Readers of this blog may recall that I sent a letter (as well as an e-mail) to the Minister of Heritage, Ms. Bev Oda, on May 17 2007. You may read the original letter in my May 17 blog entry. Ms. Oda's office was kind enough to reply to my e-mail on May 24, stating that they had received my e-mail and would follow up with a more detailed response.
I received the following response on July 20 2007 from Ms. Bev Oda's office:
Dear Mr. Wooten:
Thank you for your correspondence of May 17, 2007, regarding Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio programming.
I appreciate your advising me of your views on this matter and have carefully noted your comments. While the Department of Canadian Heritage is responsible for overall broadcasting policy and legislation, the CBC operates independently of the Government under a framework provided in the Broadcasting Act. As an autonomous Crown corporation, its Board of Directors and senior management are responsible for its day-to-day operations, including its radio programming. In view of the autonomy of the CBC, you might wish to share your views directly with Mr. Robert Rabinovitch, its President and Chief Executive Officer, at the address provided in the enclosure.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is responsible for the licensing, regulation and supervision of all aspects of the Canadian broadcasting system. The CRTC was established by Parliament under the Broadcasting Act as an autonomous body that operates independently of the Government and is responsible for its own day-to-day operations and decisions. The CRTC maintains a record of complaints against licensees and takes these into consideration when broadcasters apply for renewal of their licences. In view of the autonomy of the CRTC, you might wish to share your concerns on this matter directly with Mr. Robert A. Morin, its Secretary General, at the address provided in the enclosure.
I trust that this information is useful. Please accept my best wishes.
Yours sincerely,
Bev Oda, P.C., M.P.
Enclosure
ANNEX
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Mr. Robert Rabinovitch
President and Chief Executive Officer
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Post Office Box 3220, Station C
Ottawa, Ontario
K1Y 1E4
Telephone: 613-288-6000
Electronic mail: commho@ottawa.cbc.ca
Web site: http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
Mr. Robert A. Morin
Secretary General
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0N2
Telephone: 819-997-0313
Toll-free: 1-877-249-2782
Facsimile: 819-994-0218
Electronic Mail: info@crtc.x400.gc.ca
Web site: http://www.crtc.gc.ca
Now, this how I believe a Member of Parliament or Minister's office should operate: they acknowledge your letter and follow with a reply within a reasonable period of time. Well done, Ms. Oda! This is in contrast to some of the other letters that I have sent; for example, the letter to Mr. Robert Rabinovitch, the letter to Ms. Jane Chalmers or the letters to several Members of Parliament on the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, where I received no replies or acknowledgements at all. To give full credit where credit is due, Ms. Jennifer McGuire and Mr. Gary Schellenberger's office also responded to my letters. You may see Ms. McGuire's response in my June 21 blog entry, and my subsequent reply in my June 29 blog entry. My reply to Mr. Gary Schellenberger's response is in my May 15 blog entry.
As for the content of the reply, to tell the truth this is about what I expected to receive. I didn't really expect Ms. Oda to march into the offices of CBC Radio and demand that they alter their behaviour and begin to consult Canadians more often when making programming changes. As Ms. Oda states (or, more correctly I assume, someone in her office) CBC management is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the corporation and operates independently of the government. The reason that I wrote this letter to Ms. Oda's office (and I encourage you to do the same) is so that members of the government will know just how unhappy CBC Radio Two listeners are with CBC Radio management. Perhaps this information will prove useful to the Members of Parliament at some point in the future.
I encourage everyone reading this blog to use the above addresses and write your own letters of protest concerning the changes to CBC Radio Two's programming to Mr. Robert Rabinovitch and Mr. Robert Morin.
Showing posts with label public consultation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public consultation. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Public Consultation! Huh! What is it good for?
"Absolutely nothing!" I imagine the CBC Radio management chorus responding.
Let's take a moment to consider the value of marketing surveys in the operation of any commercial enterprise which hopes to attract and retain customers.
