What to do with Radio Canada and the CBC?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Saturday morning is pretty good. Mixture of informative and comedy is good listening while running Saturday morning errands.

A good part of Saturday morning on CBC Radio One is local programming, isn't it? It is in Ottawa so I assume that's the case across the country.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It'll be a bigger test for Poilievre than people realize when he has to navigate between CBC (unpopular with anglophones) and Radio-Canada (popular with francophones).

Easy dilemma to solve. Disband anglophone CBC, hand over Radio-Canada to the Quebec government. Francophones outside Quebec will be mad, but that's a demographic that never votes CPC.

[Dengler Avenue]

“Radio Canada devient Radio Québec.”

[ssiguy]

I agree with MonctonRoad, make CBC more akin to PBS or TVO and then throw in HNC as it is an institution in the country. Keep the childrens programming as well.

Get rid of all local news and just have a national newscast from Toronto once a day like PBS and then provide quality programming. They could maintain local news only for remote places ie the Territories. The CBC has been trying to serve all people decently and the result is that it serves no one well. CBC Radio could be maintained in it's current form for more local content and it's still well patronized.

If these cuts go thru, and even get worse under PP, then it does admittedly put the CBC in a hell of a pickle. It has to provide English service for 10 provinces, 3 territories, with local content, over 6 time zones, indigenous services, all while trying to "connect" Canadians to one another...........an impossible task. The CBC will continue to wither unless there is a change in it's mandate and local requirements.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Easy dilemma to solve. Disband anglophone CBC, hand over Radio-Canada to the Quebec government. Francophones outside Quebec will be mad, but that's a demographic that never votes CPC.

I mentioned earlier that various Quebec governments have proposed this. It may have been a while since it was formally discussed but my guess is the offer is still on the table.

Services for francophones outside Quebec could still be part of the transfer agreement that the Government of Quebec would agree to.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Acajack

A lot of Americans also appreciate CBC for its Olympic coverage. And rightfully so.

Indeed. Brian Williams was a staple and Olympics workhorse for years (it didn't seem like he slept much during Olympics ). They give a lot of coverage to American athletes. Particularly in sports where Canada doesn't have viable contenders.

Originally Posted by Acajack

Franco-Manitobans get local daily morning and late afternoon shows from Radio-Canada, a daily local TV newscast and there is a regional cultural program on the weekend that covers all of Western Canada.

*Franco-Manitobains
I love Manitoba where seemingly 10-15% or more of the province attempts to trace their roots directly to Louis Riel

http://www.keepinitriel.ca/

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I used to listen to CBC radio because I drove to work. I don’t have a radio other than the one in my car, and I’m not going to download a radio player app. I think this is common for anyone under 45. If you’re not in a car, you’re not listening to the radio.

CBC news on TV is a waste of my time. It’s not the “wokeness” that gets to me, it’s that it’s very superficial analysis that’s almost as much of a time commitment as a podcast with an influential thinker that goes in depth. Why intersperse a national news programs with meaningless stories about a couple who didn’t get reimbursed for a flight cancellation by Air Canada? Who cares about that shit? I get that “complaining to the manager” is a characteristic that transcends generations but, again, for people under a certain age, the venue for doing that is to make a TikTok reel. Don’t sully a national news broadcast with your petty grievances.

I haven't listened to CBC radio or watched TV news in years either, but to be fair, it's not like the CBC hasn't adapted to the times either - they've got a news app (with both national & regional streams) like everyone else, and Gem for streaming (which I have, but almost never use 'cause there's not much worth watching on it).

And despite their obvious ideological bias and fluffy special interest stories ("I'm a black trans disabled Muslim living in a small town in Newfoundland...", etc), the CBC is still the best & most comprehensive source for Canadian news. International news on the other hand not so much.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

I haven't listened to CBC radio or watched TV news in years either, but to be fair, it's not like the CBC hasn't adapted to the times either - they've got a news app (with both national & regional streams) like everyone else, and Gem for streaming (which I have, but almost never use 'cause there's not much worth watching on it).

And despite their obvious ideological bias and fluffy special interest stories ("I'm a black trans disabled Muslim living in a small town in Newfoundland...", etc), the CBC is still the best & most comprehensive source for Canadian news. International news on the other hand not so much.

