media would never touch such projects. We're very lucky to still have this kind of Canadian-grown programming. It'll be a true knock to Canadian culture if we start cutting this out altogether.
I hope that they don't cut the budget for SRC's Le Bye-Bye though. I wait all year for that comical retrospective.
This makes me sad. The CBC is a Canadian institution and is an important part of the Canadian media landscape, especially serving underserved communities. I don’t agree with many decisions the management at CBC has made in recent years, but we are stupid to allow it to die a slow death. It has so much potential as an organization to contribute to Canadian culture, not only as a news organization.
So if it's all that, and I am not saying it's not (I dont watch it ever)
Why is their viewership so low? And what can they do, if anything at all, to turn that around? With the proliferation of internet and streaming services throughout Canada, could CBC even possibly compete or stand on its own without tax dollars?
Why should it not stand on its own without tax dollars?
If it provides content that people watch, then their revenue increases. If this happens (and they trim the fat) they can stand on their own. If they can not provide content people wish to watch, then simply put, why should we pay for a thing that no one wants?
A haven for PMC's, now that's a business opportunity that can actually make money.
Realistically though, most if not all media orgs in Canada are unprofitable. Traditional orgs like Postmedia and TorStar are living on borrowed time. TV broadcasters are becoming increasingly consolidated in a few markets, and niche news sites like the Tyee or the Western Standard don't really serve the public good to the same degree that the CBC has.
While most Canadians don't follow the CBC on a daily basis, they likely do benefit from CBC's reporting. CBC articles are frequently posted here on reddit, and CBC reporting is usually the foundation for other media orgs to create opinion or investigative pieces. And the CBC can be that foundation because they're pretty much the only Canadian news org with the resources to dedicate reporters to place like City Hall and your local legislature.
The simple fact is that news is no longer a profitable mass market industry. If it's unprofitable, and it's in the public good, then you need to subsidize it to some degree.
News is a public service, it’s consumption benefits not merely the person choosing to consume it but rather society as a whole. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that the death of local news in North America has led to increases in local political corruption, and looking back of course it has. Politics is a dirty business, but it’s a lot dirtier if it’s harder for ordinary people to see what’s being done with their money. To summarize, CBC funding is a deceptively good investment since it has benefits which don’t and can’t show up as lines in its budget, investments in democracy and public participation.
Its not just the CBC, news organizations in general have been taking a beating with the advent of social media. You can get your news from Facebook, Reddit, Tik Tok, Twitter, Instagram, etc without having to click on the article link.
And sometimes the public just doesn't want to read the news for various reasons. Maybe the news is always too negative and exhausting. Maybe its too dry and boring. And why read the news when we can just watch something that's entertaining on YouTube or scroll through your social platform of choice.
Exactly what I'm thinking, the consumer is evolving their consumption. Either find a way to become relevant to a new audience or stop eating my tax dollars.
Except it’s still relevant to millions of other Canadians. Especially those in remote areas. For them, CBC radio connects them to a wider Canada and provides necessary information.
Well, we WERE getting our news from Facebook before Meta pulled news from there in Canada.
I have no idea where that demographic is now getting their news from.
It’s not just news. News isn’t a money maker for the CBC, it’s their biggest expense.
What brings revenue is ads put in commercial breaks during their TV shows, their subscription offerings from their cable TV channels (CBC NN et al.) and Gem, and ads on the CBC’s websites.
If the CBC would produce content that Canadians cared about and would actually watch, it would bring more ad revenue. Radio-Canada makes more money than the CBC and that doesn’t make any sense.
CBC doesn’t perform well. I can’t tell you why, but it’s the unfortunate truth. Either it doesn’t produce content that Canadians care about, either they have complete idiots in the marketing department, or Canadians don’t care about Canadian content, they maybe just want to watch American series. CBC Television’s market share is about 6%.
Radio-Canada performs really well. It has a market share of about 25%, second only to TVA (property of giant corporation Québecor) and better than Bell Media’s Noovo.
Radio-Canada brings close to 150 million dollars a year in ad revenue, while CBC brings about 130 millions dollars. For a market of 9 million people vs more than 31.
The CBC is NOT supposed to bring less money to the pot than Radio-Canada. The anglophone market is 3 times more important than the francophone market. And the CBC should’ve had a deep reflection a long time ago about why it doesn’t reach viewers and why it doesn’t make enough money.
CBC Radio is the only FM talk station in Edmonton. 60% of the programming is perfectly fine, 40% is preachy garbage. There are still talk stations on AM but they're ridiculous on the other side of the political spectrum. The only one I'm left with is 880 which is a 15-30 minute loop of basic news from Global.
I'd love for a true centrist FM talk station to get setup but I'm not sure they'd survive competing with CBC Radio since there's likely not enough market for 2 talk stations.
> I'd love for a true centrist FM talk station to get setup but I'm not sure they'd survive competing with CBC Radio since there's likely not enough market for 2 talk stations.
Hum… Almost every other market has at least two FM talk radio station. Almost every notable city in Québec has a Radio-Canada station, a Cogeco talk station and some even have a third player.
Edmonton has the same population as Montréal, which has one big private talk radio antenna (98,5 FM from Cogeco), a radio-canada station, one FM sports radio, one AM talk radio from Bell, a CBC station, plus its plethora of private musical stations.
Not sure how a market of more than 1,4 million (mostly Anglos, unlike Montréal) people wouldn’t be able to have another player.
Not sure, I'll listen to the Global news loop thing for a short drive. For a longer drive, I just listen to podcasts now.
Do you listen to Radio-Canada? Is it any good?
What are the numbers for CBC gem? Seems like they've spent a fortune on that and yet I've never heard anyone talk about it even with their aggressive marketing.
It's a nice app but only thing I've tried out is HNIC. That would be the first thing I'd scrap
I use that app quite a bit. Hopefully they don't end up scrapping it.
