Reimagine the CBC

I think it's funny, and considering his handle,  that he's worried about journalists killed in a country that was once our enemy - then our WW II allies - then our cold war enemies  - and now just another capitalist state probably no more or less corupt than our own and still under suspicion by colder warriors in the U.S. as well as the stoogeaucracy in Ottawa.  It's laughable, really. The Harpers are no better with their leaping to defend our arctic "sovereignty" whenever a few Russian planes come floating anywhere near the place.

Hey, K2A, the redcoats are coming. Pff!

Here in Canada the CBC is the authoritative voice for our style of imperialism; the lackey, coat tail, ass kissing stooge variant that is, which is quite similar to the work of the BBC.  To many viewers and readers in the country, the CBC represents socialized liberal journalism, and so if the alarm is being sounded through them regarding some peril around the world, the threat must indeed be imminent.  There are certain issues, foreign policy for example, where Canadians as much as possible must be bought together to lend legitimacy to whatever is being orchestrated in the corporate and political backrooms.  Sure they'll keep a few centrist or moderate left opinions tucked away in the obscure recesses of the mothership, like radio for instance.  This is intended to enlist the left wing taxpayer to their defence whenever corporatism starts complaining again that the CBC is doing the same work as they do through their media outlets, but are unfairly competitive because of public funding.  On that account we could say that for once they do not lie.

I have made suggestions in these CBC related threads actually.  I'm beginning to question your reading abilities.

Oy.

I'm an independent Canadian producer.  I have worked and do work with a variety of broadcasters, including the CBC.  Because understanding how and why the Canadian broadcast industry works the way it does is essential to my livlihood (15 years of survival and counting!), I devote a great deal of time and attention to it. It is the sea I swim in.

There's a lot of misinformation and missing information and just general stuff I'd like to talk about in this thread, so I'd like to respond to a number of posts.  Here goes.  It's long.

Kanada2America wrote:

Hmm. Surprised no one wants to reply to this yet.

As most might know, I work in the business, but in a very small corner of it. I do honestly believe the CBC has a lot of shortcomings. My question is this: why is the CBC not seen as a massive bureaucracy that is also a part of a spin machine? Do Canadians get a choice when they pay their taxes to support the CBC?

I think this is about ideology and the American boogeyman more than it is about looking critically at what role a public broadcaster fills.

If you don't want to watch something or listen to something, you simply shut it off or change the channel. When that happens in the private broadcasting world, things change. In the world of the CBC and its bureaucrats, you're still paying one way or the other.

It's been a given that American media seeps into and dominates Canadian media in a variety of ways, many of them unavoidable.  It's not so much about American boogeymen as it is about maintaining a Canadian voice in the face of a huge quantity, a ubiquity, of foreign content.  That's why Heritage Canada has been involved in both public AND PRIVATE broadcast for a very long time.

Now, taxes.  No, you don't get to say specifically how your taxes are allocated for CBC.  Or healthcare.  Or education.  Or military spending. Or resource company subsidies.  Or anything.  To suggest that CBC should be any different than any other area of government spending is just plain silly.  The government allocates spending.  If you're unhappy with how our taxes are being allocated, there's little you can do until the next election, when you can try to vote in a government who will allocate in a way that is closer to your liking. 

Catchfire wrote:

Public broadcasting in Canada is certainly under threat: the current strategy appears to be to defund the CBC to the extent that it can no longer fulfil its mandate to any reasonable standard (some might say it's already cleared that hurdle). My complaint is that the CBC has responded to this threat by aping corporate broadcasters and adopting a sycophantic pose regarding the Harper government in the hopes that such a strategy will save it. Of course, in reality, since the CBC can't match the funding of coporate entities and Harper wants to end public broadcasting anyway, the latter won't help and the former is doomed to fail.

Admittedly, there have been some signs of life, like the way the CBC his pointing out the hypocrisy which governs SunTV's relationship with Ottawa, but more is needed. And, in spite of the political climate hostile to public broadcasting as an idea altogether, attempts like the one in the OP stand a good chance of re-energizing a population who forgot (or never knew) how good the CBC used to be--or who simply want to imagine what a public broadcaster based in an ethos of social justice and public good could look like.

The CBC has been put in a position, both by defunding and being directly told by the government (Liberal at the time? Can't quite recall.) that it must compete with private broadcast in terms of giving the viewer what it wants and to achieve the same numbers as their private sector competitors.

I disagree with you on the extent of "adopting a sycophantic pose". I'd love to see a mechanism where government can't punish the CBC for chucking some mud at them, but right now it's unreasonable to expect them to cut their own throats. I largely agree with the OP, however.

Kanada2America wrote:

Yes I agree Catchfire. The CBC can be an incredible in depth documentary and journilistic powerhouse because of its resources but it is insular in the way it responds to outside threats from the private broadcast side like, Sun... or for that matter in how it deals with Joe and Jane Canadian in the everyday context.

