Tom Mulcair on the CBC

Listen to Tom Mulcair's views on reviving the CBC from the Sunday, February 15 2015 edition of "The Sunday Edition":

Tom Mulcair on the CBC

The Liberal Party of Canada's vision for the CBC - Stéphane Dion

From the Sunday February 1st edition of "The Sunday Report" on CBC Radio One:

Listen to the episode here.

Globe and Mail article on the CBC by Konrad Yakabuski April 21 2014

From The Globe and Mail, Monday April 21 2014 :

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.

Ephemeral is the opposite of what the CBC needs. It needs stable funding, of course. But it also needs managers committed to public broadcasting, rather than imitating entertainment networks in the hopes of landing a better job at one of them. Frankly, it needs to gets serious.

Do we really need (or want) "Canada Live" on CBC Radio 1?

Many of us are Radio 2 refugees. What is a “Radio 2 refugee”, you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you. It is a former listener of Radio 2 who has had to turn to other radio stations for their daily classical music fix.

I discussed alternatives to CBC Radio 2 in other posts. I did not mention in those posts, however, my almost traitorous decision to start listening to CBC Radio 1. Yes, I am a recidivist CBC radio listener.

I listen to CBC Radio 1 in the car, while working in my basement workshop, while painting walls. Any place where I require radio entertainment.

Yet I notice recently that the boys and girls in short pants that ruined Radio 2 seem to be trying to work their magic on Radio 1. What, specifically, am I referring to? Funny you should ask. It’s “Canada Live”.

“Canada Live” was first introduced on Radio 2 to replace “In Performance”, if I recall correctly, in 2007. Who was the bright light at the CBC who decided that what Canadians really, really wanted was to listen to mediocre performers performing across Canada, live and in performance? Well, not live, really. Recorded. But they were live when performing. We think.

Now the CBC, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that what CBC Radio 1 listeners really, really, REALLY want is to listen to mediocre performers performing … well, you know what I’m going to say next. Yes, CBC Radio 1 now has “Canada Live” on its schedule at 2:00 PM on Friday afternoons. Why? Why, I ask? Did I ask for this? Did you ask for this? Wouldn’t you really rather have another segment of “Ideas”? Or, God forbid, at least another episode of “Rewind”? But no. You have to listen to “Canada Live”. And if you’re not willing to listen to it on CBC Radio 2, well then, by God, you will damn well listen to it on Radio 1!

A Globe and Mail editorial on the CBC.

The CBC: What’s it good for, without hockey?

The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Nov. 29 2013, 7:30 PM EST

In the beginning was The Hockey. And The Hockey was with the CBC. And The Hockey was the CBC.

This week’s news that Rogers Communications will pay $5.2-billion for the main National Hockey League programming rights for the next 12 years, displacing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, marks the loss of the CBC’s most popular program. Hockey Night in Canada is one of the CBC’s biggest money-makers, and also one of its biggest expenses. Under the terms of the Rogers deal, CBC will continue to carry HNIC for the next four years, but Rogers is essentially just borrowing the public broadcaster’s airwaves. Rogers will pay the bills, have creative control – and keep the revenue. CBC head Hubert Lacroix put on a brave face, but he and almost everyone else who weighed in sounded as if they believed this is a crushing defeat for the corporation, and possibly a fatal one.

It is not. Losing hockey is the best thing that could have happened to the CBC. A national institution that long ago lost its way has been given the chance – possibly its last chance – to find its soul. NHL hockey, the most popular pastime in this country, doesn’t need the CBC. And the CBC, if it’s to be what a public broadcaster should be, doesn’t need the NHL.

If the CBC did not exist, would we create it? And to do what?

The strongest argument for the CBC goes something like this: There are some public goods that the free market will not deliver, or will not deliver well enough, and so we create public institutions to do the job. Think of museums, libraries and parks. These would be very different without public support, and in some cases they might not exist at all. There’s a compelling logic to taxpayer backing for the National Gallery of Canada or the Canadian War Museum, or hundreds of other cultural institutions and historical sites. The CBC is, in part, such an institution.

But what about the things that if we were designing a public broadcaster from scratch, we wouldn’t want it doing? Consider the following hypothetical: Should taxpayer dollars be spent building a national network of cinemas showing the latest Hollywood movies? The private sector already does a pretty good job of running multiplexes.

And yet the CBC has often seen the television equivalent as a core part of its mandate. Popular American programs already filling the private airwaves – Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, reruns of situation comedies like The Simpsons, and lots of Hollywood movies – became a network staple. And hockey? Oh yes, and hockey.

Hockey is just about the most stereotypically Canadian thing you can put on television. It’s also the most popular. That’s not an argument in favour of hockey on the CBC – on the contrary, it’s the best argument against it. That Rogers was willing to pay $5.2-billion for the rights testifies to the fact that NHL hockey is a ridiculously successful business, and putting those games on the nation’s screens is the most competitive, in-demand entertainment in the country. If the CBC didn’t exist, there would still be NHL hockey on TV; in fact, Rogers appears to be intent on showing far more hours of hockey, on more platforms, than the CBC ever did. The market works! NHL hockey needs a taxpayer-supported public broadcaster like a fish needs a goalie mask.

Hockey reveals what should have been obvious all along: Popular programming doesn’t need taxpayer support. We don’t need a CBC to compete with the private sector. We need a CBC that goes where the private sector isn’t, doing important things that are necessary but may be less popular.