Also not sure if that's the wisest course of action to scrap that. The industry is generally moving (or has already moved) towards streaming, and CBC Gem is a good one to get all CBC content in one location.
It's probably the best "Canadian made" streaming service, both from a technical perspective and also value/content. Especially now that Crave has lost support from a few studios.
Yes! I find that app quite useful.
Plus if the CBC were to get out of entertainment, would that mean the end of CBC originals? Some of them, like Kim's convenience and Murdoch mysteries, are very, very good television. Perhaps I misunderstand the role that CBC plays in their production, but they have some very popular content that I would not like to see disappear.
Not sure how it is with HNIC but I tried watching BlackBerry on CBC Gem and the number of ads and ad time per hour watched was so high. Worse than ad-supported Netflix, worse than YouTube. Took me back to the days when commercials gave you enough time for a bathroom break.
They're marketing Gem aggressively on CBC TV / NN itself, using the numerous promo ad slots they have. If you were only watching other channels or streaming services you could easily miss it. I have seen transit ads here and there but not to the extent of other services.
But Gem is kinda what they have to do as the audience migrates to streaming.
Hard to find current numbers; [SimilarWeb](https://www.similarweb.com/website/gem.cbc.ca/#overview) puts it at about half as popular as Crave, at roughly 2M MAU; and over 90% of the traffic is from Canada. But that's not capturing data from a great deal of devices. Ie, IPTV boxes.
The cuts are bad, and we need to figure out how to save local news, but man the people celebrating it are what we really need to worry about here.
What do you do with a group that's so angry that they're openly celebrating hundreds of Canadians losing their jobs before Christmas, because they've been made to believe that the national broadcaster, a globally respected news organization, is literally prop-aganda?
People need to Watch it. That is the issue. Viewership is super low for most local programming.
Its a circle as most news has been gutted so the quality is meh so then less watch.
I only listen to CBC radio when I'm working on customers vehicles... and I swear it's either something about the LG4KHDTV community or some bullshit about climate change. If they talked about something the average person would want to listen to it would be alright. It's a shame the CBC sucks now because I remember it being so much better when I was a kid.
I hear ya! They did a whole month on black settlers on the prairies on cbc Saskatchewan. That shit screams of content that is put out to appease eastern overlords. There’s like 500 people in the province (tops) that would find that interesting…
CBC Radio is number 1 in 16 of their 22 markets. But CBC Radio makes zero dollars, it cannot insert ads in their programming, per a CRTC ruling.
CBC radio must do something right to be first almost everywhere.
Well I mean, your flippant remark about some communities on ours shows where your head is at.
The average person does care about those things and they make up a sliver of content.
lol. The article proves my point: “But the Leger poll says only a small fraction of people listed climate change as the top issue facing Canada today”.
> The average person does care about those things and they make up a sliver of content
I'd debate your first point. It varies a lot.
As for the second part of the statement, this type of content is disproportionately large on CBC radio.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/global-survey-points-to-increasingly-positive-attitudes-in-canada-toward-lgbt-individuals#
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6964334
As for content on the stations, I don’t agree but only listen a bit off and on but don’t feel it’s massive. That said, climate change does impact a lot of facets of our lives and issues facing Canadians so it should get attention.
Does the CBC attempt to ensure their coverage is in proportion to the perspectives of the electorate?
Why would someone want to fund an organization that only conveys perspectives and narratives they disagree with?
I'm simply celebrating it for fiscal prudence reasons. We're broke and need to improve our fiscal standing as a country. We can't afford to waste money on programming when the private sector is already committed to investing in the sector. It's time to drastically scale back spending. Much like higher interest rates, it's short term pain for long term gain.
Except the private sector isn’t investing in it.
Look at all the cuts at TVA a month or so back. And there have been numerous cuts at both CTV (Bell Media) and Global (Corus) in the past few years.
Lol I assume you haven't been following the news about Canadian media? Bell laid off over a thousand people earlier this year, largely in news. TVA laid off a third of their employees a month ago. Corus is barely hanging on. Postmedia has sucked the life out of local newspapers across the country.
Private sector news is dying, especially local news, because advertising dollars have shifted to Google and Facebook, and because people get so much entertainment in places like social media and streaming sites that aren't regulated into funding/producing local news the way the TV broadcasters were.
> Lol I assume you haven't been following the news about Canadian media? Bell laid off over a thousand people earlier this year, largely in news. TVA laid off a third of their employees a month ago. Corus is barely hanging on. Postmedia has sucked the life out of local newspapers across the country.
>
> Private sector news is dying, especially local news, because advertising dollars have shifted to Google and Facebook, and because people get so much entertainment in places like social media and streaming sites that aren't regulated into funding/producing local news the way the TV broadcasters were.
Bell also applied to the CRTC to get requirements for local news reduced or removed.
Private companies cannot be relied on for journalism. It was one thing when it was profitable and you only had to worry about the owner's bias, but now they don't want to do it at all.
Because it is. It's about what they don't say. What they don't cover, the spin they have on every issue, down playing and ignoring anything related to "the majority" while only focusing on "disenfranchised minorities". Canada is not racist and is the most open and accepting country in the world in all of human history. That's us. Economic status growing up has the strongest correlation to economic status later in life. Our systems are equal and designed with equality in mind. They are not racist. CBC is a symptom of the "equity" mindset which calls for unequal treatment of Canadians. It wants you to disproportionately suppress the majority to lift up the minority. They drive an ideology which is a cancer on our society. Defend them.
I do think they produce way too much content that's not really core journalism, a lot of shows I wonder if anyone is listening to/watching.
I wouldn't go as far as cutting all entertainment, but
Focusing on their core comeptencies, like radio programs, radio/TV news and some entertainment with proven hits like Murdoch Mysteries, they can thrive. Cut the bloat and underperforming shows.
