OTTAWA – CBC’s top executives were asked to defend the public broadcaster’s perceived competition with private media during a hearing of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on Tuesday.
The two-hour hearing, which included about 10 minutes of demonstration of a CBC virtual reality video project, didn’t see any new announcements about what the broadcaster plans to do with the additional $150 million a year it will get in parliamentary appropriations, or the accountability plan it needs to present in exchange, but CEO Hubert Lacroix (pictured above in a Parlvu screen cap) reiterated projects that have already been announced. In a prepared speech, he listed transformations of local stations in Halifax, Matane, Moncton and Sudbury, new programs tied to Canada’s 150th anniversary, the new national radio show Out In The Open with Piya Chattopadhyay, and new TV series like Alias Grace (produced with Netflix) and 21 Thunder. The corporation has also relaunched a plan to add local programming to its CBC Radio One station in London, Ont.
But the biggest push is in digital, and that’s where CBC sees its future. “We believe this is what a public broadcaster should be doing,” Lacroix said, “use whatever tools we can, together with great journalism, and spectacular storytelling to deepen Canadians’ understanding, to help engage them in a conversation about important issues.”
Asked about future new investments, particularly in local communities, Lacroix and English and French services heads Heather Conway and Louis Lalande were vague. The CBC is “looking to increase our investment in non-news (local) programming in the coming years,” Conway said. And after launching local programming in London, “we hope to do more of that.”
Conservative MP Peter Van Loan questioned the broadcaster’s programming choices, saying “some critics” believe the CBC “fails to be and should be more of a genuine public broadcaster” by broadcasting more Canadian art and documentaries, and fewer sitcoms and other entertainment programming that tries to “emulate mainstream broadcasters.” He also said “news is not a comfortable fit” with its mandate.
Lacroix disagreed, reciting the CBC mandate that it provide “radio and television services incorporating a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains” and that it “be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means.”
“There’s nothing in the act, nothing in our mandate that prevents us from delivering these services to Canadians in the most effective way,” Lacroix said.
Even Liberal MP Seamus O’Regan, a former CTV broadcaster, questioned the CBC’s investments, particularly its plan to start commissioning online opinion pieces. “Those aren’t really things that people are starving for,” he said. He also pointed to the BBC plan to close the “democracy gap” by hiring new local journalists in partnership with local news outlets. Conway then noted that the BBC gets nine times as much funding as the CBC does.
Among other things mentioned at the hearing:
- CBC has no current plans to sell its Front St. building in Toronto, but it is looking at renting out more space.
- Job cuts that were announced in 2014 are complete at CBC and almost complete at Radio-Canada.
- Liberal MP Dan Vandal, who represents Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, Manitoba, decried the ending of regional noon-hour radio programming and the reduction of evening local TV newscasts at Radio-Canada in western Canada. Lalande responded that listenership was down and the decision was made to move resources to morning and afternoon shows, as well as online.
- Lacroix reiterated that CBC did not profit directly from National Hockey League games broadcast during its last six-year rights deal that ended in 2014, but, like its current deal with Rogers, airing Hockey Night in Canada gives it a huge audience during which it can promote other programming.
- When Conservative Kevin Waugh (another former broadcaster) accused the CBC of having “no business plan” before it got an injection of new funding, Lacroix shot back that it presented proposals to the Liberal Party and NDP during the last federal election campaign, and “the only party that didn’t want to sit down with us was the Conservative Party.”
- Committee chair Hedy Fry (Liberal) asked about the possibility of making more archival programs available online for Canada’s 150th anniversary. Conway noted that for many series it acquired in the 1980s and 1990s, it would need to reacquire rights to broadcast them, but news and other programming is being put online.
