CBC head wants more ‘flexibility’ oover online content

Management stresses need to generate revenue amid financial pressures

OTTAWA — Oversight and transparency took centre stage on Day 1 of a nearly three-week review of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s broadcasting licences, as the rush to furnish digital content butts up against regulatory barriers.

The CBC is asking Canada’s telecommunications regulator to renew licences for its various English- and French-language audio and audiovisual programming services.

CBC chief executive Catherine Tait told the Canadian Radio- television and Telecommunications Commission board tthe CBC needs greater “flexibil- ity” to meet the shift toward online viewing and listening.

Under the public broadcaster’s application, that digital dexterity would leave it free of detailed financial reporting obliggations around online content, such as the CBC Gem streaming platform and CBC Listen app. “If we do not move with our audiences, we risk becoming dinosaurs on a melting ice cap,” Tait said at the virtual hearing Monday morning. a She is asking the CRTC to re-aV new its licences for five yearst wwith slimmed-down regulatoryw scrutiny of its digital content compared to its radio and television programs. CRTC chair Ian Scott questioned the CBC’s push to avoid disclosing digital costs. “I knoww you don’t like expenditure-based requirements,” Scott w said. “But from the commission’s perspective, with greater regulatory flexibility there’s a greater requirement for accountability and transparency from the corporation, and that has to come in some manner

through reporting.”

The CBC has already faced pushback for steps to commercialize its online fare.

Last month, marquee hosts and reporters joined about 500 current and former employees, including Peter Mansbridge

and Alison Smith, urging the public broadcaster to drop efforts to sell more branded content.

In an open letter to the general public, the staff members warned that a new marketing

effort called Tandem will erode the integrity of CBC journal- ism, saying that paid content that resembles news is “insidious” and will “help advertisers trick Canadians.”

CBC management has insisted that editorial and advertising content would remain separate, and stressed a critical need to generate revenue amid big financial pressures.

Seventy int erv en ors are scheduled to begin presentations to the CRTC on Friday and continue over eight days until Jan. 26.