Should the CBC stop being funded by the gov't?

Aetheric

Nominee Member
Jul 9, 2020
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yes, defund and allow them to function as they exist with commercial revenues/fund-drives, or adapt, or fail

same as ctv, global, newspapers, radio and anyone else who fed at the federal $600 million trough
we are without any honest, untainted main-stream media in canada, everything is the same foundational message/script

same as in the usa:
 

pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
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Why would we have investigative journalists if the masters will quash any story that harms the bottom line .All the pretty faces and silky speakers and wormy writers all jump to the same tune like a puppet being controlled by a marionette . In our case the marionette is the Liberal Party. There is no longer any in depth reporting on any issue detrimental to left wing causes . Sickening .
 

Jinentonix

Hall of Fame Member
Sep 6, 2015
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Wow, who's doing the fact checking here? I'd really like to see what was said by petros and BOOMer. 'Disputed' doesn't mean 'wrong', it means there's disagreement. And what "official sources" exactly are we talking about, the govt?
 

bob the dog

Council Member
Aug 14, 2020
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The self serving CBC bureaucracy and pay scale like all government departments is what does them in. I don't mind CBC radio but as far as original programing for tv for the most part is beyond their mandate imo. Can't see them surviving as a private company unless it is beautifully setup like NavCanada with no debt and so forth.

They could try going public and get pounded into reform but that has not been the historical Liberal way
 

Mowich

Hall of Fame Member
Dec 25, 2005
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Eagle Creek
I'm of the opinion that CBC needs to have a different funding model than it currently has.

Anyone else agree or have ideas how?

I do think it's important to have CANCON but I think legal broadcasting laws would take care of that.

Thoughts?
They need to be removed from the public tit and left to raise funding on their own.
 

Mowich

Hall of Fame Member
Dec 25, 2005
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Eagle Creek

CBC Watch: Mothercorp pushes for even less oversight when virtually no one is watching

Who’s watching the CBC? Not too many Canadians, going by ratings. But someone has to keep an eye on what antics our publicly funded broadcaster gets up to. That’s why the National Post is reviving CBC Watch, an occasional feature, and long-time reader favourite.

These are turbulent times. Unrest plagues our southern neighbour, an actual plague locks us in our homes, economic uncertainty causes stress and real hardship for many Canadians. But right under our noses roils an intense power struggle most of us aren’t even aware of. Yes, the CBC is asking to have its licence renewed.

Believe it or not, every few years — when they’re not in the U.S. — CBC brass must go cap in hand to the CRTC, seek approval of their plans and, hopefully, secure a long reprieve from another such meeting. Licence renewal, the last one was 2012, is about the only time we get a say in CBC operations.
This time, Mothercorp’s CEO Catherine Tait has requested the regulator require — wait for it —less oversight of their expenditures, specifically regarding the CBC’s beefed-up digital offerings, where the CBC needs greater “flexibility,” according to Tait. “She is asking the CRTC to renew its licences for five years with slimmed-down regulatory scrutiny of its digital content compared to its radio and television programs,”the CBC itself reportedon January 11. That sounds fair.

Clearly it’s unreasonable for us taxpayers, if CBC’s spending $1.2 billion per year of our money, to demand more accountability and transparency. Such amounts are, after all, known in Ottawa as “rounding errors”. But let’s stand on principle and have a look.

Unfortunately, it’s not exactly easy for the average taxpayer, despite the immense horsepower of the internet, to investigate the financial workings of the CBC, determine ratings statistics, etc., simply by Googling. The broadcaster produces typically turgid annual reports, a mixture of corporate boilerplate and boosterism rendered in splashy, obviously costly graphics. Independent audits merely check whether the financial reporting is up to snuff, and don’t evaluate mandate fulfillment or performance.

Juicier data is found buried in CRTC reports and the apparently minimal media investigations revealed by searches on the subject. CRTC provides viewership/listener statistics and some revenue numbers. Knowing most CBC revenue comes from us, it’s possible to do rough value for money calculations.
For example, both CBC’s AM radio stations and Radio Two had a “tuning share” of about three per cent in 2019, although the news/talk radio component sneaks into the mid-teens.TV viewership was about one-sixth that of the private networks.Not exactly stellar. Could the poor ratings be behind the CBC also asking to be permitted to broadcast less Canadian content?

But, for the sake of argument, if this annoyed you, how could you complain? Well, around licence renewal time the CRTC invites submissions of opinion about the CBC. At time of writing they had received 10,526 such comments, even some from average Canadians. Much is from the public sector however — tax-funded activists, arts groups, museums, libraries and galleries, towns (La Tuque and Coaticook!). Clearly these folks have plenty of time on an average day to write nice letters about the CBC… So they’re using your money to influence how CBC will use more of your money.

Despite the public indifference reflected in the ratings, the small, pro-CBC minority is vociferous. When they’re not distributing annoying lawn signs (“We vote CBC!”) in your neighbourhood, the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting are rallying support for Mothercorp. And let’s be clear, when they say “Canadian Broadcasting” they don’t mean local radio sports talk or 100 Huntley Street. The first of the Friends’ stated values is “Public broadcasting is sacred. CBC leads us forward, brings us together and makes us stronger”. They might have paraphrased Churchill: “Never have so many spent so much for so few”.

