Mothercorp: Less CRTC scrutiny please

Who’s watching the CBC? Not too many Canadians, going by ratings. But someone has to keep an eye on what antics our publicly funded broadcaster gets up to. That’s why the National Post is reviving CBC Watch, an occasional feature, and longtime reader favourite.

These are turbulent times. unrest plagues our southern neighbour, an actual plague locks us in our homes, economic uncertainty causes stress and real hardship for many Canadians. But right under our noses roils an intense power struggle most of us aren’t even aware of. yes, the CBC is asking to have its licence renewed.

Believe it or not, every few years — when they’re not in the u.s. — CBC brass must go cap in hand to the CRTC, seek approval of their plans and, hopefully, secure a long reprieve from another such meeting. Licence renewal, the last one was 2012, is about the only time we get a say in CBC operations.

This time, Mothercorp’s CEO Catherine Tait has requested the regulator require — wait for it — less oversight of their expenditures, specifically regarding the CBC’S beefed-up digital offerings, where the CBC needs greater “flexibility,” according to Tait. “She is asking the CRTC to renew its licences for five years with slimmed-down regulatory scrutiny of its digital content compared to its radio and television programs,” the CBC itself reported on January 11. That sounds fair.

Clearly it’s unreasonable for us taxpayers, if CBC’S spending $1.2 billion per year of our money, to demand more accountability and transparency. Such amounts are, after all, known in Ottawa as “rounding errors.” But let’s stand on principle and have a look.

unfortunately, it’s not exactly easy for the average taxpayer, despite the immense horsepower of the internet, to investigate the financial workings of the CBC, determine ratings statistics, etc., simply by Googling. The broadcaster produces typically turgid annual reports, a mixture of corporate boilerplate and boosterism rendered in splashy, obviously costly graphics. Independent audits merely check whether the financial reporting is up to snuff, and don’t evaluate mandate fulfilment or performance.

Juicier data is found buried in CRTC reports and the apparently minimal media investigations revealed by searches on the subject. CRTC provides viewership/listener statistics and some revenue numbers. Knowing most CBC revenue comes from us, it’s possible to do rough value for money calculations.

For example, both CBC’S AM radio stations and radio Two had a “tuning share” of about three per cent in 2019, although the news/talk radio component sneaks into the mid-teens. TV viewership was about one-sixth that of the private networks. Not exactly stellar. Could the poor ratings be behind the CBC also asking to be permitted to broadcast less Canadian content?

But, for the sake of argument, if this annoyed you, how could you complain? Well, around licence renewal time the CRTC invites submissions of opinion about the CBC. At time of writing they had received 10,526 such comments, even some from average Canadians. Much is from the public sector however — tax-funded activists, arts groups, museums, libraries and galleries, towns (La Tuque and Coaticook!). Clearly these folks have plenty of time on an average day to write nice letters about the CBC … So they’re using your money to influence how CBC will use more of your money.

despite the public indifference reflected in the ratings, the small, pro-cbc minority is vociferous. When they’re not distributing annoying lawn signs (“We vote CBC!”) in your neighbourhood, the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting are rallying support for Mothercorp. And let’s be clear, when they say “Canadian Broadcasting” they don’t mean local radio sports talk or 100 huntley Street. The first of the Friends’ stated values is “Public broadcasting is sacred. CBC leads us forward, brings us together and makes us stronger.” They might have paraphrased Churchill: “Never have so many spent so much for so few.”

The “Friends” maintain it’s only $34 a year per Canadian — why don’t we spend more? By contrast, the Brits cough up $105 per capita (2016) for the venerable “Beeb”. yes, but they’re having an actual debate about it, both on the value proposition and ideological bias.

An organization, defund the BBC, is actively campaigning for just that. A survey released this month by yougov found that 48 per cent of Britons believe the BBC does not represent their values. Similarly, the Campaign for Common Sense surveyed the attitudes of comics appearing on BBC last November using criteria like politics, Brexit and “woke.” They found that, of the 141 comedians, 70 per cent were obviously left-oriented with 74 per cent of the broadcast slots given to leftists. Only four of the slots were given to the two comedians found to be explicitly conservative, pro-brexit or anti-“woke.”.

Long-simmering concerns about the BBC emerged over Brexit. While news coverage was equivocal, there was massive backlash over clear remainer-bias in editorial comment and analysis. Further, journalist robin Aitken wrote a rhetorically titled book, “Can the BBC be Trusted?” about his longtime employer, while feisty Labourite and one-time BBC editor rod Liddle regularly trashes the network.

Meanwhile in the quiet dominion, we pretty much sit back and take it. Two defund-the-cbc petitions languish online and heaven forbid that an insider writes a tellall memoir about CBC’S fatal flaws and biases.

Instead, CBC’S message seems to be, on several levels, “move along, nothing to see here.” Executives justify their desire for less scrutiny as somehow allowing them to better satisfy their audience. In a moment of rhetorical flourish Ms. Tait appeared to conflate the Flintstones and Greta Thunberg, saying, “If we do not move with our audiences, we risk becoming dinosaurs on a melting ice cap.” This is clearly not the first time “dinosaur” and “CBC” has been used in the same sentence, but likely is a first for the corporation’s CEO.

Fortunately, CRTC Chairman Ian Scott and even the “Friends” seem to favour greater transparency. during the ongoing hearings Scott stated “what gets measured gets done” and we heartily agree. Iced Capps aside, if the Big red dinosaur is to survive, it needs to be scrutinized regularly, from tail to snout.