They may be the best but not nearly as good or as unbiased as they used to be IMO. Sometimes it can even get a bit cringeworthy, like the At Issue panel (arguably the most watched and influential in the country) on The National where generally there isn't anyone on there - out 4 people including the host Rosemary Barton - who doesn't think Pierre Poilievre is a shithead, and sometimes they don't do a great job of trying to hide that fact.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Acajack

A good part of Saturday morning on CBC Radio One is local programming, isn't it? It is in Ottawa so I assume that's the case across the country.

Most CBC Radio One stations air a provincial morning show on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 6-9am. Ottawa is the only station to have a dedicated local morning show on Saturday mornings; everywhere else receives a province-wide show, or in the case of the Maritimes, a single show airing across all three provinces. In BC we get North by Northwest.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Get rid of all local news and just have a national newscast from Toronto once a day like PBS and then provide quality programming. They could maintain local news only for remote places ie the Territories. The CBC has been trying to serve all people decently and the result is that it serves no one well. CBC Radio could be maintained in it's current form for more local content and it's still well patronized.

The problem is that outside of large markets like Vancouver and Toronto, there is a severe lack of competition for local news, and eliminating local news on CBC stations would be a major disservice to viewers and leave viewers with only one choice for news. We're not talking about remote areas of Canada, we're talking about cities as large as Ottawa.

For example, eliminating local CBC News in Ottawa would give CTV a monopoly in that market for English TV news. Ottawa does not have a local station for Global or Citytv, and has no independent TV station either - all their English TV other than CBC and CTV is rebroadcast from Toronto. Other markets with only one competitor to a CBC location station include Newfoundland, PEI, and Windsor; additionally New Brunswick does not have any locally-based local news other than CBC, as the CTV service there is from Halifax and Global's news is done from Halifax in the morning and otherwise Montreal for other time slots. In the case of Windsor, CBC and the CTV2 station provide competition against 4 US network affiliates in Detroit, which although do not (and should not have to) cover day-to-day news in Windsor directly, do cover major stories on that side of the river and cover news of interest to Windsor residents who regularly visit Detroit.

One could argue that CTV, Global, and Citytv could be doing more, but they're not. They've been steadily cutting their news product over the past decade, especially CTV. Just last year CTV mostly wiped out its Vancouver Island operations, and a few months ago some of the local newscasts on CTV in Saskatchewan were merged into a regional newscast from Regina. Global's cuts haven't been as severe, but they also have far fewer local newsrooms than CTV to begin with, so there's less to cut. In the modern media landscape it is unrealistic to believe that Global is suddenly going to establish local TV news operations in Ottawa, London or Sudbury or that CTV will suddenly decide to open a station in Kelowna.

It's hard to appreciate how poorly Canadians, even in major cities, are served by local news outlets until you've visited some places outside the largest 3 markets. Many cities don't even have a local CBC TV operation to begin with, while others have no presence from Global. If anything, CBC should be expanding their local presence into other cities, and to their credit they've done a good job at this on the radio side over the past 15 years.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

Most CBC Radio One stations air a provincial morning show on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 6-9am. Ottawa is the only station to have a dedicated local morning show on Saturday mornings; everywhere else receives a province-wide show, or in the case of the Maritimes, a single show airing across all three provinces. In BC we get North by Northwest.

Thanks for the info.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

I haven't listened to CBC radio or watched TV news in years either, but to be fair, it's not like the CBC hasn't adapted to the times either - they've got a news app (with both national & regional streams) like everyone else, and Gem for streaming (which I have, but almost never use 'cause there's not much worth watching on it).

But they went from being more or less a default in the radio or not-everyone-has-cable days to one of a plethora of options. I mostly listen to my own chosen music now or long-form podcasts and I haven't found many interesting Canadian ones so far, although I didn't look very hard. I do find the French language content better than the English content although it's basically from a Quebec viewpoint (which isn't necessarily bad and is often refreshing).

I don't drive much or listen to the radio but I managed to randomly sample some CBC radio content at one point and quickly gave up on it. At the time it was a #metoo marathon concerned with outrageous workplace practices of Hollywood celebrities (not unique or Canadian content and not interesting to me) and they had something like a panel of seemingly all women studies profs ranting about how white people need to cut off racist family members if they hear bad things at the Thanksgiving table. That was at least kind of funny.