The “Friends” maintain it’s only $34 a year per Canadian — why don’t we spend more? By contrast, the Brits cough up $105 per capita (2016) for the venerable “Beeb”. Yes, but they’re having an actual debate about it, both on the value proposition and ideological bias.

An organization, Defund the BBC, is actively campaigning for just that. A survey released this month by YouGov found that 48 per cent of Britons believe the BBC does not represent their values. Similarly, the Campaign for Common Sense surveyed the attitudes of comics appearing on BBC last November using criteria like politics, Brexit and “woke”. They found that, of the 141 comedians, 70 per cent were obviously left-oriented with 74 per cent of the broadcast slots given to leftists. Only four of the slots were given to the two comedians found to be explicitly conservative,pro-Brexit or anti-“woke”.

Long-simmering concerns about the BBC emerged over Brexit. While news coverage was equivocal, there was massive backlash over clear Remainer-bias in editorial comment and analysis. Further, journalist Robin Aitken wrote a rhetorically titled book, “Can the BBC be Trusted?” about his long-time employer, while feisty Labourite and one-time BBC editor Rod Liddle regularly trashes the network.

Meanwhile in the quiet Dominion, we pretty much sit back and take it. Two defund-the-CBC petitions languish on-line and heaven forbid that an insider writes a tell-all memoir about CBC’s fatal flaws and biases.

Instead, CBC’s message seems to be, on several levels, “move along, nothing to see here”. Executives justify their desire for less scrutiny as somehow allowing them to better satisfy their audience. In a moment of rhetorical flourish Ms. Tait appeared to conflate the Flintstones and Greta Thunberg, saying, “If we do not move with our audiences, we risk becoming dinosaurs on a melting ice cap.” This is clearly not the first time “dinosaur” and “CBC” has been used in the same sentence, but likely is a first for the corporation’s CEO.

Fortunately, CRTC Chairman Ian Scott and even the “Friends” seem to favour greater transparency. During the ongoing hearings Scott stated “what gets measured gets done” and we heartily agree. Iced Capps aside, if the Big Red Dinosaur is to survive, it needs to be scrutinized regularly, from tail to snout.

 

Danbones

Hall of Fame Member
Sep 23, 2015
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I think the whole Jian Ghomeshi issue shows that the CBC only protects the CBC.
Ghomeshi's trial began on February 1, 2016, and lasted eight days.[7][9] On March 24, 2016, the judge acquitted Ghomeshi of all charges on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt.[90] The inconsistency and "outright deception" of the witnesses' testimony had irreparably weakened the prosecution's case.[90] Judge William Horkins accused the complainants of "lying or trying to conceal evidence from the court".[91] Lawyer Marie Heinen was able to access thousands of messages between Ghomeshi's accusers and presented them during the trial.[92]

A second trial for one additional charge was scheduled for June 2016. On May 11, 2016, however, the Crown withdrew the last remaining charge,

Gee, "outright deception of the witnesses' testimony" could also be applied to your statement too, I guess the courts found him not guilty...so wtf is your point?
;)
Oh wait, he is of Iranian decent and we all know who hates Iranians.
 

bob the dog

Council Member
Aug 14, 2020
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Curious about Catherine Tait's remuneration package. There will lie the detachment from average people and the reason the CBC has become redundant. Serving the political agenda of the day makes it all that much more inessential. Stories of living high on the hog of the public dime give good basis for dismantling the entire thing. Imagine the huge savings that would very quickly not be missed. The problem is the bureaucracy needs the jobs in order to get the pensions.
 

taxslave

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 25, 2008
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Growing up where CBC TV was about the only thing we got has left a bitter taste.
Two things about CBC: You know you are really out in the bush when CBC is the only thing you get.
You know you have been there too long when you start to like it.
CBC was invented and still has the mandate to take Toronto's message to the rest of the country. It won't be missed.
 
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Mowich

Hall of Fame Member
Dec 25, 2005
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We didn't get a TV until I was 12 years of age so radio was all we had and that was the CBC. Back in the dark ages when I was young, CBC was a decent informational radio station. My favorite program was This Country in the Morning and I thought Peter just rocked. Peter introduced me and my siblings to areas and peoples of Canada all across our country and thereby informed our perceptions of many folks and places we would never otherwise have known about. Later, I also listened to As It Happens, Ideas and other programs that presented a balanced view of stories, politics and people. Those were the days, IMO, when the CBC offered content worth listening to but those days are long gone. The drivel that passes for content on both radio and TV as presented by the cbc these days is biased in the extreme representing a small fraction of Canada's population and designed to drive home an ideology that is shared by an infinitesimally small number of people.
 

Danbones

Hall of Fame Member
Sep 23, 2015
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Amen to that Mo.
:)
I still have the radio My dad listened to the CBC on ( HOCKEY WAS KING, AND NOT A WORD WAS SPOKEN DURING PLAY ) during the depression out in the bush up until he signed up for ww2.