How best to ensure CBC’s survival
Re The CBC is dying, but here’s how to save it,
Opinion Nov. 19 I was pleased to read Richard Stursberg’s op-ed advice to the Trudeau government on how to restore the CBC to health.
A10-year charter like that governing the BBC is a good idea. Funding must be restored and assured. It is also clear that the digital age makes the CBC more important than ever. The issue of ads on TV must be resolved as so many people can now avoid them. The problem is that they pay the bills. More generous federal funding may be necessary.
As a former CBC broadcaster, I part company with him on journalism. Probably the CBC’s greatest value, next to reflecting Canada for Canadians, is its role as a balanced reporter, regionally as well as nationally.
As even major print media like the Star struggle in the digital world, keeping reporters on the job is crucial. It’s a job that can’t be left to commercial broadcasters. Their priority is not a well-informed Canadian society, but the bottom line and shareholders. Nor can the job be left to the undisciplined Internet.
Stursberg is right to say the prime issue is governance. The employees and their unions are probably right, too: the current board and president should be replaced by people who don’t have a politically inspired, ideological bias against the public broadcaster. Supportive enthusiasm would be a nice change. The federal government can provide it. Bruce Rogers, Lindsay Stursberg errs when he writes that public confidence in the CBC has collapsed. A Nanos Research poll two months ago found that Canadians have great confidence in their national public broadcaster – and want it to be properly funded.
Most of the personalities involved in “embarrassing public scandals” were placed there or supported by Stursberg when he directed CBC English Radio and Television. Why have there been no scandals on the Radio-Canada side? Ian Morrison, spokesperson, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting By using the word “elite” to describe classical music, dance and other arts programming and saying that CBC cannot do both arts and “entertainment” programming because it “muddies its brand,” we have insight into the flawed reasoning behind changes Mr. Stursberg invoked during his reign at CBC.
It is time for Canadians to define the public broadcaster we need in the current, complicated media landscape. That should come from Parliament through a renewed mandate.
I have more confidence in Canadians than Mr. Stursberg and believe that quality programming in a wide range of genres that reflects our diversity and makes us better informed citizens can be a successful “brand” for CBC. I don’t consider that elitist. Daryl Gray, Bayswater, N.S. What is clear from this analysis is that much more is wrong with the CBC than the $1.1 billion it receives from taxpayers.
For starters, any news organization that has to tell its senior journalists they shouldn’t be receiving money for giving public speeches is deeply troubled.
Stursberg’s essay provides the component parts of a solution. He notes the success of CBC Radio. Not so much CBC TV, which seems lost in the 500-channel universe and among the more relevant private networks.
Successful organizations need the courage to relentlessly focus on what they are best at — that which makes them most successful. What differentiates them from the rest of the crowd?
If they are to survive in today’s ruthless media world they then must develop a laser focus on that single strategic priority (much like the Star’s Star Touch).
What is the CBC good at? CBC Radio, and potentially the CBC.ca website. My bet is both entities, because of funding pressure, are starved for funds to become even more successful.
CBC TV limps along, distinguishing itself at not much of anything. It’s frighteningly average, vacuuming up precious financial resources for what is largely a predictable, boring and outdated service.
In the name of strategic strength and sense, shut down CBC TV and direct all the remaining public dollars to CBC Radio and a supporting digital presence.
That is what differentiates CBC now and that is what will make CBC great — and relevant — in the new media world. Bill Peterson, North Saanich, B.C. Of course the CBC needs more federal money – Canada is near the bottom of the list in per capital funding for public broadcasters around the world. But little will change for the better at the CBC until the most senior levels of management are swept aside and replaced by knowledgeable and imaginative administrators who genuinely care about excellence in public broadcasting in general, and the CBC in particular.
And I would suggest there is no room in that scenario for Richard Stursberg. Raphael (Raphi) Vigod, Toronto If the CBC is indeed dying, it’s because viewership is down – suggesting that the CBC is not highly valued by Canadians and not worth saving. Instead of asking how to save the CBC, we should be asking whether we need a public broadcaster in the first place. Rather than increasing public funding for the CBC, we should be privatizing it. Matthew Lau, Toronto Taking advice from Richard Stursberg about saving the CBC is like consulting a fox about safeguarding the chickens. Peter Omnet, Willowdale