[ssiguy]

For areas outside the big cities they do have options. Nearly every town over 10,000 has a newspaper or a radio station that they can get their local news from.

Local CBC TV news should be completely scrapped whether in a small town or a huge city. There should be one national broadcast from Toronto every day and that's it. Let CBC Radio provide local coverage and not just from one spot but rather all major stations have local content and news. That means not one provincial CBC newscast from, for example, Vancouver but rather a CBC AM service that also offers local content and news from regional centres to make sure all areas have access to local news and weather ie CX/Nan/Vic/Van/Chi/Kel/Nel/Ter/PG/DC. It is infinitely cheaper to run radio stations than TV ones and those local radio reporters could double as TV correspondents for the national news radiating from their areas.

CBC TV cannot compete with all the US stations combined with Global & CTV so why bother trying? Instead provide the services that those outlets don't provide.......news, current events, documentaries, investigative reports, etc as well as HNIC not only due to being a money maker but also because HNIC is a national institution. In other words, turn it into a PBS/TVO/Knowledge Network type system.

CBC TV should be run 100% out of the CBC Toronto headquarters including the news. That doesn't mean that all the programs have to originate from Toronto as they could have an investigative report from Halifax, an environmental story from Vancouver, a hockey game from Calgary, or a documentary from Windsor. Effectively there would only be one CBC TV station in Canada and it would be in Toronto but the quality of the programming would be better and the local CBC Radio would become more local and hence relevant to the citizens it serves.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

...

CBC TV should be run 100% out of the CBC Toronto headquarters including the news. That doesn't mean that all the programs have to originate from Toronto as they could have an investigative report from Halifax, an environmental story from Vancouver, a hockey game from Calgary, or a documentary from Windsor. Effectively there would only be one CBC TV station in Canada and it would be in Toronto but the quality of the programming would be better and the local CBC Radio would become more local and hence relevant to the citizens it serves.

It already feels like it's centralized from Toronto, everything else feels like a branch office or remote reporting. To centralize it even more would be less popular than making Doug Ford prime minister. The purpose of the CBC is to represent Canadians, and provide some information throughout the country that would not be known otherwise. If you make it more ineffectual than it already is, there will be even less reason to keep funding it. I predict much more abuse and deterioration when P.P. gets in. Further defunding of the CBC will also be tantamount to promoting racism and ultra white conservatism, because CBC focuses on minority issues which are routinely ignored by other networks.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Architype

It already feels like it's centralized from Toronto, everything else feels like a branch office or remote reporting. To centralize it even more would be less popular than making Doug Ford prime minister. The purpose of the CBC is to represent Canadians, and provide some information throughout the country that would not be known otherwise. If you make it more ineffectual than it already is, there will be even less reason to keep funding it. I predict much more abuse and deterioration when P.P. gets in. Further defunding of the CBC will also be tantamount to promoting racism and ultra white conservatism, because CBC focuses on minority issues which are routinely ignored by other networks.

I am in favour of continuing to fund CBC and Radio-Canada, but this seems overly dramatic. The Mother Corp isn't the only thing or even the main thing saving us from racism and white supremacism. Come on now.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

For areas outside the big cities they do have options. Nearly every town over 10,000 has a newspaper or a radio station that they can get their local news from.

Local CBC TV news should be completely scrapped whether in a small town or a huge city. There should be one national broadcast from Toronto every day and that's it. Let CBC Radio provide local coverage and not just from one spot but rather all major stations have local content and news. That means not one provincial CBC newscast from, for example, Vancouver but rather a CBC AM service that also offers local content and news from regional centres to make sure all areas have access to local news and weather ie CX/Nan/Vic/Van/Chi/Kel/Nel/Ter/PG/DC. It is infinitely cheaper to run radio stations than TV ones and those local radio reporters could double as TV correspondents for the national news radiating from their areas.

CBC TV cannot compete with all the US stations combined with Global & CTV so why bother trying? Instead provide the services that those outlets don't provide.......news, current events, documentaries, investigative reports, etc as well as HNIC not only due to being a money maker but also because HNIC is a national institution. In other words, turn it into a PBS/TVO/Knowledge Network type system.

