What to do with Radio Canada and the CBC?

[casper]

Best option is to go down the PBS model out of the US. Perhaps with some Canadian twists.

Each existing CBC station is setup as it is own locally community (non-profit) owned and independently controlled entity.

CBC at the national level can continue to run News World (or what ever it calls in 24/7/365 news channel). The local stations can rebroadcast The National.

CBC also runs some national cable drama/entertainment channel limited to 100% created Canadian content. Some of that it creates, some it picks up from the local now independent CBC affiliates. Some of it is are reruns from its library of staff going through its history.

Once this is setup, the plan is for government to slowly reduce funding over say 50 years. The regional stations can run adds if they like or raise money. The national cable channels should be able to fund their operations from adds.

[Spocket]

Since I personally can't stand the politics of the CBC, I'd prefer to see them get out of it entirely and focus on news and learning. If that was all that they did then I'd tell the government to give them whatever they asked for.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by casper

Best option is to go down the PBS model out of the US. Perhaps with some Canadian twists.

Each existing CBC station is setup as it is own locally community (non-profit) owned and independently controlled entity.

CBC at the national level can continue to run News World (or what ever it calls in 24/7/365 news channel). The local stations can rebroadcast The National.

CBC also runs some national cable drama/entertainment channel limited to 100% created Canadian content. Some of that it creates, some it picks up from the local now independent CBC affiliates. Some of it is are reruns from its library of staff going through its history.

Once this is setup, the plan is for government to slowly reduce funding over say 50 years. The regional stations can run adds if they like or raise money. The national cable channels should be able to fund their operations from adds.

I completely agree.

A PBS model is the way to go with individual stations for local programming. The CBC should only be running the National ¨from Toronto for news so they can save huge sums of money on local TV news which invariably are poorly rated.

Certainly run different types of programming but 100% Canadian content with none of this pretending to be in the US crap. I do like a lot of the CBC content and certainly it has excellent news, current affairs, sports, drama, kids, and even some comedy series but it could be so much more with a lot less money and nearly commercial free.

[Pinus]

Why the CRTC ever allowed the glut of American television stations to begin broadcasting on Canadian airwaves all those 30 or so years ago is beyond me. Now all we seem to want is American-style programming for entertainment, media coverage, etc.

We have really become brainwashed by American culture. Truly vomit-cringe worthy.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Why the CRTC ever allowed the glut of American television stations to begin broadcasting on Canadian airwaves all those 30 or so years ago is beyond me. Now all we seem to want is American-style programming for entertainment, media coverage, etc.

We have really become brainwashed by American culture. Truly vomit-cringe worthy.

In large parts of Canada you can pick up American TV with rabbit ears. The CRTC didn’t have much choice.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I completely agree.

A PBS model is the way to go with individual stations for local programming. The CBC should only be running the National ¨from Toronto for news so they can save huge sums of money on local TV news which invariably are poorly rated.

Certainly run different types of programming but 100% Canadian content with none of this pretending to be in the US crap. I do like a lot of the CBC content and certainly it has excellent news, current affairs, sports, drama, kids, and even some comedy series but it could be so much more with a lot less money and nearly commercial free.

I tend to agree that spending a lot of money on scripted programs that portray generic North American settings and hardly anyone watches anyway doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

Not a big fan of the PBS model though. There is significant variation in quality between the stations and they all run different schedules and spend half their time begging for money.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by acottawa

In large parts of Canada you can pick up American TV with rabbit ears. The CRTC didn’t have much choice.

It’s really nothing new. When the Canadian government first established Canadian radio stations in the 1920s, people were unhappy because the Canadian signals with their dreary Canadian content were drowning out the U.S, stations that had the programs everyone wanted to hear.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by dleung

I might watch this if it's on netflix.

The new Anne of Green Gables is on Netflix.

EDIT: Darn, I thought this was a new thread. Did not realize I was replying to a 2 year old comment.

[MonctonRad]

CBC Radio remains a gem, and should be preserved and even expanded. As previously mentioned, in large parts of the country, CBC Radio is the only quality product available, and does serve as a "glue" that binds the country together.

My model for CBC Radio would be very much like the BBC. If I recall, I think the BBC maintains seven streams nationally, as well as local and regional broadcasting stations (like BBC Scotland).

So, for CBC, I would make the following streams available over the airwaves nationally:

CBC-1 (very much like the current CBC-1, concentrating on news and current affairs, and maintained by a network of local CBC radio stations producing some local content, including morning and late afternoon news and information shows for people as they get up in the morning and commute to and from work ).
CBC-2 (classical, and by this I mean all classical all the time, not like the current iteration of CBC-2, which includes a bit of everything)
CBC-3 (jazz, world music, ambient, relaxation)
CBC-4 (pop, rock)
CBC-5 (country, folk)
CBC-6 (hip hop, rap)
CBC-7 (local music programming, aboriginal (for the north)).

As for CBC TV, something radical needs to be done. I agree that it should be more like the PBS (but not a clone). To that end, I would maintain advertising (I really dislike the way that the individual PBS stations spend half their time begging for donations). Having said this, PBS does some things exceedingly well, this is what the CBC should emulate.

1) - I would have CBC TV concentrate on high quality dramatic productions, especially producing content that presents Canada to the world (like the BBC does).
2) - Information programming and documentaries of all types (including nature and science documentaries, which should really be the CBC's forte (think NOVA and Nature on PBS)). The CBC could make a real impact on the entire world by doing this (such work could easily be sold to international broadcasters).
3) - CBC should really drop the idea of producing sit coms and low brow popular entertainment. Current quality is generally poor, and frankly a national embarrassment.
4) - The CBC should maintain good quality national and regional news and public affairs shows, but try to make their products more balanced in their presentation than they currently are now (more business news, more hard news, more local human interest, less SJW and activist content).
5) - The CBC should retain a sports department, but concentrate on international sporting events, and content not covered on SportsNet and TSN. Hockey Night in Canada should be maintained.
6) - To fill up the remainder of the time slots, the CBC should present the best of international programming (especially from the BBC), just like PBS does in the states.

