Smart to burn bridges with a big funding partner when there's a non-negligible chance a federal government hostile to the CBC might be elected into power.

I think it's very advantageous to be able to run a business with no real regard to the profitability or popularity of the material being produced. 

True. Much of CBC programming is not as popular as what is offered by CTV and Global. However, CTV and Global do not have access to the Billion dollars of taxpayer funds that the Mother Corp has. Yes, I realize some of that money is  for the radio and French divisions, but the television side still comes away with a sizeable wad of cash. The private networks rely on ad dollars and will run programs [mostly American] to get the most viewers. Obviously, most, but not all, Canadians prefer American imports to what the CBC offers. I have always felt the CBC has a rather arrogant and condescending attitude. It would not surprise me at all if the CBC complained to the CRTC that CTV and Global were not running enough Canadian programming in primetime.

Some good points mace, can't say I disagree with a few of them,.

One thing that was pointed out to me a few years back however is that the $1.2 billion that CBC/Radio Canada receives from the taxpayer is not extravagant at all.  BBC in the UK receives over $6 billion yearly in Canadian dollars from the taxpayers, and ABC Australia just under $1.1 billion Canadian .In fairness both BBC and ABC Australia are commercial free. They both however do have a few of their specialty channels that do have commercials.

If you include advertising, program sales (CBC does sell some of their programs internationally), and cable fees from their 4 specialty channels, CBC/RC has about $1.6-1.7 billion per year to work with.  BBC, if you include these items has a working budget of over $8 billion per year.

For CBC this appears to be a huge budget, however it is not when compared to what Bell Media, Rogers and Corus have at their disposal every year. And granted the private companies are not dipping into the taxpayers pocket directly as does the CBC. However they do dip into various government sponsored program funds for Canadian programming, or tax breaks which are funded by you and me, the taxpayer.

Bell Media has 35 specialty channels, Corus 30, and Rogers 10. All of these channels charge the consumer fees every month depending on what package you have purchased. However some of these channels are a forced buy since they are bundled with some channels that often are not wanted.  Also most cases, Bell, Rogers and Corus (Shaw) own the cable or satellite company that is providing these channels to the consumer. So they receive the fee for the cable purchase and more money for the purchase of the specialty channels, every month.  Monthly charges can be very high, depending on the bundle purchased. I am ashamed to tell you what my Bell Fibe package is costing me every month.

CBC is no longer competitive bidding for major league sports. They could not match the $5,2 billion deal that Rogers signed with the NHL. TSN even outbid CBC for CFL rights. The one thing that CBC still does have is the Olympics until 2024, and they were smart to partner with TSN, Sportsnet and TVA sports. And they do also have the World Cup of soccer.

On line, I was reading a little about ABC Australia which seems to be a popular modern service. However they too have been accused many times by critics of being a mouthpiece for the government with a left leaning bias similar to CBC. BBC seems to be in a category all of it's own.

CBC arrogance?  At times, especially in some news reports and some of their "high brow" programming. BBC seems to have a better balance of snob appeal and lowbrow or very mainstream programming. The Brits aren't afraid to be occasionally politically incorrect and some of BBC programming both on radio and TV reflect this. Mind you if CBC went too mainstream, I am sure the howling and complaining would never end!

Last edited by paterson1 (October 11, 2019 5:19 pm)

|Most of the funding is the license fee, according the the wiki link that you sent. About 75% of BBC funding is from the license fee for owning a television set which also includes businesses, hospitals etc. Total revenue for BBC 2017-18 was 5.06 billion british pounds, which I am assuming is including commercial sales and cable fees. The total would be about $8.5 billion Canadian  for their total budget.

Looks like the total revenue for CBC including commercial sales and cable fees is likely around $1.6 to $1.7 billion since they lost the hockey revenue.