Consider arts and cultural programming – something that CBC television used to do a lot more of, and then in recent years stepped back from. Or educational and children’s programming. Documentaries. Regional programming. Producing intellectually ambitious Canadian dramas and movies. CBC TV has, in recent years, overwhelmingly focused its efforts on competing with private broadcasters, going down-market, and aiming the same sorts of programs at the same audience. The strategy is an expensive dead end.

And as part of the quest to bring in more money, the CBC has also introduced advertising to radio. Over time, that step will likely push the often excellent CBC Radio One and 2 into making programming decisions that ape the moves of private broadcasters – just like the considerably less excellent CBC TV.

So here’s a radical proposal to ensure that the CBC retains the spirit of a public broadcaster: Get rid of advertising. No ads on radio, no ads on TV, no ads on the website.

The bulk of the CBC’s funding already comes from the taxpayer: Last year, it received a subsidy of $1.1-billion from the federal government. Only $330-million of the corporation’s revenues came from advertising. And yet the chase for dollars consumes the CBC’s energies, generates new expenses and compels it to produce programs that shouldn’t be on a public network, undermining its public-service mission.

The CBC needs a rethink. Rogers and the NHL did it, and us, a favour. What if it stopped being a public broadcaster with private tendencies and became instead a pure public service? The CBC’s most recent annual report is titled “Challenging the Status Quo.” If only it would.

The Radio-Canada "Ici" controversy: Why all the surprise?

The latest controversy to engulf the beleaguered CBC is the “Ici” debacle. For those who haven’t been following this soap opera, the CBC announced on June 5 2013 that the French radio news and broadcasting arm of the CBC would be re-named “Ici Première”, replacing the venerable “Radio-Canada”.

Alarmists nation-wide saw this as the work of péquistes within the French-language CBC to distance the French-language service from Canada. A firestorm of controversy ensued. A mere five days later, the President and CEO of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Hubert Lacroix, apologized to the nation and announced that the CBC was reversing its decision to rename the French-language service. Instead, the radio service will be called “Ici Radio-Canada Première” and the television service will be called “Ici Radio-Canada Télé”. Once again, the nation has been saved!

The only surprising thing about this minor episode in the life of the CBC is that anyone was surprised. The CBC has an unfortunate history of imposing decisions on an unsuspecting public who, after all, are the owners of the CBC. An unfortunate history that goes all the way back to the summer of 2006 when the CBC, in a stealth attack on the CBC radio audience that even a hardened terrorist could appreciate, replaced the Friday evening broadcast of “In Performance” with a mish-mash of unlistenable pop/folk/country/rock/hip-hop concerts. One might have thought that this was just a summer-time replacement, a bit of vacation for Eric Friesen, the host of “In Performance” at the time. But no, it was the sly method of the CBC of imposing change on the listening public. Introduce a small change. See if anyone complains. If they don’t, then forge ahead with a blitzkrieg attack on the listening public at a later date.

Long-time CBC watchers will remember that this blitzkrieg attack came on March 19 2007 when “The World at Six” was removed from CBC Radio Two, to be replaced by a five-minute news broadcast. “Music for a while” with Danielle Charbonneau was replaced by the crapulent “Tonic”. “In Performance” was replaced by the even more repellant “Canada Live”. “The Arts Report” with Joe Cummings was axed from “Music and Company”. “Two New Hours”, “Northern Lights” and “Brave New Waves” were consigned to the dungeons of the CBC recording vaults, never to be heard from again.

The CBC didn’t announce these changes in advance. They didn’t ask the owners of the CBC, you, the listening audience, whether they approved of these changes. No, they simply foisted these programming changes on the listening audience, much in the same way as the CBC has, six years later, charged ahead with the CBC Radio-Canada re-naming. The CBC claimed that there was an ultra-secret “Arts and Culture Survey” that purported to support the programming changes. However, this survey was never released to those who paid for it; i.e. the owners of the CBC, you and me. It remains secret to this day. Perhaps languishing in the CBC dungeons, next to ancient recordings of “Brave New Waves”.

But wait! There was more to come! In September 2007 “Symphony Hall” was cancelled. “The Singer and the Song” was cancelled. Howard Dyck was unceremoniously dumped from “Saturday Afternoon at the Opera”. It seemed like the CBC was conducting a purge of its most venerable programs and announcers that would have made Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin blush. Once again, all of this was done without any public consultation, prior notice or fanfare. Simply imposed upon the listening audience.

If Radio Two had not already been sufficiently decimated, the CBC had even greater plans for its destruction. In September 2008 “Music and Company” was replaced by “Radio 2 Morning”. “Here’s to You” with Catherine Belyea was cancelled. “Studio Sparks” was cancelled. Eric Friesen was put out to pasture. The much-loved “Disc Drive” with Jurgen Goethe was replaced by the irritating “Radio 2 Drive”. Jurgen Gothe was exiled to the Siberia-like time slot of 5:00 PM on Sunday with a new show, “Farrago”, but this was short-lived. “Sound Advice”, with the excellent Rick Phillips, was soundly trounced, not on the advice of its listeners.

Once again, all of these changes were imposed on the CBC Radio Two listening audience, without consultation, prior warning or any pretence at being interested in the opinion of their customers, the CBC Radio Two listening audience. And the CBC has gotten away with it for the past six years.

