No, the CBC’s not cool. Nor should it be
KONRAD YAKABUSKI
The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Apr. 21 2014, 6:00 AM EDT
“Well, here we are again,” a wistful CBC president Hubert
Lacroix began as he outlined the latest round of cuts – $130-million and 657
jobs in all – to afflict the national public broadcaster. And off we’ve gone
again into another round of CBC-bashing and rehashing the network’s many
failings.
It must be alternately infuriating and demoralizing to work
for the CBC. The English-language television broadcaster gets zero public
praise. Everyone’s a critic and the private media seem out to delegitimize your
very existence. But that’s what you sign up for when you take a job at an
institution Canadians not only own, but delight in “reimagining.”
It would all be easier if the broadcaster’s leaders, past
and present, weren’t still stuck in some alternate reality, deluded by visions
of grandeur and budget envy. They think that, if only Canadians funded their
public network the way the British and French fund theirs, the CBC could be all
things to all people and ne’er a disparaging word would be heard. In other
words, it’s not their fault; it’s ours.
“The CBC, despite the fact that it faces arguably the
largest cultural challenge, is the worst financed public broadcaster,” the
network’s former head of English services, Richard Stursberg, told a Senate
committee this month. “I don’t see any reason why a CBC that is properly
focused and properly funded can’t compete.”
The first problem with this idea is that it completely
ignores the circumstances in which overseas public broadcasters operate. The
British Broadcasting Corp. and France Télévisions are empires under siege, but
they are still empires. They have built up powerful political constituencies
and set up countless sister networks, on multiple platforms, precisely to keep
private competitors out of their space. They face nowhere near the same direct
threat from American fare as the English CBC does, and have been able to shape
and satisfy public expectations as a result.
The second problem with Mr. Stursberg’s analysis is that it
assumes the CBC’s mission is to “compete.” He is hardly alone in thinking that
the CBC must chase ratings. That mindset prevails all the way up the food
chain. “It is declining viewership that is causing their challenges,” a
spokeswoman for Heritage Minister Shelley Glover told Sun News. “It is up to
the CBC to provide programming that Canadians actually want to watch.”
With Ottawa sending that message, it’s little wonder
programmers fear that the failure to boost ratings will only give politicians
further ammunition to cut their funding. So, next season, Canadians will be
treated to Schitt’s Creek and Strange Empire as a CBC desperate to create any
buzz it can risks taxpayer money on an “edgier” lineup designed to attract a
younger demographic.
Hopeless. It’s not the occasional popular “hit” that is
going to make the CBC viable and necessary. It does not have the means or the
talent pool to deliver consistently high-quality dramas or comedies that can
lure English Canadians back from their constantly improving American
favourites.
The CBC claims a share of English TV ratings of about 8 per
cent. Without pro hockey, which it will soon lose, the share may be half that.
Its comparative advantages lie elsewhere, in public affairs programming that
actually reflects the country we live in, not some programmer’s fantasy world.
Thankfully, someone at the CBC gets it.
The same day Mr. Lacroix announced his cuts, the CBC
broadcast, in prime time, an in-house documentary that purported to solve the
mystery of the Bell of Batoche, a 130-year-old symbol of Métis pride. It
encapsulated the history of the North-West Rebellion, Louis Riel and the very
reason 19,000 francophones still live in Saskatchewan. These are stories we
should all know to appreciate the country we have become. It’s an illustration
of the CBC actually fulfilling its mandate, for a change.
It may not be as “cool” as some self-anointed fixers would
like. But I shudder at the thought of what a CBC that tries to be any cooler
than George Stroumboulopoulos would look like. The ultimate arbiters of cool
will never be impressed because cool, by definition, is ephemeral.