Suppose you are the President of a corporation that is publicly traded. Your product, chocolate cupcakes, has achieved a 10% market share in the snack foods category. Market share data reveals that your customers are fiercely loyal, tending to be elderly (although it is questionable whether it is really only the elderly that enjoy chocolate cupcakes) and consume a consistent amount of cupcakes each day. Your market share of the snack foods category is not growing, but it is not declining either.
Now, for some unexplained reason, you believe that you will have better success in the market with Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards instead of chocolate cupcakes. You decide to target the dynamic and sprightly 35 - 49 year olds for your new Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards and cease production of chocolate cupcakes.
What do you do? Do you first conduct market surveys among your current consumers to see if they would prefer Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards over chocolate cupcakes? Do you also conduct surveys of your target market, the dynamic and sprightly 35 - 49 year olds to determine if they will purchase your Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards and, if so, how much they will purchase? Once you have completed your consumer surveys, do you hold focus group sessions to see if your target market, as well as your current customers, like your Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards? And, following your focus group sessions (assuming they confirm your expectations), do you conduct some trial market studies in selected markets to determine if consumers will do what they said they would do in the focus group sessions, and actually buy your Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards?
Well, if you have any sense, of course you do all of that, and probably much more. As well, since this represents a major change of direction for the company, you may even consider consulting your shareholders at the next AGM before making such a drastic change in the company's product. If your shareholders are also your customers then it makes even more sense to consult both groups. If you are the management of CBC Radio, do you also follow the same course of action? Apparently not - you know better than your customers and shareholders what they want and need!
In the March 19 2007 Globe and Mail article that I have mentioned previously, there is a quote from Ms. Jennifer McGuire, identified in the article as CBC Radio's executive director of programming (text in italics is my addition, not part of the original Globe and Mail article):
"But the CBC said it has tried to avert some of that controversy this time [referring to previous controversy concerning changes made to the Radio One schedule]. "Everybody is always concerned about change at CBC Radio because they [listeners] are heavily invested in it, and that's a good thing", McGuire said. But "we have talked to all the organizations. We talked to composers. We talked to them when we started the study [to overhaul CBC Radio] and when we were thinking about what it meant in terms of programming changes ... That conversation continues to be ongoing."
And, in his March 22 response to a comment from Larry, Mr. Jowi Taylor stated (and I'm sorry to appear to be picking on Mr. Jowi Taylor so much in this blog, but when you have so few spokespersons commenting publicly on the Radio Two programming changes, you have to take your CBC Radio spokespersons where you find them):
As for consultation, there was month after month after month of it with all kinds of stakeholders - from listeners to orchestras to presenters to SOCAN to the musicians' association to... you name it.
Well, isn't that wonderful? Months after months of consultion - apparently even some listeners were included! But did you hear about it? When did you first hear of the programming changes? Did you participate in a survey? Were you invited to a focus group session? Were you in one of the test markets where the new programming was trialed before it was launched nation-wide? Did you see the announcement on the CBC Radio web site? Did you hear the Cross-country Checkup program that was devoted to this topic? Did you see the advertisements in the national newspapers that announced these proposed changes, and solicited consumer (and shareholder) feedback? Well, you might have, but I certainly did not, because I don't believe any of those things took place. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I don't see any evidence of that yet.
And what about the consultations that took place with composers, as stated by Ms. Jennifer McGuire? For another comment on this topic, see Ms. Linda Roger's blog entry of April 2, 2007, titled "CBC changes--Letter from the President of the Canadian League of Composers". I will let Dr. Paul Steenhuisen's words speak for themselves, and not reproduce them here.
I would be interested (as a shareholder in the corporation) in seeing any evidence that CBC Radio can present to show that they did in fact perform due diligence to determine that these programming changes would be of interest to the CBC Radio Two audience and to CBC shareholders. CBC Radio spokespersons, are you out there?
Let's take a moment to consider the value of marketing surveys in the operation of any commercial enterprise which hopes to attract and retain customers.