...

For the record my employer is non-union, worth about a third less than what the CBC gets for funding. I am treated very well and paid pretty darn good for the job I do. My "brand" is pretty hip and urban and on top of trends and reflects it.

I think the CBC needs to look around at the current reality and move a lot quicker to make itself relevant so that average Canadians will support it.

I'm not sure what your first paragraph actually means... Sun is not a threat to CBC (Sun wishes), other than their management are lobbying to defund. I think they've been well within bounds on their response to the pissant tactics they've had to deal with.

I think CBC has been working at being relevant to Canadians. They also provide outlets for programming that are not as dumbed down populist (see one-off docs via Nature of Things or Doc Zone) that private broadcasters will not carry. That's part of the purpose of a public broadcaster. So it can't all be about engaging the biggest number of people. If Jersey Shore is your favourite show, you might not be into a lot of what CBC has to offer, but chances are you aren't really interested in preserving a Canadian voice in media, either. You can't be all things to all people.

Fidel wrote:

And they already have some Canadians defaming the CBC for different reasons. We know it's not the BBC. It's what they want to do and are testing the political water for it now. They want our opinions, and I gave them mine in a telephone survey. Because once its out of public hands, we're lost. An informed public is a necessary ingredient for democracy, and cutting $100+ million from CBC funding should be a red alert for every Canadian whatever we think of the CBC's past performance. And in case any of Harper's dregulators and efficiencyizers might be reading this, that's what I think.

One of the main differences between CBC and BBC is that the BBC is not expected to compete with private broadcast in the same way, nor is BBC required to attract ad revenue.  They're experiencing funding cuts right now, but it's nothing like the death of a thousand cuts CBC has been dealing with for decades.

Kanada2America wrote:

Well my question is this. Are we supposed to just let the CBC or for that matter, various other Crown corporations go on and on endlessly with no one looking at the balance sheets and accounting statements? I too am a taxpayer and I would like to know that instead of a huge grey wall of bureaucracy and indifference, I might see some logic and rational thought applied to what the CBC does.

I don't believe that dismantling the CBC is the answer but it sure is a useful debating point for those who want to create the impression that asking questions is going to lead to that. Harper only has three more years left and dismantling the CBC is not going to happen that quickly.

The CBC is not in touch with the average Canadian, at least on the TV side. Radio is much better. If we don't use ratings to measure what the CBC does (and I exempt Hockey Night in Canada from all this), then how are we supposed to know what's happening to our dollars?

Do you buy a house or a car that way? Do you think waiting in line at the Safeway for too long or putting up with bad service is perfectly ok because it's a question of public vs private?

Okay, for your post to make any sense at all, you have to accept a number of false premises and bad analogies.

First of all, CBC does not provide "bad service".  It provides a different service than a private broadcaster does, and the criteria for judging its effectiveness should be different.  You really sound like you don't understand the idea of public broadcasting.  Even PBS doesn't measure its performance in direct comparison to private broadcasters.  There's plenty of logic and thought applied to CBC's directions (I'm assuming you mean programming, here.).  Their financial statements are published every year - and put online.  So unless you're a Sun employee who's buying their line, that's a demonstrably false assertion. 

And why should you exempt Hockey Night in Canada from ratings?  That's a lot like stacking the deck against them.

Catchfire wrote:

I don't understand this question. The CBC should be an arm's length institution, which means the director appointed should enjoy full autonomy to pursue her vision for its mandate. A bi-annual audit (or some other appropriate schedule) by the auditor general is fine, but the last thing I want to see is a cultural institution meddled with by the whim of an electorate or worse, some nebulous and dubiously named "taxpayer" mass.

"Ratings" are the metrestick of for-profit corporations. The cultural commonwealth that is the CBC should never "measure" itself with such a metric. That's the kind of crass metric that gives us Kevin O'Leary franchises and Wheel of Fortune on our public broadcaster. Rather the "measure" should be a robust and ongoing conversation about what counts as Canadian culture, ethics and politics in this country. The CBC should not only derive from such a conversation: it should constitute it, produce it and disseminate it. What would happen, for example, if Margaret Atwood were the director of the CBC rather than a Stikeman Elliot legacy? David Suzuki? Leonard Cohen? Thomas King? Sook-Yin Lee? Okay the last one is just my teenage crush...but wouldn't she be excellent?

Yes!  Until you got to that last bit.

It's not about whether writers or actors/on-air personalities/performers are flakey.  Some are, some aren't.  It's more that what they're good at is a completely different skill set than what is needed to run a large broadcasting entity.  Worse, you take a creative person and put them in a position where they no longer get to create.  What "creative" in their right mind would do that?

I'll give you a hint:  Not me, and likely none of the people you've named.  I'm sorry, that's just a ridiculous suggestion.

