What to do with Radio Canada and the CBC?

[ssiguy]

As noted on another thread, the CBC wants $400 million in annual increased donations from Ottawa so it can be ad-free.

I think CBC Radio is universally appreciated but far less so the CBC. In it's desperate bid for ad revenue we get our national broadcaster "bringing us together coast to coast to coast" by trying to find "Canada's Smartest Person" and of course what kind of self respecting CBC decade would it be without yet another rendition of Anne of Green Gables.

I think the only way the CBC TV will maintain any relevance is if it sways more towards a PBS platform with extras such as sports. Save a fortune and ditch every local newscast in the country and simply run the National. This would save a king's ransom for a service that is already provided 24/7 including the CBC. Local news can be covered by local private TV stations which nearly universally in English Canada get the higher ratings anyway.

I would like a commercial free CBC with nearly total or all Canadian content but not without a major overhaul of what the CBC and what it sees as it's future and if that means more renditions of Canada's Smartest Person, then they shouldn't get a cent.

Millions of Canadians willingly already pay for quality programming as exemplified by BC's Knowledge Network, Ontario's TVO, and even sending money to the US via PBS. The fact that hundreds of thousands of Canadians are willing to send their money out of country for decent programming says a lot about both the need and how little they feel they get from our national broadcaster.

[speedog]

Got to keep CBC Radio 2 in Calgary, where else am I going to get my classical music while on the job site.

[TorontoDrew]

For anybody who has driven long distances across this great land. CBC radio is a nessesaity. As for CBC TV it needs some help. Crap like Canadian Air Farce, Little Mosque on the Prarie and yes the new Anne of GG are examples of shit we shouldn't pay for. But Schittz Creek is genius.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

For anybody who has driven long distances across this great land. CBC radio is a nessesaity. As for CBC TV it needs some help. Crap like Canadian Air Farce, Little Mosque on the Prarie and yes the new Anne of GG are examples of shit we shouldn't pay for. But Schittz Creek is genius.

And this is why management decisions at the CBC should not be subject to "mob rule". This is simply about your personal likes and dislikes. Other people might have the opposite views on these same programs. It does not mean that they should be cancelled or continued as a result.

[BretttheRiderFan]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

For anybody who has driven long distances across this great land. CBC radio is a nessesaity. As for CBC TV it needs some help. Crap like Canadian Air Farce, Little Mosque on the Prarie and yes the new Anne of GG are examples of shit we shouldn't pay for. But Schittz Creek is genius.

Air Farce was hugely successful, which is why it ran for decades upon decades, and Little Mosque was one of the most globally acclaimed series to come out of Canada in this century. Ditto for Anne...they'll likely actually make money on that globally.

[SaskScraper]

Even though Poverty in Canadian Children has increased from 15% to almost 20% in the last 25 years, CBC has made a request that for it to go commercial free & it would like to have a boost of almost half a Billion dollars in tax payers money so that instead of $35/year for every man/women/child goes to CBC but an increase to $45/year. How many people in the country pay that amount of money to any single cable or radio station per year?

if you want to say no to these increases, visit http://www.byebyecbc.com/ and add your name to the growing list of Canadians that don't want to pay even more for government workers like the CBC.

[BretttheRiderFan]

Oh look, child poverty started increasing when the CBC's budget started feeling the big cuts.

I therefore conclude that the cause of child poverty is the cuts in the CBC budget.

[shreddog]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

CBC radio is a nessesaity (sic).

less critical today with satellite and streaming services, but still good none the less and in many cases is a local news source preferred over tv.

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Crap like Canadian Air Farce, Little Mosque on the Prarie and yes the new Anne of GG are examples of shit we shouldn't pay for. But Schittz Creek is genius.

I assume you mean in a historical case and RAF and LMotP have been off the air for years. (2008 and 2012). And as Acajack states, we each have our own preferences as I find SC and Kim's Convenience both excruciating to watch.

I think in answering the OP's question, we need to ask another question and that is, what role should the CBC play? Is it to "tie us together", produce Canadian stories (that we've likely heard a million times already - Anne!), show Canadian sports (TSN, SN, RDI ???) or something else.

I hardly watch tv, but when I do** I can't imagine why I would watch CBC - no offence, but I just don't know what role it's trying to fill.


