CBC needs to be different
Every Canadian has two jobs, goes the old joke, their own and running the CBC. Catherine Tait, who has just been handed the task of actually leading CBC/ Radio-Canada, will hardly lack for advice as she takes the helm of the country’s leading cultural institution.
Her appointment by the Trudeau government is cause for hope, if for no other reason that she has a long track record as a producer and content creator, and has been a pioneer in digital production. The fact that Tait will be the first woman to fill the job doesn’t hurt either, given that the CBC has been rocked by its full share of genderrelated controversies.
Funding is important, too, and after enduring years of cuts by the hostile Harper government the CBC is now benefiting from a much more benevolent climate under the Liberals, who are pumping an extra $675 million over five years into the corporation.
This is good for the CBC, but it isn’t necessarily all good for the overall media environment in Canada. The CBC needs to figure out what it can do best as a public broadcaster and, just as important, what no other organization can do well. In a world saturated by media of all types, simply duplicating what others are already doing and competing with private producers isn’t the best use of taxpayers’ money.
More to the point, it can even be destructive. The CBC has been using its extra funding to aggressively pursue what it calls its “digital shift” in all areas. It has vastly expanded its online presence to the point where it’s become the dominant player online in national and local news.
That makes the CBC a direct competitor with private news organizations that are fighting for their very survival in a crowded and hostile marketplace. It’s competing for eyeballs and online ad dollars at a time when newspapers, private broadcasters and even online start-ups are being forced to cut back, threatening local news sources across the country.
No wonder the CBC has been labelled an “uber predator” by rival news outlets that don’t enjoy the advantage of government funding.
It would make a lot more sense for the government to free the CBC from the need to rely on online advertising, as the Public Policy Forum recommended in a report last year. The corporation could concentrate on public-interest journalism, and it wouldn’t be scooping up digital revenue that private providers, both big and small, desperately need to fund their coverage.
This is the kind of choice that the new leadership of CBC/Radio-Canada is going to have to make, and soon.
The corporation needs to be able to chart its future with stable, long-term funding that isn’t dependent on the political cycle - something it has never had.
But this can’t be a blank cheque, and Canadians deserve to know their dollars will be spent on a smart plan that focuses on creating unique content in all areas, both entertainment and public affairs. It needs to take into account the whole picture, and not try to substitute itself for what’s already being created by private progammers and news organizations.
The CBC needs to be ambitious. But its new leadership must realize that means getting better, not just bigger.