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 gang that couldn’t shoot straight, Part II

The twists and turns that this story takes! It was reported yesterday (on the front pages of the Globe and Mail and National Post, no less) that CTV had stepped up to the plate, so to speak, and bought the rights to the Hockey Night in Canada theme song, reportedly for $2.5 - $3.0 million. The deal struck with Ms. Dolores Claman gives CTV the rights to use the theme song “in perpetuity” for their TSN and RDS broadcasts. It was also reported that CTV had, just days earlier, reached agreement with the NHL on a six-year deal to broadcast 70 NHL games per season on TSN.

So, you might ask, just how much was the CBC paying Ms. Claman for the use of her theme song on HNIC broadcasts? It was also reported that the CBC was paying $500 each time the theme song was played, as well as “other undisclosed fees”. Over an 85 game HNIC schedule and assuming that the theme is played twice per game, that works out to be $85,000 per year! Peanuts, you might say!

What if the CBC had decided to buy the rights to the theme song, as CTV has done, “in perpetuity”? How much should they have been willing to pay? At the paltry sum of $500 per use, over an 85 game season for 100 years, and assuming that Ms. Claman (who I presume is a retiree) would be happy earning the 30-year T-Bill rate of interest (currently 4.17%), the present value of this 100-year income stream is approximately $2 million.

Now, I have no way of knowing whether this would have been acceptable to Ms. Claman – perhaps she considered $500 per use of the theme song much too low – but it seems that the CBC missed out on a golden opportunity to secure the rights to the much-beloved HNIC theme song at a perfectly reasonable price. Instead, CTV put a move on the CBC that left the CBC standing at the blue line with their shorts around their ankles. Good on yer, CTV!

I realize that the last two blog entries have been somewhat off-topic, given that this blog is devoted to protesting the demise of classical music on CBC Radio Two, but is there any better illustration of the mismanagement of the CBC than this most recent fiasco?

The gang that couldn’t shoot straight

In my April 28 2007 blog entry, I speculated on the probable result of a decision by CBC TV to cancel “Hockey Night in Canada”. Of course, I was being facetious and never expected such a thing to happen, but one should never underestimate the CBC management team!

While the CBC has not taken that drastic action (just give them time!), they have done something that is equally likely to raise the ire of Canadians. Of course, I am referring to the decision by the CBC to replace the Hockey Night in Canada theme song with a song to be chosen in a contest, to be held later this year. Apparently the CBC cannot come to an agreement with the song’s composer, Ms. Dolores Claman, on appropriate remuneration for the use of the song during broadcasts.

In the week or two since this decision was announced there have been newspaper articles published bemoaning the loss of our cultural heritage, letters written to the editor of our national newspapers, petitions started, perhaps even protests in the streets by now (I was away on vacation for the last two weeks, so I’m not fully up to date on all the news). Sound familiar? Well, of course it does! The CBC has managed to alienate hockey fans nearly as much as they have alienated their classical music fans. This is no mean feat, given that these groups are often (not always, of course) widely divergent in tastes and interests. Who is left in the current or former CBC audience for the CBC to annoy? The “Friendly Giant” fan club? (Oh, sorry, I forgot that the Friendly Giant fan club is already pissed off by the CBC’s use of Rusty the Rooster and Jerome the Giraffe in a 2007 Gemini awards skit which showed the two smoking, drinking and having sex. I wish I was making this stuff up, but I’m not.)

In a recent article in the National Post, it was said that “Scrapping a TV theme song is like losing a good friend”. Robert Gjerdingen, a professor of music theory and cognition at Northwestern University in Illinois, was quoted as saying “The theme song becomes like someone in your family. It’s like meeting somebody you know. So if the song is like your friend Bill [and is cancelled], suddenly it’s like ‘Where’s Bill? Who took Bill’”?

Well, exactly. What if it’s not just the theme song? What if it’s the entire program? Such as “Music for a while”, for example? Or “In Performance”? For the CBC Radio Two listeners, cancellation of these shows is similar to losing a member of the family.

If we weren’t all being affected by these missteps taken by CBC management, it would be great fun to sit back and watch how they could further screw up the corporation.

