CBC Announces a Dubious Survival Strategy
The CBC’s strategic plan to shift priorities from broadcast to digital services and outsource virtually all but news and current affairs programming is, on the whole, a sensible strategy—from a purely business perspective. It saves money by reducing production and distribution costs. Shedding more jobs will further enhance the bottom line between now and 2020; up to 1,500 positions will be eliminated in the plan announced today (June 26). The thing is, though, that the public broadcaster is not a business in any conventional sense. It exists not to make money or to satisfy any financial...
Read MoreHow a Strong CBC Can Help Our Private Broadcasters
New research on the impact of national public broadcasters has the potential to inject a fresh theme into the ongoing discussions in this country around what to do about the struggling CBC/Radio-Canada. The first of two recent studies draws on a wide range of data from 14 countries world-wide, and was pulled together for the BBC by U.K.-based Inflection Point research group. It was designed to test competing theories about public service broadcasting frequently heard in debates over the relevance of these services, here in Canada, and around the world. One is that public broadcasters,...
Read MoreIs Subscriber-TV a Solution for Beleaguered CBC?
As the CBC and its supporters search with growing urgency for solutions to the public broadcaster’s critical funding problems, an idea gaining some traction is that CBC television be dismantled, and spun off into a clutch of subscription-based cable specialty channels. That way viewers could select what they want to subscribe to, rather than paying for the public broadcaster as a monolithic institution. And there would be no need for advertising, which most advocates agree is antithetical to the goals of public service broadcasting. It’s an idea that has strong initial appeal. For one...
Read MoreAndrew Coyne’s blindspot: public goods, market failure and the CBC
Andrew Coyne, a reliably astute commentator on most issues of Canadian public policy, has an unfortunate blindspot when it comes to the CBC/Radio-Canada. He apparently thinks that the notion of public service broadcasting has outlived its usefulness, and that if we are to preserve any remnant of what was once a great national enterprise, it ought to be relegated to the digital netherland of the TV specialty channel. That way those of us who want to watch the service could pony up for it through monthly subscription fees. Here’s what he had to say in his column Saturday: As I’ve noted on...
Read MoreAbout Wade Rowland
Ranked among Canada’s leading literary journalists, Wade Davies Rowland has written more than a dozen books on subjects ranging from television journalism, organized crime, and international environmental law to his current concerns, which include communications technology, the philosophy of science, and technology and human values. Full author bio.