1 of 1- RadioActive
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CBC's Odd Privacy Request Under Scrutiny At CRTC Hearing
As the licence renewal hearings for the CBC continue, the Corp. is coming under intense scrutiny - and criticism - for its request to the CRTC to keep financial details of its digital arm away from the prying eyes of the public - and the government.
Intervenors - including the CAB and the normally friendly Friends of Canadian Broadcasting - are demanding that the CBC stop trying to become a de facto commercial entity and remember they're funded by taxpayers as a public service. But CBC brass insists unless they're allowed to go boldly into the future, they will end up irrelevant.
How that means they should be allowed to hide their expenses from the public which pays the freight seems to be totally lost on them. Anyone want to bet that the CRTC will give them a free pass on everything?
Private broadcasters' group argues CBC is disrupting the market by selling ads
- Prod Guy
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Re: CBC's Odd Privacy Request Under Scrutiny At CRTC Hearing
I think the CBC gets unfairly criticized by most private broadcasters and the National Post, but this is ridiculous. When you're using tax dollars you are obligated to tell us how you're spending our money and how what you're doing could impact the rest of the industries you're competing in. They're dreaming if they think the CRTC will let them do otherwise.
- RadioActive
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Re: CBC's Odd Privacy Request Under Scrutiny At CRTC Hearing
As soon as a government supported entity says 'we don't want to talk about our finances,' everyone instantly thinks of one question: what are you trying to hide? The CBC is inviting this query by asking to keep this secret. You have to wonder why.
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Thread Starter- Prod Guy
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Re: CBC's Odd Privacy Request Under Scrutiny At CRTC Hearing
I have heard why. I don't know this for a fact but I have been told that they're aggressively getting into digital and competing in markets where they'll kill small startups. They're known for stealing stories and doing almost no new reporting before posting them on cbc.ca. Also, people inside the CBC will tell you that management wants to focus the TV news budgets on national news and local Toronto news and not "the regions" as they call them.
Almost no one wants a CBC centralizing resources in the biggest, most well served market in the country where they get killed by nearly every other newscast, while gutting regional newscasts in favour of online news that will hurt the small outlets already doing a good job at it. It's no wonder they don't want public scrutiny.
- paterson1
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Re: CBC's Odd Privacy Request Under Scrutiny At CRTC Hearing
I will take a stab and play devil's advocate. The CBC is talking about flexibility in a couple of areas. On line (cbc.ca), digital platforms like CBC Gem and the CBC Listen app. These areas they will argue aren't really covered under their current mandate or not clear. And they may even maintain that they are close to being self sufficient or the goal is to make them so without the use of taxpayer dollars.
CBC News Network is self sufficient and derives it's income from cable fees and advertising. Now you can argue that they have access to CBC facilities, various staff and programming. True but they are also contributing and sharing the cost and CBC/Radio Canada is not sending money to the news channel to actually run the news network. They likely have a similar arrangement for cbc.ca which has been a success and plan to do the same with CBC Gem and the CBC Listen App. So the argument gets a little muddy.
Because of their mandate CBC was not allowed to seriously take part in the big expansion of cable specialty channels or pay decades ago. They have been limited to two news channels and two arts channels. Four cable channels in total as compared to 33 for Bell Media, 34 for Corus and 8 for Rogers.
The new advertising and paid partner division, I don't know much about. Is there an equivalent in private broadcasting, if so what has been done and how successful has it been. I know newspapers have something like this but I am not aware anything similar from a broadcaster or at least not the way CBC seems to be thinking.
On one hand you have the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and the CAB who are complaining about CBC being overly market driven. That is debatable since CBC TV ratings are in the tank and radio doesn't compete for any advertising with their radio operation. And even format wise there isn't really a equivalent private version of Radio 1. And the "Friends" for years have been advocating for no advertising or sports for CBC TV and want to see more focus on the arts and a big increase in taxpayer funding.
I think CBC knows that they likely are not going to be receiving any increases from the federal government, in fact it could very well go the other way. So they are looking to find new streams of revenue which they likely don't feel should be under the same limitations and government scrutiny as the other areas which do depend on taxpayer revenue.
CBC TV and radio have much higher cancon quotas than private broadcasters and television has education and children's programming and regional commitments that private broadcasters don't. And they do this in two languages across the country in all of their traditional media. This is as it should be since they are a public broadcaster funded mostly by taxpayers.
Are they asking for too much or wrong to ask for less scrutiny and more freedom with new media that could be self sufficient with no or little taxpayer funding? Maybe, but if you don't ask, you will never get.