The Future of Canada's Public Broadcaster

Effie Triantafilopoulos, Executive Director, Canadian Corporate Counsel Association, and Director, The Empire Club of Canada; Alex Miglin, Grade 12 Student, North Toronto Collegiate Institute; Grant Kerr, Pastoral Staff, St. Paul's United Church, Brampton; Stan Meissner, Songwriter and President, Songwriters Association of Canada, and Treasurer, SOCAN Board of Directors; Charles Cutts, President and CEO, The Corporation of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall; Bart J. Mindszenthy, APR, Fellow CPRS, Partner, Mindszenthy & Roberts Corp., and Immediate Past President, The Empire Club of Canada; Laszlo Barna, President and CEO, Barna-Alper Productions; and Veronica Brenner, Silver Medalist, Aerial Skiing, Salt Lake City.

Introduction by William Whittaker

Marilyn Monroe, the American icon of the 1950s, when asked in a Time Magazine interview if she really had nothing on in her famous calendar photograph replied, "I had the radio on." So too did many Canadians of that day and today--CBC radio that is. We all remember such CBC radio personalities as Max Ferguson, Peter Gzowski, Barbara Frum, Clyde Gilmour and the still present Lister Sinclair. My personal experience is that, while I do not consider myself culturally deprived, I know the call letters of only one Toronto radio station, CBC 740 AM now of course 99.1 FM.

CBC TV also has had its well known personalities--Elaine Grand, Percy Saltzman and Dick MacDougall in the 1950s; Don Messer, Tommy Common and Juliette in the '60s, Tommy Hunter in the '70s and '80s and throughout Knowlton Nash who begat Peter Mansbridge and, of course, Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster.

The CBC, known as Mother to its employees and critics or as the Corpse in Frank Magazine and latterly as BBC Canada during last year's labour disruption due to the large amount of British content aired in place of its original schedule, has had a unique and important role in Canada's cultural life.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is the oldest broadcasting service in Canada, first established in 1932. For the next few decades, the CBC was responsible for all broadcasting innovation in Canada, introducing FM radio in 1946 and television in 1952. Network telecasting commenced in 1958 with full colour TV service being achieved in 1974. In 1978, CBC became the first broadcaster in the world to use an orbiting satellite for television service, linking Canada from east to west to north. Today, the CBC operates several radio, terrestrial television and cable television networks in both English and French, as well as a number of Aboriginal languages in the North.

Many Canadians believe the CBC acts as a necessary counterbalance to what they perceive to be the bias of private networks and that it preserves Canadian culture against the homogenizing influence of rebroadcast American programming. Canadians continue to poll in favour of maintaining public funding for the CBC.

Unlike the British Broadcasting Corporation, whose principal means of funding is from consumers being required to buy television licences, the CBC receives the majority of its funding directly from the Canadian government. This of course results in much political comment and controversy during the process of determining its grant. However, the bottom line is that public funding of broadcasting is widely accepted in both the United Kingdom and Canada.

Contrast this with the situation in the United States where the Public Broadcasting Service, PBS, and its radio-counterpart, National Public Radio, raise most of their revenues from donations by individual viewers and listeners. In 2005, the U.S. government contributed only $370 million to public broadcasting, not the significant public funds received by the BBC and the CBC. Newton Minnow, the 1960's Chair of the United States's Federal Communications Commission, is remembered for his quotation, "American TV is a vast wasteland." Many contemporary critics maintain that is still the situation today.

I am embarrassed to admit but the last CBC president to address our club was Gerard Veilleux 15 years ago so we are more than pleased to welcome Mr. Rabinovitch to our podium today.

Robert Rabinovitch, a graduate of McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania, was reappointed to a three-year term as President and CEO of CBC/Radio Canada in November 2004. He was first appointed in November 1999.

Immediately prior to his CBC appointment, Mr. Rabinovitch was Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of Claridge Inc., which he joined in 1987.

From 1968 to 1986, Mr. Rabinovitch held various positions with the federal government. More specifically, he was Under Secretary of State from January 1985 to September 1986 and Deputy Minister of Communications from 1980 to 1985.

Mr. Rabinovitch has also been active in cultural and philanthropic endeavours, including the Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO), the CRB Foundation, the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation and the Canadian Film Centre. He was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress (Quebec), until his appointment to the CBC.

Mr. Rabinovitch has been a member of the Board of Governors of McGill University since January 1997 and was Chair from 1999 until 2005. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Sauve Scholars Foundation (McGill University) and of the Nunavut Trust Investment Advisory Committee.

