Throwing The Baby Out With The Bathwater II
Last April I posted a blog entry on why I think it is rather shortsighted to consider cutting funding to the CBC and Radio-Canada. But apparently the conservatives are actually trying to make this policy on behest of media conglomerates that refused to pick up the programming I do watch.
Yes, we’re listening to a media conglomerate whose news network failed because of bad ratings in Canada, who claim to be speaking for Canadian taxpayers. And we’re all supposed to believe the programming CBC and Radio-Canada viewers watch will be automatically picked up by other networks, when the media conglomerate in question did not.
I would be watching this programming on other Canadian networks, had they purchased their rights. But all of these private networks are cutting back to afford buying the rights to foreign programming so it makes no sense to axe public broadcasting in Canada.
It doesn’t appear to matter that very little of CBC and Radio Canada’s programming is political in nature. Cultural programming is to be considered collateral damage thanks to foreign sentiments and incredulity in regards to the arts in Canada.
They think government funding is a means to get their foot in the door to impose their appeal to bias fallacy based narratives, which is what their failed news network pushed since 2011 and personalities from this network now do with impunity online.
If this wasn’t politically motivated they wouldn’t be so dismissive towards CBC and Radio-Canada’s non-political programming. But their snide commentaries drip with disdain against the other major political parties and they’re clearly doing all of this to poach viewers from a foreign network that is currently under review at the CRTC for promoting hatred and violence.
They downplay government funding for the other networks and the fact that their former network begged the CRTC for “must carry status” in 2013. And although some claim they want all funding to stop, I suspect the gap caused by this lack of funding would result in heavy lobbying for pharmaceutical advertising in Canada, and/or possibly food and beverage advertising targeting children.
In the end, this all comes off as vindictive and disingenuous. And I am not interested in the programming provided by the media conglomerate form which the complaints originate, so I will oppose their defunding scheme.
Throwing The Baby Out With The Bathwater
Growing up in rural New Brunswick in the 70s and 80s, I was only able to watch five television stations, three of which were publicly funded; The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the francophone networks Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec. And these provided many more cultural programs than the other networks though-out my early life.
I first watched educational programming in both languages on those stations, like Mr.Dressup, The Friendly Giant and Bobinot. And then in my teens I watched programs like Video Hits and Good Rockin’ Tonight, well before Much Music and Musique Plus had gone on air on cable.
After moving to the Ottawa-Gatineau area with my family, I still watched these networks regularly, mainly for consumer programming for young adults like Street Cents and then later Marketplace, La Facture and L’épicerie. And very little of the above mentioned programming was matched by the commercial stations in Canada, nor were dramas like The Beachcommers, Degrassi Jr. High and Murdock’s Mysteries or nature documentary series like The Nature of Things and Découverte or satirical news programs like This Hour has 22 Minutes, The Rick Mercer Report and Infoman.
Internationally renown comedies like The Kids In The Hall, The Red Green Show, Kim’s Covenience, Shitt’s Creek and Un Gars/Une Fille were produced and aired on the CBC or Radio-Canada. And although the commercial networks had one or two international hits, they were simply more interested in providing American content because it brought in the advertisement revenue, which is fine. But where’s the latest Corner Gas or Trailer Park Boys?
When it comes to radio, very few stations aired comedy programming like Air Farce, classical music and jazz like the CBC and Radio Canada in rural Canada, a large percentage of which was Canadian.
The very first concert I attended was classical pianist André Gagnon, whose music was introduced to my family via Radio-Canada. And like CBC Records and Les Disques SRC, CBC Music and ICI Musique provide classical music and other forms of music to Canadians, some of which still does not air on commercial radio outside of the larger cities in Canada.
Yes, I did manage to listen to francophone pop and rock in areas where french was quite prominent but are these many commercial television networks and radio stations that operate in that language outside of the provinces of Quebec, Manitoba and New Brunswick? Are we seriously going to defund this major cultural institution over a minute amount of political commentary?
Let’s face it, only a minority is actively campaigning to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And whenever I discuss the issue with this minority on social media and ask them for examples of an alleged bias, they assert claims that are easily disproved with a Google search of the official sites of these public broadcasters.
It makes no sense for the people of Canada to capitulate our institutions to the foreign interests that failed to introduce Sun News Television to our country. And a neutral and independent commissioner is available to handle all complaints at CBC/Radio-Canada, regardless of the repeated assertions made by the remnants of the aforementioned conservative news network.
It isn’t about nostalgia but preventing the surrender of our media to foreigners that have nothing but negative opinions of this country.
Radio-Canada to Destroy 151,000 CDs!
It appears that the Montreal offices of Radio-Canada will be destroying over 151,000 compact discs from their library to save space according to Radio-Canada International.
These recordings will be copied to a digital format by 2019, just before the french public broadcaster’s move to a new smaller building in 2020. And only around 56,000 compact discs from their extensive collection will be offered to cultural or educational organizations.
When asked why all of the recordings could not be sold or given away, a spokeswoman for Radio-Canada stated it would have been too expensive and time consuming to confirm what rights were involved, although one has to wonder about this excuse because of the early 2012 sale of Calgary’s CBC music archive to The Inner Sleeve, a Calgary Record store in March 2012.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sold 27,000 LPs and 35,000 CDs in that transaction and several other archives were closed since early 2012 because these were basically duplicates of the archive in Toronto.
Of the 650,000 compact discs contained at these archives in 2012, only 140,000 were “unique to one particular library” according to Exclaim. And some archivists and audiophiles are concerned about the potential loss of rare recordings in the process.
It’s a shame they couldn’t have simply forwarded Cancon recordings to Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. But according to the CBC and Radio-Canada these were cost cutting measures…