Are broadcasters on the web “unfair” competition for newspapers?
Bob Cox’s editorial on the CBC’s new strategic plan is a welcome contribution to the dialogue concerning the future of public broadcasting in this country. (Mr. Cox is Publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press and Chair of the Canadian Newspaper Association.) It raises issues that have been the subject of debate in Europe for some time, and which need to be resolved if the inevitable restructuring of the CBC is to have the support of the country’s newspapers. Some context will, I hope, further clarify the issues. When the BBC was took to the airwaves in 1922 as the world’s first national...
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 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.