Please join me in welcoming Robert Rabinovitch, President of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to our podium today.

Robert Rabinovitch

I have been President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada for six years now and one of the things I've discovered is that Canadians are not shy about sharing their opinions about CBC--good or bad.

They tell me when they don't like the way we've covered a particular news story. They tell me about a documentary that moved them, a program that made them laugh, or how they wake up every morning with one of our radio hosts and go to bed every night after Peter Mansbridge or Bernard Derome have put the day's events into context.

Those conversations are the fun ones. But I also have more troubling conversations--though perhaps more important--about the future of CBC.

Some argue that CBC's best days are behind it; that in a multi-channel, multi-media universe where you can access any and all kinds of content we no longer need a public broadcaster.

I firmly believe that is not the case.

I'm here to tell you that while CBC has a proud past, the future of public broadcasting is just as exciting.

You may have read recently that our new heritage minister feels the time might be ripe for a review of CBC's mandate. I think that is a good thing. We welcome all discussion of the role and place of the national public broadcaster.

In fact, we will have an excellent opportunity to talk about those very things toward the end of this year when we appear before the CRTC to apply for the renewal of all our broadcast licenses from 2007 to 2014. As we prepare for the next seven years we have to ask ourselves what is the role of the public broadcaster in the Canada of 2014? What are society's challenges and how can we address them? What do we need to do to ensure that in 2014 Canadians still have a voice on their public airwaves and that Canadians are saying of the CBC in 2014 that it is the undisputed champion of compelling Canadian programming in all its forms and on all its services. The undisputed champion of compelling Canadian programming is what we should be. That is our goal; that is our vision.

So, what is the CBC today? In response to the public's desire for specialized services, we are delivering a wider range of programs in more ways:

Ten radio or audio services;
Seven television networks delivered over the air, on cable, on satellite, on line, on demand and by wireless;
Two full-service Web sites, and several specialized ones.

We are also a content provider. We produce, acquire and broadcast everything from news and current affairs, to drama, music, children's, sports and the performing arts programming. And we now have the flexibility to show programs when you, the public, want to see them. The news show, The National, for instance is on at 9, 10, 11 and midnight each night.

How does that make CBC/Radio-Canada unique from other media companies?

Private broadcasters are compelled to attract the largest possible audiences in order to drive advertising dollars and hence profit. A public broadcaster must treat its audiences as citizens and its programming as a public service.

In the last six years we've invested considerable effort in making CBC even more of a public-service broadcaster. We've had some wonderful successes:

Our English and French radio services continue to have the largest audiences in the country because we have the best programmers and most distinct, unique programming. It takes about three seconds of listening to know when you are tuned to Radio One or La Premire Cha”ne versus a private station.
La Radio de Radio-Canada is riding high on the successful launch of Espace Musique, our response to the lack of musical diversity on the airwaves.
Three years ago Television de Radio-Canada launched a repositioning exercise. With the objective of producing more audacious, engaging, challenging programming, Radio-Canada has produced much-talked-about programs like Les Bougon, and Tout le monde en parle. And the public has embraced the network's efforts.
CBC.ca and Radio-Canada.ca remain among the country's top news and information Web sites and are places Canadians turn to for breaking news. They are also places Canadians go to download some of their favourite programs for listening on their iPods or MP3 players.

But we need to do more. If our radio services are to retain their position, their programming must change to reflect the evolving needs and interest of Canadians.

That means Radio Two must preserve its valued past while also expanding its scope to give voice to more Canadian talent. It must reach out beyond its current comfort zone. CBC Radio's success will be defined by the positive and measurable impact it has on the creative community across Canada.

Our radio services, French and English, must look at new technologies like podcasting and satellite radio. By partnering with SIRIUS to launch a Canadian service, we have not only launched six new CBC/Radio-Canada channels, but we've also expanded the reach of our radio services to new audiences across North America. We have created a North American market for Canadian talent and ideas.

Radio, as a fundamentally local service, must also adapt to shifts in population. For example, Hamilton, just 60 kilometres down the QEW from here, has a population of approximately 500,000. It receives no local programming, only the Toronto signal, and so does Kitchener/Waterloo, and what about Saskatoon? Our current broadcast footprint was conceived in the early 1970s. Today there are six million Canadians, who do not receive appropriate local programming from Radio One.

So we constantly have to ask what's next? What do Canadians want from us tomorrow? Next week?

On the operational front, we must also ask what more can we do to operate more efficiently and to be more effective? How can we generate savings and revenues that can be invested in programming?

