cc: CBC Board of Directors
From: Noreen Golfman, Chair, FCB Steering Committee
Subject: Response to your February 9, 2007 allegations
For almost 22 years — through five Prime Ministers, and five Presidents of the CBC — Friends of Canadian Broadcasting has been the single strongest and most organized voice speaking on behalf of Canadian viewers and listeners, often in support of the CBC and its mandate—always in support of Canadian content throughout the audiovisual system. More than 100,000 Canadians, year after year, put their hard-earned after-tax dollars behind our organization in support of our mandate, to increase the quantity and the quality of Canadian content, or shelf-space for Canada.
As the single most important provider of Canadian content, the CBC is invaluable; as citizen-shareholders of the Corporation, all Canadians are entitled to express their views on its conduct, management and governance. The academic, media and general public users of our website, including many within the CBC, tell us frequently that our 8,600 pages of information on Canadian media affairs—and particularly, our rare capacity to generate arms-length, independent research—are invaluable to them.
Over the last two decades, some CBC administrations have been more understanding than others of our independence, and of our critiques of CBC management in the interests of listeners, viewers and users. We ourselves would always prefer open channels of communication and mature, adult and civil discourse. However, from your communication and others from your colleagues in the recent past we have come reluctantly to the conclusion that this may have to await the arrival of a new CBC President.
We do not share your view that our recruiting letter departs from a high standard. Please find attached a document that addresses the principal allegations in your letter of February 9, 2007.
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Comments on W. B. Chambers' February 9, 2007 Allegations
- Almost all of the concerns raised by Chambers deal with matters posted prominently on "www.friends.ca" on September 7, 2006 when Friends issued a second appraisal of President Rabinovitch, rating his performance since 2004 an "F". Having received no feedback from CBC over the past five months, CBC's attention now to a direct-mail letter addressed to individual Canadians is puzzling.
- There is no personal animosity towards President Rabinovitch on the part of Ian Morrison, Friends' Spokesperson, nor to Executive Vice President Stursberg, rather our disappointment in what CBC's senior management has done and has failed to do (as reflected in Friends' September 7, 2006 performance appraisal). This is not about personalities but rather performance. It is correct that Friends' relationship with President Rabinovitch is not constructive. This dates back to November 2004, when Friends first issued a performance appraisal of Rabinovitch (just prior to his proposed three-year extension), awarding him a "C-".
- Friends has received complaints from CBC regarding recruiting letters on several occasions and from several Presidents, though this latest is the first to deliberately bypass our Spokesperson. In each case Friends has responded substantively.
- Friends also finds it odd that an international search for an English TV executive vice president carried on by a reputable executive search firm would come up with a top candidate with little or no television production, scheduling or marketing experience. Friends would be interested to review the position description from which that firm worked.
- Friends' recollection of public reaction to Mr. Stursberg's appointment is widely at variance with that of Mr. Chambers, and any search of media coverage since then would reveal that criticism of Stursberg's performance extends far beyond the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.
- Regarding the loss of the Olympics and Curling, CBC seems to believe erroneously that paying market value for these properties would create a deficit to be extracted from other priority programming. Instead, failure to maintain these properties will cost CBC business opportunities going forward for many years to come, long after the current management has left the scene.
- Chambers' letter also contains several other questionable assertions. The following bullets are intended to set the record straight:
- The National was pre-empted on CBC Television in the Eastern time zone on July 18, 19 and 25, 2006 in order to present The One (an American variety show). The National's audience for those three evenings on CBC Television averaged 430,000, 23% below the July/August 2006 average audience of 560,000. Only by aggregating Newsworld viewing statistics could those editions of The National be described as having a larger audience than the July/August average. Many CBC viewers are not able to receive Newsworld.
- Any reader of Playback Magazine or the daily press can learn most of the new shows CBC has commissioned months before the June launch. The secrecy prior to that announcement relates only to scheduling.
- New drama series on CBC this TV season include Rumours (133,000 viewers), Intelligence (291,000) JOZI-H (133,000), and October 1970 (97,000). Only Intelligence compares at all favourably with the audience for the three shows cancelled early in 2006: Da Vinci's City Hall (395,000), The Tournament (237,000), and This Is Wonderland (314,000). (The highly successful Little Mosque series, on which we have congratulated the Corporation, first went to air in 2007.)
- In 2003/04, CBC's Canadian offerings were 86% of its prime-time schedule, a substantial drop from levels achieved earlier in the decade. The following year Canadian offerings dropped to 68%, and in 2005/06 to 79%.
- CBC now airs many more hours of foreign drama than Canadian drama. Foreign drama series offerings were less than 2% of prime-time in 03/04 but rose to 9% in 05/06. Foreign movies accounted for another 9%. During the same year, Canadian drama series were only 4.5% of the prime-time schedule.
- CBC-Television's 52 week, 24 hour schedule drew a 6.2% audience share in 05/06. This season (September to mid-January) this has dropped to 5%.
- In 05/06, 48% of CBC Television's prime-time audience watched sports programs, dwarfing the audience for Canadian drama, and raising serious questions about scheduling strategies.
