Juno News - December 07, 2019


CBC's ＂business model＂ lives in Fantasyland


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

165.68483

Word Count

675

Sentence Count

44


Summary

In this episode, Andrew Lutton argues that Canada's state broadcaster, CBC, is living in fantasy land. He argues that it's hard to imagine a world where the government subsidizes a media company that doesn't make money.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Canada's state broadcaster gets away with living in absolute fantasy land.
00:00:10.240 As originally reported by Blacklock's reporter, CBC's television ad revenues have dropped significantly in the last five years.
00:00:19.160 After having $90.9 million in the first six months, as far as ad revenue is concerned, of 2019, this marks a 53% decrease over what CBC was pulling in and advertising in 2014.
00:00:34.900 Which means that advertising, which is the primary revenue tool for most television companies and media companies, has been slashed in half.
00:00:43.960 But for CTV, for global, this would be catastrophic.
00:00:47.680 For CBC, it's merely a rounding error, given that the majority of the state broadcaster's funding comes from the state.
00:00:54.920 To the tune of almost $1.3 billion each year, in fact.
00:00:59.520 But a CBC executive has said that this declining ad revenue means the company needs to basically reinvent itself.
00:01:06.660 And they're trying to cry poverty about this and how difficult it is.
00:01:10.360 And a very stark admission that the role of CBC is not to make money.
00:01:14.860 While that may be true, the role of CBC, like any other organization, state or otherwise owned, should be to run a convincing business case.
00:01:24.780 And the business case for CBC just isn't there.
00:01:28.180 Hence the fantasy land charge I made at the beginning of this video.
00:01:32.160 You see, CBC is unconstrained by the market realities that impact other media organizations in Canada,
00:01:38.260 but nevertheless tries to compete with those very organizations.
00:01:42.800 Take a look at CBC bidding on the Olympics, for example.
00:01:45.860 There's no argument that the private sector couldn't adequately, or in a better way, in fact,
00:01:50.680 deliver the service of airing the Olympics to people.
00:01:54.160 But CBC is still competing with private companies that would love to get a piece of that action.
00:01:58.760 Even though, regardless of whether CBC succeeds or not, it's getting that money from the government.
00:02:05.900 Its existence does not depend on advertising revenue.
00:02:09.940 And this is where we have to look into the cost-benefit analysis for Canadians.
00:02:14.140 Not just ad revenue is going down, but viewership as well.
00:02:17.940 That's the reason it's more difficult to get advertising, because fewer people are watching it.
00:02:22.620 Fewer people are interested in the product, but even so, the government subsidy never goes down.
00:02:27.840 It only ever goes up, which is more likely to happen now that Justin Trudeau's Liberals have been re-elected.
00:02:33.860 So let's just recap here.
00:02:35.020 CBC is not pulling in advertisers.
00:02:37.260 It's not getting audiences.
00:02:39.360 It's immune from some of the big trends that have been pushing other media outlets towards massive layoffs.
00:02:45.400 And we're still supposed to feel sorry for CBC.
00:02:49.540 Now, listen, I feel for people that work in that, that aren't ideologues,
00:02:53.020 that work for the organization just because that was the job that they had available.
00:02:56.980 But I'm sorry, there is no argument in this day and age for Canadian taxpayers to be subsidizing an outlet they don't want
00:03:05.200 that is cannibalizing operations that they do want that are existing in Canada, in private sector media.
00:03:12.540 This is just plain wrong.
00:03:14.240 It's also why it's never been more important to support independent voices in media, of which True North is one.
00:03:20.200 We can't do the work that we do without you because we aren't getting the $1.3 billion CBC is.
00:03:27.160 We aren't getting the $600 million media bailout fund that other media organizations in Canada are getting.
00:03:33.900 The only way we survive is by investment from the people who like what we do, which is the way it's supposed to work, by the way.
00:03:41.800 Who decided somewhere along the way that you should have to pay for something you don't want?
00:03:46.680 But that comes with a call to action.
00:03:48.800 If you like what we're doing and think it's important to break through what CBC is doing that the stats say you aren't paying attention to,
00:03:56.160 please do chip in a few dollars.
00:03:57.800 You can join my Heritage Club or make a one-time contribution.
00:04:01.300 Either way, we appreciate it.
00:04:02.940 For True North, I'm Andrew Lutton.