A CBC contract with Canadians by Robert Rabinovitch
Source : National Post
November 24, 2006
Where is Canadian television headed? Next week, we'll be closer to finding out, as the CRTC opens hearings on how to keep Canada's television broadcasting system strong and growing. Canadians are changing their viewing habits as fast as new technologies can tempt them, and none of us watches television the way we did a decade ago.
None of us who make television, or radio for that matter, can continue to operate as we did a decade ago, either.
At CBC/Radio-Canada, we are in a period of rapid, exciting change. Yesterday, we had a radio service and a television service with some Internet activity. Today we are a content provider, supplying a wide array of news, entertainment and sports programming to Canadians on seven television networks, four radio networks, the Internet and cell-phones, through satellite radio and iPods, in one-minute episodes on your Blackberry and with Christmas-wrapped DVDs through the mail.
Tomorrow is coming into focus. We need to become an integrated media content provider whose raison d'etre is not to make a buck but to connect the country together by ensuring there remains a place where Canadians can share their stories, feed their culture and debate their issues in this new media landscape. Make no mistake: No other organization exists with that mandate. CBC/Radio-Canada is the single largest provider of Canadian media content.
To adapt, we are ripping out the silos and barriers that have segregated our activities, and building an organization where programming is conceived for television and simultaneously adapted to other formats. Hockey Night in Canada is great TV, but it should also be a highlight reel on video-podcast, and Coach's Corner should be on your cellphone.
Times are changing and CBC/Radio-Canada is hurtling into the future fuelled by a combination of adrenaline and Gravol. Because while we know where we need to go, the regulatory framework to get us there is creaking.
In television, the advertising-based business model on which conventional broadcasting has relied is at risk due to the number of channels vying for the same revenue; commercial skipping and the migration of marketing spending to the Internet and other platforms.
Despite this, television remains the most pervasive medium and the most effective means of tying the country together culturally and democratically. Conventional broadcasters continue to be a nightly destination for 90% of Canadian viewers and the source of 75% of original Canadian programming. Conventional broadcasting will need to remain the cornerstone of the broadcasting system if we want to achieve the country's policy goals in culture. That is why the CRTC hearings are so important.
But these hearings suggest another opportunity for the government to bring balance to an industry that has grown increasingly "unlevel" over the past decade.
This opportunity is to institutionalize a regular review of CBC/Radio-Canada.
But don't we do that already?
No. Every seven years, the CRTC reviews how its broadcasting licenses serve the mandates of the Broadcasting Act, but it does not review the goals themselves. And one thing is sure: The goalposts of the broadcasting system are moving and putting unprecedented stress on broadcasters.
Earlier this year, the Hon. Bev Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage, suggested the government conduct a review of our mandate. The Minister is absolutely correct. Right now, there is no official forum for such a deliberation. The 1991 Broadcasting Act is really the last setting of the rules by which the broadcasting system operates.
Since then, a handful of studies and reports have been commissioned on the future of Canadian broadcasting, but have led to no practical change in CBC/Radio-Canada's status. I want to go one step farther. I believe we should create what I call a Contract With Canadians, following a regular, formally instituted government-led mandate review spelling out what Canadians should expect from CBC/Radio-Canada in terms of public policy objectives.
Both the process and the contract would be transparent and would have a fixed term. On a predetermined timetable, likely every 10 years, the process would automatically unfold.
CBC/Radio-Canada would be even more accountable to its shareholders, the public; it would also be more sustainable because it could plan its development with some certainty.
This concept isn't new. Every 10 years, the British government holds policy reviews with the BBC, asking the big questions. In Canada, neither the public nor their representatives in government have the opportunity to ask the big questions and to decide the best use of the airwaves we own collectively.
A regularly mandated review would ensure Canadians are better served. But mandate review or not, the CRTC hearings next week are an essential first step in finding the new equilibrium in the system needed to ensure its continuing contribution to Canada.
- Robert Rabinovitch is CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO.