So is it any wonder that no one should be surprised at the “Ici” controversy?

Joy to the World, Sunday December 16 2012

One of the few remaining traditions from CBC Radio Two is "Joy to the World", the holiday music programming from the European Broadcasting Union. Luckily, the program is produced by the EBU; otherwise, the CBC would likely have killed it along with many of the other programs that we came to know and love during the glory days of CBC Radio Two.

Forthwith, here is the schedule as noted on the CBC Radio Two blog:

Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012

9 a.m.: Kallio Church, Helsinki

The day gets off to an energetic start with an all-Vivaldi concert from the Baroque Ensemble of the Finnish Radio Orchestra. They'll play Vivaldi's Concerto for violin and strings,Il riposo, per il santissimo natale. And soprano Tuuli Lindeberg joins the orchestra for the motet Salve Regina.

10 a.m.: Garrison Church, Copenhagen

Inaugurated in 1706 as a parish for Copenhagen's militia, the Garrison Church is a popular concert venue. The Ars Nova Vocal Ensemble, directed by Paul Hillier, will perform a program of antiphons and carol, including Adam Lay ybounden, Es ist ein Ros entsprungen and Ding Dong Merrily on High.

11 a.m.: Small Guildhall, Riga

Conductor Maris Kupcs leads the Collegium Musicum Riga Baroque Orchestra, choir and a quartet of soloists in a concert of 18th-century music, the centrepiece being Telemann's Missa sopra 'ein kindelein so lobelich.' Riga's historic Small Guild Hall is mostly used nowadays for conferences and the occasional disco, but serves on this occasion as a concert venue for baroque music.

12 p.m.: Vzlet Culture House, Prague

Off to Prague for Bohemian seasonal music from the Czech Radio Children’s Choir and the Brno Radio Folk Instruments Ensemble under the direction of Frantisek Cerny. The concert includes highlights from Harmonia Caelestis, a cycle of cantatas composed by Paul I, Prince Esterházy of Galántha and published in 1711.

1 p.m.: Northern Lights Hall, Reykjavik

This concert features a jazz trio comprised of pianist Kjartan Valdimarsson, bassist Valdimar K. Sigurjonsson and drummerEinar Valur Scheving. They join vocalist Sigridur Thorlacius and other winners from the annual Icelandic Music Awards for traditional Icelandic and international Christmas songs.

2 p.m.: Christinae Church, Gothenburg

The Swedish Chamber Choir won the 2011 Let the Peoples Sing Euroradio Choral Competition. They're featured today singing music by Poulenc, Part, Alfven, Liljefors, Ohlsson, Sandstrom, Nordqvist, Rosenburg, Ohrwall, Nielsen, Mealor and Lange-Muller. Simon Phipps conducts.

3 p.m.: German National Museum, Nuremburg

A mix of 17th-century baroque music and traditional carols with Ensemble NeoBarock and the Eismannsberger Strings and Women Singers. The German National Museum is the largest museum of cultural history in Germany.

4 p.m.: Tbilisi State Conservatory Grand Hall, Tblisi

A program of traditional Georgian carols, songs and hymns performed by a number of groups, including Shavnabada, Didgori, Shalva Chemo and the Tbilisi Holy Trinity Cathedral Choir.

5 p.m.: Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, Montreal

A CBC tradition "with heart and soul and voice," the 33rd annual CBC Christmas Sing-In features carols and other music for the season performed by choir, organ, brass and percussion, and an audience of over 1,000 singing along at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul in Montreal.

Radio salvation for drivers!

Life used to be so simple when driving. Turn on the radio to CBC Radio Two and you could be guaranteed of some pleasant listening while you drove. Not anymore. CBC Radio Two is such a hodge-podge of music formats, not to mention annoying hosts, that I don’t even bother trying any more.

CBC Radio One is often an alternative, but once again there are times when I can’t stand listening to Radio One. During “The Debaters”, for example. “All in a Day (Ottawa)” is bearable, but there are times when I have to turn the radio off because the music that is being played is just too annoying. I could go on.

But I have found radio salvation! It is 1310 News, All News Radio on the AM dial in Ottawa. News, weather, sports, commercials, news, weather, sports, commercials, news, weather, sports, commercials ad infinitum. But I love it! I never get bored or annoyed, even if I’ve heard the same news story for the third or fourth time that day.

When was the last time you tried listening to AM radio? Give it a try. You might like it!

The CBC, intent on further destruction!

The management of CBC, not being content to have destroyed CBC Radio 2, now seem intent on obliterating the on-line music industry by offering a taxpayer-subsidized service that undercuts the commercial services.

The CBC argues that it is within their mandate to offer on-line services to Canadians. The on-line music industry claims that the CBC, by offering the service for free, draws subscribers away from the services that require a subscription. Who is right?

Let's consider broadcast radio. Broadcast radio is free - one only has to own a radio to receive the content. Commercial broadcasters funded their operations through advertising. The CBC funded its operations through government support. The playing field was level.

That is not the case with the on-line music industry. The on-line service providers rely on subscription fees from users to fund their operations, not advertising. The CBC still relies on government funding to fund their operations, and hence have an unfair advantage. The playing field is not level.

The CBC should be allowed to offer on-line services, but it should be required to follow the same business model as the on-line service providers; i.e. subscribers should pay for the service. To do otherwise risks the destruction of the on-line music industry.

But then, the CBC has quite a lot of experience in destruction, doesn't it?

