Re-Reimagine the CBC
Continued from here.
The impact of past and future cuts on the CBC
Last summer, all federal government departments and agencies, including the CBC, were ordered to submit plans for 5% and 10% budget cuts. The goal of this fiscal restraint is to achieve a balanced budget by 2015.
In the case of the CBC, the 10% scenario is particularly severe because it could result in not just a $110M cut but, combined with non-renewal of the annual ‘top-up’ of $60M, which successive governments have delivered to CBC toward the end of each fiscal year since 2002, could yield a $170M shortfall, or 15.5% of CBC’s parliamentary allocation.
The CBC has “prepaid” its share of this year’s anticipated federal budget reductions. So have its loyal listeners and viewers, who have felt the impact in the form of reduced quantity and quality of service.
Over the past fifteen years, while overall government spending has risen by more than 50% in real terms, the value of the Parliamentary allocation to the CBC has fallen by more than 15%.
Inevitably, the results of all this are evident on our screens and speakers. If there were any room for “efficiencies,” they have long since been made. Every dollar cut now comes right out of programming. Eventually, the service will be so much less attractive that few Canadians would notice or care if it were to disappear altogether. (Could that be the plan?)
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Then
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Now
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Future
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| Award-winning, thirty-hour documentary series A People’s History of Canada, produced in both official languages 2000-2001. | Single two-hour made-for-TV movie on Sir John A. Macdonald for CBC’s 75th anniversary in 2011. | Few if any major programs on Canadian history. |
| CBC historically invested millions to record and broadcast Canadian music and musicians of all genres. | Sharp reductions in live music spending – especially classical music. | CBC effectively out of the music business; Radio Two potentially sold or closed. |
| Multiple news programs with distinct personalities and content, e.g. The National, World At Six, etc. | “News integration” means same reporters and stories show up over and over on all channels. | Further cuts to news-gathering resources = less credibility and relevance. |
| Foreign correspondents permanently based in key overseas locations. | Reporters sent from Canada when news breaks; increased reliance on stringers and agencies. | Canadians will have to turn to non- Canadian sources for international news. |
| Fully Canadian prime-time CBC Television schedule. | More US shows; Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy mainstays of the schedule. | The “Not-So-Canadian” Broadcasting Corporation. |
| Strong local stations in all regions, producing a full range of TV and Radio info and entertainment. | Local stations are news-only operations, with more and more syndicated content, contributing less and less to the network. | The “Toronto Broadcasting Corporation.” |
| Regular arts programming on TV in prime time, e.g. Adrienne Clarkson Presents, Opening Night. | Very occasional TV arts performance specials. | No cultural programming on CBC Television. |
| Socially relevant and cutting edge TV drama. | Increasing emphasis on mindless entertainment and “reality” shows. | Increasingly hard to distinguish CBC- TV from commercial channels. |
| CBC Radio links the country and defines the Canadian identity. | Fewer innovative shows or in-depth documentaries; more chit-chat and repeats. | CBC Radio less and less relevant to Canadians. |
| CBC News renowned for investigative journalism and in-depth reportage. | More “happy talk,” consumer stories, YouTube clips and promos on The National and supper-hour news shows. | Even less depth, quality, diversity and distinctiveness in CBC News. |
Petition to preserve the CBC musical archive:
http://boingboing.net/2012/03/14/petition-to-preserve-the-cbc.html
It is a slightly different situation Gaian, in that I expect there are plenty of people within the CBC who would like to see that archive preserved (and an archive is a bit different than a stack of guns). If you don't think it is worth it, fine.
And no, it is not begging. It is fighting to preserve something that we built and is ours. You're complaining about other people's perspective on the CBC? This is no different. If you don't see the worth in working for it, at least don't work against it.
Well I appreciate your willingness to stand up for what you believe in, and I hope our efforts bring some success.