I think we'd see better results if whoever it was that was put in charge wasn't constantly having to run an entity that's neither fish nor fowl and dodging and weaving to at least try to avoid being slashed to the bone.

Kanada2America wrote:

Well I think you can have anyone at the helm of the CBC you want as long as they know whose money they're spending and none of those people Catchfire mentions as potential candidates likely know too much about accounting. Even my crude understanding of the subject tells me you don't keep spending if you aren't getting results.

I think distrusting the audience or the electorate in matters of what comes from their radio or tv is engaging in a bit of cultural snobbery and elitism.

It's a way of saying Canadians aren't sophisticated enough to know good television or radio when they see or hear it, and essentially saying their tastes must be too crude and crass for the collective sensibilities of this country's culture.

I get culture from many sources and the CBC doesn't have a choke hold on my remote. That's modern reality. People will gravitate to whatever programming they want. Now you can measure that in crass ways such as ratings, but to pretend that the CBC should be immune from the environment in which it is operating in, is unrealistic - especially when it amounts to a billion dollars a year.

Again, you are premising your conclusion on a false definition of "results", so yes, your understanding is crude.  I might add the adjective "negligible".

Catchfire pointed out why using the same metric as private broadcast is wrongheaded and summed up the CBC's purpose and mandate quite nicely above.

Farmpunk wrote:

No, flaky writers should not be running the CBC. They should be contributing to it. And I suspect Atwood commands a fee that isn't economically feasible. I doubt she'll be filing many news stories from Prince George.

And I'd tell Atwood exactly that.

She's a writer, a cultural personality, not an organizer. She tweets, people listen. Great. Has she ever managed people? Has she ever been faced with a daily series of programs with daily deadlines and shrinking budgets, all of which are managed by people who are themselves quite skilled, or confident, possibly arrogant, maybe incompetent? Has she ever worked with a large union? Has Suzuki? Is his Narture of Things prod-co unionized?

Well put.  One point, though - on air personalities like David Suzuki, Sook-Yin Lee and Strombo are contracted by the CBC to do in-house programming and are members of ACTRA, usually.  Nature of Things is a CBC strand which combines independent docs commissioned by CBC and in-house docs made by CBC (Suzuki also narrates indie docs, and the independent producers pay him).  David Suzuki, to my knowledge does not have a production company.  I've produced content for NOT, so I am familiar with how it is set up. 

laine lowe wrote:

Catchfire, you forgot Rabinovitch's henchman and successor, Stursberg, on that list. He did quite the job prior to that with Telefilm, replacing quality Canadian stories with profits as a prime motivator for funding. Profitability was never part of the CBC's mandate as outlined in the Broadcast Act. Fiscally responsible development of projects and programming was (as with the mandates of many crown corporations and agencies). And the authors of that Act and CanCon rules and subsequent tax incentives knew that creating vibrant domestic cultural industries was also key to creating infrastructures rich in providing decent jobs.

Programming will be a hit and miss with many people but if enough people are tuning in to DNTO and Q or CBC TV's Republic of Doyle or Arctic Air, then they are still managing to deliver some of their mandate. But what really irks me is how the CBC has destroyed so many technical jobs in the past decade.

Actually, those jobs started to go away in the late 1980s in the regional units.  We used to have a good proportion of regional in-house production happening at our regional CBC.  Now, the studios sit vacant or are rented, for the most part.  Creating the vibrant domestic industry extends to people in my boat as well, the companies who produce content for the CBC and the people we hire, so it goes a long way past the jobs provided by the CBC itself.

Yeah, Stursberg.  But he's a symptom more than the problem itself.  Why was he sent in?  Because the government had ideas about making the CBC something it wasn't ever meant to be. 

Kanada2America wrote:

Hence my point. If the CBC were to go back to what it was doing very well, I don't think we would be having this discussion about how much it's costing us. I think Canadians could be sold on the $60/year for each taxpaying household. But the CBC's employees/managers forgot where the money comes from.

Seriously, you cannot compete against the network competition on news, especially hard news. And pretending that those viewers don't know what they want is insulting that audience.

CBC has always had an excellent news service, certainly as good or better as any of the private broadcasters.  Yes, there are flaws, but there are also flaws with private news services.  I'm not sure who's ignoring what viewers want - I certainly don't get that impression from CBC.  It's the balance of want and mandate that's tricky.  And I can assure you, CBC's upper management knows exactly where its money comes from and how badly some lobbyists would like to take it away.

Kanada2America wrote:

Well I'm guessing some of you folks might be in Toronto or Ottawa. Or you prefer national news (which I watch quite actively too but don't necessarily hang on to either). The CBC is overmatched in local markets like Edmonton, Calgary or Regina. In fact if the CBC wanted to reflect Canadians properly why doesn't it have local stations in... oh Swift Current, Red Deer or Cranbrook?