This article appeared in the October 12, 2012 edition of The Globe and Mail:

CBC Music losing millions as content costs surpass revenue

I've reproduced the content of the article below, for posterity.

CBC Music losing millions as content costs surpass revenue

STEVE LADURANTAYE - MEDIA REPORTER

The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Oct. 11 2012, 7:37 PM EDT

Last updated Friday, Oct. 12 2012, 11:34 AM EDT

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. will lose millions of dollars a year on its free music service for the foreseeable future, as the high cost of content surpasses the advertising revenue the service earns.

CBC Music was launched in February just as the broadcaster was bracing for deep budget cuts that would lead to the loss of 650 jobs and prompt the CBC to request permission to sell advertising on its Radio 2 service.

Private companies who charge for digital music services have complained about the CBC’s encroachment, arguing the public broadcaster uses taxpayer money to run a service that will put them out of business.

The stakes are high: Canadians spend about $500-million a year on music and digital sales account for about 34 per cent of the market. Dozens of competing services such as Rdio and Galaxie are trying to woo consumers to their sites, hoping to take a bigger piece of that spending away from traditional retailers.

Chris Boyce, executive director of radio and audio for CBC English services, said the broadcaster is providing a unique service to Canadians. That means plenty of Canadian content, including interviews and live concerts in addition to the actual 40 channels of music.

“We have a very different business model than a for-profit company focused on the shareholder bottom line,” Mr. Boyce said. “Revenue is important to us, in that it allows us to reinvest in Canadian content and deliver on our mandate as a public broadcaster.”

The service has been hugely successful from a listener perspective, with 7.8 million visits on the web since launching. Users have streamed 17.6 million hours of music – the equivalent of listening to Carly Rae Jepsen’sCall Me Maybe on repeat 880,000 times.

But despite its popularity, the broadcaster only expects to sell about $750,000 in advertisements this year to help offset more than $6-million in costs (some of those are one-time costs associated with launching the service).

While it expects costs to go down marginally, much of the money it spends is to pay musicians and producers royalties and to produce programming. Other companies operating in the space estimate it costs about $6 a customer to run an online service, once copyright fees, infrastructure and marketing costs are considered.

“We do expect that expenses will continue to be larger than costs for some time, largely because of the cost of creating all the rich content on the site,” Mr. Boyce said. “Though we expect ad revenue to continue to grow and the gap to close.”

Monetizing music is a problem affecting much of the online music industry. Pandora, one of the largest services in the world, lost $5.4-million in its last quarter even as more subscribers joined. Sirius Canada Inc., which charges users a monthly fee, has never posted a quarterly profit despite having more than 2 million Canadian users.

Eric Boyko, whose Montreal-based Stingray Digital is one of the largest music companies in the world with more than 75 million subscribers for its Galaxie music service, has been one of the CBC’s most vocal critics. It’s not the service he has a problem with, it’s the broadcaster’s refusal to charge for a service that he thinks has value.

“If music is given away for free then people will say that it’s free,” Mr. Boyko said in a recent interview. “It will upset the market. That remains a threat, and that is why I’m mad at the CBC – someone is always paying.”

To mark the fifth anniversary of the death of Radio Two

I unfortunately let several anniversaries slip by the notice of this blog. The first was the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the end of the old CBC Radio Two. This was, of course, March 19. It was on this date in 2007 that the CBC launched their stealth attack against the CBC Radio Two listening audience by cutting “The World at Six” from its 6:00 PM time slot, cancelling Danielle Charbonneau and the much-loved “Music for a While” and replacing “In Performance” with Eric Friesen with the reviled “Canada Live”. Oh yes, I forgot to mention: “Two New Hours”, “Brave New Waves” and “Northern Lights” were also cancelled. But it is easy to overlook these changes in the general slaughter that took place.


Of course, that was just the beginning. Even more drastic changes to the programming schedule were about to take place, commencing in September 2007 and finally being completed in September 2008. But for many of us, March 19 2007 was the day that the music died on CBC Radio Two.


So I thought it would be fun to mark the fifth anniversary of this blog by listing here all of the letters and correspondence that I sent to various individuals (and in some cases, the replies I received) during the course of my five-year protest against the changes that were made to CBC Radio Two. For those of you who have just discovered this blog, it’s an easy way to catch up on what has happened during the last five years. For those of you who have been following along, it’s a handy summary of what has taken place in the past five years.


The list is in the format of links to previous blog entries. Here goes:


Post to Jowi Taylor’s Blog, March 21 2007


Letter to Tell Us What You Think, March 24 2007


Letter to Jennifer McGuire, Executive Director of Programming and Jane Chalmers, Vice-President of CBC Radio


Letter to Robert Rabinovich, President and CEO of the CBC


Letter to Gary Schellenberger, Chair of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage


Letter to Bev Oda, Minister of Heritage


Response from the office of the Minister of Heritage


Response from Jennifer McGuire, Executive Director of Programming


A second letter to Jennifer McGuire, Executive Director of Programming


A second response from the office of the Minister of Heritage


A second response from Jennifer McGuire, Executive Director of Programming


Letters to the members of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage


Open letters to the candidates in Carleton-Mississippi Mills during the 2008 election


Replies from the candidates in Carleton-Mississippi Mills during the 2008 election


Of course, we can’t forget the nation-wide protest that took place on April 11 2008 in response to the disbanding of the CBC Radio Orchestra and the Radio Two changes that were announced at that time:


Scenes from a Protest


Although it wasn't in the form of a letter received from these two individuals, I thought the interview conducted with Mark Steinmetz and Chris Boyce (the CBC Radio Director of Music and the CBC Radio Director of Programming, respectively, at the time of the interview) was interesting for what it revealed about the CBC:


Interview with Mark Steinmetz and Chris Boyce

In a subsequent post I’ll attempt to answer the question “Where are they now”, to track the careers of some of the major players in the CBC Radio Two restructuring debacle.