** FTR, when I watch tv it's mainly HBO/AMC dramas.

[BretttheRiderFan]

It's vogue to complain about the quality and breadth of content on CBC Television, but this is directly rooted in the instability of their funding over the past 25 years or so. It's difficult to run a network and make real commitments to different projects, or take any sort of risks when you don't know if your budget will be cut $100 million next year or not. There is value in public broadcasting, even in the digital age, and I'd love to see stable funding models of some sort. A gradual phasing out of advertisements on the TV network would also be a good thing. On the other hand, I don't believe a BBC-type television license model would be appropriate, because there's no precedent or tradition of this in Canada and I think it would be politically toxic. I also don't think it should just opt for the PBS model of essentially being a minor player in the media landscape. The CBC should be a strong and widely viewed network that focuses on promoting the mandate that already exists in the Canadian Broadcasting Act, and the funding meat to make it happen.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by BretttheRiderFan

It's vogue to complain about the quality and breadth of content on CBC Television, but this is directly rooted in the instability of their funding over the past 25 years or so. It's difficult to run a network and make real commitments to different projects, or take any sort of risks when you don't know if your budget will be cut $100 million next year or not. There is value in public broadcasting, even in the digital age, and I'd love to see stable funding models of some sort. A gradual phasing out of advertisements on the TV network would also be a good thing. On the other hand, I don't believe a BBC-type television license model would be appropriate, because there's no precedent or tradition of this in Canada and I think it would be politically toxic. I also don't think it should just opt for the PBS model of essentially being a minor player in the media landscape. The CBC should be a strong and widely viewed network that focuses on promoting the mandate that already exists in the Canadian Broadcasting Act, and the funding meat to make it happen.

CBC English TV has always had difficulty with producing non-sports, non-public affairs content (think fiction and variety) that Canadians wanted to watch, regardless of the ups and downs of its funding levels.

Every era has also had its one or two modest CBC "hits" living alongside a much larger CBC prime time broadcast schedule that is received with wholesale indifference by the Canadian viewing public.

When I was a kid the exceptions to the rule where King of Kensington and Beachcombers. In our era it's Little Mosque on the Prairie and Murdoch Mysteries, I guess...

[dleung]

I might watch this if it's on netflix.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by dleung

I might watch this if it's on netflix.

The new Anne of Green Gables is on Netflix.

EDIT: Darn, I thought this was a new thread. Did not realize I was replying to a 2 year old comment.

[MonctonRad]

CBC Radio remains a gem, and should be preserved and even expanded. As previously mentioned, in large parts of the country, CBC Radio is the only quality product available, and does serve as a "glue" that binds the country together.

My model for CBC Radio would be very much like the BBC. If I recall, I think the BBC maintains seven streams nationally, as well as local and regional broadcasting stations (like BBC Scotland).

So, for CBC, I would make the following streams available over the airwaves nationally:

CBC-1 (very much like the current CBC-1, concentrating on news and current affairs, and maintained by a network of local CBC radio stations producing some local content, including morning and late afternoon news and information shows for people as they get up in the morning and commute to and from work ).
CBC-2 (classical, and by this I mean all classical all the time, not like the current iteration of CBC-2, which includes a bit of everything)
CBC-3 (jazz, world music, ambient, relaxation)
CBC-4 (pop, rock)
CBC-5 (country, folk)
CBC-6 (hip hop, rap)
CBC-7 (local music programming, aboriginal (for the north)).

As for CBC TV, something radical needs to be done. I agree that it should be more like the PBS (but not a clone). To that end, I would maintain advertising (I really dislike the way that the individual PBS stations spend half their time begging for donations). Having said this, PBS does some things exceedingly well, this is what the CBC should emulate.

1) - I would have CBC TV concentrate on high quality dramatic productions, especially producing content that presents Canada to the world (like the BBC does).
2) - Information programming and documentaries of all types (including nature and science documentaries, which should really be the CBC's forte (think NOVA and Nature on PBS)). The CBC could make a real impact on the entire world by doing this (such work could easily be sold to international broadcasters).
3) - CBC should really drop the idea of producing sit coms and low brow popular entertainment. Current quality is generally poor, and frankly a national embarrassment.
4) - The CBC should maintain good quality national and regional news and public affairs shows, but try to make their products more balanced in their presentation than they currently are now (more business news, more hard news, more local human interest, less SJW and activist content).
5) - The CBC should retain a sports department, but concentrate on international sporting events, and content not covered on SportsNet and TSN. Hockey Night in Canada should be maintained.
6) - To fill up the remainder of the time slots, the CBC should present the best of international programming (especially from the BBC), just like PBS does in the states.