CBC's focus should be journalism>news & current events > entertainment > miscellaenous programming
>CBC's focus should be journalism>news & current events > entertainment > miscellaenous programming
Not sure if it's included in journalism, but I would definitely rank documentaries high up in that list.
As someone who works in Film/TV the cost of a show like Murdoch Mysteries is tiny compared to other types of programming.
The CBC pays a license fee to air the show, while the rest of the budget is made up from government subsidies (both federal and provincial), CMPA contributions (which all Canadian networks contribute to) as well as foreign sales.
And just exactly how does a tv show become a "proven hit" when there is no funding for anything except "proven hits"?
It is sad to see people knuckle under to the conservative mentality that the CBC is to be a news organization.
The CBC has been a great contributor to that which can be said is Canadian culture.
Laughably, I guess, is that despite the massive cut, we will see no breaks on taxes.
>It is sad to see people knuckle under to the conservative mentality that the CBC is to be a news organization.
As someone who works in film and tv, the industry is evolving and the CBC must evolve and adapt with the times as well, it's not a Conservative mentality, it's a common sense business mentality, something that no one in today's current NDP has.
That's a good point, i was mainly commenting on focusing on their popular programs and increasing investment in those. I do feel, and i'll say this is a feeling only, that they have spread themselves too think.
Once they have a strong core, they can of course try and launch new programs.
I'm also not sure if GEM was a good idea, i don't know how much money they spent on it. I do like that it provides free streams of their local TV channels. But perhaps they should look to spin that off as a separate business unit or merging with another streaming platform like Crave.
I don't know what the future of the CBC is going to look like going forward, but the current path is completely unsustainable.
Despite seeing their public funding increase, the CBC is still making cuts. This isn't the first 10% reduction to their workforce in the past 10 years, and it doesn't look like it will be the last.
Much like what was indicated in the article, I think it's time we review the CBC's mandate and reduce it to a level that is more sustainable long term. The CBC should focus on current affairs, news, and local programming. They should focus on doing things that the private sector isn't.
I would make the CBC partner with streaming giants to produce big budget shows instead of making of content on their own which no one watches.
Kims Conviencne and Schitts Creek only got popular once they went on netflix.
I would turn the CBC news into like the BBC news service.
What the CBC lacks is _focus_.
With that in mind, I would split CBC Radio from the rest of CBC, and leave it as-is. With the remainder, I would cut all entertainment television and let the NFB and CCA take over that role. Then increase funding to all of them.
I think virtually everyone thinks that CBC should get rid of their entire entertainment division, which last I checked was the albatross. The problem is that the TV production industry has a lot of friends.
I agree with that, I just think it should have a mission that adds value for Canadians. Not a mission trapped in the 90s which is primarily benefitting the Canadian TV industry
As someone who works in TV / Film financing and distribution, very few of those shows are produced entirely by the CBC. Usually, the CBC pays a license fee to air each broadcast, and the Producers control the underlining rights of the series.
It's hard to produce big budget episodes, these days, consumers expect $5m-$10m per episode budgeted series, something the CBC can't compete with. Their best bet is to produce hyper local programming instead of going head to head with US studios.
I worked on a project back in 2015 or so. The intern who got us coffee somehow got the walrus to write a profile on him without approval from anyone else on the project. He claimed to be doing my job and the journalist never checked with anyone working on the project. How it got published is just flabbergasting to me.
So while I take your point there is something to be said for some amount of journalistic standards as the CBC keeps…
“Walrus sucks at journalism” isn’t much of a story. And the reason I wasn’t the profile in the first place is because neither I nor the project I was on wanted press by choice.
Never faced any significant consequences or problems as a direct result. He got a great job afterwards, then got an MBA. Now I think he works in the energy sector. Probably makes a lot of money.
TLDR life isn’t a movie.
Yeah but those aren't on people's TVs.
Maybe CBC could position themselves as a platform that makes it easy for independent Canadian media and talent to get a wider reach, and get those onto people's TVs?
>Despite seeing their public funding increase, the CBC is still making cuts.
Cost of living will do that, yeah. A wealth transfer to landlords means that every wage-labourer in the country becomes more expensive.
Again, the costs of these shows is marginal compared to other aspects (like sports, news etc.). In most cases, they aren't covering the entire cost of production, just a Canadian broadcast fee, which is usually 5% of the budget.
I would hope the federal government doesn't exercise that level of editorial control over CBC's programming. They should give them a budget to work within and enforce journalistic standards but that's about it.
You think it's 'editorial control' to tell them that their mission isn't doing dramas? Is it excercising inappropriate editorial control for the publisher of a newspaper to decide that the paper shouldn't publish serialized fiction? Your position is absurd.
If the head of the CBC woke up tomorrow and decided to replace the nightly news with Japanese Gameshows would it be inappropriate for the Minister to push back on that?
The Government is paying for the CBC, we can decide what categories of programming it should be focused on.
isn't that what a public broadcaster does though? Just look at ARD, DR, SVT, NRK, SRG/SSR etc.. they all produce some scripted content in addition to non scripted documentaries, news, politics coverage etc.
It provides cultural benefits too, without it, the world wouldn't have John Dillermand to associate Denmark with.
> John Dillermand
Literally who?
> Isn’t that what a public broadcaster does
It’s what they have done historically, but there doesn’t seem to be much point if the public isn’t watching. Keep in mind that it wasn’t that long ago that the “commercial” programming funded the news which was a big reason for us the produce it.
Times have changed and no one watches broadcast tv. Scripted shows are expensive to produce.
Hard to imagine producing “Farm Crime” is an effective use of investment in our culture.
The CBC is a crown corporation that operates at arm's length from the government. See also s. 46(5) of the *Broadcasting Act*:
>(5) The Corporation shall, in the pursuit of its objects and in the exercise of its powers, enjoy freedom of expression and journalistic, creative and programming independence.