I mean does a billion dollars plus annually mean I get to watch Toronto/Vancouver news? This is why viewers drift away from the CBC news side in local markets - the ratings reflect that too. Look at the private broadcasters, specifically CTV or maybe SCN and even Shaw community cable which service these kinds of markets. They sure do a far better job of reflecting local culture and news than the CBC.

I'm not 100% sure what you're suggesting...  CBC shouldn't run news service out of Calgary, Edmonton or Regina?  They should work out of Red Deer and Speedy Creek? 

CTV and Global have fewer news outlets in Saskatchewan (I'm based in SK) than the CBC.  Most of the eyeballs in Saskatchewan are split between CTV and CBC when it comes to news, so I'm not sure what you're on about here.  Sadly, CBC, due to budget constraints, will have to close their location in La Ronge.  But hey, let's cut further and then castigate them for not doing more!!  What fun!

Community cable does not do the same thing as CBC.  False comparison.  And CTV does not by a long shot, do any more, by comparison, in local markets than CBC.  That's daft.

Oh, and let's chat about SCN.  Yeah.  One of my favourite topics.  See, SCN reflected local programming and such WHEN IT WAS A PUBLIC BROADCASTER.  But our provincial government borked that pretty good.  It was sold to a company that wasn't up for meeting the demands of running a regional educational broadcaster.  It has now been purchased by Rogers as a CityTV affiliate.  SCN, as a regional broadcaster, is pretty much dead, thanks to the conservative attitude toward public television.

So much for local culture.

Kanada2America wrote:

6079_Smith_W. I'm saying that for the cost to run CBC - the approximately $1B - they should be able to put up more bricks and mortar tv stations in smaller markets and be intensely local to reflect the population in the regions.That could be considered part of their mandate whereas their private competitors don't necessarily have that same priority because of profit motives.

Catchfire. I agree that the big corporations that own those networks you mentioned did a lot of chopping but if you look, you'll see they've also restored some of that as well. For eg. CTV launched local morning shows this past January in almost all of its major markets. That's in addition to 5:00 pm, 5:30 pm and 6:00 pm and 11:00 pm newscasts. Citytv does intensely local breakfast tv five days a week in all of its markets and restored Toronto newscasts recently too.

Re: bricks and mortar.  Oy vey.  You have no idea what you're asking for would cost.  They've already got bricks and mortar they can't use.

CityTV does not do breakfast programming in all markets.  It does for some.  They have no intention of putting up a breakfast-time show on their newly acquired affiliate in Saskatchewan and there were others that they mentioned in the info session they gave us a couple of weeks ago that also do not.  You are misinformed.  The reason that they've re-introduced newscasts in some places (TO, mainly) is that they have ambitions to grow and become the next Global.

Kanada2America wrote:

Well people have a choice about watching and listening to American networks or not. The CBC hasn't given me that choice about paying for this information. Higher standards? True. But along with that goes arrogance and snobbery, and lack of local engagement.

I know that the CBC is already going to be busy trying to react to all the local programming being put on by its competitors but it might already be a little late. Some networks have done local engagement and culture for a long time. Now CTV has entered the fray. These things cannot be looked at in a vacuum.

The only thing I can take out of all this is that those useful idiots over at that Quebec-based tabloid-bot network prodded the CBC to get off its heels and act like what it was supposed to be doing in the first place.

Mind ponying up some examples?  Because I think you're full of beans.

Timebandit wrote:

Mind ponying up some examples?  Because I think you're full of beans.

Sorry to snip your essay but I just finished a long workday. I'm sure as an "independent" producer you might know what that's about, or maybe not. Comparing yourself to what I do for a living on a day to day basis - or an hourly basis is hardly the same thing.

I too have done independent work. In fact I delivered results because that's what is and was expected. Why don't you understand this simple concept of work for non-taxpayer-funded pay?

Your tone is implying that anyone opposed to looking at the CBC in a critical light, is some sort or moronic and uneducated or obtuse lowbrow agitator salivating for your money tree to come to a crashing end. I provided examples. You want to obfuscate and deflect. But I guess your living depends on bureaucracy and grants.

If you're that confident in your skills and abilities, why am I paying for you to do this stuff?

Again, why do you think that I should be dictated to by you and your contemporaries? On my dime? Do you think you produce anything relevant to what my audience wants or needs? And did I read that correctly? You comparing yourself to healthcare? Will I die tomorrow because the CBC is going to get a tiny 5% paper cut to its massive, massive bureacracy? Not likely.

I think this reeks of you not liking the fact that someone is finally going to look at a balance sheet and do some accounting. Do you know what an ROI is? Yes it is a critical measure and unfortunately folks like you have some odd idea of endless taxpayer funding for what you want. Again, why am I paying for your ride? The CBC ain't an ambulance, it ain't a hospital bed, it ain't a life boat.

