I don't have an issue with the CBC selling limited spots to pad the budget.   I don't want to see them put more on the tax payer then the next government comes in and cuts the budget back again.    Does the CBC waste money and not operate efficiently? For sure!  But unless the model becomes TVO or PBS, tax dollars can't fund it alone.    I don't find CBC TV or RADIO that competitive with the commercial broadcasters, as they offer a service the commercial broadcasters do not.   Do I think content should be 100% Canadian, giving the commercial broadcasters a bit more freedom?  Absolutely!     That comes at a cost to produce, but should be there true focus.  That should be the worry.. not the fact they run spots to pay the bills and not charge tax payers more. 

Last edited by radiokid (January 18, 2022 11:25 am)

paterson1 wrote:

This is a hard one.  I am not sure the PBS model is the right one for CBC.  I was surprised that The Corporation for Public Broadcasting which includes PBS and NPR radio actually receive $500 million annually from the US government.  I didn't realize it was that much.  The rest of the budgets come from the fund drives, wealthy private citizens. and foundations both commercial and private. Individual stations do their own fund raising for the most part. 
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PBS is not commercial free either.  They often feature a couple of commercials at the beginning of original productions.  I sometimes watch Motor Week on PBS Detroit and there are always two commercials at the start of the show.  And the fund raising pledge breaks are really lengthy commercials or infomercials. 

One thing I have noticed during the many fundraising drives on PBS is that they break their format and show programming that only comes up during these pledge segments.  Infomercials with Dr. Whoever  talking to a studio audience about eating right or reducing joint pain is not PBS programming. Others are straight infomercials like investing in real estate, or selling the best of the Dean Martin Show videos again is not regular PBS programming.  And now some pledge drives have morphed into a full "Pledge Month."

Other than the many fund raising drives often PBS is closer to TVO as an educational broadcaster, something that CBC isn't.  Since education is provincial jurisdiction, it might be tricky for CBC to become more educational oriented in their programming.  

There was a time CBC provided provincial educational programming in the mornings, in provinces that didn’t have a broadcaster like TVO - for example, Manitoba. I’m not sure if they worked with the provincial governments on these programs or how it worked.

It seems to me CBC TV also had far fewer commercials in the 1980s, particularly for news programming. I’ve seen a full edition of Sunday Report from the mid-80s which had no commercials at all. This was after the initial round of Mulroney cutbacks.

paterson1 wrote:

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PBS is not commercial free either.  They often feature a couple of commercials at the beginning of original productions.  I sometimes watch Motor Week on PBS Detroit and there are always two commercials at the start of the show.  And the fund raising pledge breaks are really lengthy commercials or infomercials. 

They are, technically, not commercials, though I admit the distinction gets blurrier as time goes on. 

They're "underwriting announcements," which come with much stricter rules than commercials on commercially-licensed stations. While commercials can say pretty much anything in their 30 or 60 seconds, underwriting announcements are supposed to be purely for identification of donors. The rules say you can't use comparative language ("Ford makes the best trucks"), include any pricing information, or any "call to action" ("come to your local McDonald's"), and most public broadcasters have strict category limits on who can get underwriting announcements - no alcohol, no gaming, etc. 

Until the late 1980s, the FCC didn't even allow these announcements to include moving video, and it's only in recent years that they've sometimes been allowed to include music.