Get the CBC out of the free market
Terence Corcoran | September 19, 2014
On Tuesday night, millions of Canadians gathered round their televisions and other devices tuned in to CBC Television’s flagship news report,
The National. In a rare moment of national unity, viewers took in the public broadcaster’s latest contribution to creating a “shared national consciousness and identity” by providing a “distinctively Canadian” interview with Barbra Streisand.
As they say down in the States: This is CNN.
How a fawning show-biz interview with Ms. Streisand, an American global mega-star who is merely flogging her latest CD, came to be promoted as a “Canadian exclusive” on
The National must boggle the minds of many Canadian nationalists. The interview was conducted by Jian Gomeshi, CBC Radio’s star celebrity interviewer, with his usual skill. But even the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, which floods the country with alarming junk mail on how the Harper Tories are out to kill the CBC, must wonder who’s doing the most to assassinate their cherished institution.
On the other hand, the CBC thrives on the contradictions embedded in its corporate mandate, which is to make its services available “throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose.” Over the years, the government broadcaster has been able to parlay its public and private funding regimes into a hybrid dual-engine machine fuelled by billions in direct subsidy from federal taxpayers and billions more in advertising dollars out of the private broadcasting industry.
So skilled is the CBC at this great game that its absurd grand pronouncements about broadcast policy go unchallenged. CBC President Hubert Lacroix, appearing before the CRTC’s
Let’s Talk TV hearings last week, declared that “in our view” the new Canadian policy for broadcasting “must support” what he called “market-based solutions to issues rather than regulatory intervention.”
With $1.2-billion in direct government subsidies (2013) and $330-million in declining advertising revenue, the CBC is as far from being a “market-based” enterprise as an enterprise can get. As the corporation’s annual report makes clear, the CBC’s self-described “business model” is “not profit oriented and all sources of funds are used to fulfill its public broadcasting mandate.”
But the great non-profit shell game is coming to an end. Even CBC executives concede there’s trouble ahead. In TV and radio, the old CBC is struggling to recalibrate its strategy. “Conventional television still remains at the heart of the broadcasting system, but its business model is dying,” said Mr. Lacroix at the
Let’s Talk TV hearings, which end this week in Ottawa.
The great flux in the broadcasting industry does not mean, however, that the CBC is about to abandon its core business strategy, which is capitalizing on its inherent contradictions and shifting its arguments as the world turns around it. Not too long ago, CBC said its Radio 2 network’s business model (free cash from taxpayers) was busted, so it decided to begin accepting commercials. As a result, Radio 2, once defended by CBC as an ideologically pure commercial-free disseminator of essential Canadian music and other public affairs, now rakes in revenue from a host of advertisers.
Local CBC television stations, meanwhile, cannot attract enough advertisers. One solution, said Mr. Lacroix, is to force television subscribers to pay for CBC content directly on their cable and satellite bills. The business model is broken, advertisers won’t support content, government subsidies are shrinking, so let’s ding consumers directly with a no-choice option. Never mind “pick and pay” TV. The CBC wants “we pick, you pay” TV.
The CBC is a giant non-profit that plays at being a business, taking viewers/listeners and advertising dollars away from private broadcasters. Beyond its television operation and its new FM radio commercial venture, the corporation is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on assorted new Internet services, sucking in subscribers and ad dollars in competition with newspapers, broadcasters and other media. It offers free online music services, supported by advertising, that distribute mostly U.S. pop, rock and jazz. Do we need a national public-interest broadcaster that devotes parts of its Web site to rock, soul and Ray Charles?
Where does subsidized U.S. popular music — one of the world’s most successful entertainment industries — fit within the CBC’s vaunted tell-Canadians-stories-about-themselves mandate? The only reason the CBC is expanding into the Internet space is because they have free government money.
It is surely time to demolish the lumbering CBC corporate machine. Created almost a century ago, before television even existed and when there were few broadcast choices available due to technological limits, the CBC today operates in a world that has ceased to provide a reason for its existence. Its current hybrid public-private enterprise model is at best an anachronism.
What should be done? Some say the CBC should be fully commercialized and its subsidy eliminated. Others promote direct payment for CBC services by viewers and listeners. There is some support for privatization.
But none of the above will solve the problems. Above all, Canadians seem to want a
public broadcaster, especially Canadians who like their public affairs and news served up from the liberal left. That being the case, the prime objective should be to remove the CBC from the commercial space it has invaded over the years. It should stop competing for viewers and advertising dollars.
In other words, re-nationalize the CBC as a totally publicly funded non-commercial government service. Let the left have its dedicated media outlet. TV content, including
The National, would be carried free by cable and satellite companies. Forcing individual consumers to pay for content they do not want is unfair and deprives them of their economic freedom.
If the CBC is to exist as a national public broadcaster, it should be funded by all taxpayers out of general revenues. If necessary, charitable status could be established for Canadians who might want to support a national institution.
None of this will sit well with libertarians and conservatives, but it is the best option. As the broadcaster’s Web site notes, the CBC was created in the 1920s “when the need arose for a Canadian presence on the radio — to counter the American influence and protect Canadian culture.” If that need is seen to exist as a public policy, let the CBC pursue it as a fully funded government agency.
Barbra is a great music star, Jian is the best music-star interviewer in North America. But it’s not really public broadcasting. Even CNN would not have turned a Streisand interview into a national news event.
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