http://www.friends.ca/press-release/8256Ottawa – CBC's budget is being reviewed to identify spending cuts of up to 5% or $56 million despite Heritage Minister James Moore's guarantee that the Harper government would not cut CBC's budget.
News that CBC's budget will be reviewed comes only days after Minister Moore promised the Commons Heritage Committee that there would be no cuts to CBC's budget.
Appearing before the Committee on April 29th, Moore replied "That's correct" to MP Pablo Rodriguez's question: "Can you guarantee today that your government will not cut CBC?"
The government's decision to review CBC's budget was announced by President Hubert Lacroix late last week.
I was there as a kid growing up in the 1960's. Today's standards are a lot higher. I remember the old days when anybody with highscool graduation and a couple of FORTRAN courses could get a well-paid job as a computer programmer. Those days are long past.Where is today's Pierre Berton, Farley Mowat, Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray, Stephen Leacock? (Yes, we do have Rick Mercer and, as lovely as he is, it's not curmudgeonly -- pace Rex Murphy -- to ask for -- demand! -- more, much much more.)
I thought the current CBC budget problem was a result of declining advertising revenues not a cut in funding from the federal government? I recall that the feds increased funding to the CBC in the 2008 budget. Am I wrong on these points?...
The Harper government wants to help out its friends and supporters in the private media industry. The plan: extinguish the CBC by appointing a non-broadcaster to the to job and reducing its budget by degrees...
No you are correct. Their shortfall is due to decreased advertising, and the fact they continue to waste so much of what they have. One example is, they bought the rights to "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" for a huge amount of money and it's backfired. Your tax dollars at work. It's bad enough the CBC is subsidized at all, but when you consider the tab is about 1 billion dollars, and most of it is spent on executive retreats and programming nobody watches...well lets just say it's frustrating and mind boggling.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmurray View Post
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The Harper government wants to help out its friends and supporters in the private media industry. The plan: extinguish the CBC by appointing a non-broadcaster to the to job and reducing its budget by degrees...
I thought the current CBC budget problem was a result of declining advertising revenues not a cut in funding from the federal government? I recall that the feds increased funding to the CBC in the 2008 budget. Am I wrong on these points?
Sorry, I was thinking 08/09 not 09/10. CBC did get an increase in 08/09 compared to 07/08, correct?Just a couple of corrections before fantasy and wishful thinking takes over.
The CBC's 2009/9 budget allocation was $1.115 million. The 2009/2010 budget allocation is $1.052 million. Using advanced mathematical techniques, some people are able to see that this is a budget reduction.
That was a bad purchase as significant value has been wasted by dropping Jeopardy! during the hockey playoffs and moving Wheel away from the 7:00 PM time slot in Toronto. Both of those programs need to be aired to get substitution against the US station carried in the market. In Toronto that means Wheel at 7:00 PM and Jeopardy! at 7:30 PM. In other markets the times may be different but in any case the balance of the schedule has to fit around them.The purchases of Jeopardy and Wheel were made with the misguided idea of boosting audiences before news and prime time programming.
That's a bit over dramatic. CBC still has work to do reforming itself to be a national public broadcaster. The next step is dropping professional sports, box office movies, and US network and syndication programming. Canada has plenty of other channels to carry that stuff. CBC needs to become more like TVO and PBS.If we don't want a national broadcaster, why not fold the tent and become the 51st state?
These are factors I've already considered for my own channel. For now, any airtime an advertiser purchases on my channel will also include on-line airtime via live streaming and BitTorrent. I have to generate proper data on the effectiveness of on-line advertising before I can put an accurate price on it.As for broadcasting the popular downloads later, it won't fly with advertisers. The downloads, if any, will have to be made available after they air.
Not to mention that the number of people that would have the wherewithal to actually use such a system is rather small.
So the CBC is the only thing that keeps us Canadian? The CBC is a flawed and outdated system to promote Canadiana, and the reasons for keeping it alive equally so.If we don't want a national broadcaster, why not fold the tent and become the 51st state?
You hit the nail on the head friendo.cmurray said:Just a couple of corrections before fantasy and wishful thinking takes over.
The CBC's 2009/9 budget allocation was $1.115 million. The 2009/2010 budget allocation is $1.052 million. Using advanced mathematical techniques, some people are able to see that this is a budget reduction. After inflation, this is the equivalent of a $79 million cut. Their projected commercial revenue shortfall is in the order of $65 million. This has been a common experience to all commercial broadcasters.
The purchases of Jeopardy and Wheel were made with the misguided idea of boosting audiences before news and prime time programming. The Harper appointed bean counter in charge of the CBC thought it would help the bottom line.
If we don't want a national broadcaster, why not fold the tent and become the 51st state?