© National Post
None of us who make television, or radio for that matter, can continue to operate as we did a decade ago, either.
At CBC/Radio-Canada, we are in a period of rapid, exciting change. Yesterday, we had a radio service and a television service with some Internet activity. Today we are a content provider, supplying a wide array of news, entertainment and sports programming to Canadians on seven television networks, four radio networks, the Internet and cell-phones, through satellite radio and iPods, in one-minute episodes on your Blackberry and with Christmas-wrapped DVDs through the mail.
Tomorrow is coming into focus. We need to become an integrated media content provider whose raison d'etre is not to make a buck but to connect the country together by ensuring there remains a place where Canadians can share their stories, feed their culture and debate their issues in this new media landscape. Make no mistake: No other organization exists with that mandate. CBC/Radio-Canada is the single largest provider of Canadian media content.
To adapt, we are ripping out the silos and barriers that have segregated our activities, and building an organization where programming is conceived for television and simultaneously adapted to other formats. Hockey Night in Canada is great TV, but it should also be a highlight reel on video-podcast, and Coach's Corner should be on your cellphone.
Times are changing and CBC/Radio-Canada is hurtling into the future fuelled by a combination of adrenaline and Gravol. Because while we know where we need to go, the regulatory framework to get us there is creaking.
In television, the advertising-based business model on which conventional broadcasting has relied is at risk due to the number of channels vying for the same revenue; commercial skipping and the migration of marketing spending to the Internet and other platforms.
Despite this, television remains the most pervasive medium and the most effective means of tying the country together culturally and democratically. Conventional broadcasters continue to be a nightly destination for 90% of Canadian viewers and the source of 75% of original Canadian programming. Conventional broadcasting will need to remain the cornerstone of the broadcasting system if we want to achieve the country's policy goals in culture. That is why the CRTC hearings are so important.
But these hearings suggest another opportunity for the government to bring balance to an industry that has grown increasingly "unlevel" over the past decade.
This opportunity is to institutionalize a regular review of CBC/Radio-Canada.
But don't we do that already?
No. Every seven years, the CRTC reviews how its broadcasting licenses serve the mandates of the Broadcasting Act, but it does not review the goals themselves. And one thing is sure: The goalposts of the broadcasting system are moving and putting unprecedented stress on broadcasters.
Earlier this year, the Hon. Bev Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage, suggested the government conduct a review of our mandate. The Minister is absolutely correct. Right now, there is no official forum for such a deliberation. The 1991 Broadcasting Act is really the last setting of the rules by which the broadcasting system operates.
Since then, a handful of studies and reports have been commissioned on the future of Canadian broadcasting, but have led to no practical change in CBC/Radio-Canada's status. I want to go one step farther. I believe we should create what I call a Contract With Canadians, following a regular, formally instituted government-led mandate review spelling out what Canadians should expect from CBC/Radio-Canada in terms of public policy objectives.
Both the process and the contract would be transparent and would have a fixed term. On a predetermined timetable, likely every 10 years, the process would automatically unfold.
CBC/Radio-Canada would be even more accountable to its shareholders, the public; it would also be more sustainable because it could plan its development with some certainty.
This concept isn't new. Every 10 years, the British government holds policy reviews with the BBC, asking the big questions. In Canada, neither the public nor their representatives in government have the opportunity to ask the big questions and to decide the best use of the airwaves we own collectively.
A regularly mandated review would ensure Canadians are better served. But mandate review or not, the CRTC hearings next week are an essential first step in finding the new equilibrium in the system needed to ensure its continuing contribution to Canada.
- Robert Rabinovitch is CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO.
© National Post
Related Documents:
November 27, 2006 - Supporter response to CBC President editorial
Citizen joins FRIENDS in response to CBC President Robert Rabinovitch's editorial in the National Post "A CBC contract with Canadians."
Citizen joins FRIENDS in response to CBC President Robert Rabinovitch's editorial in the National Post "A CBC contract with Canadians."