By doing this, CBC TV would become the high quality public broadcaster that Canada needs and deserves.

[acottawa]

Under that scenario pretty much the entire FM dial would be CBC/SRC.

[Acajack]

The British model of a tax per TV set and maybe on other devices and services to fund the BBC seems like a good one.

[Acajack]

Oh and BTW while they are far from perfect please stay away from the French services with these ideas!

[Bcasey25raptor]

Give them the money, it's already a joke how Canada seems to abuse and underfund our public broadcaster.

Would the brits accept this for the BBC? no they wouldn't. Why are we ok with this?

Give them the $400 million and flush them with cash to make them actually do their jobs correctly.

Like it or not the CBC is a symbol of Canada and we MUST keep it or risk further americanization of our identity, culture, and politics.

[Bcasey25raptor]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Why the CRTC ever allowed the glut of American television stations to begin broadcasting on Canadian airwaves all those 30 or so years ago is beyond me. Now all we seem to want is American-style programming for entertainment, media coverage, etc.

We have really become brainwashed by American culture. Truly vomit-cringe worthy.

100% agreed, the cancer that is american culture and politics has infested Canada and I worry it's too late to turn back.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Oh and BTW while they are far from perfect please stay away from the French services with these ideas!

And what would you do with R-C (if anything) Acajack??

[vid]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

So, for CBC, I would make the following streams available over the airwaves nationally:

CBC-1 (very much like the current CBC-1, concentrating on news and current affairs, and maintained by a network of local CBC radio stations producing some local content, including morning and late afternoon news and information shows for people as they get up in the morning and commute to and from work ).
CBC-2 (classical, and by this I mean all classical all the time, not like the current iteration of CBC-2, which includes a bit of everything)
CBC-3 (jazz, world music, ambient, relaxation)
CBC-4 (pop, rock)
CBC-5 (country, folk)
CBC-6 (hip hop, rap)
CBC-7 (local music programming, aboriginal (for the north)).

CBC music's online service has, like, 150 different music streams on it. They had 12 Christmas streams in December. They add and remove them constantly, they just plug criteria into a database and they've got a stream.

There is no reason for CBC to plug up the FM dial (which only has a capacity of about 20 stations per market to begin with) with a bunch of stations that very few people will listen to. The main general information station, mixed music and indigenous programming are basically all they "need".

If you want to improve CBC music's local music selection, increase the regionalism of the service to be on-par with Radio 1 and provide programming blocks for local content and local control of playlists. Keep in mind if you're expecting 24 hours of locally organized content, a lot of markets are going to struggle with that. It takes quite a few people to actually run a radio station with a decent mix that is responsive enough to consumer demands to be relevant. CBC Thunder Bay and CBC Sudbury are sharing resources to fill in their time slots; before this, they just aired a lot of the same content but with different hosts repeating the same segments, similar to what Sinclair does in the US with it's far-right editorials. Splitting CBC Radio into 6 music streams is going to need more people and more content, and all of that comes at a cost.

Regarding TV: Broadcast television is antique and should be phased out. 10 years from now, Cable and Satellite TV won't be a thing and there will be no more specialty channels, just content providers and licensing to streaming apps. A cable package will go from a number of channels to an amount of bandwidth on a dedicated line.

To be honest, I'm kind of impressed with how temporary TV was and how stable radio is, but when you think about it, it's a lot easier to enjoy radio while you're doing other things. You can't do that with TV. It's not versatile enough.

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

One program that they need to cancel already is This Hour has 22 Minutes. It has been beyond stale for years now.

That's literally the only show I watch on CBC. I watch The National sometimes but they're too pro-establishment neo-liberal for an SJW progressive like myself.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

And what would you do with R-C (if anything) Acajack??

I'd like to see more international public affairs - it was chopped in cutbacks years ago and never really recovered.

Also maybe a bit more high culture on the TV network.

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by acottawa

In large parts of Canada you can pick up American TV with rabbit ears. The CRTC didn’t have much choice.

That would be your basic farmervision channels.

I'm referring to the channels offered in cable packages; CNN, MSNBC, Fox news, and all the movie and other entertainment channels. We certainly didn't need that garbage from down south, and all its done is lead to further eroding of Canadian culture and the continued Americanization of Canada and our vocabulary. We've essentially become more dull-witted as a nation since this onslaught. We are fast becoming a nation of morons, as is our neighbours to the south, and no one seems to care.

[vid]

Originally Posted by Pinus

That would be your basic farmervision channels.

I'm referring to the channels offered in cable packages; CNN, MSNBC, Fox news, and all the movie and other entertainment channels. We certainly didn't need that garbage from down south, and all its done is lead to further eroding of Canadian culture and the continued Americanization of Canada and our vocabulary. We've essentially become more dull-witted as a nation since this onslaught. We are fast becoming a nation of morons, as is our neighbours to the south, and no one seems to care.

That's not because of our proximity to America, though. Dumbed down populations are an intended result of capitalist economic policy. They don't want us to be educated, and they certainly don't want us to identify as a group with a singular culture!

[flar]

They should leave the CBC alone, they are the only "network" that I purposely tune in. Not coincidentally, the only network you will hear conversations with smart people talking about interesting things.