What's actually frightening is that some people on these forums think the CBC is always right (or maybe that's left), on everything it does. As for the personal attack about how far my head is up my ass, I"ll ignore that leftist name-calling since it clearly belongs to the type of people who are furiously handwringing about their precious elitist, small-clique corner of the world that taxpayers are supposed to pay for over and over again.
I guess these things were okay, 50 years ago, or maybe 75 years ago. But they are not ok today.
Oh and what was that capitalist sentiment? That to get better more qualified journalists like the type you find at the CBC, you have to pay MORE money? Wow!!!! Now where exactly on this left wing forum could such a CAPITALIST idea show up?
Me thinks that some people here want to have their cake and eat it too. Invoking capitalist ideas when it's convenient and attacking them when it's not. Nice!
Marx was right, capitalism's a nightmare.
@ K2A
I'm sorry.... who was it you said came up with the idea that paying workers a fair day's wages for a fair day's work was the best way to build a quality operation and get the job done right?
Somebody had better let Sam Walton know that he was running the bigget company in the world all wrong!
And yes, Marx was right. Capitalism is a nightmare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9OUIk4Oaq4&feature=related
Hey I'm not the one proposing capitalism as the great ill, or the great solution to everything. But if CBC workers and their ardent supporters want to re-imagine their broadcasting service they may want to take a few lessons from the private sector once in a blue moon.
Like I said - the CBC is not going to be destroyed because of this, gi-normous cut that it is allegedly facing. In fact it is going to get better.
I don't know anything about Sam Walton other than Walmart and the fact that almost every Canadian I've ever met shops there and complains about how much better prices in the US Walmarts are compared to Canada. Strange.
Nice Youtube link. It's an American corporation too, and the Marx brothers sure ain't from Canada. Well I guess even the extreme left has to use America for something at one point or another.
There's a reason for that; I guess you think it is because they are paying workers up here too much, and spending too much of their business tax on the CBC.
Let me tell you a little off-topic story. I was trying to buy an item which, in the same online store (not WalMart. I DON"T shop there) was $70 here in Canada, and $20 in the states. A little bit more than any hokum about the difference in the dollar or taxes. I tried to buy it online from the states, and they just bumped me back to Canada.
They do it because they CAN, and they have what they think is a closed market, and until someone comes along and does it cheaper (and in my experience that is just as often a small store as a big one) they'll keep doing it because they make more money that way.
Is that the lesson we are supposed to learn from the private sector? Get as much profit as you can and PREVENT access to a free market?
I think you're missing the problem entirely, because these cuts are first and foremost ideological. If this government can pay what it has on fake lakes and gazebos and the military they can fund a public broadcaster (which sorry, is not the same as the private stations, has a far broader scope, and mandate). They are making these cuts, and pressuring changes in programming because i think the PMO would much prefer if it did not exist at all. He is treating it the same way he treats everything else he considers an enemy.
And I was actually giving a little elbow to someone else's comment about capitalism. I don't think I have mentioned it. And I also don't think I have said anything against Americans other than the fact that I think they have a very insular, limited and propagandist (relative to ours) news system. And the fact is there's actually some evidence to back that up; it's not based on some grudge because somebody messed with my cables way back when.
Tell Jimmy and your MP to stop the cuts!
Oh don't worry Gaian. I know which forum I'm posting on. I'm quite aware of how far off-kilter my thoughts must be. It's just my considered opinion that this is why mainstream Canada can never reconcile what your thoughts are, with what their daily reality is.
I'm sure me and my less educated opinions are a little too lowbrow for ya all and the esotoric arts are a little beyond my understandin of the world and all, but hey, I can't help it. Experience speaks more volumes than professorial mythmaking about what is to come for the CBC.
Oh and Smith? Why is it ok to complain about online shopping and call it a closed market but not ok to talk about the CBC and its "closed market", not to mention why it dallies in the private sector and rakes in an extra $600 million from revenues? Is that ok with you too?
