Heritage Minister: Advertising on CBC Radio “Is An Option”
Heritage Minister James Moore hinted yesterday that advertising on CBC Radio “is an option.” The Minister made the comments during an exchange with NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus, but then seemed to back away from them. Below is a transcript of the exchange:
Charlie Angus: Would you consider opening CBC Radio One and Radio Two up for commercial advertising?
James Moore: Yeah I mean, CBC has a lot of pressure… Look we’re working with Hubert Lacroix and people at CBC in order to get a full sense of the scale of the problems that they have. Commercial advertising is an option that has been talked about for some time. I would frankly consider anything so long as the end result is to have a strong national public broadcaster that serves Canadians as best as possible.
Charlie Angus: So you would consider opening advertising onto Radio One and Radio Two? That has been discussed?
James Moore: It has not been discussed with CBC – Radio Canada. It’s not something that I’m looking at doing. But we are very conscious of the needs of the CBC – the pressures that they’re facing. I would work with them on any option that they think would work to best serve their mandate in serving Canadians.
The Minister made the comments during a heritage committee hearing that’s online here, scroll along to the 1:12:11 mark to watch it.
Advertising revenue currently accounts for about 20 per cent of total CBC funding. Although some advertising already exists on CBC Radio, such as podcast sponsorships and ads on radio web sites, CBC Radio earns very little money from these deals. CBC Radio’s total budget for 2009 is around $140 million, of which less than $1 million is from self-generated revenue.
Ian Morrison, spokesperson for the watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, told the Citizen Radio One and Two ads could generate up to $95 million a year.
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No thank you, Mr. Minister.
February 10, 2009, folks! Get out your pool sheets from a couple of years ago! Who had today’s date — you’re a winner!
Just what the CBC listeners want – to hear Conservative attack ads in between Bach and Beethoven.
voting out a government that doesn’t understand the value of an autonomous public broadcaster is also on option…one we should definetly consider.
“It has not been discussed with CBC – Radio Canada. It’s not something that I’m looking at doing” is probably the salient quote here.
I can see the top brass using ads on the radio to get rid of staff.
Deep in a secret meeting room on the 7th floor of the Toronto Broadcasting Centre
“If we have six minutes of ads per hours we can lose 10% of our staff”
Executives high 5 each other and head out for lunch to The Fifth. Of course we’ll be submitting the bill to our CBC expense account while the staff eat at MacDonald’s in Simcoe Place.
Tune in next week where the topic on the 7th floor will be… “We can cut our printing costs in half by using both sides of the paper”
Sorry, Glad. You forgot the toner costs.
If top brass wanted an excuse to cut staff, there’s no better time than now.
Never mind the commercials, which WILL NEVER HAPPEN, just the economic crises itself is a one giant blank pink slip of an opportunity to finish off the irritations, with no one able to argue about it.
In fact, every bad decision, can now be covered up within the “it’s not our fault” shortfall.
A golden moment for Stursberg to get even with anyone who’s ever looked at him the wrong way.
Do you CBCers really believe that the CBC should be the only organization in the whole world unaffected by the global recession?
I’m in a manufacturing company that has had wage freezes, layoffs, and a 10% pay cut in an effort to stay alive.
The single minded unwillingness to look at any alternative to the more than $1 Billion a year off taxpayers for the CBC by the CBC insider elite is astonishing.
Shame!
[...] Full transcript of Moore’s comments here. [...]
Glad – more money (ad $s) into the organ would decrease the pressure to reduce (cost) staff. Less money in increases the need to cut costs. It’s a pretty simple economic concept. Me thinks that the 7th floor gets this – all the while their every move is attacked by the willfully ignorant unionists.
To me it’s a contradiction that needs to be clarified:
1- “Commercial advertising is an option that has been talked about for some time.”
or
2- “It has not been discussed with CBC – Radio Canada.”
So who’s discussing it? The Conservatives?
Dear Mike from NS
A lot of the problems at the Corp are from the folks on the 7th not getting it. Another year another plan.
I wish we had decisive strong leadership.
A least Rabinovich is gone with his Nigagra institute buddies and mantra with him.
Hopefully Mr. Lacroix will bring a new sense of respect for the work force to the CBC. The employees at the CBC far from ignorant, we love what we do to bring quality programming to Canadians.
We bust our humps every day. When I joined the CBC, after working for many private broadcasters, I was surprised what little resources my department had.
Staff were expected to frequently put in many extra hours with the frontline managers putting pressure on employees not to charge for it. Sure some departments have proper staffing levels but many do not.
I am hopeful that there is a new era at the CBC, the Corp for the first time in a long time actually has an agreement with its union before the end of the current contract.
I’m just tired of seeing people let go and the renovations start and new folks are brought in.
Most of us work here because of out dedication to out listeners, we would just like competent leadership and a living wage. Mike we too have given many economic concessions to the CBC over the years. When times are good it’s still tough at the Corp.
And if you’re going to insult us please be little more creative.
There’s no contradiction.
The Minister is referring to the historical fact that the subject is always discussed, by everyone, everywhere.
It’s not a new idea.
And so far no one takes it seriously.
Or taken any practical steps to explore the matter.
the Globe today: “[Charlie] Angus noted that CBC had asked during its last license renewal for permission to at least look at the option to place advertisements on CBC Radio. According to Angus, the regulators rejected this, but the question now is whether the government could push regulators to approve this option if the CBC were to ask for it again.”
I haven’t been able to verify that statement. I doubt the Globe did either. But if it’s true it seems some people are taking this idea seriously.
Nice bluff on the part of the CBC.
Kudos.
Were the CBC to accept ads, it would be toast.
I could almost personally see to it myself.
How? you ask.
By competing with it.
You could resurrect Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein and Albert Schweitzer, and I could still beat the CBC.
It’s the morning that gets all your ratings, is it not?
So while you’re playing commercials – I’m not.
Just to beat your ass.
As for the daily drill of Metro Morning, who couldn’t beat that?
And with a third of the staff.
So go commercial CBC.
Make my day.
You pompous, self-satisfied know-it-alls.
Or don’t.
And just keep making that partially high quality, excellent radio every day.
The CBC won’t have to look for radio advertisers. All they have to do is automate show by show. Nightstream is first.
Soon, only the 7th floor will remain. Well, the 7th floor folks and the people to push the buttons. They will need button pushers.
Wow, Allan, you’re such a nice guy. You sound awfully bitter – sounds like you hold a personal grudge against the Corp…. Could that be why you stalk these discussions all the time?
Glad – calling you a willfully ignorant unionist is not an insult, it’s an obsercation…
1. the Canadian civil service and the CBC is the most heavily unionized organizations in the land – easy to support through neverending taxes
2. to pretend that adding revenue through advertising would create pressure to cut staff rather than the other way around is to be willfully ignorant of the simplest of econimic concepts
hence – willfully ignorant unionist
Or, do you concede that more revenue would ease pressure to cut staff? — and that your comment to the contrary was another example of people who complain about management no matter what they do
@Mike from NS: Glad’s point is that it’s not outside the realm of possibility that, given less time to fill with actual content, the powers that be might make the (incorrect, in my view) argument that they need fewer content producers. Crazier things have happened.
There’s no need to get abusive, as you have done. Your thoughts on the CBC as an organization are well-documented at this point. Name-calling directed at random staff members just reflects badly on your other opinions.