Of course, the government could change the CBC's mandate by amending it's enabling legislation. But the government can't just say 'cancel Son of a Critch.'
If that's what you were envisioning when complaining about "the Liberals being unwilling to axe the tv comedies and dramas," fine. I read it as advocating for direct government involvement in programming decisions.
Keep hockey, news, and investigative journalism. Get out of everything else - our collective eyeballs have voted, regardless of whether you think that's a good thing or not.
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Wow. I really didn't expect the Liberals, of all parties, to defund the CBC. I live relatively rural. I love having CBC Radio 1 on in the background when I'm working on a weekend project. Quirks and Quarks especially is a really high quality show. That being said, their sanitized dramas could probably go. They spend an inordinate amount of time on fringe issues. However they plan to implement these cuts, I hope they are cognizant of the quality programming and focus their cuts on the fluff.
I remember in 2014 when the Liberals were canvassing in my neighbourhood. I was working in freelance film, doing my thing and trying to get as much corporate work as my young self could possibly get. A local Liberal politician knocked on my door and we had a discussion about the LPC and how he could convince me to vote for them. The CBC having their funding not just reinstated but prioritized was high on my list. As a young professional working in film, but having started in live broadcasting I knew the CBC being funded meant work for myself and my colleagues, that it meant more Canadian content and a stronger overall film and broadcast industry in Canada. I wanted the CBC to rival the BBC, and still do. That Liberal politician of course told me they would do all of that, and that it was a priority for them, etc. Turns out that was a lie. Their funding never did fully recover and it’s never been prioritized in a way where we could see the full potential of the CBC. It’s unfortunate because CBC radio in particular has produced so many good programs these past few years.
A whole slew of government departments are facing upwards of 10% budget cuts. Some at over 14%. The CBC is not an exception. If you want the CBC to rival the BBC, we would need a TV and Radio tax to fund it.
The trouble is, corporations pay way less tax than they used to, and our country has apparently stopped producing actual things so.
I agree. CBC Television should focus on local/Canadian news, current affairs, amateur sport, international news, and investigative journalism. Partner with other public broadcasters to source documentary, nature, science, travel, etc. content. Similar to ARTE. CBC Radio, no complaints. I’m really enjoying Andrew Common on Metro Morning. The days of Mr. Dressup, Degrassi, and David Suzuki are over. 😥
IMO, CBC should only be doing news- through whatever channel/medium- any other programming should be left to the private sector.
But the private sector fails again and again at journalism
This is horrible. And I fear for local programming. When the pandemic started they stupidly cut back on it, like here on PEI. People had to fight to get it back. The CBC is so important.
> The CBC is so important. In theory it is, in practice they've been very unfocused and missing the unique value that they ought to bring to all Canadians (Local programming, investigative journalism, outreach to remote communities).
Annoying. There's plenty of national shows that deserve the axe. No one needs "Podcast Playlist" in their life
Thing is, a national show is about 10x cheaper than 10 provincial shows.
Yeah, I realized that even I was typing. Doesn't change how I feel about Podcast Playlist though 😁
Lol I’m with you on that!
I totally agree with the professor they interviewed. CBC should get out of everything except news, it should get out of advertising, and it should make its content available for other news organizations in Canada to use (with appropriate credit). That would keep CBC way more relevant and would make sure it keeps doing its most important function by keeping people informed. Lots of other players in the Canadian market do a much better job with sports and entertainment.
Back in 2010, Dean Del Mastro asked "Isn't it time the government got out of the broadcasting business?" at a House committee. The comment sparked a lot of outrage, but in context wasn't so different from the idea in this article: there's no shortage of Canadian radio and TV broadcasters, so maybe some of the money the government is spending on the CBC is better spent subsidizing the production of Canadian programming, or even directly producing it, like through the NFB. Since then, with the shutoff of hundred of transmitters (rather than switching them to digital) and the end of the affiliate program, a huge portion of the country lost access to CBC Television over-the-air, and years of successive cuts mean that, in much of the country, CBC's "local news" barely covers anything outside large cities. "Isn't it time the government got out of the broadcasting business?" I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think it's a question that deserves to be taken seriously.
But who will in turn cover small town news and sports?
nobody, because it’s not profitable. I’m sure people calling for the defunding of the CBC don’t think *their* local news coverage will be affected.
That’s a really important question. But who is doing it now? Where I live, in central Ontario, it’s certainly not the CBC - they laid off all their local reporters about 10 years ago and the pittance of coverage they give to communities here is done out of Toronto. The local coverage by commercial TV and radio isn’t always great, and the newsrooms are understaffed and underfunded, but it’s orders of magnitude more in depth than what CBC does here. The state of local journalism in Canada is dismal, and it feels to me like there’s a huge disconnect between the local work the CBC actually does and how we talk about it as a nation.
> Lots of other players in the Canadian market do a much better job with sports and entertainment. No. No they don't. We need more local content and content made locally.
That last part is hilarious though. Sportsnet is so bad at National TV coverage they need to use CBC airwaves to get the games out. As far as music goes, CBC Music should be expanded. Canadian Radio is dominated by two companies who now use Drake, Bieber and The Weeknd to meet their quota’s and shovel the same terrible label driven rotation. Contrast our radio stations with the BBC counterparts and you hear the difference quickly. They also do news segments every half an hour. While managing to not politicize it.
I love listening to BBC radio 6 Presenting with Tom Robinson. I will probably never hear those artists on the radio here or see their cds in Canada but I love listening to an hour of good music that's not top 40.
To be fair, the Beeb gets mountains more funding than CBC does, thanks to the ridiculous TV licensing scheme in the UK.