Sounds like you want the CBC to have it both ways. Public broadcaster with a mandate and public funding, and then again - competing with the private sector and raking in extra money from the private sector. And then we get to wages. Why is a CBC producer paid $20K more than the same job in the private sector? Shouldn't CBC staff be working in the public interest for the people who fund it? And make sure their wages are in line with the private sector? Are they an island unto themselves?
Um..... speaking of having it both ways, do you want to have more taxes going to the CBC or less? Kind of hard to reduce that if they can't raise any revenue.
And besides, private sector does not mean no revenue or not for profit. You are near enough to Saskatchewan to have heard of SaskTel, SaskEnergy, STC and SGI.
I pay for my car insurance, even if it isn't quite as much as they do over the border in Alberta. I'm kind of glad I have them dallying in the marketplace, actually.
The story hasn't hit the internet yet, but I just heard it reported on CBC that Rogers wants to back out on some of its committment to locally-produced Saskatchewan programming it agreed to as part of its deal to buy SCN. For now, here's some background:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/tv/story/2010/03/24/sk-budget-scn-closing.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2012/01/17/sk-scn-roger...
This is what public broadcasters are supposed to learn from the private sector?
(edit)
Here's the story:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2012/03/20/sk-scn-sale-...
And I guess the province dropped the second shoe this afternoon.
And it's a good thing for NAFTA because without it we'd be paying higher prices for the exact same products made in China. Oh wait? We already DO pay more than Americans for the same products made in China.
WTF?
Public broadcasters are supposed to learn that taxpayers are not sheep to be manhandled by bureaucrats and special interest groups for a left wing agenda. There is always a public good in many things in society. SCN is an example of a 1980 Lada. Oh and is it a coincidence that SCN is based in the same building as the CBC? So now the CBC is doing its usual hysterics about public broadcasting? Yeah, lots of credibility there, and on my dime too. But hey, enjoy. It's only money right?
Fidel, Fidel, Fidel... what is it that fascinates you about America? Is it the Boogeyman aspect? Is it the fact that you try so hard to out-left, the left? I don't know. But you are entertaining. Why complain about paying more than Americans? We should pay more, after all, more bureaucracy, more health care, more of everything - right?
I think we used to have more government per capita than the states, but that was before creation of Homeland Stupidity, a massive new right wing bureaucracy for spying on the lives of Americans. Political conservatives in Canada love overbloated bureaucracy, but so do they in the U.S. as well. What they say at election time and what they do once voters have been had are totally different things.
But there really is no good reason for Canaidans to pay more for the same widgets. We don't necessarily have to export so many raw materials and energy to the states. We don't have to send them old growth logs to be shipped back as luxurious toilet paper. We have an army of unemployed Canadians who could easily do those kinds of jobs, and the Americanos know it. American corporations know that Canadian workers are capable. They know that Canadians have talent and can do all kinds of things Americans can do. And it's why they watch our federal elections like hawks gazing over the chicken coop.
Well that's good enough for the morning laugh.
Yes, speaking as someone on the extreme left, I got a chuckle out of it too.
Hi K2A, you can stop the redbaiting now. Thanks.
Pretty sure Catchfire will be accusing me of "red baiting" and deleting posts, but hey guys get over yourselves. I guess a I hit a nerve with you folks, sorry about that. Reality bites doesn't it? Life is not a collecitve bargaining agreement. Nobody ever told you your jobs are protected forever.
And you want to reach out to the regular people in Canada? Good luck with that.
Um... K2A
Remember the poll I posted in the last thread regarding Canadian's feelings about the CBC? This is what regular people think.
This thread isn't about the job security of people you have a grudge against. It's about public broadcasting.
And you have no idea what most of us do for a living and even less of a clue about our politics. What are you even talking about? Is this Mr. Lebowski meets the Dude?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYX-121A7Zc
How are regular folks in the USA faring, with the voluntary dismantling of organized labour being in progress for some time now?