Canada News
How to safeguard the CBC/Radio-Canada
For the CBC to keep producing distinctly Canadian programs, it must have sufficient funding and be less controlled by government. Here’s how to do it. (Photo By Jeangagnon/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
An advisory panel was recently appointed to help the government “modernize” the ever-beleaguered CBC/Radio-Canada. The corporation’s future is highly uncertain after decades of funding cuts and more recent defunding threats by Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.
Providing the corporation with the most latitude to meet the political and economic challenges of today’s media environment is the best way to ensure the CBC’s future and that of broadcasting as a whole.
While immediate economic threats to the industry may have been forestalled with the passage of the Online Streaming Act and the Online News Act, broadcasters continue to bleed red ink and media producers face significant reductions in Canadian commissions.
Even if things do turn around, the economics of the Canadian market favour culturally generic broadcast products tailored for international sales, not fare that reflects the diversity of our country.
In this context, the CBC stands out for producing programs and other media content that reflect Canadian ideas and perspectives. Focused by its mandate to be “distinctively Canadian” the corporation’s track record in this regard is unmatched.
But if the CBC is to retain the ability to deliver on this front, it will need to be assured of sufficient funding and be less controlled by the government of the day. Several recommendations to ensure that the CBC continues to play this important role include:
- Establishing predictable funding cycles of five to seven years. This is a perennial recommendation from various studies, but has never been implemented. Legislating a funding formula would be one of the best ways to ensure that the CBC could effectively carry out its responsibilities and would insulate against political uncertainties.
- Protecting the CBC from changing political leadership through non-partisan appointments of the corporation’s board of directors and president/CEO. Merit-based appointments at arm’s-length from government should be part of broadcast legislation.
Viewing the CBC as a public good
- Giving the corporation free rein to solicit advertising and to undertake commercial activity would help provide financial stability and flexibility. Given shifting political tides, public subsidy by itself is a tenuous and often inadequate method of funding.
The broadcaster and its private counterparts, by their very natures, deploy revenue from their commercial activities to much different purposes. The first chairman of the CBC, Leonard Brockman, pointed out that every cent of profit the corporation makes goes to developing programming and services for Canadians, while corporately owned media, with their drive for private gain, take that money out of the system.
A common argument against carrying advertising is that it draws the CBC away from its mandate by encouraging popular programming that attracts large audiences at the expense of diverse, minority tastes not offered by private broadcasters.
But the CBC’s mandate is to contribute “to shared national consciousness and identity,” so it needs to be popular to some degree. By and large, it is the only conventional anglophone broadcaster to offer distinctive popular programming that reflects the diversity of Canadian life – programs like Little Mosque on the Prairie, Kim’s Convenience, Schitt’s Creek and Run the Burbs.
Conventional private broadcasters offer overwhelmingly American fare. Apart from news and public affairs, Canadian programming found on private stations is generally designed for international markets and cleansed of our unique and diverse identity.
In a world where audience members can stream what they like at their convenience, the traditional concern that popular programming might edge out that meant for more specialized audiences loses its currency, as both can be made available at the same time.
- Allowing the CBC to carry more foreign programming. This would supplement its income and, because of its mandate, the money would be wholly dedicated to programming and services. In contrast, the private sector airs as much foreign content as possible to maximize profit. It is compelled by law to devote some of those earnings to producing and airing Canadian content, but that strategy is generally not very successful. The CBC appears to be more effective at turning the income derived from foreign programming to the cultural purposes of the broadcasting industry.
- Giving the CBC full freedom in sports coverage. The corporation has been on the forefront of sports reporting in both radio and television, but as the popularity and income potential of such programming has gone up, private broadcasters have increased pressure on the CBC to turn that business over to them.
Limited channel capacity in the past may have led to sports programming undercutting the CBC’s mandate by edging out other types of programs. But in the online environment there is no need to prioritize one type over another. Added sports coverage could provide important income and publicity opportunities for the CBC, as well as contribute to the corporation’s cultural mandate.
- Allowing the CBC to extend its commercial activity into areas that overlap with its existing expertise. For example, the corporation’s marketing arm Tandem, helps produce branded content on behalf of advertisers, but operates separately from editorial departments. Media companies, including Corus, The Globe and Mail and Bell Media, have been producing such material for years. The CBC has a long history of responsible commercial behavior, and allowing the corporation to develop diverse revenue streams could be key to its survival.
- Allowing the CBC to develop new services and platforms that complement existing operations. Too often such requests have been turned down by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The result is that the private sector has been able to develop economies of scale and scope in operations that have eluded the CBC. The corporation needs flexibility to meet Canadians on the diverse technologies that comprise the ever-developing Canadian mediascape.
- Reinstating in-house production at CBC, at least for documentaries. The government’s recent calls for the network to focus on international opportunities for Canadian programs might help private production partners develop new markets, but could leave a vacuum in the domestic market – particularly in anglophone regions. In-house production would sharpen CBC’s focus on its mandate to provide “distinctively Canadian” content.
Insulated from direct government and private corporate influence, the CBC is in a unique position to produce cutting-edge social and political documentaries. This could help revitalize national and regional Canadian markets as well as help set the corporation apart from other media producers. It could also help ensure that the CBC retains intellectual property rights as it moves to take on a more international role.
- Establishing partnerships at the local level between the CBC and independent community media outlets. This could be an important step in replacing coverage lost with the closing of newspapers and TV and radio stations. These partnerships would be akin to those the CBC had with private affiliates in the early days and could be a way to ensure a range of distinct programming and perspectives.
- Giving the CBC adequate borrowing authority to reinvigorate its role in developing Canadian media markets. This would also avoid a repeat of the 2009 fiasco in which the corporation was forced to sell assets to cover short-term debt.
- Encouraging the CBC to explore and develop applications for artificial intelligence. From radio and television to microwave, satellites and the internet, the CBC has often helped forge new technologies for the cultural purposes of Canadian broadcasting.
The current Liberal government has been reasonably sympathetic to the CBC’s purposes, but over the last several decades neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have been particularly kind to the corporation.
Legislating the CBC as much financial security and independence from government as possible before the next federal election is the best way to ensure its future.
This article first appeared on Policy Options and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
