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January 28, 2020 6:13 pm  #1


Do Canadians Really Hate The CBC? Canuck Comments Are Eye-Opening

“You hate me! You really, really hate me!”
 
I’m paraphrasing Sally Field at the Oscars so many decades ago, but that’s the conclusion I’ve come to after reviewing many of the comments sent to the CRTC about the looming CBC licence renewal. The Commission invited citizens to send in their thoughts about Canada’s national broadcaster and posted the comments online.
 
There are almost 4,000 of them to date, and no one in their right mind (and I’ve never been accused of that!) would go through every one of them. But I did review at least 100 of the messages in whatever order they’re displayed on the webpage. And the results are overwhelming – a lot of Canadians really, really, really hate the CBC.
 
Here are a few of the ones I read. It won’t surprise many that most of the worst comments come from people in Alberta. But you might think there would be more supporters writing in. Apparently, they aren’t.

And by the way, I don’t believe for a moment that the preponderance of negative comments about defunding the CBC will have any effect on the amount of money they’ll be getting next time from the government. But it must have been nice to get that off their chests.
 
Here are random samples of what Canadians are writing in as Interventions. These are not my opinions, and I promise you I haven’t weighted them one way or the other, just as they came up, with some edited for length. Spelling is as is. (And I saved the best for last.)
 
You can check out the Interventions comments for yourself here.   
 
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“Overall I think CBC radio does a good job especially with their coverage of politics and climate change. However, I believe much of the programming does not appeal to the average Canadian. In the CBC's 3 year plan, it invites comment on the programming diversity. I believe some of these groups are overrepresented in programming especially compared to their actual representation in the Canadian populace.”
Alexander Gillis. Antigonish, Nova Scotia

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“CBC radio's programming has shifted over time such that minority/indigenous issues take up a disproportionate amount of airtime. These issues are very important to Canada but I don't believe that the current mix on CBC make sense.”
Matthew Cote, Montreal

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“There has been a sharp decline in the objectiveness of news reporting of the CBC in the past two years, particularly on the National. There are two notable issues here:

1) Many of the news pieces are no longer reporting facts, but rather personal anecdotes. There has become a significant focus on how people feel about certain topics rather than reporting high-quality facts and information.

2) Political biases of CBC presenters appears to have increased dramatically over the same time frame. It is important for journalists to remain politically neutral.”
Corey Moullas, Brossard, Quebec

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“In the internet age, the notion that we still spend this much on a public broadcaster is mind boggling. In addition, CBC programming is terrible in terms of content offered.”
Alexander Wilkes, Maple, Ont.

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“I would defund the CBC entirely. Nobody watches looking at the ratings and I do not trust your news. It's been false and one sided too often for a tax payer funded outlet.”
Jessie Howard, Whitby, Ont.

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“The sad part is, CBC staff appear to be completely oblivious to their obvious bias, and they probably sincerely believe they are engaged in un-biased journalism. My poor wife loves CBC, but always worries that I might toss a shoe through the television when she watches CBC. That's not fair to her, or to any Canadian taxpayer. Thus far, I have not thrown any shoes through the television, but no promises on the future.”
Ken Wiebe, Victoria

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“I listen to CBC Radio Toronto / National often. The news, documentaries, interviews, talk shows have a strong Liberal Government / liberal agenda bias. It is to the point of propaganda - over-emphasis and social engineering, singling out groups such as indiginous people; muslims; environmentalists; LGBTQ; women; and constantly chastizing - anti-catholic; anti-working people; anti-Trump; anti-conservative. A Canadain is a Canadian.
It's obvious too that CBC has way too much money to play with.”
Mike McKeon, Toronto

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“Report the facts and let people make up their mind. The CBC is leading people and injecting opinion in journalism. It’s a sad state.”
Bob MacDonald, Halifax

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“I do not support the funding of CBC at all and can think of a million things that we can spend hard earned tax dollars on.”
Angela Kurysh, Calgary

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“The CBC is incredibly biased to the point of becoming a political farce.”
Marcus Bender, Montreal

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“i enjoy the cbc a great deal. It is my primary source for news and I trust and count on the cbc to provide unbiased news. Also great comedies and documentaries. I have no problem with my tax dollars going to support the cbc.”
Tony Kirwan, Ottawa

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“The CBC has become lazy and complacent because they know their government funding will be renewed every year regardless of the quality of their content. Surely our tax dollars can be put to better use than subsidizing bad TV. Defund the cbc.”
Paul Spoering, Calgary

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“CBC unfairly competes with other networks and is not independent from the state.  Sadly, They spread more propaganda than fact.”
Matt Noble, Comox, B.C.

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“State media should be left for dictatorships and not supposedly democratic societies.”
Jesse DaCosta, Beaumont, Alberta

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“The CBC has become a very Liberal medial outlet, if it was privatly funded that would be fine but since it is publicly funded this is very wrong and should not be aloud to continue.”
Dale Emery, Edmonton

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“Death to all the CBC now shut those pathetic losers down.”
Spencer Pollack, Calgary

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“CBC should not be run on government funds, the last 2 elections prove why, they are biased to government in power, they lie about other parties basically for the liberal agenda."
Darlene Hatter, Wainfleet, Ont.