March 19, 2007 - a day that will live in infamy in the hearts of CBC Radio Two listeners

Well, this is it. The new evening programming begins on CBC Radio Two. On my drive home from work I tune in to CBC Radio Two at 6:00 PM. Two minutes of news, then Katie Malloch launches her new program, "Tonic". Now, I like Katie Malloch. I liked her program when it was on for an hour or two on Sunday evenings. I like jazz, late at night, driving home after an evening out, cool jazz playing as the street lights and darkened buildings flash by. But at 6:00 PM? Yes, I realize that there are jazz fans who like to listen to jazz at any time, day or night. As you will see from future postings on this blog, I do not mean to belittle or denigrate any musical genre or those who appreciate the music that has become the mainstay on CBC Radio Two in the evening. The point of this blog is that CBC Radio Two management has made wholesale changes to the evening schedule without consulting Canadians or providing any period for Canadians to comment on the proposed changes. What is more abhorrent, CBC Radio Two has not provided any means for CBC Radio Two listeners to comment on the changes in programming in a public forum where CBC Radio Two listeners can exchange opinions and comments, for all to see. This is the purpose of this blog - I hope to stimulate open discussion by CBC Radio Two listeners of the changes that have taken place. Future posts will document the letters I have written to CBC Radio management and the response I have received (or lack thereof), feedback I have posted on the CBC Radio Two web site, letters I have written to the House Standing Committee on Canadian Culture (which, incidentally, has initiated a study entitled "A full investigation of the role for a public broadcaster in the 21st century" - check out the Committee's link to the right). But I am getting ahead of myself. This post was only intended to describe that first week.

So, I continued to listen to Katie's program. I listened all the way home. I continued listening at home. Some of the music I enjoyed, some I did not. All in all, I would have preferred "Music for Awhile" and Danielle Charbonneau.

I listened to the new "Canada Live" at 8:00 PM. I tried to enjoy it - I really did! But I gave up after ten to twenty minutes and changed to Espace Musique - or perhaps it was "Couleur FM", 97.1 in the Ottawa/Gatineau region.

The rest of the week continued in the same vein. (I missed Tuesday's programming, attending Murray Perahia's performance at the National Arts Centre with my girlfriend - finally, a classical music fix in the evening!). But I diligently listened to CBC Radio Two for the rest of the week, trying to find some good in it all. Sad to say, I found very little.

Memorable concerts during that week included the "Black History Month" concert, the "Sicilian Jazz Project", "Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans" (I'm not making this stuff up, check out the CBC Radio Two home page under "Concerts on Demand"). There may have been others - or in fact these may have taken place the next week - but my memories of that bitter time are, thankfully, beginning to fade.

Now, I have nothing against the performances listed above, the content of the performances or the performers who participated in them. I'm sure that the performances were excellent, the performers are dedicated musicians and that there is an audience for such performances. My point is that CBC Radio Two has abandoned its listeners with such drastic changes in programming. Imagine if "Hockey Night in Canada" had been replaced with "Ballet Night in Canada". What would be the reaction? There would be rioting in the streets, CBC management burned in effigy, letters written to the editor. Don Cherry would likely replace (by popular demand) Stephen Harper as the leader of the Conservative Party, run for Parliament in the next election, win a seat in the House and the election by a record margin, then restore some sense to CBC management and return Hockey Night in Canada to its rightful place in the CBC schedule. But classical music? Who cares? Who is being affected?

Well, oddly enough, quite a few people apparently. Mr. Robert Rabinovitch, President of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, referred in his March 22 2007 address to the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage of "... a decade of almost continuous growth in audience share and loyalty". Is this how audience loyalty is rewarded?

The unfortunate thing is that many of the CBC Radio Two listeners are from the generations that are less likely to be computer literate or able to protest these changes. Will they start a blog? Will they go to the CBC Radio Two web site and provide feedback to CBC Radio Two? Will they write letters to CBC Radio management? Will they write to their Member of Parliament? Will they protest on Parliament Hill? Will they see this blog? Sadly, no. It is up to you, reader, to do these things for those who can not.