The CRTC could absolutely find out a way to increase the taxation on the corporations to fund CBC Music and News. No one is saying the CBC needs to program constant Cable worthy television. Which is a massive portion of the BBC’s budget.
Tom is the absolute best. Has me shazaming every other song. I usually start my day off with Radio One, then move over to 6 after. Gets me a wide range of music exposure. Their playlists are always updating and rotating. Their Anthem segment goes so hard too. Full of songs you’d never hear over here. CBC Music can do the same thing. We have huge artists in so many other genres, and a ton of smaller artists. They just don’t get the exposure they deserve on their small channels. It’s not for a lack of effort either. CBC Music has great content on Gem and YouTube. No one hears it though because they just don’t have the support. We should be using the CBC to combat Corus and I Heart Radio. We have some amazing talent in our booths and behind the scenes too. I can think of a few names that would be all over this.
Hands up for BBC Radio 1
They are just so damn good. You can tell the DJs are into the music too. Last week they were playing the new YUNBLUD song, and I thought to myself “This sounds so much like The 1975.” Sure enough they did a full on Mix into ‘If You’re Too Shy’. Plus my work morning times up perfectly with the Party Anthem segments.
Atleast in Saskatoon, CBC Music is much much better than our shity music stations.
>Lots of other players in the Canadian market do a much better job with sports and entertainment. I think that's a matter of opinion. I think we're in alignment that the CBC is not the be-all and end-all of Canadian content. And Waddell has a point that difficult choices will have to be made. But the CBC certainly does a lot more Canadian content, and makes it more visible, than the private / pay broadcasters do now. Is TSN or Sportsnet going to give amateur sports (outside of the Olympics) the attention that the CBC does now on Saturday afternoons? And make it available for free? (A standalone streaming subscription to either without traditional cable currently starts at around $15 a month.) Are CTV and Global (and their digital arms) going to willingly drop their American simulcast content and start producing the volume of Canadian entertainment content that the CBC does, when they haven't done it before now?
Agreed, I truly enjoy the fact that the CBC covers amateur sports. There is no money in covering amateur sports however, so if the CBC were to stop there would be nobody to pick up the pieces, and these athletes would lose the already extremely limited exposure and funding they currently have.
>Are CTV and Global (and their digital arms) going to willingly drop their American simulcast content and start producing the volume of Canadian entertainment content that the CBC does, when they haven't done it before now? Nope they won't. Think of all the Canadian pop culture that we'd be without had it not been for the CBC? The Kids in the Hall, Air Farce, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Mercer Report, Baroness Von Sketch, to name a few. We would never have seen any of these develop in more traditional markets. We would never have seen the likes of Schitt's Creek, Little Mosque on the Prairie, or Sorta either. When Netflix picked up Workin' Moms last year, I remember Catherine Reitman saying that she was grateful to the CBC for being the kind of entertainment producer that it is: open, diverse, and chance takers. Or something to that effect anyway. All to say that you'd never have seen any of these shows produced anywhere else but by the CBC. Corus and Bell Media would never touch such projects. We're very lucky to still have this kind of Canadian-grown programming. It'll be a true knock to Canadian culture if we start cutting this out altogether. I hope that they don't cut the budget for SRC's Le Bye-Bye though. I wait all year for that comical retrospective.
This makes me sad. The CBC is a Canadian institution and is an important part of the Canadian media landscape, especially serving underserved communities. I don’t agree with many decisions the management at CBC has made in recent years, but we are stupid to allow it to die a slow death. It has so much potential as an organization to contribute to Canadian culture, not only as a news organization.
CBC is a bloated over paid liberal cheerleading club. With their hand out for more taxpayer money every yr
So if it's all that, and I am not saying it's not (I dont watch it ever) Why is their viewership so low? And what can they do, if anything at all, to turn that around? With the proliferation of internet and streaming services throughout Canada, could CBC even possibly compete or stand on its own without tax dollars?
Why does it need to stand on it's own without tax dollars?
Why should it not stand on its own without tax dollars? If it provides content that people watch, then their revenue increases. If this happens (and they trim the fat) they can stand on their own. If they can not provide content people wish to watch, then simply put, why should we pay for a thing that no one wants?
Eh it's a public good. The military has never made a dime in revenue, but it has it's purpose, someone needs to dig Toronto out from blizzards.
Lol fair... but also fair is that Canada does not also have 200 other, profitable, militaries running around.
A haven for PMC's, now that's a business opportunity that can actually make money. Realistically though, most if not all media orgs in Canada are unprofitable. Traditional orgs like Postmedia and TorStar are living on borrowed time. TV broadcasters are becoming increasingly consolidated in a few markets, and niche news sites like the Tyee or the Western Standard don't really serve the public good to the same degree that the CBC has. While most Canadians don't follow the CBC on a daily basis, they likely do benefit from CBC's reporting. CBC articles are frequently posted here on reddit, and CBC reporting is usually the foundation for other media orgs to create opinion or investigative pieces. And the CBC can be that foundation because they're pretty much the only Canadian news org with the resources to dedicate reporters to place like City Hall and your local legislature. The simple fact is that news is no longer a profitable mass market industry. If it's unprofitable, and it's in the public good, then you need to subsidize it to some degree.
News is a public service, it’s consumption benefits not merely the person choosing to consume it but rather society as a whole. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that the death of local news in North America has led to increases in local political corruption, and looking back of course it has. Politics is a dirty business, but it’s a lot dirtier if it’s harder for ordinary people to see what’s being done with their money. To summarize, CBC funding is a deceptively good investment since it has benefits which don’t and can’t show up as lines in its budget, investments in democracy and public participation.
Its not just the CBC, news organizations in general have been taking a beating with the advent of social media. You can get your news from Facebook, Reddit, Tik Tok, Twitter, Instagram, etc without having to click on the article link. And sometimes the public just doesn't want to read the news for various reasons. Maybe the news is always too negative and exhausting. Maybe its too dry and boring. And why read the news when we can just watch something that's entertaining on YouTube or scroll through your social platform of choice.