It's the Titanic and it just ran into a huge iceberg and you're living in the Fancy Deck, you just don't know it.

We could go around and around endlessly debating the philosophy of having a public broadcaster vs demanding more accountability and maybe even scaling it back. That's not going anywhere on this forum from what I can see. I've made my points why I think the CBC can afford to see some cutbacks or focusing more on things it does well.

The problem with public sector unionized workers is that they always seem to take accountability as some sort of threat and that every move to look critically at staffing levels or pay is some sort of attack on the public or an attack on Canadiana. But hey who am I? Just one guy who wants to know why I can't get proper health care, but I can get lots of CBC.

And yes I believe some of the encounters I've had with CBC are indicative of a work culture of snobbery towards anyone who isn't on the public payroll. Yes I've met a couple of very nice CBC people too and one could see they were educated well rounded invidividuals. I didn't just connect the dots yesterday after some encounter with a CBC person and made that a reason to get rid of the Corp. I've thought about these things long before I even got into this business.

But as I keep saying over and over again. I'm not against getting rid of the CBC, I merely want to see it do things it does well more often and get rid of the things it doesn't do well.

I didn't make the connection between healthcare and the CBC, you did in post #62 above. Talking bureaucratically about whether it's a provincial responsibility ignores the obvious - where does the money come from? Do we chop up the provincial taxpayer and make him or her different from the federal taxpayer? There is only one taxpayer. Whenever solutions are proposed it becomes the usual "American private health care" boogeyman trotted out over and over again. But this isn't a discussion about that on this thread.

I am merely answering to how you think that the CBC is as important as universal health care implying that it's an essential service. If a homeless man dies on the street from exposure, it's not because he didn't get enough CBC in his life.

And don't even get me started about unions and specifically health care. I worked in the system in Alberta as a non-unionized worker in the 1990's. I saw first hand the atrocious tactics used by unionized nurses in the hospitals with patients and patient care. Don't even go there.

How is withdrawing your services and targetting the very people you are supposed to provide a service to, accountable? This is the reason more and more conservative opinion is running towards using so-called "right to work" laws and designating "essential services" to avoid these disruptions.

You guys and gals may not like the crude measurement of ratings but if you are pretending that the CBC doesn't use that to measure its performance than the sky in your world is a radically different color than the rest of the tv world. Because in reality what that shows me is that a very small band of cultural elitists want me and the rest of Canada to pay for their specialized programming. Something you folks could do yourselves, ala the PBS model.

And no I didn't vote conservative in the last election. I can't stand them but I also don't dismiss everything they say as useless or some sort of conspiracy.

Actually K2A, it was timebandit who said that the CBC, like a number of other publicly funded things (healthcare was one of a number she mentioned) is an area in which the public doesn't generally get to fine-tune spending. She wasn't setting up an either/or scenario at all.

You were the one who ran with that and raised the spectre of people dropping dead in the streets - presumably because too much of our money goes to the CBC. Not quite the same thing.

You have anecdotes? Well I doubt there's much point in sharing the story of my brief time as a non-unionized homecare worker, and of my association with people taking job action  to PROTECT services. Suffice it to say. my experience is quite different than yours.

But you know what? I don't think trade unionism is up for debate here, nor does it have anything to do with the topic of this thread.

(cross-posted with you catchfire)

I agree with all that ygtbk, and also add that the situation is also not only different in Quebec, but for francophones in all of Canada. After all, francophone culture does not stop at the Quebec border; they don't even have the oldest francophone theatre in Canada. I'd say the role of Radio Canada is even more crucial outside Quebec.

I realize that the playing field has changed greatly, but more channels does not necessarily mean better programming

My main concern, of course, is with news coverage, and while I see CBC as in the mainstream, it is the only voice in mainstream broadcast that comes close to providing some in-depth coverage. The contrast is even more stark on radio. 

I also believe CBC - TV and radio - provides far better coverage of cultural and social issues across Canada  than any other broadcaster. 

So again, I see your points, and have to agree (after all, I get most of my news online) but  I still see a necessary service there that will not be replaced if it falls silent.

Kanada2America wrote:

This is exactly why the extreme left will never speak for the 99%. The urge to censor free speech and shut down any critical look at public sector unions trying to say they speak for me when they use labor action.

But hey, Catchfire. Hit that big BAN button. I'm sure some of my posts have you and your contemporaries on this forum, squirming and itching to push it. I think this is why the left has an issue with free speech that makes the ramblings of the bible-thumping right, look like a kindergarten snit-fit.

As a centrist I will always, through my own experiences and beliefs avoid both extremes.