CBC TV should be run 100% out of the CBC Toronto headquarters including the news. That doesn't mean that all the programs have to originate from Toronto as they could have an investigative report from Halifax, an environmental story from Vancouver, a hockey game from Calgary, or a documentary from Windsor. Effectively there would only be one CBC TV station in Canada and it would be in Toronto but the quality of the programming would be better and the local CBC Radio would become more local and hence relevant to the citizens it serves.

In spite of all of the best intentions (that we can assume), this outfit would almost certainly be even more Toronto-centric than the current CBC already is. Why would people all across the country pay through their taxes for an even more Toronto-centric media outlet that doesn't really serve them?

[casper]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In spite of all of the best intentions (that we can assume), this outfit would almost certainly be even more Toronto-centric than the current CBC already is. Why would people all across the country pay through their taxes for an even more Toronto-centric media outlet that doesn't really serve them?

I would be supportive of converting it into a co-op structure. Small local operators accountable to their local community. The regional operators then own the national operator.

PBS in the US would be a good starting model. The key difference being PBS is not a strong news gathering organization, the CBC is. The model could still work. The local operators run local news where and when it makes sense. They don't have to do the same things in all markets.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by casper

I would be supportive of converting it into a co-op structure. Small local operators accountable to their local community. The regional operators then own the national operator.

PBS in the US would be a good starting model. The key difference being PBS is not a strong news gathering organization, the CBC is. The model could still work. The local operators run local news where and when it makes sense. They don't have to do the same things in all markets.

The PBS (and US) model seems much less desirable than the BBC model, which is what initially inspired the CBC even if it is not identical to it.

The US mediascape has way more actors and is more diverse, but not sure it's better than ours in terms of having access to reliable unbiased news coverage.

[thurmas]

I think its safe to say a Poilievre government will gut cbc into a Canadian PBS as there is a lot of roadblocks to getting rid of English cbc completely and still keeping radio canada. With that said what I hope he does is put stronger Canadian content rules on bell and global especially bell. How they have been allowed to destroy their local news and radio offering and cuts to tsn and local sports coverage needs to be stopped and reversed.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

For areas outside the big cities they do have options. Nearly every town over 10,000 has a newspaper or a radio station that they can get their local news from.

Local CBC TV news should be completely scrapped whether in a small town or a huge city. There should be one national broadcast from Toronto every day and that's it. Let CBC Radio provide local coverage and not just from one spot but rather all major stations have local content and news. That means not one provincial CBC newscast from, for example, Vancouver but rather a CBC AM service that also offers local content and news from regional centres to make sure all areas have access to local news and weather ie CX/Nan/Vic/Van/Chi/Kel/Nel/Ter/PG/DC. It is infinitely cheaper to run radio stations than TV ones and those local radio reporters could double as TV correspondents for the national news radiating from their areas.

CBC TV cannot compete with all the US stations combined with Global & CTV so why bother trying? Instead provide the services that those outlets don't provide.......news, current events, documentaries, investigative reports, etc as well as HNIC not only due to being a money maker but also because HNIC is a national institution. In other words, turn it into a PBS/TVO/Knowledge Network type system.

CBC TV should be run 100% out of the CBC Toronto headquarters including the news. That doesn't mean that all the programs have to originate from Toronto as they could have an investigative report from Halifax, an environmental story from Vancouver, a hockey game from Calgary, or a documentary from Windsor. Effectively there would only be one CBC TV station in Canada and it would be in Toronto but the quality of the programming would be better and the local CBC Radio would become more local and hence relevant to the citizens it serves.

Second thread where I am arguing with you. And second time I think where me somebody voting Conservative next election is on the side of Liberals whereas you are probably the opposite no?

Local news matters and is essential even for democracy. CTV is likely to cut this news further if there is no competition and they can get away with it. Maybe their monopoly increases profit and they invest more into local news but I doubt it. Radio can cover local news but doesn't have the reach of TV.

The only problem with CBC news is there transparent agenda to support the left. They have a climate change and Indigenous story almost everyday. They seem to be like Fox News and have a message of the week they push. Get back to reporting the news in a factual, even if leftist in outlook manner. The difficulty is of course on a lot of issues being factual can appear leftist which is what they tell themselves on all issues I am sure.