Oh My - Will CBC Soon Expire?

It's certainly way past its "best by" date. We all know that.

CBC tunes in to new reality

"As potential layoffs loom and programs are cancelled, union employees are talking as though the end of the CBC is nigh.

Late last month, Hubert T. Lacroix, President and Chief Executive of the CBC, hinted at a more dire scenario in which he'd sell off the TV division."

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"Three weeks later, the situation has worsened."

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"But it's not just the CBC that is about to hit a wall.

Broadcasters are hurting everywhere. Advertising revenues are plummeting. Networks in Canada and the U.S. are cutting their budgets, shuttering stations and shrinking head counts.

The stock of CBS, the most-viewed broadcaster in the U.S., has dropped 50% in the past two months.

Reliant on advertising, CBC TV faces the same challenges. "They're in the same boat as CTV or Global," said Stephen Tapp, a former top executive at CHUM. "No broadcaster can live the same way they did five years ago."

Public broadcasting is also in major flux.

"Almost everywhere there is a lack of imagination, a failure to articulate what public broadcasting should look like," said Michael Tracey, the author of The Decline and Fall of Public Service Broadcasting. "They don't have a f------n clue."

U.S. public broadcasters such as National Public Radio will lay off 7% of its workforce and PBS's New York flagship is laying off 14%.

Britain's Channel 4, a publicly owned, commercial broadcaster, is teetering on bankruptcy."

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"A media professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Mr. Tracey said that the CBC and its counterparts have turned to "crude populism" as a way to lure viewers away from speciality channels - or from YouTubing, Facebooking and Twittering away their time.

He also said that they have made the mistake of pushing a brand, which is an increasingly weak approach for a media property.

In recent years, analysts have stressed that viewers are less loyal to channels than to programs, partly because of digital recording and pirated downloads."

And it looks like the Harper government has heard us after all:

No emergency loans for CBC: Tories

"The Conservative government has no plans to "insulate" the CBC from the sharp decline in advertising revenue that has forced companies across the media industry to lay off workers and cut costs, a spokesman for the prime minister said Wednesday."

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"The CBC cannot be insulated from all market realities," said Kory Teneycke, chief spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "Nobody likes to see this [oh ya?], but broadcasters have to adapt to lower ad revenues. No one broadcaster is immune from that."

Right on!!

"Private-sector media companies such as Canwest Global, CTV Globemedia and Quebecor Media have struggled as the economic downturn has sapped advertising revenues, forcing them to lay off staff, chop expenses and shut underperforming operations. On Wednesday, CTV announced it will close two A-Channel stations in southwestern Ontario, warning more closures could be on the horizon."

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"But Christopher Waddell, a journalism professor at Carleton University, said the CBC will be hard-pressed to make the argument for more federal money, especially to support its TV operations, which compete with private broadcasters for ad dollars."

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"Even while in government, the Conservatives have appealed to distaste for the CBC among grassroots supporters to raise funds for the party. But Mr. Waddell said there is likely little support for a CBC bailout, even among the general public."

Unless, of course, you represent a group whose self-serving interests are so blatant that they they think nothing of placing themselves squarely in a conflict of interest position, to wit:

"A spokeswoman for the union that represents CBC employees said the government needs to recognize that the CBC provides important public services that private broadcasters do not, such as operating radio stations in remote communities.

"It fulfils (sic) a really important role in this country. It would be wonderful to see some recognition of that," said Karen Wirsig of the Canadian Media Guild. "The CBC is woefully underfunded when you compare it with public broadcasters in other countries.""

Wake up folks. New media is taking over. As Bob Dylan taught us so long ago, "You better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changin'."