The CBC: running madly off in all directions

This article appeared in the Feb. 14 2012 edition of the Globe and Mail, and on-line here.


One has to wonder what's going on in the CBC. First, CBC management decimates the Radio 2 audience by making some ill-considered changes to the programming, then runs madly off in all directions by launching digital music channels that only a small percentage of Canadians are likely to listen to. What happened to the concept of serving all Canadians, not just those with high-speed internet connections?




CBC enters digital-music arena
GUY DIXON
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 6:00PM EST
Last updated Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 6:22PM EST



The CBC has taken a giant new step into the competitive digital-music arena. On Monday, the public broadcaster unveiled CBC Music, a website and mobile app with 40 radio stations covering genres from indie rock to classical. To keep listeners coming back (that all-important “stickiness” in digi-speak), the service also includes create-your-own  playlists and selections of songs by young artists such as Toronto’s Austra and Montreal’s Plants and Animals.


It’s not only a bid to attract more listeners, but also opens up “a whole bunch of ways to connect with them that [was] difficult to do on terrestrial radio,” said Chris Boyce, CBC’s executive director of radio and audio.


This comes as broadcasters are increasing their presence in the world of apps: Astral recently launched new mobile apps for its radio stations, with bonuses such as exclusive in-studio performances. Meanwhile, subscription streaming services such as Rdio are once again on the rise, offering users access to massive libraries of streaming music for a fee.


“Gone are the days when people first heard a new track of music on the radio,” Boyce said.The CBC isn’t trying to compete with online music retailers such as Apple’s iTunes, though. Instead, the site links to iTunes. And no, it doesn’t replace CBC’s on-air music. There are currently no plans to eliminate the Radio 2 music station, Boyce said.


The win


The CBC attracts savvy programmers. CBC’s independently spirited Radio 3, for example, brings listeners everything from singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards to local Charlottetown band, Milks and Rectangles. Now that expertise can be applied to a broad spectrum of genres, with streams devoted to Canadian classical composers, some of the best homegrown jazz and alt pop. CBC Music could become a key arbiter of the best, if lesser-heard, music out there.


The miss


It’s still radio: You can’t jump ahead to the next song when listening to a stream. So while CBC Music caters to the new-media crowd, it requires old-media patience. You can jump forward or back while listening to playlists though. (Radio 3 host Lana Gay’s colourful list, including The Gruesome’s garage rocker Hey, is a highlight at the moment). Still, the nascent service only has a precious few playlists so far. And features of individual artists have a grand total of seven acts right now.


The competition


The pay service Rdio gives users access to a huge library of music for a monthly fee. Astral’s free apps are an extension of its stations, with added content such as app-only performances of hot acts. In comparison, CBC Music feels like the CBC – with a wider cross-section of music, unencumbered by the tight programming formats of private radio stations.


The next big thing


Spotify, officially unavailable in Canada, is nevertheless seen as a standard bearer with its personalized playlists (Obama just posted his) and its highly searchable library of artists. CBC Music, by comparison, is more like enhanced radio. Yet some digital radio sites, like American public broadcaster NPR, have taken a sharp direction toward nuanced, esoteric music. The question is whether users will want more breadth or more eclecticism? More searchability or more of a curated radio feel? 


What the CBC and the industry knows for sure is that we always want more music.


With files from Steve Ladurantaye

CBC faces budget cuts - but do we care?

This article appeared in the Feb. 12 2012 edition of the Globe and Mail and on-line here.


I find the statement "While vociferous protests would let the government know people value the CBC ..." laughable. Didn't CBC Radio 2 listeners protest against the programming changes that the CBC implemented in 2007? Did the CBC listen to its supporters? No, it didn't. The CBC continued to merrily dig themselves deeper into the hole of irrelevance. And now, former CBC listeners who have abandoned the CBC in droves should rise up a fight for an institution that has betrayed them? I don't think so.



This time, the CBC cuts will be noticeable
KATE TAYLOR
From Monday's Globe and Mail (includes correction)
Published Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012 6:00PM EST
Last updated Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 2:56PM EST


When music critics and public broadcasting analysts gather in a cavernous TV studio in downtown Toronto Monday, they can expect a splashy presentation about a digital music streaming service with no less than 40 channels. But the celebratory tone over the launch of CBC Music might be a bit forced: The public broadcaster is widely predicted to take a 10 per cut to its $1.1-billion grant when the federal budget comes down in late February or early March and moving radio music services online is a way to both save money and generate ad revenue. If Music Canada! is a bouncing new baby,old Radio 2, the CBC’s English-language music channel, looks decidedly sick.


As part of a government-wide belt-tightening process, the CBC was asked last fall to present Ottawa with two possible budget scenarios, cutting five or 10 cent over three years. The broadcaster cannot discuss the contents of those scenarios, but in a recent meeting with The Globe and Mail’s editorial board, CBC CEO Hubert Lacroix made it clear that he considers 10 per cent the most likely possibility. “You’ll notice it,” Lacroix said.