Suppose you are the President of a corporation that is publicly traded. Your product, chocolate cupcakes, has achieved a 10% market share in the snack foods category. Market share data reveals that your customers are fiercely loyal, tending to be elderly (although it is questionable whether it is really only the elderly that enjoy chocolate cupcakes) and consume a consistent amount of cupcakes each day. Your market share of the snack foods category is not growing, but it is not declining either.
Now, for some unexplained reason, you believe that you will have better success in the market with Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards instead of chocolate cupcakes. You decide to target the dynamic and sprightly 35 - 49 year olds for your new Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards and cease production of chocolate cupcakes.
What do you do? Do you first conduct market surveys among your current consumers to see if they would prefer Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards over chocolate cupcakes? Do you also conduct surveys of your target market, the dynamic and sprightly 35 - 49 year olds to determine if they will purchase your Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards and, if so, how much they will purchase? Once you have completed your consumer surveys, do you hold focus group sessions to see if your target market, as well as your current customers, like your Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards? And, following your focus group sessions (assuming they confirm your expectations), do you conduct some trial market studies in selected markets to determine if consumers will do what they said they would do in the focus group sessions, and actually buy your Hot 'n Spicy Dried Turkey Gizzards?
Well, if you have any sense, of course you do all of that, and probably much more. As well, since this represents a major change of direction for the company, you may even consider consulting your shareholders at the next AGM before making such a drastic change in the company's product. If your shareholders are also your customers then it makes even more sense to consult both groups. If you are the management of CBC Radio, do you also follow the same course of action? Apparently not - you know better than your customers and shareholders what they want and need!
In the March 19 2007 Globe and Mail article that I have mentioned previously, there is a quote from Ms. Jennifer McGuire, identified in the article as CBC Radio's executive director of programming (text in italics is my addition, not part of the original Globe and Mail article):
"But the CBC said it has tried to avert some of that controversy this time [referring to previous controversy concerning changes made to the Radio One schedule]. "Everybody is always concerned about change at CBC Radio because they [listeners] are heavily invested in it, and that's a good thing", McGuire said. But "we have talked to all the organizations. We talked to composers. We talked to them when we started the study [to overhaul CBC Radio] and when we were thinking about what it meant in terms of programming changes ... That conversation continues to be ongoing."
And, in his March 22 response to a comment from Larry, Mr. Jowi Taylor stated (and I'm sorry to appear to be picking on Mr. Jowi Taylor so much in this blog, but when you have so few spokespersons commenting publicly on the Radio Two programming changes, you have to take your CBC Radio spokespersons where you find them):
As for consultation, there was month after month after month of it with all kinds of stakeholders - from listeners to orchestras to presenters to SOCAN to the musicians' association to... you name it.
Well, isn't that wonderful? Months after months of consultion - apparently even some listeners were included! But did you hear about it? When did you first hear of the programming changes? Did you participate in a survey? Were you invited to a focus group session? Were you in one of the test markets where the new programming was trialed before it was launched nation-wide? Did you see the announcement on the CBC Radio web site? Did you hear the Cross-country Checkup program that was devoted to this topic? Did you see the advertisements in the national newspapers that announced these proposed changes, and solicited consumer (and shareholder) feedback? Well, you might have, but I certainly did not, because I don't believe any of those things took place. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I don't see any evidence of that yet.
And what about the consultations that took place with composers, as stated by Ms. Jennifer McGuire? For another comment on this topic, see Ms. Linda Roger's blog entry of April 2, 2007, titled "CBC changes--Letter from the President of the Canadian League of Composers". I will let Dr. Paul Steenhuisen's words speak for themselves, and not reproduce them here.
I would be interested (as a shareholder in the corporation) in seeing any evidence that CBC Radio can present to show that they did in fact perform due diligence to determine that these programming changes would be of interest to the CBC Radio Two audience and to CBC shareholders. CBC Radio spokespersons, are you out there?
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