CBC should inform first, and lose ‘obsession’ with ratings: panel

KINGSTON, Ont.—CBC/Radio-Canada can boost a weakened “core” of supporters by being less obsessed with ratings and focus on informing and enlightening viewers instead of entertaining them, a panel of broadcasting experts said. On Thursday, at the final of a series of meetings called “The CBC We Want,” organized by watchdog group the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, John Meisel, professor emeritus of political science at Queen’s University and former CRTC chair from 1980-1983, said CBC should lose its “obsession” with ratings and return to its original purpose of informing, enlightening—and thirdly, entertaining. “CBC has forgotten that ratings are a necessary evil, not the goal that is really driving them,” Meisel said. He said CBC should not cater to the lowest common denominator to secure larger audiences. “It should elevate. It should not cater to bad taste,” Meisel said at the meeting, held at the Renaissance Event Venue. Harold Redekopp, former head of CBC television, radio and regional broadcasting, and now vice-president on the board of directors of the Kingston Symphony, agreed as a panel member that, in the face of the CBC's budget cuts, the public broadcaster's main priority should be to inform and enlighten the Canadian public. “You can’t do it all,” he said. The Conservative government’s spending-reduction 2012 federal budget will reduce CBC's annual budget by $27.8 million in 2012-2013, $69.6 million the following year and by $115 million in 2014-2015. CBC said last spring that, to help deal with the budget reduction, it will lay off 650 full-time positions within three years and that it had applied to the CRTC to introduce advertising and sponsorships on its two national music networks, Radio 2 and the French-language Espace Musique. Redekopp said CBC's entertainment programming has been successful but it may have come at the expense of “solid, quality” information and public affairs programming at the core of the public broadcaster’s mandate. “There are people at CBC today who believe that a large audience defines support,” Redekopp said. “That’s just not the case.” Richard Stursberg, former head of CBC’s English services from 2004 to 2010, earned a reputation for focusing on ratings, and brought popular programs to CBC such as Little Mosque on the Prairie, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Redekopp said CBC has lost the support of an “informal leadership” from Canada’s labour leaders, professionals, educators and entrepreneurs, who have a multiplier effect on CBC's reputation. “At its best moments, CBC had all of these people supporting it,” he said. “My guess is that they’ve lost a lot of this core support.” Merilyn Simonds, chair of the Writers Union of Canada, who was also on the panel, said CBC’s focus on arts and interviews with authors has declined over the years, resulting in fewer opportunities for Canadian writers. Redekopp agreed that CBC should find new ways to serve an arts audience. According to 3,466 comments collected by Friends through The CBC We Want campaign and submitted to the CRTC for CBC’s broadcasting licence renewal hearing scheduled to start Nov. 19, more than 60 per cent of Canadians view CBC as a vital national institution. Ian Morrison, a spokesman for the Friends, said Thursday that, according to the comments, about 45 per cent of Canadians view CBC as a distinctive service, and that many are concerned about the drop in classical music programming on CBC Radio 2, CBC’s balanced journalism, and regional CBC programming. Meisel said the broadcast advertising market could be reserved for Canada’s private companies, which then could be required by regulation to contribute funding to support public broadcasters. In regulatory documents filed with the CRTC for its licence renewal hearing, CBC laid out its spending plans under the coming budget reductions. The broadcaster said it faces budget pressures in addition to the cuts, including $55 million for its new five-year strategy, which aims to extend the broadcaster's reach across Canada through radio and the Internet. CBC also faces “unavoidable new costs such as taxes, rent and rights increases estimated at $30 M. In total, CBC/Radio-Canada expects its financial challenge over the next 3 years to amount to $200 M,” said a letter to the CRTC, dated July 16, 2012 and released publicly on the CRTC's website in September. CBC said it will deal with a smaller budget by “leveraging ads on television, increasing digital revenue and adding advertising/sponsorships to both CBC Radio 2 and Espace Musique.” The broadcaster said it expects to lease less commercial space and generate rental income by “re-examining its real estate portfolio,” adding that it “intends to sell buildings and to find tenancy situations in more efficient and less-costly premises.” In other cost-saving measures, CBC said it is increasing employee pension contributions from 34 to 40 per cent over the next two years to generate about $5 million per year; eliminating drama programming from Radio 1 and scaling back live music productions; reducing news and current affairs programming such as shows Connect and Dispatches; accelerating the integration of news gathering for “workflow efficiencies”; and eliminating international bureaus in Rio de Janeiro and Nairobi. Espace Musique will cut its music production budget, Première Chaîne will cancel night-time programming, and in-house documentary production will be reduced, the letter added. “Regional music libraries will be closed and collections will be repatriated to Radio-Canada's central music library in Montreal,” CBC said. “Production resources will be further optimized by shifting to a tape-free environment, centralizing on-air presentation, and implementing digital control rooms at all locations across the country.” CBC said its plans for advertising on Radio 2 and Espace Musique “do not represent a change in programming direction for these services.” Redekopp said introducing commercials on the CBC Radio services is “a death wish” because “you don’t weaken a service to help the other parts of the service.” Last year, Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber put questions on the House of Commons order paper seeking the salaries and expenses of CBC broadcasters Peter Mansbridge and George Stroumboulopoulos as well as president and CEO Hubert T. Lacroix. Heritage Minister James Moore responded in January, saying the public broadcaster has about 730 employees who earn more than $100,000 a year. In revenue projections filed with the commission for its licence renewals, CBC forecasted that pre-tax net earnings for Radio 2 and Espace Musique will reach $44.69 million and $138.13 million, respectively, in the 2017-2018 broadcast year. The projections, dated Sept. 14, 2012, forecasted those net earnings will rise from $3.56 million for Radio 2 and $8.44 million for Espace Musique in the 2013-2014 broadcast year. Radio 2 and Espace Musique are each projected to lose between tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars per year between 2013 and 2018, CBC said. In separate charts for television, Radio-Canada projected local and national advertising TV revenues of $142.9 million in the 2013-2014 broadcast year, rising to $166.4 million in 2017-2018. CBC's English TV services projected local and national advertising sales of $260.5 million in 2013-2014, rising to $301.9 million in 2017-2018. In its licence renewal application filed with the CRTC, dated May 18, 2011 and published in September 2012, CBC also requested fees for broadcast distributors' carriage of its local TV signals. Those signals are now carried free according to the regulations. “he BDUs are reaping a financial gain for themselves at the expense of their subscribers and the Corporation,” CBC said. “In other words, BDUs are free-riding.” Redekopp said in an interview that CBC's request is reasonable given the financial resources needed to produce content. “The CBC doesn’t have the money to make it all happen and they have to find ways of recouping the costs of some of their material,” he said. news@thewirereport.ca -- CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the name of CBC/Radio-Canada's French-language music service.

CBC should inform first, and lose ‘obsession’ with ratings: panel

Broadcast | October 12, 2012

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us