No Bridge Financing, No Additional Funding
Hey guys, since I’m on vacation, I’ll keep this short…
Heritage Minister James Moore said today there would be no additional funding for the CBC. “The CBC is receiving $1.1 billion this year and that’s the allocation that they will have for this year,” Moore said.
For the last few months CBC President Hubert Lacroix had been in discussions with the federal government about ways to alleviate a sharp drop in advertising revenue. Today’s comments put an end to any hope from those discussions.
The only question that remains is whether Moore’s comments also mean that the $60 million annual grant that the CBC has been receiving every year since 2001 is also off the table.
If the annual grant disappears, it could cripple the corporation. Losing the grant, in addition to the drop in advertising revenue, could easily amount to a $150 million shortfall. That would be about 10 per cent of the CBC’s total budget.
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Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh…
The day of reckoning is here. Jesus is coming. Hide the porn!
Be afraid, CBCers.
Be very afraid.
Nice. He announces the gutting of the CBC *and* the CTF in one interview, and just for that extra touch of class, does it on the set of a CTV show.
In a way the CTF thing is the worse of the two. Reading between the lines, they pretty much just set it up so that anything the cable companies put in to it they can try to recoup in bullshit new media projects, with the broadcasters fighting for the crumbs. This is going to kill an awful lot of independent production companies, especially with the in-house restriction removed.
Kev, if you call maintaining the $1.1Billion a year in funding “gutting the CBC”, what desperate and scary rhetoric will you use if the grant is actually pulled. Will it qualify as an actual violent crime? Will Harper=Bush=Hitler actually become a rapist or a murder?
You don’t stand a chance in the real world dood.
Mike, when you’re already down to the wire, a further 10% could be all it takes. And my point was that it’s going to have a much bigger effect on the media industry in general, as it’s going to restrict independent producers’ access to the Fund, while making it much easier for broadcasters to get it instead.
(Although, since part of being down to the wire has involved selling off assets used for in-house productions, CBC will probably not be getting much of it.)
It isn’t all doom and gloom I suppose, the CBC is getting good at the multi-platform thing. For example, I can’t think of what if any online components Flashpoint has had, while the CBC equivalent, the Border, has a decent site, is available online in its entirety, and did a cross-platform tv/mobile/web competition thing in its first season. So from the CBC’s perspective I may have been overdoing it. But people in the more traditional independents are already getting laid off because of this announcement.
[...] Love and Death of Fashion File I can’t believe CBC has canceled the long running Fashion File! And I wonder how much was because this federal government’s decision. [...]
Also Mike, don’t you think it’s a little extreme to be equating Harper with Hitler? He’s just a fiscal conservative after all, any of his more extreme stuff has essentially been pandering to the nutbars for votes. It’s not like he means it.
I do find it extreme to equate Harper to Hitler. Hence, my poke at all the CBCers who litter their posts with terms like neocon, right wingnuts, and Bush’s buddy Steve’s hidden agenda to shut down the CBC in order to fit in the the CBC mindset.
Dear Mike from NS
Don’t approve of Harper or his politics. But do not use the terms you suggested above. Do you mind providing examples of what you claim and how are you sure they are CBC staff?
Seems like a bit of a straw man argument to me, especially since nobody actually used those terms or made that comparison in the current thread.
Is this a full time job for you, Mike? Or just a really great hobby?
Could you let me know where you work and perhaps forward a link to your company’s message board?
I’d like to give your hobby a test drive, spending many hours carefully crafting such incisive, witty comments as you thankfully offer to CBCers every day.
Looking forward to your next oh-so-useful comment on my company’s message board.
Hi Chris – your tax dollars don’t pay my company’s bills. Nor, does my company use tax dollars to front left wing ideals. Not very witty, I know – but true!
I will confess to being a comment-reading junkie and I believe Mike is mistaking insidethecbc.com with cbc.ca.
Not only do I think that using phrases like“neocon, right wingnuts, and Bush’s buddy Steve“ reduce the dialogue to something like Sportsfan zealotry. It`s highly variable.
I`ve seen CBC called biased to the left countless times but, I`ve seen the same directed to CTV , both on cbc.ca and the Globe and Mail`s website. I have also read us being called `right wing ba*ds` on the seld-same post.