Without getting into too much detail, because I suspect most would see it clearly enough, I'll just say that everything put forward here, including the 'big' ban button part, is wrongheaded. I heard it was only a little teensy thing. Centrism has the additional merit of never having to worry about who your friends are, because they're all interchangeable and disposable at need. Two words should suffice to explain all in this regard: The Liberals.

Kanada2America wrote:

Sorry to snip your essay but I just finished a long workday. I'm sure as an "independent" producer you might know what that's about, or maybe not. Comparing yourself to what I do for a living on a day to day basis - or an hourly basis is hardly the same thing. 

I'm not sure why you use scare quotes around the term independent - it's actually pretty straightforward, and I think I was clear what that meant, but in case it wasn't clear, I'll be more specific in what it is I do within the film and tv industry:  I run a film and television production company that creates content for broadcasters on pre-license.  As a writer/producer, I shape projects from concept to completion and am responsible for funding and managing that project over its entire life.  Part of my job is understanding the mandates and needs of a variety of broadcasters both public and private and how the various systems of the media industry work.  Over the last decade and a half, I've gained some expert knowledge in that realm.

Implying that I don't work full or long days is a personal slam.  Please don't do that.  I haven't impugned your work ethic or expertise in your field - you are a technician, yes?  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'd like you to point out where I compared my work to yours.  I don't recall doing so.  If you could do that and illustrate the differences, that would be nice.  At the moment, I'm not sure how this is relevant.

What I did say was that there were some rather large gaps in your knowledge of how Canadian broadcast is structured, and I've tried to point out what those are.  If you want to argue specifically with the points I've made, that's great.  But if all you can do is imply that I'm either a hobbyist or lazy, that's called a personal attack and that's technically against babble policy.

In other words, argue with the substance, not the personality.

Quote:

I too have done independent work. In fact I delivered results because that's what is and was expected. Why don't you understand this simple concept of work for non-taxpayer-funded pay?

If you work in any sector of the film and tv industry, barring pornography and advertising, you're being paid at least in part by taxpayer funds.  Have you ever heard of the Canadian Media Fund?  Nearly every Canadian program made has license fee top up and equity funding from the CMF, whether it was made by CBC, CTV, Shaw, Vision, etc, etc.  There are also federal and provincial tax credits that are applicable to all Canadian independent productions.  If you've ever worked on an independent project, dollars to doughnuts you've been paid with funds from tax subsidies.

Do you not understand the simple concept that film and television in Canada is a subsidized industry?  It seems to me that I'm far more intimately acquainted with where my paycheque comes from than you are.  I know exactly where the money comes from and how it works.

Quote:

  Your tone is implying that anyone opposed to looking at the CBC in a critical light, is some sort or moronic and uneducated or obtuse lowbrow agitator salivating for your money tree to come to a crashing end. I provided examples. You want to obfuscate and deflect. But I guess your living depends on bureaucracy and grants. 

Everyone who works in this industry, including you, depends on bureaucracy and "grants" (well, strictly speaking, they aren't grants).  And with equity financing via government bureaucracies - mainly Telefilm Canada or the CMF - I actually pay a percentage of any profit I make back into the system.  It's repayable investment.

I didn't call you or imply that you were any of the things you've accused me of saying in your post above.  That is purely your own invention.  What I did say was that you don't understand the mandate or purpose of public television and why the same metrics used to determine success for private broadcasters is inappropriate.  And I don't actually see much evidence that you understand it, although it has been explained to you by myself and others.

I actually think referring to the CBC as a "money tree" is pretty nonsensical.  They're a broadcaster, they buy media programs.  I offer them original programming that I think will fit their needs, if they agree, then they buy the rights to air the program once it is finished.  It's no different than any other broadcaster.  Would you make the same accusation for someone who makes programs for a private broadcaster?  Are those "money trees" as well?  What if you're a producer who makes programs for both public and private broadcasters?  And what, exactly, were your examples?

Quote:

  If you're that confident in your skills and abilities, why am I paying for you to do this stuff? 

You aren't paying me, the CBC is.  Yes, some of your taxes go into the CBC, but it's not the same thing any more than the soldier in Afghanistan was in my employ.

Quote:

  Again, why do you think that I should be dictated to by you and your contemporaries? On my dime? Do you think you produce anything relevant to what my audience wants or needs? And did I read that correctly? You comparing yourself to healthcare? Will I die tomorrow because the CBC is going to get a tiny 5% paper cut to its massive, massive bureacracy? Not likely. 

No, you did not read that correctly.  I did not at any point compare myself to health care.

What I did do was explain that none of us gets to dictate where our taxes go.  You can't call up and say, "Hey, I don't like fighter jets, so make sure my money doesn't go there, put it toward Health Canada instead."  I used a variety of examples, not just health care.  The fact is, we are required to pay taxes, the government then allocates those taxes.  So no, you don't get to pick.  Neither do I.  Get over it.