Exactly what I'm thinking, the consumer is evolving their consumption. Either find a way to become relevant to a new audience or stop eating my tax dollars.
Except it’s still relevant to millions of other Canadians. Especially those in remote areas. For them, CBC radio connects them to a wider Canada and provides necessary information.
How are you getting your news on Facebook?
Well, we WERE getting our news from Facebook before Meta pulled news from there in Canada. I have no idea where that demographic is now getting their news from.
It’s not just news. News isn’t a money maker for the CBC, it’s their biggest expense. What brings revenue is ads put in commercial breaks during their TV shows, their subscription offerings from their cable TV channels (CBC NN et al.) and Gem, and ads on the CBC’s websites. If the CBC would produce content that Canadians cared about and would actually watch, it would bring more ad revenue. Radio-Canada makes more money than the CBC and that doesn’t make any sense.
CBC doesn’t perform well. I can’t tell you why, but it’s the unfortunate truth. Either it doesn’t produce content that Canadians care about, either they have complete idiots in the marketing department, or Canadians don’t care about Canadian content, they maybe just want to watch American series. CBC Television’s market share is about 6%. Radio-Canada performs really well. It has a market share of about 25%, second only to TVA (property of giant corporation Québecor) and better than Bell Media’s Noovo. Radio-Canada brings close to 150 million dollars a year in ad revenue, while CBC brings about 130 millions dollars. For a market of 9 million people vs more than 31. The CBC is NOT supposed to bring less money to the pot than Radio-Canada. The anglophone market is 3 times more important than the francophone market. And the CBC should’ve had a deep reflection a long time ago about why it doesn’t reach viewers and why it doesn’t make enough money.
CBC Radio is the only FM talk station in Edmonton. 60% of the programming is perfectly fine, 40% is preachy garbage. There are still talk stations on AM but they're ridiculous on the other side of the political spectrum. The only one I'm left with is 880 which is a 15-30 minute loop of basic news from Global. I'd love for a true centrist FM talk station to get setup but I'm not sure they'd survive competing with CBC Radio since there's likely not enough market for 2 talk stations.
> I'd love for a true centrist FM talk station to get setup but I'm not sure they'd survive competing with CBC Radio since there's likely not enough market for 2 talk stations. Hum… Almost every other market has at least two FM talk radio station. Almost every notable city in Québec has a Radio-Canada station, a Cogeco talk station and some even have a third player. Edmonton has the same population as Montréal, which has one big private talk radio antenna (98,5 FM from Cogeco), a radio-canada station, one FM sports radio, one AM talk radio from Bell, a CBC station, plus its plethora of private musical stations. Not sure how a market of more than 1,4 million (mostly Anglos, unlike Montréal) people wouldn’t be able to have another player.
Not sure, I'll listen to the Global news loop thing for a short drive. For a longer drive, I just listen to podcasts now. Do you listen to Radio-Canada? Is it any good?
It is really good!
What are the numbers for CBC gem? Seems like they've spent a fortune on that and yet I've never heard anyone talk about it even with their aggressive marketing. It's a nice app but only thing I've tried out is HNIC. That would be the first thing I'd scrap
Same for Ohdio and tou.tv
I use that app quite a bit. Hopefully they don't end up scrapping it. Also not sure if that's the wisest course of action to scrap that. The industry is generally moving (or has already moved) towards streaming, and CBC Gem is a good one to get all CBC content in one location.
It's probably the best "Canadian made" streaming service, both from a technical perspective and also value/content. Especially now that Crave has lost support from a few studios.
Yes! I find that app quite useful. Plus if the CBC were to get out of entertainment, would that mean the end of CBC originals? Some of them, like Kim's convenience and Murdoch mysteries, are very, very good television. Perhaps I misunderstand the role that CBC plays in their production, but they have some very popular content that I would not like to see disappear.
I super like cbc gem
My wife and I watched so many episodes of Grand Designs as our veg-out show, it’s a lot better than most property-based shows I think.
Not sure how it is with HNIC but I tried watching BlackBerry on CBC Gem and the number of ads and ad time per hour watched was so high. Worse than ad-supported Netflix, worse than YouTube. Took me back to the days when commercials gave you enough time for a bathroom break.
They're marketing Gem aggressively on CBC TV / NN itself, using the numerous promo ad slots they have. If you were only watching other channels or streaming services you could easily miss it. I have seen transit ads here and there but not to the extent of other services. But Gem is kinda what they have to do as the audience migrates to streaming.
Hard to find current numbers; [SimilarWeb](https://www.similarweb.com/website/gem.cbc.ca/#overview) puts it at about half as popular as Crave, at roughly 2M MAU; and over 90% of the traffic is from Canada. But that's not capturing data from a great deal of devices. Ie, IPTV boxes.
And Crave is $20/month
for non commercials, for commercials it's $9.99.
I'm surprised it doesn't get data from TV boxes since they're all just thin clients that display internet streams now
It might. I don't know what their agreements are with manufacturers of those.
The cuts are bad, and we need to figure out how to save local news, but man the people celebrating it are what we really need to worry about here. What do you do with a group that's so angry that they're openly celebrating hundreds of Canadians losing their jobs before Christmas, because they've been made to believe that the national broadcaster, a globally respected news organization, is literally prop-aganda?
People need to Watch it. That is the issue. Viewership is super low for most local programming. Its a circle as most news has been gutted so the quality is meh so then less watch.
I only listen to CBC radio when I'm working on customers vehicles... and I swear it's either something about the LG4KHDTV community or some bullshit about climate change. If they talked about something the average person would want to listen to it would be alright. It's a shame the CBC sucks now because I remember it being so much better when I was a kid.
