CBC Television Strategy to Focus on Entertainment, Expands Feature Film Initiative
Richard Stursberg presented a television programming strategy update in Toronto today that stressed the importance of entertainment programming at the CBC, especially during prime-time.
The vice president of English services said “television is mainly about entertainment.” He said American networks devote more than 90 per cent of their air-time to entertainment, even the BBC devotes more than 60 per cent of their air-time to entertainment. He said the CBC is, and has traditionally been, under-represented in the entertainment genre.
The biggest challenge facing the CBC is that traditionally Canadians have preferred American entertainment shows. “This is the sad circumstance we find ourselves in English Canada,” noting that all the top 10 TV shows in Canada are American.
But for the first time the CBC has started to produce some genuine hits and has been gaining audience share, “We’re the only network that’s growing,” he said.
To highlight the significance of that achievement he flipped through several decades of the CBC’s prime-time schedule. He said in the early 80′s, prior to the advent of specialty channels, the CBC enjoyed a 22 per cent audience share, but a lot of the schedule was filled with American programming. Most of the Canadian shows on the network at the time were news or current affairs shows.

The CBC’s prime-time schedule in 1981. The blue boxes represent foreign programming.
He contrasted that to the mid-90′s, when the CBC had ‘Canadianized’ the television schedule, and the audience declined to 11 per cent. By 2003 the “share had continued to collapse” he said, ebbing to a 6.7 per cent share, “the lowest share in the history of the company.”

The CBC’s audience share in the 1982-83 season was 22 per cent. By 2003 the schedule had been ‘Canadianized’ and the share had dropped to a historic low of 6.7 per cent. Now the audience is coming back, the 2008-09 season share was 8.9 per cent. The fall of 2009 saw a 8.6 per cent share.
Even more troubling during this period (2004), Stursberg said, was that CTV was beating the CBC in terms of Canadians tuning in to Canadian shows, despite CTV not airing any Canadian shows in prime-time versus the CBC’s all-Canadian prime-time lineup.
He said the CBC is now starting to reverse the trend, and the key to that reversal is to concentrate on creating Canadian entertainment shows. “We have to respect the medium,” Stursberg said, “respect the medium for what it is, don’t try to make it something that it is not.”
Stursberg said that after the low point in 2003, he and Kirstine Stewart started concentrating on trying to make hit Canadian shows, including sit-coms, dramas and reality TV shows, “”We wanted to work within the conventions of television,” instead of trying to defy them, he said.
“What we know what it is, television is about entertainment shows,” he said from the stage at the Glenn Gould studio in Toronto.
He concluded by noting that the strategy is paying off, “for the first time, it’s not just that the share is good, but [the CBC has] genuine hits,” noting that a number of new shows had debuted with close to a million viewers, and that some shows like Dragons’ Den approached two million.
He said the CBC is now broadening the entertainment strategy by launching a feature film initiative, which he said has the potential to restructure the Canadian TV movie business. The CBC currently has three deals in development including an adaptation to the ‘The Book of Negroes’. The corporation is hoping to greenlight about eight projects a year.
What Stursberg didn’t address was how this strategy will impact the CBC’s news and current affairs division. Some of the corporations most-recognized current affairs shows have lost their favourable spots on the schedule. The Fifth Estate has been pushed Friday nights, while documentary programming has been slashed.
Stursberg said the success of this strategy rested with the employees, saying the CBC has gone through a “difficult and tumultuous restructuring” but the corporation made it through in better shape than we started, noting the gains in audience share. “You should all congratulate yourselves,” he said applauding the gathered employees, adding that the third quarter results are “very good.”
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I think I understand what Stursberg is saying: the CBC was in Loserville until he came along. Is that about the gist of it?
(and now, how about a round of applause for all the people who post here!)
Errr…no. TV is not about entertainment alone. Never has been, never will be. Not if it’s done well.
Stursberg wants to cretae a mini-ABC in Canada. It won’t work. Canadians can and will watch the real ABC.
CBC should be about Canada and not about imitating Americans. Maybe then more Canadians would watch it.
some of these comments are typical and reflect the challenges facing the CBC – you can’t please everybody. so you are damned if you don’t try and damned if you don’t. the world is in a constant state of flux and change is necessary folks as long as the change works i am all for it.
In Stursburgia, it’s all about ad dollars and eyeballs.
If it’s soap you want to sell, you got it.
ABC!! Why not just do a plug feed of the ABC from Sydney then?
Australian news and views and entertainment from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation aren’t much different from Canada’s
Their children’s programming is much better though for daytime watchers, no Sue Deacon, Chris and Steven etc.
And whatever became of Martha Stewart?
Came for the “STURSBERG IS THE ATNICHRIST” comments.
Leaving satisfied.
[...] CBC Television Strategy to Focus on Entertainment, Expands Feature Film Initiative. [...]
The CBC is partially funded by taxpayer’s money because the mission and purpose of the CBC is deliver Canadian content, to retain a sense of Canadianism, instead of constantly being Americanized. So I like and support the idea of more Canadian content, as long as it is good quality.
I’m just a high school student in Toronto and recently I’ve heard other students talking about new shows like Republic of Doyle and Death Comes to Town, and how much they like it, instead of the usual talk on the American shows. So yes, bravo, I think we’re moving in the right direction. Keep it up! (just don’t screw up the rest of CBC-TV like how the format of the local evening newscasts have been screwed up…repeats of the same thing every half hour from 5 to 6:30, seriously?!)
Anybody describes the level of taxpayer funding the CBC gets as “partial” is being disingenuous. The CBC takesd over $1Billion a year off of taxpayers.
What portion of the toal revenus is that?
Tuning in for Republic of Doyle, and sticking around for The National…and I’m getting my money’s worth as a taxpayer.
Yours as a satisfied customer of the CBC and citizen of Canada…