Now, I may or may not produce programming that you and your audience like.  I'm not sure how you can be so sure I don't when you don't know what I produce.  And it's beside the point, anyway.  I produce programming for a Canadian audience.  That audience won't encompass every Canadian.  It only matters that it's relevant to enough Canadians.  The numbers for my last project were significant enough to show that it was.

The cut to CBC isn't going to be only to bureaucracy, unfortunately.  It's going to be strongly relfected in how much they're able to invest in Canadian programming.  You say you've done independent work - that's cool, but when there's less opportunity for independent work from either public or private broadcasters, there are fewer opportunities for people in your field to do that work.  And cutting CBC's budget won't mean that the lost license fees will be made up by private broadcast, either.  The money - and the work - will just be gone.  It won't just be CBC union employees who feel the pinch.

So no, you won't die.  But some of your colleagues will have more difficulty making a living.  I'm sure they appreciate your sentiment as much as I do.

Quote:

I think this reeks of you not liking the fact that someone is finally going to look at a balance sheet and do some accounting. Do you know what an ROI is? Yes it is a critical measure and unfortunately folks like you have some odd idea of endless taxpayer funding for what you want. Again, why am I paying for your ride? The CBC ain't an ambulance, it ain't a hospital bed, it ain't a life boat.

It's the Titanic and it just ran into a huge iceberg and you're living in the Fancy Deck, you just don't know it.

As a business owner, I'd be willing to wager that ROI is something that I understand in a much more up close and personal way than most people.  And no, the projects I most want to make don't always get funded.  Sometimes there isn't a market for what I specifically want to make.  I make what the broadcaster wants and I do my best to provide a high quality product.  And let's not forget that there will be taxpayer funding involved no matter which broadcaster we're talking about.  Even your employer.  You're not paying for my ride any more than I am yours. 

Look, CBC has made its financial statements open to the general public since always.  People have always been able to look at the balance sheet.  The accounting, including the annual audit, has always been done.  What's happening is that a bunch of right wing idealogues are spinning it and you're eating it up with a spoon.  You might try taking a critical look at the sources of information you're buying and ask yourself what their motivations are.  The argument against the CBC has little to do with reality and a whole lot to do with conservative free-market ideology.

As for fancy decks, most people in this industry are not rolling in dough.  A few make a lot of money, but most of us make an okay living.  Most of us do this because it's what we love.  It's definitely not for the riches.

Speaking of which, Timebandit, any idea how much of the CBC budget goes to SOCAN fees? 

Not begrudging those private contractors their fair share of royalties, of course, but it is a line item that didn't exist a few decades ago. and they do play a lot of tunes on CBC.

They seem to be focusing more on it, as a matter of fact.

(edit)

Never mind. Found a ballpark figure:

http://www.socan.ca/jsp/en/pub/music_creators/Spring10_SpeakOut.jsp

Kanada2America wrote:

You guys and gals may not like the crude measurement of ratings but if you are pretending that the CBC doesn't use that to measure its performance than the sky in your world is a radically different color than the rest of the tv world. Because in reality what that shows me is that a very small band of cultural elitists want me and the rest of Canada to pay for their specialized programming. Something you folks could do yourselves, ala the PBS model.

You do realize that PBS is partly funded by the US government, right?  And that they fundraise because they are not allowed to use advertising?

Audience numbers are one measure of performance used by both private and public broadcasters.  With private, there is also the metric of critical acclaim - TMN, actually, values critical acclaim more highly than numbers because, as a subscriber service, this allows them to serve a small niche (that niche might even be cultural elitists...) - Canadian content, whether programming fully fits CRTC license mandate...  It's much more complicated than you assume.

Let's put it this way Timebandit. My employer actually pays more into the film and tv development funds than it gets out. Your hysteria about your industry implies that the end of the world is coming because of a possible 5% cut to your funding source. If that's the case than you are depending way more on public sector funding on your projects then aren't you?

I've known some business owners too. But they sure didn't rely on the tv and film funds for their living, so your version of ROI is pretty distorted.

PBS? I'll that government funding model any day. What is it? About 300 plus stations and maybe $400 million in a country of 310 million people?

But for audience numbers why don't you propose this alternative way of measuring that? That way, the CBC won't need Don Cherry, Kevin O Leary or Rex Murphy to prop up ratings. Apparently your funder sees things differently than you. Why is the CBC trying so hard to look like CNN, Global and CTV nowadays?

I'm not worried about options and choices but you certainly are. Nobody ever worried if I got laid off, but you seem to be worried for CBC staff. Do they care if your company goes belly up?

Is this soulful stuff offered up to suggest that there is a chance of CBC maintaining its current programming and depth of news coverage with some miraculous mobilization by "publics that are ready to work together to support its growth?" Dean Del Mastro has not been seriously putting forward Steve's intentions to crush public broadcasting over the next few years, budget by budget?