Were it simply made in one place, a $110-million hit to the CBC would eliminate French radio or half of English radio services or remove more than a day’s worth of television programming from CBC-TV every week, said Karen Wirsig, communications co-ordinator at the Canadian Media Guild, the CBC’s main union.


While it is unlikely the CBC will target an entire service in that way, a $110-million cut would force the broadcaster to make visible changes to programming. In the 2000s, with both cuts and inflation eating away at its budget, the CBC streamlined its administration and sold off real estate; to deal with $170-million in lost ad revenue during the 2009 and 2010 recession, it made cuts across the board, eliminating 800 jobs and paying out $40-million in severance. Now, though, the cuts are expected to be vertical – in lower priority areas – rather than horizontal – or across all services. Lacroix calls this a “Sophie’s Choice” for the broadcaster.


That choice will flow from the CBC’s current strategic plan, which emphasizes going digital, putting Canadian content in prime time, and restoring or initiating services to under-served regions: Anything not in that plan is vulnerable, Lacroix has said. That is why many observers expect deep cuts to national radio, which does not fit within those priorities, and especially to music programming, which can be delivered more cheaply online by services such as CBC Music.


The new service will be a beefier version of its French-language equivalent, espace.mu, which Radio-Canada launched last June. Some critics have asked why the CBC is competing with iTunes, but like espace.mu, CBC Music will operate on a broadcast model not a retail one, offering streaming rather than downloads. Still, unlike Espace Musique, its sister radio channel, espace.mu doesn’t have hosts and carries ads, allowing the broadcaster to generate revenue from music programming.


Broadcasting veterans say the CBC is unlikely to axe an entire service, such as Espace Musique or Radio 2. While vociferous protests would let the government know people value the CBC, they would be unlikely to shift the government’s position and might backfire, spewing ill will at the broadcaster itself. Certainly, the abandonment of a radio frequency would seem too great a retreat. 


Rather, these services could be cut to the bone, including an elimination of all broadcasts of live performances, with online radio offered as the alternative.


Similarly, the CBC is committed to moving children’s TV programming online, arguing that is where most children watch shows these days. This would allow the broadcaster to rethink morning television schedules, replacing ad-free programming aimed at preschoolers with reruns of adult programming on which there would be ads.


CBC watchers also expect to see fewer special events, such as the multiplatform live coverage of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal’s inauguration of its concert hall last September. And, despite the commitment to under-served regions in the strategic plan, they question whether the broadcaster can really go ahead and open new radio stations in locations such as Kamloops, B.C. and Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. as well as a new digital service in Hamilton.


“There is no more room for efficiency,” said Ian Morrison, spokesman for the public broadcasting lobby group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. “Every dollar is going to come off the air or off the screen.”


With files from Guy Dixon

Coming to a Garage Sale near you! The CBC's collection of LPs and CDs!

From the January 24 2012 Globe and Mail:



CBC dismantling LP, CD archives
GUY DIXON
Published Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012 5:00PM EST

The CBC is quietly dismantling its archives of LPs and CDs across Canada – a cultural treasure trove built over decades – even as it prepares to launch a major new music service online.


With uncertainty over levels of funding from Ottawa, CBC management has told archivists to winnow the music collections at regional bureaus by the end of March. This could mean donating, selling or discarding thousands of records and CDs – a cost- and space-saving measure as recordings are increasingly digitized.
 
This is happening just as the CBC’s need for music could grow heavily, as the broadcaster gears up to introduce a number of new music channels streaming online, possibly as many as 35, sources familiar with the project say.


While CBC management would not confirm that a new service is in the works, sources say it is expected to provide a number of musical formats (one for Canadian rock, one for Canadian hip hop and so on) all accessible from one central CBC website.


Some CBC archivists see irony in the fact that they are being asked to dismantle regional record collections just as producers will be coming to them for music. Many old LPs won’t be digitized, they say, and producers and announcers won’t be able to hold the physical albums and see liner notes and information that can’t be fully captured in a database.


“We believe that they are jumping the gun quite a bit by doing this,” said archivist John MacMillan, who has spent much of his career looking after CBC Vancouver’s music library. “We understand that at some point the hard-copy collection would not be needed any more, and the usage of the CDs has gone down. But the content in this virtual music library – as it’s known – is still far below the needs of the users.”


There is also a risk, some fear, of losing some valuable recordings when such large collections – some with tens of thousands of titles – are broken up. As one archivist said, not for attribution, it’s a question of whether CBC management sees the collections as a valuable archive for Canadians or simply as a resource for CBC producers.


CBC spokesman Chris Ball said that the cull isn’t affecting its Toronto-based archive, and the CBC will continue to maintain an extensive physical collection. At the same time, he notes, the CBC has been relying less and less on CDs and albums and more on digitized music, like much of the industry. The broadcaster’s digitized library is said to already contain about 1.5 million titles.


“We’re going to look at what content has historic value, what has a programming value to us,” Ball said. “The goal here is that we are digitizing that content in the virtual music library. What that’s going to be able to do is give everybody across the country [in the CBC] desktop access to our entire music library.”


