Sometime This Weekend...

...I hope to tell you about the strange tale of an Angus Reid survey about the CBC that I completed earlier today.

But first, read this piece by one of Canada's literary/broadcasting elitists, Michael Harris:

Saving the CBC: The path forward is finding the way back

"This much is for certain. It is foolish and perverse for CBC executives to think that they can take a billion dollars in public money and then refuse to tell Canadians how it’s spent – especially since the Corporation is now covered under the access to information law. Every day they fight this feckless battle in court is another day they resemble the information-suppressors they so often pursue and pillory on the public’s behalf. When you’re in the information business, going to court to keep your corporate secrets looks a lot like hypocrisy."

With that much, I do agree with him.

I don't agree with much else this jerk says though. His pretensions and arrogance are the very stuff of mainstream media and would fit quite well into the CBC, but, like him, I'm not exactly a big fan of Sun TV either. I think they have to make some changes if they are going to rival the CBC or replace it. Their attacks on the CBC are a bit over the top and highly unprofessional. What they should be doing is digging up dirt and facts and letting their viewers know and we can do the job of lobbying the government.

What do you think? Can the CBC get back what it has lost, as Harris recommends? Just exactly what did it once have to be lost? Or is just the fact that the CBC is funded by taxpayers that is the most important issue? To be sure, many decades ago the quality of their programming and their political slant was nowhere near as blatantly biased as it is today.

But Harris continues:

"The CBC needs to resolve an identity crisis that has been growing for years. The path forward is finding the way back. If its executives decide it is a public broadcaster, it’s got to re-commit to Canadian content and eschew the siren song of private network principles. A good place to start would be to undo the centralization of the Corporation’s business in Toronto and reinvest in the regions which have been turned into mere bureaus of head office. Supper hour news shows used to be the glue that connected the CBC to Canadians in the hinterland. These shows are now yodeling down the well of irrelevance in many regional markets – including the one where I used to work. And it’s also time for the CBC to get out of private television’s pocket and get ads off the air."

It's not just advertizing revenue that they are stealing from the competitors, sweetheart. Their competitors and their employees also pay taxes, some of which goes to support the CBC.

"At its best, the public broadcaster is revered by Canadians for showing us who we are and protecting that identity from a tsunami of crappy cop shows, two-bit reality programs, and half-baked newscasts from the United States. Giving us more of them is a self-administered death penalty."

You see, even their detractors have an anti-American bias. Not that I think American television is any better. It isn't. But Darlin', it is the viewers who will decide that, not you or the CBC.

The only way I can conceive of the CBC surviving is if:

a) They get out of the news business entirely. Let the private sector do that, with the dollars that now go to the CBC. (Some day I might write about how I envisage that happening, but basically it's letting those corporations and their employees keep their money instead of forking it over to the CBC, then they can support whatever Canadian network they choose, or none, if that's their preference.) I don't want to see tax dollars going to any broadcaster, but I do think there may be an alternative method of reflecting Canada to Canadians, if that is even important any more.

b) Its programming is all locally produced by production companies who may or may not have received grants from the government, private corporations and voluntary donations from Canadian citizens who wish to support whatever network they may wish to support. We've had enough of nanny the broadcaster sitting in downtown Toronto, telling us who we are and what we are supposed to believe and if television as a technology is to survive (I have my doubts) and if the mandate of reflecting Canada's regions to one another is still important to Canadians, then regionally based corporations and citizens at large are in the best position to determine what should be funded and what should be produced, and can give their money directly to companies that produce the shows that we may want to watch.

Believe me, we will lose the arrogance, the secretiveness, and, here in Western Canada at least, the kneejerk, strident anti-American bigotry that is so pervasive, not just in Mother Corp, but in the Toronto elites.

Anyway, in a day or two, I'll tell you about the Angus Reid poll, so do come back.

Oh, and to hammer home one final point.  If we want to watch American TV we bloody well will. Each and every individual Canadian can and does watch whatever they damn well please, and there is nothing - diddly squat  - you, Michael Harris, or anyone else, can do about that.