A recent report from the lobby group ‘Friends of Canadian Broadcasting’ exaggerates the amount of foreign programming on the CBC.
According to Ian Morrison, a spokesperson for the group, “A full 25% of CBC’s prime time schedule is now devoted to foreign, mostly American, programs.”

A graph showing the number of hours of Canadian content on CBC TV during the spring season.
Morrison made that remark on June 30th as the organization released a report examining the amount of foreign programming on the CBC between Feb 21st and March 13th, 2009.
What the report didn’t say however, is that the amount of foreign programming on the CBC varies widely according to what’s on the schedule in any given week. Although it’s true that there was 25 per cent foreign content on the network during the weeks they studied, more half the time that percentage drops to about 18 per cent.
It all depends what’s movie is playing in the Sunday night movie slot. If it’s a foreign movie, running for two hours, then you get 25 per cent foreign content for that week. If it’s a Canadian movie, which more than half of them are, then the amount of foreign content drops to 18 per cent. (Click here to see the Spring 2009 schedule).
The report also says “Canadian content during prime time on CBC English TV has reached a 20-year low.” But it’s worth noting that the real low point for foreign programming on the CBC was reached in 1981, 28 years ago, when more than 40 per cent of the schedule was foreign (click here to see the 1981 schedule).
In the eighties the CBC schedule looked a lot like an American network with shows like M*A*S*H, WKRP, Three’s Company, Mork & Mindy and Happy Days filling almost half the slots.
By the mid-nineties, the CBC had reversed course and introduced an all-Canadian lineup, but the prime-time audience share suffered, which is why CBC executives made the decision to bring back some American shows into the lineup.
What do you think? Should the CBC go back to airing as much Canadian content as possible, or should it stick to its current approach of about 80 per cent Canadian content?
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| CBC Television, Programming | Posted at 12:10 pm (02 Jul 2009) |




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On this date only a year ago…

















