Time to Rejuvenate the CBC dinosaur
What will it take? Anti-wrinkle cream? A rust scraper? Full-on strip-down with a recycle of the spare parts?
(Click HERE for the whole story)
Just a general random-thought walkabout:
CBC gets over 1 billion in taxpayer money (about 1.4 billion actually), and generates over 500 million in revenue by selling ads.
CBC--ironically in the most technical and accurate sense--is not required to carry 100% Canadian content.
Statistic #1: "The CBC's CanCon quota is 60% for television and 50% for popular music on radio."
Question: why is our national Canadian broadcaster carrying non-Canadian content?
The implicit assumption is that the CBC powers-that-be are not confident enough in our own citizens' creative ability to capture its own Canadian audience.
Why? Many famous cultural Canadian exports to the US seem to defy that insecure assumption.
Statistic #2: about 4.4 percent of Canadians watch and/or listen to CBC.
That means--if my 'rithmetic is accurate--95.6% of Canadians *do not* watch and/or listen to CBC--yet are paying for a service they don't use.
If CBC executives believe carrying a lot of non-Canadian content (see above: Statistic #1) somehow will increase their viewership, Statistic #2 (see again above) would indicate that is a failed strategy--yet, the policy persists. Logic, apparently, is not a song CBC executives are adjudicating.
And this CBC is an organization we're *all* funding with our taxes. What if every Canadian paid for their Netflix subscription, unknowingly--aka they never watched it--for decades? Surely they would ask for a refund?
I want to point out that I'm not against the CBC--but it needs a shake-up. What I'm for is actually *increasing* Canadian content, & creating our cultural glue through story and entertainment. To do that, Canadians need entertainment worth watching.
Challenge: List 5 Canadian tv shows and radio shows you listen to frequently? 2? 1?
I'll start: I haven't watched CBC tv shows in over 20 years. I barely remember CBC Gem's existence. I watch hockey on CBC sometimes, when it's free.
I'm not knocking these current CBC shows. To put in context, I used to go out of my way to watch "Adderly" back in the day (anyone remember "Adderly"...? Anyone...?) [ed. note: I realize now that “Adderly” isn’t a CBC show per se…but the point still stands. Somewhat relatedly, check out my upcoming “Adderly” look-over…!]. But it always had the sense of a *duty* rather than a *want*--like Mom foisting Red River cereal on us kids in the morning.
CBC radio shows like "Quirks and Quarks" and "Under the Influence" are brilliant shows. I like "The History of New Music with Alan Cross" a lot, but it's not produced by CBC. One could not be blamed for thinking anything to do with Canadian content is CBC-produced--which shows more diversity in this eco-system is needed.
Thought: If half the budget of CBC was given directly to creators--no strings attached & nevermind the production and distribution costs for now--could more Canadians *enjoy* more diverse and creative options for Canadian content that can contribute to our "cultural glue"?