CBC cancels New Year's Eve broadcast special due to 'financial pressures'

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/cbc-cancels-new-year-eve-broadcast-1.7071478

by geox • 3 years ago

38 25 3 years ago

This is a shame. CBC should trim the fat elsewhere.

What are your thoughts on state funded media? I see the benefits but also the drawbacks, namely their partisanship when a political opponent wants to stop the hand outs

Ensorceled• 3 years ago

This is a shame. CBC should trim the fat elsewhere.

In what world is a New Year's Eve broadcast "meat" when CBC is cutting news staff?

What "fat" do you think is remaining in the CBC budget?

dotancohen• 3 years ago

  > This is a shame. CBC should trim the fat elsewhere.

I wonder what their new strategy is. Looking at the linked articles, at least two or three are hit pieces, swipes intended to sway opinion. For example "The hidden costs of EV batteries" article linked is a hit piece on the EV market, a common target and thus likely to generate clicks. There's a political hit piece in there was well.

cmrdporcupine• 3 years ago

Contrary to conservative talking points that the CBC is some sort of pro-liberal propaganda machine, the CBC just runs the same news, with roughly the same slants, as the rest of the media here. The anti-EV hit pieces get clicks. Clicks bring money. Money keeps CBC afloat. Those kind of articles frankly everywhere right now, likely because someone is paying to propagate them, and the outrage they generate ("guvnment forcing EVs on us") sells.

beezlebroxxxxxx3• 3 years ago

I think CBC should transition to being entirely publicly funded and move away from creating most if not all of its original programming.

Instead, they should focus on 3 things: news, children's educational television, and high quality documentaries (in reality, even the docs might be irrelevant with the NFB). They should be ad-free (online and on television), and completely independent from profit or revenue concerns. There should be no bonuses for executives.

Parliament should also pass something like a "fairness doctrine" that is obligatory if any news agency receives any public funding.

sbarre2• 3 years ago

There should be no bonuses for executives.

The problem with this is, as they say, that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Running a successful broadcaster is hard, and there's a limited pool of talent that can do this well.

So if you want to be successful, and not a public-money-wasting amateur-hour operation, you need to attract experienced professional talent. And if you aren't competitive on salary, why would they come to you?

I understand the spirit of your idea though.. Maybe bonuses should be based on specific metrics - like viewership or fundraising - that and publicly tracked and paid out in a very transparent way instead?

And maybe they shouldn't be only for executives.

Ad-free is a tough one, but maybe they have limited categories for advertisements, say things that are of public interest like events? Not sure...

mactavish882• 3 years ago

Has anyone quantified the financial impact on Canadian news outlets of Google and Meta’s blocking of news content due to Bill C-18?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/google-canada-online-news-1...

jerpint• 3 years ago

It would be interesting if that was at all a confounding variable , one thing for sure is its impact has been under reported

pgrote• 3 years ago

Unsure, but Google paid.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/google-online-news-act-1.70...

mactavish882• 3 years ago

I wonder whether any of that cash has actually made its way to the CBC. Promises of future revenue are often hard to turn into salaries today.

beezlebroxxxxxx3• 3 years ago

I don't know if any data has been published. Michael Geist, a prominent Canadian lawyer who specializes in tech and media law and who manages an active blog on those topics in Canada, has published a good breakdown of the bill as it currently exists (it was essentially rewritten once a deal was made):

https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/12/bill-c-18-is-dead-long-l...

The bill threw smaller orgs under the bus in favour of larger ones like Torstar and Postmedia, which is par for the course in Canada where the government frequently gives a helping hand to incumbents at the expense of challengers. We love our protectionism.

pupppet• 3 years ago

The bill threw smaller orgs under the bus in favour of larger ones like Torstar and Postmedia

The bill was trying to protect what little media outlets Canada has left, few people were clicking through when the gist of the article was on Google.

You can’t argue that Canadian media orgs don’t require government protection when they’re all completely reliant on a single American company to provide them the right exposure.

bryanlarsen• 3 years ago

The bill threw smaller orgs under the bus

That's not the way it appears to me. The bill caps the amount big orgs get, leaving a larger share of the pie to small orgs.

0xbadc0de5• 3 years ago

Haven't watched CBC in years. Would prefer my tax dollars not spent on media.

tamimio• 3 years ago

Good, the more MSM die the better, put those tax dollars in something more important.

parthianshotgun2• 3 years ago

Like what?

AwaAwa• 3 years ago

Reducing tax rates

ChrisArchitect• 3 years ago

This is a Canadian Press story CBC is syndicating that's unfortunately about them. Not like they'd want to draw attention to this really. They can continue on with the actual news of the day. Fine with it.

This hardly needed to be here also, other than the Google/FB media tie in discussion.

This also doesn't mean there isn't new year's celebrations going on with accessible media. Maybe a chance for people to connect with their local municipal celebrations many of which are fireworks, performers and streamed on YouTube etc as is the norm now.

CBC cancels New Year's Eve broadcast special due to 'financial pressures'

Related Stories