Saving the CBC, One Click at a Time
On the heels of the layoff announcements last week, a petition started at Avaaz to save the CBC.
To date 58,449 people have signed up. The petition reads:
Petition to Prime Minister Stephen Harper: The CBC and Radio Canada are a national treasure, and play a vital role in our culture. We urgently call on you to grant the CBC’s request for a bridge loan to cover its budget shortfall this year, and commit your government to supporting our public broadcasters.
A similar group has also formed on Facebook, the group page says they’ve signed up over a thousand members in the last 48 hours.
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The CBC and SRC are important cultural institutions that should never suffer from underfunding and neglect.
Reform the CBC first then maybe save it. If you can’t survive then die is the way. Besides CBC is corrupt top to bottom. Hard to feel sorry for people detached from the real world
[...] Cleanse the CBC One Click at a Time [...]
In honor of finding this site, I did a story…
Here’s an upper class twit cause to champion
http://www.njnnetwork.com/njn/?p=7369
leave cbc radio alone- tank the commercials on TV, restore funding sufficient to needs- taxes are the best money I spend- thanks to all the cbc staff for contiuing their efforts in spite of many years of persecution by the right wng idealogues who only want to dumb us down further.
I joined the group in spite of some reluctancies. It is clear that management will only clean itsef up of there is a MAJOR financial crisis and no do-gooders like the NDPs come in to bail them out. The Direction has yet to do their Mea Culpa for having *totally* misread the mediascape quite some times ago. I would be a whole lot more forgiving if they did so. It bothers me greatly that the people that are doing the actual work are actually shafted, with more to come if they can’t get this 127 millions of assets sold in a totally depressed market. It was a brain dead plan that we should never have heard of IMO.
Hi, As a CBC fan and Canadian journalist who has never worked for the corporation, I have some questions about the recent cuts, potential asset sales and the future of the public broadcaster.
Among them:
• What was the condition of CBC Television finances before the recession hit? • Was CBC TV running a deficit that was made worse by the collapse of advertising markets?
• Is the economic collapse being used as cover for more fundamental problems within CBC Television?
• The CBC plans to sell $125 million worth of assets. Where are the assessments to provide evidence that these public assets are worth that much and how current are they?
Read more on my blog: http://www.philiplee.ca. I’d like to generate some discussion and hopefully answers too.
the cbc is not a negotiabe commodity. it is a national treasure. even if there are many shows that we personally may not enjoy or watch, there are other folks, to whom this content is addressed who will be watching. CBC is our only impartial news service (yes i know some people thinks it is skewed liberalwise..but true leftwingers wil see CBC to really be “conservative” in comparison to their own views. Britain has the BBC, Germany has its own national tv service. Many countries around the world have national tv networks which are directed more towards education and entertainment somewhat more nationalised perhaps than the commercial networks. we in canada NEED an impartial network, funded by us, the taxpayers, instead of the commercial model where they have to sell themselves to the advertisers (like prostitutes)….this WILL affect quality and quantity of material to be broadcast. if material has to please the advertisers to get out on the airwaves, then this wil be a different kind of material than one might produce on a National Network….i say give CBC MORE money…there have been enough cuts there. NO MORE CUTS. Please RESTORE FUNDING to earlier more generous times. and cbc….you don’t need to cater to Alberta THAT much…”Heartland” “wild roses”, and that most recent release of a CBC comedy, wherein that Ontario family move to Calgary, as papa has a job with an oil company. They find themselves inhabiting a suburban home (lavishly large for ordinary folks) next to a “red neck” family, a home which used to be inhabited by the recently departed “Harpers”…..yeah…..a little more quaity would be appreciate,,
CBC is a disgrace and as a Muslim I want to say that its Little Mosque on the Prarie is INSULTING to all Muslim immigrants as it never criticizes the brutality Muslims are faced in their old countries and it sends the message for “racism of lower expectations”.
Sorry CBC, we are not the lower people.
Shut down CBC before it destroys Canada. Multiculturalism is what CBC feeds on. Well, lets see them go and earn their keeps with the immigrant communities.
CBC has destroyed Canadian liberalsim that welcomes immigrants and integrated them, and replaced it with political correctness and moral equivalency and identity clashes.
Kazemi:
Since when did a sitcom (situational comedy) have to (or need to) address the problems that may come from the actor’s homeland? If you want a show to address the “brutality Muslims are faced in their old countries”, you should be watching documentaries not sitcoms. Sitcoms, are light-hearted shows to make you laugh… they’re not dramas.
Beyond that, the CBC must follow strict code, a level above what regular stations follow outlined by the CRTC to ensure fair and ethical broadcasting. I have never seen any race treated as “lower people” on the CBC… this is a gross exaggeration.
The CBC will “destroy Canada?” This is the most absurd thing I’ve heard in a while.
I wish you inner peace my friend
Philip Lee:
Holy questions batman… some of those answers are out there if you keep looking. If you’re a journalist why don’t you interview a CBC Exec and get the facts straight instead of posting a blog full of mindless, banter that will only create more negative hype(?). I think we have enough of that going around in the media already.
In this incredibly difficult time, CBC needs to make difficult decisions… I only hope they do what they can to survive.
I agree the CBC should stay around but they should be trying to generate their own funding as well instead of trying to get more money from us most of which will not go into development of programming. They have already gotten millions funded through our taxes. A loan from the Government should be used as a last resort.
Kazemi, they don’t criticize dolphins, does that mean the CBC should be shut down? If you want to see that kind of content I’m sure there’s many other channels you can watch.
CBC is one of the few tools we have to create a common vision of “Canada.” We are a piddling small population spread across a vast amount of land with few common interests.
An intelligent government would recognize this, and would use the CBC as a means of teaching Canadians to have a full, national vision.
Just a little food for thought to those who think the taxpayers spend way too much on our national broadcaster:
The annual taxpayer contributions to public broadcasting are as follows in these countries:
Germany: C$ 7 billion. Population 82 million = $ 85/year per inhabitant
U.K.: C$ 5.2 billion. Population 61 million = $85/year per inhabitant
France: C$ 4 billion. Population 61 million = $66/year per inhabitant
Canada: C$ 1 billion. Population 33 million = $31/year per inhabitant
Considering the size of Canada which has to be provided with transmitters, studios, bilingual radio & TV services etc. I’d say that Canadians got one heck of a deal.
William Muller – no problem.
How about you and your cohorts pay for the CBC, and leave me out?
I will defend to death you right to pay for the CBC, out of your own pocket – but not my pocket.