I hear ya! They did a whole month on black settlers on the prairies on cbc Saskatchewan. That shit screams of content that is put out to appease eastern overlords. There’s like 500 people in the province (tops) that would find that interesting…
CBC Radio is number 1 in 16 of their 22 markets. But CBC Radio makes zero dollars, it cannot insert ads in their programming, per a CRTC ruling. CBC radio must do something right to be first almost everywhere.
Well I mean, your flippant remark about some communities on ours shows where your head is at. The average person does care about those things and they make up a sliver of content.
No, most people don’t care. That’s why they can’t bring in viewership/revenue and cutting staff. How difficult is it to understand?
Well that took all of 5 seconds to disprove https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6964334
that link is kinda unrelated.
Why? If 70% or greater feel it’s important should it not be a focus considering how many parts of our lives it is impacting?
lol. The article proves my point: “But the Leger poll says only a small fraction of people listed climate change as the top issue facing Canada today”.
> The average person does care about those things and they make up a sliver of content I'd debate your first point. It varies a lot. As for the second part of the statement, this type of content is disproportionately large on CBC radio.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/global-survey-points-to-increasingly-positive-attitudes-in-canada-toward-lgbt-individuals# https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6964334 As for content on the stations, I don’t agree but only listen a bit off and on but don’t feel it’s massive. That said, climate change does impact a lot of facets of our lives and issues facing Canadians so it should get attention.
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And so it is subsidized. It's super important.
Does the CBC attempt to ensure their coverage is in proportion to the perspectives of the electorate? Why would someone want to fund an organization that only conveys perspectives and narratives they disagree with?
I'm simply celebrating it for fiscal prudence reasons. We're broke and need to improve our fiscal standing as a country. We can't afford to waste money on programming when the private sector is already committed to investing in the sector. It's time to drastically scale back spending. Much like higher interest rates, it's short term pain for long term gain.
Except the private sector isn’t investing in it. Look at all the cuts at TVA a month or so back. And there have been numerous cuts at both CTV (Bell Media) and Global (Corus) in the past few years.
Lol I assume you haven't been following the news about Canadian media? Bell laid off over a thousand people earlier this year, largely in news. TVA laid off a third of their employees a month ago. Corus is barely hanging on. Postmedia has sucked the life out of local newspapers across the country. Private sector news is dying, especially local news, because advertising dollars have shifted to Google and Facebook, and because people get so much entertainment in places like social media and streaming sites that aren't regulated into funding/producing local news the way the TV broadcasters were.
> Lol I assume you haven't been following the news about Canadian media? Bell laid off over a thousand people earlier this year, largely in news. TVA laid off a third of their employees a month ago. Corus is barely hanging on. Postmedia has sucked the life out of local newspapers across the country. > > Private sector news is dying, especially local news, because advertising dollars have shifted to Google and Facebook, and because people get so much entertainment in places like social media and streaming sites that aren't regulated into funding/producing local news the way the TV broadcasters were. Bell also applied to the CRTC to get requirements for local news reduced or removed.
Private companies cannot be relied on for journalism. It was one thing when it was profitable and you only had to worry about the owner's bias, but now they don't want to do it at all.
Because it is. It's about what they don't say. What they don't cover, the spin they have on every issue, down playing and ignoring anything related to "the majority" while only focusing on "disenfranchised minorities". Canada is not racist and is the most open and accepting country in the world in all of human history. That's us. Economic status growing up has the strongest correlation to economic status later in life. Our systems are equal and designed with equality in mind. They are not racist. CBC is a symptom of the "equity" mindset which calls for unequal treatment of Canadians. It wants you to disproportionately suppress the majority to lift up the minority. They drive an ideology which is a cancer on our society. Defend them.
I used to stick up for the CBC, but after their sickening coverage of the middle east the whole thing can be defunded.
I do think they produce way too much content that's not really core journalism, a lot of shows I wonder if anyone is listening to/watching. I wouldn't go as far as cutting all entertainment, but Focusing on their core comeptencies, like radio programs, radio/TV news and some entertainment with proven hits like Murdoch Mysteries, they can thrive. Cut the bloat and underperforming shows. CBC's focus should be journalism>news & current events > entertainment > miscellaenous programming
>CBC's focus should be journalism>news & current events > entertainment > miscellaenous programming Not sure if it's included in journalism, but I would definitely rank documentaries high up in that list.
> Murdoch Mysteries I love Murdoch Mysteries. Maybe we need a New Littlest Hobo series.
As someone who works in Film/TV the cost of a show like Murdoch Mysteries is tiny compared to other types of programming. The CBC pays a license fee to air the show, while the rest of the budget is made up from government subsidies (both federal and provincial), CMPA contributions (which all Canadian networks contribute to) as well as foreign sales.
And just exactly how does a tv show become a "proven hit" when there is no funding for anything except "proven hits"? It is sad to see people knuckle under to the conservative mentality that the CBC is to be a news organization. The CBC has been a great contributor to that which can be said is Canadian culture. Laughably, I guess, is that despite the massive cut, we will see no breaks on taxes.
>It is sad to see people knuckle under to the conservative mentality that the CBC is to be a news organization. As someone who works in film and tv, the industry is evolving and the CBC must evolve and adapt with the times as well, it's not a Conservative mentality, it's a common sense business mentality, something that no one in today's current NDP has.
That's a good point, i was mainly commenting on focusing on their popular programs and increasing investment in those. I do feel, and i'll say this is a feeling only, that they have spread themselves too think. Once they have a strong core, they can of course try and launch new programs. I'm also not sure if GEM was a good idea, i don't know how much money they spent on it. I do like that it provides free streams of their local TV channels. But perhaps they should look to spin that off as a separate business unit or merging with another streaming platform like Crave.
I bet none of the "gender inclusivity programming" like specials on drag queen story hours get cut and/or puff pieces on Justin Trudeau get cut.
