<![CDATA[Broadcasting Canada - Celebrating the voices of our nation

An important message in the Vancouver Sun last week. Text below, or read at the link above.

Canada needs the independent voice of CBC Private sector turmoil means public broadcaster is needed to ensure all have access to news
By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun August 17, 2013

The venerable British Broadcasting Corporation is in such a state of flux that it is sending a team around the world to consult globally about the future of public broadcasting.

Among the stops earlier this week was Vancouver - chosen partly because of the city's ethnic diversity and partly because the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. faces similar uncertainty.

Many of the problems aren't unique to public broadcasters. Media companies generally are in turmoil as they attempt to transition from traditional ways of delivering news, information and entertainment to the digital world. The challenges they face are myriad. Some are technology related. Some centre on who is trusted to provide the news, whether it's a tweeter, a Facebook friend or a journalist with a recognized media outlet.

No one seems to have an answer, which is why Amazon. com founder Jeff Bezos' purchase of the Washington Post has been greeted with so much enthusiasm. Maybe he has an answer; if he doesn't, at least he has deep enough pockets to sustain some experimentation that might come up with one. In North America, many media companies are in free fall with readers/viewers/listeners dropping off as they migrate to cheaper, easier sources. As a result, advertisers are de-camping and shareholders are urging more cuts.

Meantime, public broadcasters like BBC and CBC are up against the long-held conservative belief that anything a public company does, a private one can do better. But in this media landscape? Not really.

Because of the turmoil in the private sector, there's never been a time in Canada where a public broadcaster has been so necessary to ensure all communities and citizens have access to national, regional and local news.

The BBC's crowd sourcing of a map for its future comes in response to the British government's decision to download the broadcaster's costs from the foreign affairs department onto individual householders who pay for radio and television licences.

But are people willing to pay? And if so, how much? And for what? BBC's World Service is expensive, and also one of the most trusted in the world. The sad part is that if Britons are unwilling to keep up their payments, the rest of us will also lose out because there are few other equivalent sources of international news coverage or documentaries like Blue Planet.

(To contextualize the per-capita cost of public broadcasting, it's worth noting a 2009 survey of 18 public broadcasters. The BBC was sixth overall at $111 per capita, while Norway was at the top with $164. Canada was third from the bottom at $34 per capita. And the United States, where Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney vowed to eliminate all public funding for PBS with his "Big Bird, bye-bye" comment? It was dead last at $4 per person.)

Even though Canada is already at the low end of per-capita spending on public broadcasting, the Conservative government is cutting spending by $115 million between the 2012-13 fiscal year and 2014-15. But by the time fixed costs, severance costs for laid-off employees, and the elimination of a special fund for local programming are added to the tally, CBC is looking at either reducing spending by nearly $200 million or finding new funding sources.

This fall, CBC's Radio Two and Radio Canada's Espace Musique will have up to four minutes of advertising every hour.

Controversially, several Canadians at the BBC consultation said CBC has no business producing Hockey Night in Canada.

Yet nobody had an answer for where CBC can fulfil its mandate if not from advertising. That mandate includes providing service in French and English across Canada, and it is required to broadcast in the North, which means programming in eight aboriginal languages.

Just as there is a difference between public and private broadcasting, there's a world of difference between public and state broadcasters. Public broadcasters work for the citizens, while state broadcasters are the propaganda arms of government.

Yet, buried in the Conservatives' May omnibus budget bill, was a requirement that a Treasury Board member - a politician from the ruling party - be at the table when CBC negotiates its labour contracts. Those, of course, include working conditions and key among journalists' working conditions are the autonomy and freedom to pursue stories including those that reflect badly on politicians and the government.

That one change doesn't fully cross the moat that's meant to separate public broadcaster from state broadcaster, but the Conservatives seem to at least be getting their feet wet.

The CBC does do public consultations, albeit on a less grand scale than the BBC.

It has an annual public meeting (Oct. 23 in Toronto, with the public invited to join in on Twitter, Facebook and email). There are regular, regional meetings and 8,000 people intervened during last year's licence-renewal hearing at the CRTC.

But maybe it's time that - like the BBC - a bolder, bigger consultation ought to be held. What do we want? How will we get there? Because we need the independent voice of public broadcasting, and not just as a counterbalance to other media. We need it to create and support an engaged citizenry, which is the backbone of democracy.