In the last few years, through efficient management of our resources, we've freed up $102 million in one-time savings, as well as initiatives that are generating $65 million in annual ongoing savings and revenues. Funding is one of the central hurdles facing CBC and these efforts to improve efficiency have been critical to our ability to achieve the programming successes I described above.

But it's not enough. You should know that:

In 1985, our parliamentary appropriation, that is the money we get from the government, was worth approximately $1.3 billion in today's dollars. Today, our government operating funding is worth approximately $335 million less--just less than $1 billion.
Some of the money we do receive from government is not permanent. It is difficult to create new programs when you don't know if the funding will be available.
Except for salary increases, it has been more than 30 years since we have received a permanent increase in our operating appropriation.
So, we have grown in the number of services we provide while our funding has decreased. We are dying the death of a thousand cuts.

We're not just crying the blues either. A recent study of public broadcasting systems in 26 OECD countries found that when you consider funding in terms of a percentage of GDP, Canada placed 22nd out of 26 countries surveyed.

Countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway and the U.K. all had public-funding expenditures that were three to four times greater than what is spent in Canada.

Held up as the gold standard of public broadcasting, the BBC receives approximately $7.3 billion in public funding, broadcasts primarily in English, and doesn't span six time zones. That is approximately $122 per person.

For less than $1 billion in government money Canadians get 26 national and international services in English, French and eight Aboriginal languages in the North. And for that each Canadian pays annually about $30. Compare that value to satellite radio at $160 per year, your cable fee or even the $11 you pay around the corner for a single movie.

Efficiency and adequate funding are necessary conditions for success but they are not sufficient. We also need to change how we think about our audiences, our programming and how we develop, commission and broadcast programs.

We need to be leaner, to have shorter lines of decision making and to remove the bureaucracy that inhibits creativity. We need to open ourselves up to the broader creative community of Canada. We employ some of the best, most innovative broadcast artists in the world and they would tell you that we are too insular, too satisfied and too slow moving. Why does it take months to accept or reject a program? We must create a better environment for ourselves and for our partners in the independent production industry.

In short, whether because of uncertain funding, cumbersome management decision-making structures or the rules of a work force that is 90-per-cent unionized--the BBC is 42-per-cent unionized--we are not as creative an organization as we need to be. We must become more nimble.

Having said this, I believe, while not without challenges, most of our services are well positioned for an exciting future.

Let's now look at CBC English Television. You'll note that when I listed some of our successes I didn't mention CBC Television. While the network is not without its success stories, it is the one piece of the public broadcasting puzzle that needs most consideration.

First some facts:

It is my belief that public broadcasting varies from country to country based on the needs or failings of each broadcast system.

English Television receives a little more than a quarter of the corporation's total government funding. The rest of its budget, more than 50 per cent, is derived from commercial operations--advertising, subscription fees and program sales. How can you call yourself a public broadcaster when over 50 per cent of your budget comes from competing with the private sector? The reality is that CBC Television is only partly a public broadcaster.

Don't get me wrong, CBC Television's news, documentary, public affairs, kids, arts and sports programming are second to none.

But the network is faced with a significant challenge. And that challenge is also one of the greatest cultural challenges we have as a country.

If you look at the arts and culture sector in English Canada you'll see that overall, it is healthy, if not thriving.

Just this week a Canadian director/producer won the Best Film Oscar and of the two highest grossing films in the charts, one, Brokeback Mountain, was made in Canada by Canadian crews and the other, The Pink Panther, was written in Montreal by Len Blum. Our filmmakers, authors, artists, dancers, documentary producers, and musicians are enjoying success not just at home but abroad.

But there's something missing and that something is drama: televised English-language drama. And that is where CBC Television comes in. That must be its role in Canadian broadcasting.

What we are talking about are dramatic series, comedy and entertainment programming; shows that are not only produced in Canada, but made for Canadians and reflecting their unique sensibility.

Despite the growth of new mediums, despite new technologies, despite the fragmentation of audiences, television remains the most pervasive mass medium in the western world. It is the principal disseminator of culture in society and a powerful vehicle for sharing identity.

Yet we haven't made the breakthrough in televised drama that we have in other sectors like music, film and literature.

If we look back almost two decades to Europe and Australia we see that people there were watching very little homegrown programming--programming that spoke to them, their reality, that reflected their countries and their interests. Like Canada today, they were dominated by foreign programming, primarily from the U.S.

That has now changed. If you look at Europe, at the U.K. or Australia today, their prime-time schedules are dominated by domestic programming.

How did it happen? Broadcasters, governments, the independent production community focused their efforts on making domestic dramas that resonate with their audiences, that tell their stories.