There are now 30 pages of effing ideas from 900 people (and growing) on facebook that will be used to satisfy the many "publics" - as opposed to the nationalist appeal used at its founding in 1936 - and our national broadcaster will be saved? By thinking big?

Sorry, but this glee club inanity challenges mature, political reasoning.

The CBC is not in danger of being cut to the bone. Nobody knows what will happen on March 29th. Where is the $170 million figure coming from? An assumed 10% cut? This hysterical handwringing before any facts have even been ascertained to the exact dollar amount is some sort of pushback against what the facts speak to.

Hey, nice Facebook campaign but I doubt the Canadian public is going to buy this. The grassroots Canadian is not in the mood for this. If the CBC and its supporters are fighting for their over-inflated salaries and jobs this will only go so far. After that the real world takes over and the folks who only watch Hockey Night, and Mercer will make their judgement about this.

Why is the CBC special. The March 29 budget is going to be aimed at all government departments. From what I have seen, it's about time.

Kanada2America wrote:

Are we supposed to just let the CBC or for that matter, various other Crown corporations go on and on endlessly with no one looking at the balance sheets and accounting statements? I too am a taxpayer and I would like to know that instead of a huge grey wall of bureaucracy and indifference, I might see some logic and rational thought applied to what the CBC does.

You are going to have to wait for a very long time to see that.  Government-operated entities are largely immune to the influence of logic and rational thought. They are political organs and, therefore, they are influenced only by a battle of wills...and significantly so by whomever happens to hold the principal levers of political power at the moment (which, right now, is the Harper government). 

Why should this be surprising?

Sven wrote:

Unionist wrote:

I agree with Catchfire's suggestion, as long as the government appoints an independent third-party manager.

 

How can anyone who is appointed by the government ever be independent?  The appointment itself is political.  Would an "independent" appointment of a lead CBC bureaucrat by the Harper government be the solution?

1. Welcome back, bye! How ya gettin' on?

2. My bad, Sven. It was a silly joke - you know, the dispute at Attawapiskat about the "independent third-party manager" appointed by the Conservative govt? Oh well. Those who tell dumb jokes always run the risk that someone will take them seriously, and that they'll ruin the joke by having to explain it...

ETA: I think it was funnier back on Feb. 21 when I said it. Anyway, [url=http://rabble.ca/babble/media/reimagine-cbc#comment-1319018]Catchfire got it[/url]!

Quote: "Why is the CBC special. The March 29 budget is going to be aimed at all government departments. From what I have seen, it's about time."

I've been listening to Michael Enright for a couple of hours this morning, free of advertising, and learned that Barney Frank, the "first left-handed, gay, Jewish Congressman who came out of his own volition" is retiring after 31 years of battle with an increasingly whacko element in an America where you cannot learn about your Congressman, lestening to your radio on a Sunday morning.

Why can't you do that? Because the airwaves are not "free." They are controlled.And as Barney says, even the press is now on one side or the other...and massively on the side of a whacko element. That would not play here, because we have a moderating influence...until Steve is able to destroy it, anyway.

That means bugger all to folks like "Kanada2America", or Sven, the voice of Libertarianism south of the 49th, I realize, but they should at least understand that for some of us, freedom begins by removing the dead hand of commercialism.

As for the pathetic appeals from freedom loving "taxpayers", it is well understood that Canadians pay only a quarter as much, per capita, as the Brits pay for the BBC's news accuracy and marvelous drama...which PBS buys to entertain America on a Sunday evening.

No, the CBC was given birth with one objective, to prevent American takeover of our airways, and in looking south of the border these days, one can only conclude that that was a very wise decision. Now we just have to make sure that our comprador PM does not weaken the distinctions between a nation given over to paranoia and surveillance of the citizenry in the name of its founding effing fathers, and our own, more European understanding of government, freedom and citizenship.

+1, Gaian.

Uh no... it was just a statement from the press conference that they didn't know if he knew any of his victims. Fair question, considering he walked into their homes. 

If you're concerned about lack of context, CBC reported Karzai calling it "assassination" at the top of the story, and also included reports of "sport killings". If this incident was the result of a nervous breakdown, there are plenty of murders and abuses by NATO troops which were not.

In that, among other things, the CBC piece went quite a bit further than other mainstream media. 

And it was a bit more to the point than presstv focusing on the distinction between condolences and an apology for the people who were slaughtered.

So no, sorry. I still don't get the point of your tangent. How about you rewrite it the way you think they should have reported it and PM me a copy.

I don't see how it relates to CBC programming, and I don't want to divert this thread any more because of it.

editted to remove

I think the CBC should fulfill it's mandate by organizing itself as a subsidized, non-profit, portal to Canadian content, and news perspective, and leave commercial broadcasters to compete with whatever programing satisfies their viewing audiences, who already follow their own preferences within the digital marketplace.