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“The CBC is very biased news to the point that I have to watch news from other countries to get a true sampling of what’s going on in my own country.”
Scott Steinback, Bluffton, Alberta

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“I Have lost all respect for media in general, but particularly with the CBC and its very obvious partisan opinion writing and “reporting”~ actual journalism of reporting the news no longer exists instead we are subjected to stories thru the lens of very biased reporting of the likes of Rosie Barton and Katie Simpson to mention just two. Media has become an outlet to divide and conquer political opinion.”
Cynthia Cools-Lartigue, Calgary

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“A horrible conflict of interest arises when the government subsidizes the media. No media is unbiased when government funding is involved…and so should not be permitted to report on political issues as long as the subsidy is in place.”
Norman Wiebe, Red Deer, Alberta

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“The CBC is a waste of taxpayer funds. Cancel all of it.”
Michael Foster, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
 
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“The CBC is nothing more than government Marxist, identity politics pushing propaganda. It is blatantly biased and unfair based on commentators and contributors, and is nothing more than a left wing echo chamber. It… must be defunded and moved to a voluntary subscription based funding method.”
Eric Anderson, Coldstream, B.C.

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“The CBC provides inferior, tasteless content wasting millions of tax payer dollars on a vanity project that if it had to face the reality of the market and consumer choice would be bankrupt in a month. Individuals with a webcam provide better, more informative, more entertaining content at no charge to the end user.”
Nathan Fitzsimmons, Calgary
 
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“I don't think tax dollars should be used to promote a news station that is so blatantly biased towards the Progressive Conservatives….I have caught them well more than a dozen times twisting the facts to make Progressives look bad while making their master Trudeau look good.”
Raymond Brannigan, Toronto

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“This must be an independent broadcaster or not at all. I do not want my tax dollars pushing an agenda.”
Sean LeClaire, Ottawa

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“I am in support of the renewal of CBC's license to continue to broadcast. I am also in support of CBC's continuing mandate to protect and promote Canadian culture. I have enjoyed a lot of Canadian TV programming: Murdoch Mysteries, Kim's Convenience, and the news in its various manifestations. I also enjoy a lot of Canadian radio programming.”
Beverly Suderman, Duncan, B.C.

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“Let the market decide -- we can no longer afford to subsidize this elephant while they receive revenues from commercial content. If they want to be subsidized let them adopt the format of other PBSs.”
Dianne Gallant, Calgary

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And finally, what has to be my favourite of all the comments I read and one that had me laughing out loud.
 
“I’d rather lick the toilet bowl than get my news from the lying CBC. The toilet bowl leaves a better taste in my mouth.”
Carmen Stopanski, Jenner, Alberta

 

January 28, 2020 7:37 pm  #2


Re: Do Canadians Really Hate The CBC? Canuck Comments Are Eye-Opening

I'm actually a bit surprised it's so overwhelmingly negative. I would've thought the "Friends of the CBC"-types would've ballot stuffed the results.

 

January 28, 2020 8:11 pm  #3


Re: Do Canadians Really Hate The CBC? Canuck Comments Are Eye-Opening

I think there is a lot of pent up frustration with CBC and since they are mostly funded from tax money people have some skin in the game.  Problem will be that the comments will be all over the map on what is wrong with CBC and many of the comments will also be contradictory.

I am surprised even on CBC.ca the number of negative and sometimes rude comments from people regarding CBC. Like any news site that allows comments, they do have too many trolls on both the left and right that have nothing better to do.

 

 

January 28, 2020 8:19 pm  #4


Re: Do Canadians Really Hate The CBC? Canuck Comments Are Eye-Opening

To be fair, I only looked at the first 100 or so of the posted comments. There are over 3,500 more. Perhaps they got their lobbying friends together and the later ones are pro-Corp. Unfortunately, every one of these requires several clicks and downloading to your local computer before you can see them, so there was no way I could possibly look at them all. 

But I will say I was also surprised at how few positive comments there were in the first batch that I scanned.

Agree or disagree with the criticisms, I feel almost certain the CRTC won't give any real weight to the negative comments when they render their decision on the CBC and will give them pretty much everything they want. I'm honestly not sure why they're even soliciting comments that they're more than likely to simply ignore. But I guess we'll see if I'm right on May 25th, when the hearing is held in Gatineau. 

     Thread Starter
 

January 29, 2020 7:54 am  #5


Re: Do Canadians Really Hate The CBC? Canuck Comments Are Eye-Opening

RadioActive wrote:

   I'm honestly not sure why they're even soliciting comments that they're more than likely to simply ignore  

Remember "you have a say in the music we play"?     Oldest trick in the book


geo
 

 

January 29, 2020 2:02 pm  #6


Re: Do Canadians Really Hate The CBC? Canuck Comments Are Eye-Opening

geo wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

   I'm honestly not sure why they're even soliciting comments that they're more than likely to simply ignore  

Remember "you have a say in the music we play"?     Oldest trick in the book


geo
 

True, but I imagine if the "hitlines were open" for comments on Bell, Rogers and Shaw the results would be tracking pretty negative for them as well.

Overall I think this is a good exercise, and I hope there is a good sampling of the average viewer and not just people with an axe to grind about the CBC, or on the other side of the coin, the CBC elitists who just want high brow programming, no commercials and a big increase in funding.