I think they are looking for comments for both TV and radio. They make a few references to prime time 7 to 11pm which would be television. Also the original story in November sounded like they were looking for comments and ideas regarding TV and radio.

Interesting to read the comments after the story from the link,  Not always a lot of CBC fans, even  on CBC.ca.  Just wait til Post Media does a story on this!  Maybe they already have, they hate the CBC.

One source says each Canadian pays about $35 a year for the CBC.   If you watch Corrie every night, all year you definitely ARE getting your money's worth. And they throw in HNIC and Marketplace for free. But let's says it's $260 a year, or a dollar a day for every day you watch Corrie. You can't buy a double-double for that. 

Tony Burman relates a hilarious story in his weekly column in the Insight section of today's TorStar:   

Margaret Thatcher had little use for the BBC or the CBC and so Burman (then CBC) was surprised in 1984 to receive an "acceptance of a request" to interview her.   They had not requested an interview but showed up anyhow.    Just before it was to proceed they discovered that her handlers had screwed up and thought it was CTV that arrived.     

They went ahead anyhow even cutting to a commercial break.   Gotta give the CBC credit for thinking fast on their feet, eh?  

On the heels of this discussion comes this rather timely piece from Brian Lilley in the Toronto Sun:

Canadians are ditching CBC, so why do we keep funding it?

Among the points he makes:

"Did you know that across Canada, over a total of 27 stations coast to coast, the average audience for CBC’s supper hour newscast was 329,000 people? That’s not 329,000 people per market, that is across the country."

"Compare that to just one of CTV’s local supper hour newscasts, CFTO in Toronto, which averaged 1.4 million viewers per night in the first week of 2020. That doesn’t include other major markets like Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary or Ottawa where CTV outstrips CBC. It doesn’t include Global News, which is dominant in Western Canada and like CTV doesn’t take a $1.5 billion per year subsidy from the taxpayers."

RadioActive wrote:

On the heels of this discussion comes this rather timely piece from Brian Lilley in the Toronto Sun:

Canadians are ditching CBC, so why do we keep funding it?

Among the points he makes:

"Did you know that across Canada, over a total of 27 stations coast to coast, the average audience for CBC’s supper hour newscast was 329,000 people? That’s not 329,000 people per market, that is across the country."

"Compare that to just one of CTV’s local supper hour newscasts, CFTO in Toronto, which averaged 1.4 million viewers per night in the first week of 2020. That doesn’t include other major markets like Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary or Ottawa where CTV outstrips CBC. It doesn’t include Global News, which is dominant in Western Canada and like CTV doesn’t take a $1.5 billion per year subsidy from the taxpayers."

Lilly makes a few fair points but he also has some errors as well. Predictably Post Media does an anti CBC rant about every two weeks in their papers, and have for decades. Hey CBC is mostly tax payer funded  so  they are fair game, but all the articles usually cover the same ground.  In fairness, I never see or hear CBC do a report on Sun Media's declining circulation and readership, or their failed attempt at Sun News TV and then tie in the decline on them not relating to the average reader/viewer or put the blame on their "biased" political views. But then again that is not the CBC's job to do that. 

I should mention too, I like the National Post and  a regular reader.  Not a huge fan of the Sun, but they certainly have their moments of interest, and they have an excellent sports section. Politically I am centre right fiscally (don't like deficits), and mostly center left socially. I just have a problem with writers that are biased and never present the other side, because there is always the other side. Lilly overall is a  good writer and I do enjoy hearing and reading his thoughts.

1.4 million viewers for CFTO News is incorrect, that 1.4 million is for all CTV supper hour newscasts across the country. Toronto ratings are not separated in the Numeris Top 30.  Also CTV to their credit does individual newscasts, on over 20 stations, where CBC does 14 individual supper hour newscasts, the remaining 13 are simulcast. EG. CBC Toronto's 6pm news is also simulcast on 4 other "stations." like Sudbury and London.  Proving again, more local, better ratings!  iHeart Media US take note..

Since he talks about ratings, CBC had 3 shows in the top 30 first week of the year. In fact their New Years Eve show bested Dick Clark's Rockin Eve and was the third most popular show with 1.633 million viewers. Air Farce and Just for Laughs also in the top 30. Didn't count any hockey.  All of this for EnglishTV  ratings.

He is right about Radio Canada which has been on a bit of a hot streak, their New Years's Eve show Bye Bye 2019 had an astounding 4.3 million viewers, mostly in Quebec. In fact Radio Canada had 8 of the top 10 shows last rating with the private TVA network with two shows.  The French language RC has been bringing in more advertising dollars than CBC as mentioned.

CBC TV seems to be signalling they may go a little more mainstream, like their French network, so look for Post Media to complain if CBC TV ratings improve.  They will be competing too much with the private networks, and have this big advantage because of taxpayer dollars.  Yes, Bell Media, Rogers, and Corus, who incidentally have many, many more dollars to spend than CBC will be portrayed as the free enterprise underdogs. If the left leaning, biased, state broadcaster starts to sell out with popular programming and  take too much advertising out of the market will be the source of many more articles for Sun/Post Media.

Also worth noting that Bell, Rogers, Corus and Quebecor are not afraid to go to the public trough and take full advantage of any money, programs, incentives or tax breaks offered by provincial or federal governments for some of their cancon programming. Hey, not saying there is anything wrong with that at all...but just sayin' since this usually isn't mentioned.

Nice that Lilly did refer to radio which is popular across the country, and doesn't compete directly with private radio stations and doesn't go after any advertising dollars. He didn't mention CBC.ca which is the number one news media site in the country and frankly blows the National Posts site out of the water in terms of traffic. CBC.ca however does go after advertising dollars. 

How CBC Gem is doing and CBC Music, I have no idea. Haven't caught the streaming bug too much yet.

Last edited by paterson1 (January 19, 2020 12:56 pm)

The CRTC has extended the deadline for comments on the future of the CBC, now closing on Feb. 20. As it tries to decide on what the future of the Corporation should look like, the Commission went to great lengths, approving a hundreds page-long study on how other countries govern their public broadcasters.
 
It covers how those nations treat everything from programming choices to closed captioning, ethnic coverage, radio, TV, online and more. You can see this very long and very detailed study here if you’re game, but there are two things I took away from it.
 
One – the CRTC chose to study state broadcasters in Britain, France, Sweden, Australia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands and Spain – but pointedly not NPR or PBS in the U.S. I realize National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System are different creatures because they're technically not “state entities,” but they do get government funding and I would have liked to see them included.
 
The other thing that stood out to me was ARD/ZDF, the CBC equivalent in Germany. Many in Canada accuse our state-funded broadcaster of being biased towards the Liberal party and leaning heavily to the left, primarily because it relies on government funding to survive. Regardless of whether you buy that, the study notes one interesting feature of the German experience that could potentially wipe away those accusations once and for all if it were implemented here.

“Following the Nazi rule, after the second world war, the oversight was set up to be as independent as possible from the state to make sure the PSM (Public State Media) were free from political interference. According to rulings of the German Constitutional Court, the independence of PSM requires that there must be no government institution involved in the control of PSM.”

Imagine – a CBC with “no government institution involved.” Does anyone here think that will be a part of any "new CBC?"

Let's remember that the other big media companies receive plenty of help from the government.
Would any other broadcast network survive without the sim sub?  Would Much Music have made it without the CRTC making Canada one of the only countries in the western hemisphere not to receive MTV? Would TSN have thrived if ESPN had been available here?