Out of the approximately 650,000 CDs housed in CBC bureaus, only 140,000 CDs are unique to those libraries. The rest are duplicates of discs already housed in Toronto, Ball said. Unique physical titles will be shipped to the CBC’s permanent collection in Toronto, which currently has about 135,000 unique CDs.


He added that the physical library will continue to add new discs. “This isn’t the end point. … We’re still going to support regional artists who want to provide us with their music,” he said.


So the push is now on not only to scour the bureaus’ collections for records to ship to Toronto, but to simultaneously digitize more of those titles. This isn’t expected to eliminate many, if any, jobs since most CBC archivists also maintain other collections, such as TV and radio archives.


CBC’s popular online Radio 3 service, which features new music and has a largely separate collection, is expected to integrate more of its library into the CBC’s larger digitalized music system.


So far, the dismantling of regional record collections only applies to the English-language side. The question is whether there’s enough time to input enough of the rare LPs into the virtual music library by the end of March, and how much of the information in the liner notes will be lost.


MacMillan acknowledges that this kind of information is not necessarily used every day. “But the point of this, and I think with any library, it’s there for next year or the year after when someone goes ‘Oh, how about …?’ and they can look up something that is here and readily available, something that iTunes just will never have, ever,” he said.


The collection in Vancouver, for instance, has an unusually large array of South American titles and other music from around the world. These could be viewed as extraneous when the collection is dismantled. It also has a large number of 78-rpm records and Edisons (early 78s recorded without amplifiers or microphones).


“I can think of one or two collectors in Vancouver who would love to have them and preserve them,” MacMillan said. “Some records are in such poor shape that they may have to be thrown out. But [with] much of it, we would endeavour to try to save it as best we could and to make sure it went into a collector’s hands or [to] a university.”


He added that “it is a time-consuming process to go through, to make sure that we’re not tossing something away that doesn’t exist in a modern format … The thing about this that is most rankling to me is that, sure, we knew that this had to happen. But it is happening way too fast.”

Four years later, and what have we learned?

It has been over four years since the CBC implemented the first phase of the restructuring of CBC Radio Two and four years since we began this blog. What have we learned during that time?

I doubt that the CBC has learned very much from this experiment or taken the experience to heart. I’ll try to state some of the more obvious points that I believe the CBC should have learned.

First of all, listen to your customers. This is a basic point that is taught in business schools, preached by management consultants and ignored to the detriment of corporations. Bitter experience has taught most corporations – the ones that survive, at least – that a corporation ignores the opinions of its loyal customers at its own peril. I’ve referred to the example of New Coke as the classic (no pun intended) example of a company misreading the tastes of its customers. Corporations have learned this lesson many times over since then.

Not so the CBC. When the CBC Radio Two restructuring was announced there was a storm of protest. Letters were written to the newspapers, petitions written (including mine), web sites started (including this one), FaceBook groups begun. Protests were held on the streets of major Canadian cities in support of the “old” CBC Radio Two. Hearings were held in Parliament. All was for naught. The CBC did not change its course. The CBC stubbornly stuck to its guns in spite of impassioned pleas from its audience.

And what was the result? The audience for CBC Radio Two has been decimated. In Vancouver, the audience for CBC Radio Two has fallen 61.7% from its pre-restructuring levels, while the total radio listening audience in Vancouver has fallen only 24.1%. An audience decline such as this is nothing short of astounding. The same is true for the other major cities for which we have recent audience data: Montreal, down 44.1%, Toronto, down 44.2%, Calgary, down 59.8% and Edmonton, down 40%. The only bright spots for the CBC seems to be Winnipeg and Ottawa, for which we have no recent data. We await the spring radio diary data for recent audience data for these cities. Results such as these are the raw material for future business school cases.

The second point is that the public broadcaster exists to offer an alternative to commercial radio stations. A public broadcaster that does nothing more than offer a pale alternative to commercial radio is in danger of having its funding cut. A declining audience certainly doesn’t help.

What is to become of the CBC? I expect that it will muddle along, becoming increasingly irrelevant. There will be ever-more persistent attempts to cut its budget. CBC executives will continue to plead the case for a public broadcaster before Parliamentary committees. The public will become increasingly indifferent to the plight of the CBC, having been driven away by the dictatorial decisions of CBC management. Eventually the CBC will fade away, existing only as archived shows on .mp3 files on iPods, iPads and iPhones, as a new audience discovers the glory of what once was a revered Canadian institution.

Radio 2 Cummings and goings

While in Toronto today I tuned into CBC Radio 2 – for about fifteen minutes, which was all that I could take. I heard the last fifteen minutes of Radio 2 Morning with Bob Mackowycz, during which I heard a song performed by Buffalo Springfield (Buffalo Springfield!) and someone named, I believe, Virginia Gore.

The song performed by Buffalo Springfield was "For what it's worth" by Stephen Stills. (“stop, hey, what’s that sound, everybody look what's going down”) and I was immediately transported back to the late 60’s, at least for several minutes. I remember the sixties, likely because I was too young to be doing drugs at the time, thus disproving the saying that if you remember the sixties, you probably weren't there. Or was that Woodstock? Perhaps both. I mention this not out of nostalgia for the 60s, however, but because I have to wonder: how does playing a song from the 60s that you can hear on any JACK FM or similarly derivative station make CBC Radio 2 more relevant to Canadians?

I thought the song by Virginia Gore was by Feist, but it wasn’t. Have you noticed that there is now a new generation of female singer/songwriters who sound like Feist, who in turn seems to have been influenced by Bjork? Just something that I’ve noticed.

