The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / Is This A Preview Of What's Coming For The CBC?

**Posted by RadioActive** October 28, 2024 6:55 am

We all know that one party in Canada is promising to defund the CBC. It's been a long standing threat and it's never come to pass. (I personally doubt that it will.) But it turns out it's happened in another country.

This may be the first time Liechtenstein has ever been mentioned here, but people in that tiny country have voted to defund their national radio service, for which taxpayers shell out about $4.6 million over four years. Experts say it's unlikely the state broadcaster will be able to attract enough advertisers to keep it alive.

One of the big differences between them and us (in addition to country size) is that CBC Radio, at least, is very popular and is often the #1 station in many markets. In others, it's competitive with its commercial counterparts. The Liechtenstein version has a very small audience.

Still, this is the first time I've heard of a democracy cutting the throat of its own national radio station.

I wonder if the CBC has noticed?

Voters in Liechtenstein withdraw state funding from the country’s public radio broadcaster

**Posted by Binson Echorec** October 28, 2024 9:12 am

With a population of 40,000 - I wouldn't have expected Liechtenstein to have a public broadcaster. Regardless, I have always assumed public broadcasters in Europe were held in higher regard and deemed much more valuable by the populace than us North Americans.

Last edited by Binson Echorec (October 28, 2024 9:12 am)

**Posted by mace** October 28, 2024 9:23 am

Personally, I think if/when the Conservatives get around to fulfilling their defund promise, they will do their due diligence and discover that Radio-Canada is extremely popular in Quebec [Can't touch that] and Radio One is widely popular in the rest of Canada [Better leave that alone too] Which leaves CBC English Television. I predict there will be some selective cutting and trimming, but the chainsaw will be left at home.

**Posted by Radiowiz** October 28, 2024 10:50 am

mace wrote:
Which leaves CBC English Television. I predict there will be some selective cutting and trimming, but the chainsaw will be left at home.

It is to my understanding that all of the big 3 (Global, CTV and City TV) have agreed that it is better to pay taxes and leave CBC alone than to have the extra stress of one more competitor outbidding them for television programming and extra ad revenue that could have gone to them.

**Posted by RadioActive** October 28, 2024 11:19 am

I think that when push comes to shove, the fallout from destroying the CBC will be so strong, a future government simply won't be able to do it. I do think they'll cut the budget, but completely defunding the English TV side? I just can't see it happening.

**Posted by paterson1** October 28, 2024 2:38 pm

If they were to cut off all funding, every nickel and dime, for CBC English television the savings to the taxpayer would be $376 million per year. When you consider the last federal budget was around $433 billion and the deficit projected at around $20 billion, the savings and reasoning to destroy a whole TV network that features about 90% Canadian programming seems very questionable.

We can go on and on how CBC's ratings have fallen over the past 15 years, but strangely nothing is ever mentioned about CTV or Global's ratings declined during this time. Even with the advantage of simsubed US programming, it would be interesting to see how much they are in the tank as well. I think it would be surprising.

CBC TV defunding and shut down the network? Not going to happen.