CBC should narrow program focus: Asper

by Scott Edmonds

WINNIPEG (CP) – The president of CanWest Global Communications Corp. says the CBC should get out of all but a narrow range of programming.

"It hurts our revenue streams to be competing against somebody who is not profit-driven," Leonard Asper told a House of Commons committee yesterday.

He would like to see CBC Television become more like the BBC and stick to arts and Canadian drama and a nightly national newscast.

He would eliminate local newscasts across the country, sports and any other program that the private sector can do for a profit.

"They drive down the rates we can get for our programming," Asper told the committee, which held the public hearing as part of its complete review of the Broadcasting Act.

A spokesperson said the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation would not comment directly on Asper's presentation but would be setting out its own blueprint for broadcasting in Canada at a mid-March committee hearing in Ottawa.

"We, like most Canadians, believe that the CBC is playing an important role as a public broadcaster," said Martine Menard.

In a wide-ranging presentation broadened by the questions of committee members, Asper called for new streams of revenue for private broadcasters and dismissed claims that media concentration is a problem.

CanWest owns TV stations and daily newspapers from coast to coast.

But Asper said pooling resources does not mean Canadians are going to receive a less diverse blend of news and information. "That means more people will have more sources of information, not the other way around."

Jim Thompson, of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, who listened to Asper's presentation, said CanWest's president was asking for more money but not offering anything in return that might improve Canadian broadcasting.

"It was like your 10-year-old boy, coming up to you as a parent and saying, 'I'd like to double my allowance but I don't want to do any chores,'" Thompson said.

Asper said increasing revenue for private broadcasters would let them spend more on Canadian content but offered no specifics. One of his suggestions was to allow broadcasters to include late-night infomercials qualify as Canadian content.

Some on the committee took shots at Asper for his family's Liberal connections – his father Izzy Asper once led the Manitoba Liberals – and challenged his position on the impact of media concentration.

Bloc Québécois MP Christiane Gagnon asked about the national editorials CanWest has asked its newspapers to run across Canada.

The issue has been a hot potato at The Gazette in Montreal, where some staff temporarily withdrew their bylines in protest.

Gagnon questioned whether the views of Quebec sovereignists would get a fair airing in newspapers owned by the Aspers.

Asper said the policy on editorials has nothing to do with what appears in the news section and the issue was overblown.

"There is a very, very vocal minority of people who believe this is a threat ... Most Canadians don't think this is an issue, most Canadians don't care."

To another Manitoba-based broadcaster Craig Broadcast Systems Inc., which owns TV stations in Manitoba and Alberta and is trying again to win a licence in Toronto, media concentration is of serious concern.

Its president Drew Craig read a long list of names that have vanished from the media in Canada. "We think that diversity of ownership is how you get true diversity of voice."

The committee also heard from Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and Saskatchewan Communications Network. Both sought more support for alternative broadcasting.

© Canadian Press