By doing this, CBC TV would become the high quality public broadcaster that Canada needs and deserves.

[acottawa]

Under that scenario pretty much the entire FM dial would be CBC/SRC.

[Acajack]

The British model of a tax per TV set and maybe on other devices and services to fund the BBC seems like a good one.

[vid]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

So, for CBC, I would make the following streams available over the airwaves nationally:

CBC-1 (very much like the current CBC-1, concentrating on news and current affairs, and maintained by a network of local CBC radio stations producing some local content, including morning and late afternoon news and information shows for people as they get up in the morning and commute to and from work ).
CBC-2 (classical, and by this I mean all classical all the time, not like the current iteration of CBC-2, which includes a bit of everything)
CBC-3 (jazz, world music, ambient, relaxation)
CBC-4 (pop, rock)
CBC-5 (country, folk)
CBC-6 (hip hop, rap)
CBC-7 (local music programming, aboriginal (for the north)).

CBC music's online service has, like, 150 different music streams on it. They had 12 Christmas streams in December. They add and remove them constantly, they just plug criteria into a database and they've got a stream.

There is no reason for CBC to plug up the FM dial (which only has a capacity of about 20 stations per market to begin with) with a bunch of stations that very few people will listen to. The main general information station, mixed music and indigenous programming are basically all they "need".

If you want to improve CBC music's local music selection, increase the regionalism of the service to be on-par with Radio 1 and provide programming blocks for local content and local control of playlists. Keep in mind if you're expecting 24 hours of locally organized content, a lot of markets are going to struggle with that. It takes quite a few people to actually run a radio station with a decent mix that is responsive enough to consumer demands to be relevant. CBC Thunder Bay and CBC Sudbury are sharing resources to fill in their time slots; before this, they just aired a lot of the same content but with different hosts repeating the same segments, similar to what Sinclair does in the US with it's far-right editorials. Splitting CBC Radio into 6 music streams is going to need more people and more content, and all of that comes at a cost.

Regarding TV: Broadcast television is antique and should be phased out. 10 years from now, Cable and Satellite TV won't be a thing and there will be no more specialty channels, just content providers and licensing to streaming apps. A cable package will go from a number of channels to an amount of bandwidth on a dedicated line.

To be honest, I'm kind of impressed with how temporary TV was and how stable radio is, but when you think about it, it's a lot easier to enjoy radio while you're doing other things. You can't do that with TV. It's not versatile enough.

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

One program that they need to cancel already is This Hour has 22 Minutes. It has been beyond stale for years now.

That's literally the only show I watch on CBC. I watch The National sometimes but they're too pro-establishment neo-liberal for an SJW progressive like myself.

[SpongeG]

I'd like to see it broken down into more radio stations kind of like the BBC.

CBC One - be like a current music station like BBC One with some commercials to help bring in revenue perhaps
CBC Two - an all-classical music station, more like it used to be back in the day
CBC Three - the same as it is as available currently only online or on Sirius/XM
CBC Four - Talk and news current issues, like the current AM Service
CBC Five - kind of like BBC 2 with an eclectic mix of music, sort of an adult version of BBC 1, variety of shows from pop, indie and rock to country

When you live in a rural area CBC is one of the only stations you can pick up, they have some good stuff sometimes.

I used to love brave new waves back in the 80's

[kwoldtimer]

Today's G&M has an interesting piece by tv critic John Doyle about a new CBC mini-series called Keeping Canada Safe (Thursday, CBC, 9 p.m.) about the day-to-day of first responders in different parts of Canada. It sounds more in the documentary genre than existing "reality" shows about first responders. I don't know that I'll rush to watch it, but it strikes me as the sort of useful programming that CBC is particularly well suited to produce.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/...ticle34292589/

[esquire]

What I'd do with the CBC:

-Maintain the English language network more or less as is
-Expand online, TV and radio news and current affairs
-Improve radio service by increasing the programming budget for CBC Radio One
-Shift Radio 2 back to focus a bit more on classical music and arts-related programming
-Roll out Radio 3 stations nationwide, shift it a bit to include some of the more adult-contemporary offerings currently on Radio 2
-Beef up local newscasts
-Build a new broadcast centre for radio and TV in Calgary, which is woefully underserved by CBC

Yeah, it would be expensive but quality costs money.

I have no idea with the French side.

[Echoes]

I would love to see a rejuvenation of programming on Radio One, especially on weekday evenings. That is, ditch the Current and Q condensed reruns from that morning with some fresh content.