Radio 2 Morning ended and I was pleased to hear that Joe Cummings is now reading the news. I was afraid that Mr. Cummings had been unceremoniously dumped from the CBC after the Arts Report was canned. Good to see you’re still there, Mr. Cummings!

I began to wonder what happened to Tom Allen. I searched the CBC web site and found that Mr. Allen is, according to the CBC web site, hosting either “Radio 2 Shift” (where he is the host) or “Shift with Tom Allen” (where he is apparently the anchor). Both programs seem to occupy the same time slot. Whichever it is, I’m happy to see that Mr. Allen is still with the CBC.

So then I looked up Mr. Cummings on the CBC web site. Apparently Mr. Cummings is the host of the “Arts Report”, which according to the CBC “provides CBC Radio Two listeners with up-to-the-minute coverage of the arts in Canada and abroad”. Who knew?

The web site goes on to say that:

With contributions from arts reporters in major centres across Canada as well as from freelancers abroad, The Arts Report covers everything from cultural politics on Parliament Hill to a new art exhibit in Vancouver to a play première in Halifax.

During its 23-year history, listeners have come to rely on The Arts Report to provide a broad-based, regionally balanced account of artistic life in Canada.

In 1993, The Arts Report won the Imperial Oil Award for Excellence in Arts Journalism, presented by the Canadian Conference of the Arts.

It would be nice if it were true, wouldn’t it?

Latest CBC Radio 2 survey data: the "S9 2010" results

Two years have now passed since the CBC completed their restructuring of the CBC Radio 2 programming.

As you may recall, the first phase of the changes to the CBC Radio 2 programming occurred in March 2007. The last survey of the CBC Radio 2 audience listening to the “old” programming conducted by the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement was, in the BBM’s terminology, S1 2007. The most recent survey available on the BBMs web site covers the period from July 26 – October 24 2010 and includes data for Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver and is based on data compiled using the Portable People Meter, or PPM. Radio audience survey data for Winnipeg and Ottawa is based on data compiled using diary data and so is not available for this period, the last survey period for these markets covering the period March 1 – April 25 2010. I term the period from March 1 – April 25 2010 “S4 2010”, to be consistent with prior survey naming, but it should be noted that the BBM does not use this term.

Anyone interested in the success or failure of the new programming on CBC Radio 2 can therefore compare the current audience for CBC Radio 2 with the audience for the “old” Classical format. Since the goal of the restructuring of the CBC Radio 2 programming was apparently to increase the total audience, we would expect that the CBC Radio 2 audience has increased in the major markets surveyed by the BBM. At the time of the programming changes, the management of the CBC admitted that they were going to alienate many loyal listeners, but contended that they would gain additional listeners and would therefore increase the total audience for CBC Radio 2. So what actually happened?

As readers of previous entries to this blog are no doubt aware, the audience for CBC Radio 2 has plummeted. Changes in the survey methodology from diary data to the PPM data are no doubt one factor, but the decline in the CBC Radio 2 audience was evident even before the changeover to the PPM measurements. The audience has declined 41.4% in Montreal, 39.4% in Toronto, 67.1% in Vancouver, 56.3% in Calgary and 45.2% in Edmonton. This is a decline in market share of almost unheard of proportions. The charts below summarize the results for S9 2010. Note that the last survey for which full market data is available is S4 2010, which included data for Ottawa and Winnipeg.

While it is true that the total radio audience has declined in each of these markets, with the exception of Montreal English broadcasting stations, the decline in Radio 2's audience has been much more dramatic.

Many former listeners of CBC Radio 2 will not be surprised by this. You may recall that listeners protested the changes in most large Canadian cities in April 2008. There was a public outcry when the extent of the CBC’s plans were revealed to the Canadian public. Although the audience was vociferous in their condemnation of the CBC’s plans for the new programming, the CBC management proceeded with the restructuring in the face of overwhelming public opposition.

Consider how other corporations have implemented change and how they have reacted when their customers reacted negatively to such change. The most well-known example of a marketing debacle is, of course, the introduction of “New Coke” in the late eighties. For those few who may not know the story: Coke attempted to increase the market share for Coca-Cola by introducing a new formula for Coke that they dubbed “New Coke.” Their customers were outraged. New Coke sales plummeted. Coca-Cola relented and reintroduced “Coke Classic” to placate their customers, offering both “New Coke” and “Coke Classic”. Sales recovered and “New Coke” was quietly retired by an abashed Coca-Cola corporation.

Consider a more recent example. The Gap recently decided to change their logo. Their logo! Customers were outraged and protested. The Gap, having learned something during the past twenty years from other corporate missteps, quickly retreated, admitted their mistake and reinstated their old logo. Note that nothing apparently had changed with respect to the merchandise, shopping experience or pricing. The only thing that was altered was the logo! Yet the management of The Gap was quick to realize that they had made a mistake and recovered from the mistake in order to keep their customers happy.

Not so the management of the CBC. Not only did they ignore the public outcry that greeted the initial announcement of the restructuring of the CBC, but have apparently been oblivious to the declining audience of CBC Radio 2, judging by the lack of public statements to their shareholders, the taxpayers of Canada.

You can’t get away with stuff like this if you are a company operating in a competitive environment. If you’re a corporation that lives off the public purse, apparently you can.