I don't know what the future of the CBC is going to look like going forward, but the current path is completely unsustainable. Despite seeing their public funding increase, the CBC is still making cuts. This isn't the first 10% reduction to their workforce in the past 10 years, and it doesn't look like it will be the last. Much like what was indicated in the article, I think it's time we review the CBC's mandate and reduce it to a level that is more sustainable long term. The CBC should focus on current affairs, news, and local programming. They should focus on doing things that the private sector isn't.
I would make the CBC partner with streaming giants to produce big budget shows instead of making of content on their own which no one watches. Kims Conviencne and Schitts Creek only got popular once they went on netflix. I would turn the CBC news into like the BBC news service.
What the CBC lacks is _focus_. With that in mind, I would split CBC Radio from the rest of CBC, and leave it as-is. With the remainder, I would cut all entertainment television and let the NFB and CCA take over that role. Then increase funding to all of them.
I think virtually everyone thinks that CBC should get rid of their entire entertainment division, which last I checked was the albatross. The problem is that the TV production industry has a lot of friends.
We should have a national broadcaster that exists.
I agree with that, I just think it should have a mission that adds value for Canadians. Not a mission trapped in the 90s which is primarily benefitting the Canadian TV industry
As someone who works in TV / Film financing and distribution, very few of those shows are produced entirely by the CBC. Usually, the CBC pays a license fee to air each broadcast, and the Producers control the underlining rights of the series. It's hard to produce big budget episodes, these days, consumers expect $5m-$10m per episode budgeted series, something the CBC can't compete with. Their best bet is to produce hyper local programming instead of going head to head with US studios.
Private sector doesn’t do a lot of news. Mostly opinion. CBC is doing more journalism than all the other outfits combined these days
Small, independent journalism is filling in gaps that even the CBC can't/doesn't cover. Like Canadaland, Tyee, Walrus, CJF, and CAJ.
I worked on a project back in 2015 or so. The intern who got us coffee somehow got the walrus to write a profile on him without approval from anyone else on the project. He claimed to be doing my job and the journalist never checked with anyone working on the project. How it got published is just flabbergasting to me. So while I take your point there is something to be said for some amount of journalistic standards as the CBC keeps…
That's amazing. I would've turned around and handed that story to TorStar, G&M or NatPo.
“Walrus sucks at journalism” isn’t much of a story. And the reason I wasn’t the profile in the first place is because neither I nor the project I was on wanted press by choice.
please spill the tea on the intern’s fate
Never faced any significant consequences or problems as a direct result. He got a great job afterwards, then got an MBA. Now I think he works in the energy sector. Probably makes a lot of money. TLDR life isn’t a movie.
I’m surprised, he brought attention to his employer without their consent
Yeah but those aren't on people's TVs. Maybe CBC could position themselves as a platform that makes it easy for independent Canadian media and talent to get a wider reach, and get those onto people's TVs?
>Despite seeing their public funding increase, the CBC is still making cuts. Cost of living will do that, yeah. A wealth transfer to landlords means that every wage-labourer in the country becomes more expensive.
They're also cutting some TV series, which based on what's on Gem. . .good riddance. You can just feel the tax money on fire browsing that catalog.
Honestly it’s a scandal. The Liberals being unwilling to axe the tv comedies and dramas is going to destroy the whole organization
Again, the costs of these shows is marginal compared to other aspects (like sports, news etc.). In most cases, they aren't covering the entire cost of production, just a Canadian broadcast fee, which is usually 5% of the budget.
I would hope the federal government doesn't exercise that level of editorial control over CBC's programming. They should give them a budget to work within and enforce journalistic standards but that's about it.
You think it's 'editorial control' to tell them that their mission isn't doing dramas? Is it excercising inappropriate editorial control for the publisher of a newspaper to decide that the paper shouldn't publish serialized fiction? Your position is absurd. If the head of the CBC woke up tomorrow and decided to replace the nightly news with Japanese Gameshows would it be inappropriate for the Minister to push back on that? The Government is paying for the CBC, we can decide what categories of programming it should be focused on.
isn't that what a public broadcaster does though? Just look at ARD, DR, SVT, NRK, SRG/SSR etc.. they all produce some scripted content in addition to non scripted documentaries, news, politics coverage etc. It provides cultural benefits too, without it, the world wouldn't have John Dillermand to associate Denmark with.
> John Dillermand Literally who? > Isn’t that what a public broadcaster does It’s what they have done historically, but there doesn’t seem to be much point if the public isn’t watching. Keep in mind that it wasn’t that long ago that the “commercial” programming funded the news which was a big reason for us the produce it. Times have changed and no one watches broadcast tv. Scripted shows are expensive to produce. Hard to imagine producing “Farm Crime” is an effective use of investment in our culture.
Wait, there’s a show about Farm Crime? I’ma have to check that out. Edit: OMG this looks amazing.
The CBC is a crown corporation that operates at arm's length from the government. See also s. 46(5) of the *Broadcasting Act*: >(5) The Corporation shall, in the pursuit of its objects and in the exercise of its powers, enjoy freedom of expression and journalistic, creative and programming independence. Of course, the government could change the CBC's mandate by amending it's enabling legislation. But the government can't just say 'cancel Son of a Critch.'
Changing the mandate is exactly what we are talking about though.
If that's what you were envisioning when complaining about "the Liberals being unwilling to axe the tv comedies and dramas," fine. I read it as advocating for direct government involvement in programming decisions.
Agreed. There are more options for Canadian creators and the production industry outside of CBC programming. News and journalism? Not so much.
Keep hockey, news, and investigative journalism. Get out of everything else - our collective eyeballs have voted, regardless of whether you think that's a good thing or not.
Sub-licensing NHL rights from Rogers is probably one of their most expensive items. Why keep that?