Today, readers are responding to news that CBC executives and on-air personalities pitched the public broadcaster as a potent platform for advertisers at its annual Upfront sales presentation, seeking to arrest a drop in commercial revenues and gain more control over its fate during an election year in which its federal-government funding may become a campaign issue.
CBC/Radio-Canada president Catherine Tait began the presentation to Toronto-based ad buyers Wednesday morning by promising that the broadcaster is making “a renewed commitment to growing commercial revenue.Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press
At this time each Canadian pays $29 toward the CBC per year. Cuts have affected the products, to the point that new programming is dependent on advertising revenue. Funding cuts under Harper killed our voice to the world with the demise of Radio Canada International, which enjoyed a huge international listener base, and promoted Canada in a very cost effective way. Conservatives don't tend to like public service, preferring the capitalist way, and I get that. But the CBC provides service to the underfunded and marginalized areas of Canada. We all can't live in Toronto or Vancouver. The CBC is doing everything it can to fulfill its mandate, with minimal support.
This is disgusting - a federally subsidized government ‘news and entertainment’ agency looking to leverage its bloated heft to gain market share in ad revenues from private sector competitors. The Conservatives should cut its funding to zero and force it to compete on a level field or cut its funding in half and prohibit it from selling ads. The beast must be starved and sustain itself or expire.
CBC should have a funding clawback, where every dollar raised in the marketplace reduces a dollar of taxpayer funds provided.
I'm all for CBC raising their own funds through advertising as opposed to relying on funding originating from our taxes. With their social justice one-sided tilt on everything being broadcast on CBC Radio and the National, they don't reflect nor support all Canadian views and values anymore, only those of the progressive elites.
Earlier this week it was announced that Anna Maria Tremonti would move to a newly created Podcasting position. Who decided that CBC should enter this new medium? Who decided that every CBC show and its announcers has to have a presence on Facebook, Twitter and every other social media that comes into being? If CBC TV can only mimic CTV and Global, why bother with the big subsidy
The National Public Broadcaster subsidized by our money should attempt to reach Canadians on every platform possible so that anyone can access its programming anywhere. But, more important, its programming should be distinctive. That's where it's failing. In order to justify the funding it must be everywhere for all of us but not with offerings that mimic commercial fare.
I don't mind having some of my tax dollars go to support the CBC, but then when I watch a show or the news and have to sit through endless commercials, I resent this. There have to be many ways to make cuts to the CBC without having an adverse effect on programming. Do we always have to send a reporter and camera crew to a "foreign hot spot" to get a report or could we simply buy a feed from the BBC or some other private network. It is also probably time to carefully scrutinize the "off-air hierarchy" at the CBC, I have a feeling that the "trough" is very long!
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