XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, ont.politics   
   XPost: sk.politics   
   From: "@nyet.ca   
      
   THE CANADIAN PRESS - Thursday, June 26, 2014   
      
      
   A fresh case for renewing the CBC: Analysis   
      
   Private media’s own struggles portend to need for public network,   
   supporters argue   
      
      
   The threat of new cuts to programming at the Canadian Broadcasting   
   Corporation have kick-started an old debate.   
      
   Questions of CBC’s worth to Canadians lurch to life each time a new   
   indignity is suffered by our incredible shrinking national broadcaster.   
   Early in April, the CBC announced $130 million in budget cuts and axed   
   657 full-time jobs — a move towards what president Hubert Lacroix called   
   â€œa smaller, more nimble and more open public broadcaster.â€�   
      
   Further handwringing was prompted by watchdog Friends of Canadian   
   Broadcasting’s May 22 report that service cuts are on the way when the   
   CBC board of directors meet Tuesday and Wednesday.   
      
   In an age of seemingly limitless information and video — or “content,â€�   
   in the parlance of the digital era — critics of the CBC charge we no   
   longer need a taxpayer-funded source. Yet others believe the opposite,   
   that as the business model of traditional media crumbles, a publicly   
   funded news source is more crucial to democracy than ever.   
      
   CBC has denied more big cuts — including rumours the FM network, Radio,   
   will become online only — are in store on Tuesday.   
      
   As it happens, the various sides in the debate have more in common than   
   they think.   
      
   Conventional TV is in trouble. According to the Canadian   
   Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, private Canadian   
   broadcast TV lost just over $69 million before taxes in 2013 — more than   
   twice as much as the loss in the year before — thanks to a sharp   
   drop-off in ad revenue. The decline is leading traditional networks to   
   spend less on programming, especially Canadian-produced content, the   
   CRTC reported.   
      
   That’s an argument for the protection of the CBC, at least as a source   
   of current affairs and analysis, says Jeffrey Dvorkin, director of the   
   journalism program at the University of Toronto at Scarborough.  As   
   print media struggles and broadcast TV loses viewers as people get   
   headlines online, the need grows for a broadcast and digital institution   
   committed to providing deep coverage of the issues affecting Canadians   
   that is sheltered from the shifts of the market.   
      
   Once a managing editor and chief journalist for CBC Radio, Dvorkin is   
   now part of a group called Public Broadcasting in Canada for the 21st   
   Century (PBC21), which has been working to develop a revamped funding   
   and operating model to rejuvenate the network.   
      
   Meanwhile, news and current affairs is where the increasingly threadbare   
   CBC can still compete, according to media researcher and PBC21 member   
   Barry Kiefl. The head of Canadian Media Research Inc.  submitted a   
   report to the Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications   
   in March arguing that the CBC is in “crisis.â€�   
      
   The broadcaster still spends a large sum on news, current affairs and   
   long-form documentary, however — more than $200 million, or $5.71 per   
   Canadian in 2012, according to CRTC numbers.   
      
   â€œI would certainly sign up for the view that the CBC is more essential   
   than ever given the current environment,â€� says one supporter and former   
   CBC manager, creative consultant Ian Alexander. He was chief of staff   
   for CBC English Services, a Radio 2 host and deputy head of CBC Radio Music.   
      
   â€œWe’re probably at the point where conventional private broadcasters are   
   hurting.  Media companies are making money on their distribution and   
   mobile product, not on radio and television. It makes good sense to   
   expect less of them and more of the CBC.â€�   
      
   Except that the CBC is making do with less. Its annual budget is just   
   over $1.5 billion, about $1 billion of which is taxpayer-funded —   
   roughly $29 per capita, per year, according to the network.   
   That’s about one-quarter the price of a Canadian Netflix subscription.   
     A 2011 Nordicity study prepared for the CBC that examined the public   
   broadcasters of 18 major Western democracies found Canada’s has the   
   third-lowest level of funding.    Since that study was done, budgets   
   have been slashed even further.   
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   The problem, say many analysts, is that CBC-TV is a public-private   
   mutant hybrid that is dependent on courting advertisers.  If Canada   
   funded public television as other Western democracies do, it would have   
   a source of information, investigation, analysis, and even long-form   
   documentary walled off from the uncertainties of the private media   
   business model. The British Broadcasting Corporation, like many public   
   broadcasters, is supported not by ads but by a relatively stable   
   licensing fee.   
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   A commercial-free CBC television (like CBC Radio) might be able to   
   produce and show programs closer to the spirit of its mandate, stated in   
   the 1991 Broadcasting Act, to reflect Canada to Canadians and contribute   
   to the shared national consciousness.  That’s not from a former CBC   
   staffer, but from Heather Conway, the CBC’s executive vice-president of   
   English-language services.   
      
   â€œIf you are asking if the revenue we currently earn from commercials was   
   to be replaced on a sustainable basis, then I think yes, we probably   
   would do some programming in prime time that was less driven by the need   
   to pay for it,â€� Conway said in an interview with the Star.   
      
   On the other side of the debate stands a chorus of critics calling to   
   privatize the Mother Corp.  CBC Exposed, an online campaign against the   
   â€œarrogant, wastefulâ€� broadcaster, argues its English and French services   
   should be split off and sold.  Both National Post columnist Andrew Coyne   
   and Canadian Business editor-in-chief James Cowan wrote op-eds last   
   month saying public broadcasting has no place in the digital era.   
      
   The conservative think tank the Fraser Institute has called more than   
   once to cut CBC funding or sell it completely.   
   â€œWhy are we asking the CBC to do things that private companies are doing   
   in the same way?â€� asks Fraser Institute economist Jason Clemens. He   
   doesn’t think that the shaky state of the news industry is a threat to   
   Canadians’ access to reporting and information. “I don’t know another   
   time in history when we’ve had access to this much information,â€� he says.   
      
   Clemens points out that much of what’s shown on CBC TV, from reality TV   
   to Wheel of Fortune, is far from the idealistic view of its mandate.   
   Many of the CBC’s most ardent supporters would agree with that diagnosis.   
      
   They would disagree on the cure, however.   CBC TV’s decline in quality   
      
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