Mike, you comment has been heard. Point noted after about a week of your posts. I have seem similar on cbc.ca. A multitude of comments that never change. No dialogue No `flexibility`. I`ll keep reading, hoping something actually new gets said but I think your message has already been heard and repetition only dilutes it efficacy.
I try to post constructively here because I am hoping it is the closest thing to a productive forum for the CBC and (again hopefully) read by people who can affect change , both as trickle-down and also groud up. And face it, the title does welcome inside CBC-ers to make comments and suggestions that would be perhaps unwelcome given their positions in the Corps.
Speaking of which…why no Garden shows anymore? Just like Eastenders, there is a Sunday Morning demographic at 35+, often with property and attractive to sponsors that NOBODY is addressing.
Not pleased with this latest news re: CBC funding at all. I’ve written my MP in anticipation of such things, asking that such things not be inflicted upon the CBC…and it seems they chose to consider my views irrelevant. Given the latest leaks of Harper speeches via the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, however, I suppose I can’t say that I shouldn’t have seen such decisions coming.
Mike,
My apologies for getting a job with a crown corporation. I believe in public broadcasting and work very hard here.
You seem to have a problem with the CBC on principle and the editorial slant you are convinced it takes. As a taxpayer, certainly you have every right to protest what you think is wrong here. But man, this is the wrong place to air that..
Why not lobby your MP to do something about your issues with the CBC rather than annoying very average employees like ME by posting your useless, unconstructive comments? It might actually solve something for you.
If your plan here was is to annoy really average CBC employees who have no influence over literally anything that goes on here…a job well done, Mike..
If not…all these hours you’ve spent trolling here have been a real waste.
Chris et CBC al, as many of my posts have pointed out – the CBCers generaly think alike. I believe that this is in part why the CBC doesn’t “tell Canadians’ stories to Canadians. ” You may notice that, for the most part, I respond to posts that – in my mind depict perfect examples of this group think. Your group think would be fine, if the taxpayer didn’t have to pay for it.
Please refer to the threads attacking “the suits” and certain floors of the CBC for the current crisis. Very rare is a comment from a CBCer that thinks that even th unionized employees should pitch in to make positive change.
My plan is not to annoy the average CBC employee. My plan is to let the average CBC employee know that not everyone thinks like they do. There is a whole world out here – that you call “the regions.” We all don’t work in union environments that prevent us from doing our best and pitching in when required. We don’t think that the CBC is “telling our stories.” In fact, sometimes, we feel that the “stories” that the CBC tells don’t represent anything real; just a pretend ideal that left wing unionists project upon us.
If this post annoys you – then I think my point is well made.
I happen to work in a region, Mike. Maybe even yours.
Yes, your posts annoy me because I think you’ve put such little thought and done such little research into what you think you know about people like me. But what’s the point in discussing this with you anymore? Your mind is obviously made up about me and everything I do.
Congrats on being an annoyance. Job well done.
I’m somewhat surprised that CBCers are surprised that they actually have to share some of the pain that us real-worlders have been suffering for months now.
It can likely all be traced back to that Liberal streak that’s so prevalent in the nationally subsidized broadcaster: that they are entitled to their entitlements.
But, sorry, with less of us actually working out in the real world, there are now less of us paying all of those taxes that keep you guys living large. You can’t get blood from a stone.
CBC – the Canadian Broadcasting Contraction. And it’s about frickin’ time.
[That's a shame]
I get a kick out of your living large comment. You make it sound like the cbc types are the highest paid in broadcasting. Not true. The folks at CTV and Global in Toronto get paid At Least As Much if not more than us cbc types.
I’m sure that Lloyd didn’t go to CTV for a salary cut!
We are constantly accused of being pro-Liberal by the Cons, the Libs call us pro NDP or pro Con depending on the coverage they get, and the NDP party thinks we aren’t left enough, and who knows what the Greens think.
Like any organization, the people who work here are of all political stripes and the reporting doesn’t usually reflect that. From time to time biases do creep in, but by and large it is as unbiased as any other broadcaster. I know our preporters try very hard and are usually successful in not showing their own personal biases in the stories,
Perhaps you are mistaking a desire to tell the Canadian public what our politicos are up to as bias.
If that is the case – you are more biased than most people.
BTW – for years the owners of CTV were backers of the Liberal Party. Oh Yeah – Canwest was founded by the former liberal leader of the province of Manitoba.
Please get your facts straight.