CBC Television should be taking risks and producing programs that innovate--Canadian equivalents to "The Office" from the U.K. or "Six Feet Under" and "Lost" from next door.

Sure, there have been great Canadian success stories--"Corner Gas," "DaVinci's Inquest," and "Shattered City"--but not on the scale of the programs I just mentioned. Why can't the public broadcaster consistently broadcast quality Canadian programs that draw a million or more viewers? Our entertainment programming should be the place where big risks are expected, where failure is occasional and where success is extravagant.

In a world where audience interests and needs evolve rapidly and where programs change more quickly, you have to be adaptable. While we cannot afford to do dozens of pilot programs to choose only one, as they do in the U.S., we also cannot afford to simply leave a program on air because we've already produced it. If a program is not working, we have to admit that and try something new. Not when the program ends its run. Now!

Audiences will not continue to watch or listen to a program simply because we have it on air, nor will they wait forever for us to come up with something better. The simple truth is that if we're not relevant, Canadians don't need us. We must be more in tune with our audiences. Enough telling people what they should be watching.

But CBC cannot solve the drama problem by itself. What we need is a critical mass of Canadian-made drama. It is not enough to make one or two good shows; we need to rehabilitate the entire genre. If it's made accessible to Canadians in sufficient quantity and of a high enough quality and shown at times when people are actually watching TV, Canadian drama will attract audiences.

To do this we need the political will to proceed and the perseverance to succeed.

Repatriating our prime-time television dramatic programming may look impossible when you learn that last year nine of the top-10 programs in Canada were American. But every other developed nation has done it and we have done it as well. Let me tell you a quick story:

In August 2002, I appointed Daniel Gourd Acting Executive Vice-President of French Television. At the time, the network had seen a decade of declining viewership, the competition was producing increasingly high-quality, prime-time drama, and people were questioning Radio-Canada's relevance and utility.

Morale was low and there was a sense of defeatism, a sense we couldn't do anything right. French Television was in crisis, in a downward spiral.

Daniel did some basic things: He made a few hard-nosed, difficult decisions that were unpopular at the time and reduced non-programming budgets and cancelled some failing but iconic series. This freed up enough financing to allow a significant investment in new programming. He set out a few clear attributes for new programming--daring, broad appeal, passion. Then he stuck to them, he took big risks and he launched successive seasons of new dramatic and entertainment programming.

What happened? Some of those new shows failed and were quickly taken off the air. Others are still being watched by close to two million viewers a week in a market of just seven million. Over three years, our prime-time audience share has moved from 16.5 to 22 per cent. Ratings are up, revenues are up, creativity is way up. In the same period the network increased its current affairs programming. Instead of attacking us for being irrelevant, our detractors now attack us for being too popular.

Ladies and gentlemen, it can be done. We can do it. We have done it.

To do it in English Canada, though, requires a commitment. We made some very difficult decisions at our French network in order to free up funding to invest in new programming. As you have seen in the last couple of weeks, we will do the same thing at CBC Television. But the investment required to provide Canadians with the kind and quality of programming they expect from CBC Television is simply too great to be found through internal savings alone.

It is time we asked the question: Do we want public television in Canada? Do we want Canadian programming in Canada? If the answer is yes, then we have to come up with funding solutions that work; solutions that allow us to respond to the realities of today's broadcasting universe.

CBC Television needs a new funding formula that recognizes not just its unique circumstances, but also its unique role.

I am a realist about the future. I don't really expect government to decide tomorrow to make good our commercial revenue plus top up our annual appropriation so that we can attack the challenge of television drama. But we need to reverse the trend toward more and more dependence on commercial revenue and we need to implement a concerted plan to take on our most pressing cultural challenge.

In return, if properly resourced, we can make CBC Television the cornerstone of Canadian dramatic programming, just like the public broadcasters in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Australia and New Zealand.

As I stated off the top, I firmly believe that CBC/Radio-Canada is as vitally important today as it was when it was first conceived 70 years ago.

As we look forward to 2014, it is clear that there are a number of things we need to do--across all of our services--to succeed:

We need to ensure that all significant centres in Canada have access to CBC local radio programming; there are six million Canadians who are underserved today.
We need to become more courageous and to take more risks.
We need to break down the structure that slows down program decision making, limits our access to the best talent available and limits our ability to innovate.
We need to successfully adapt our programming to new, emerging technologies as we did in presenting the Olympics on cell phones and video on demand.
And we need to create a sustainable domestic dramatic television tradition that you literally rush home to see--or to put it in a 2014 context, that you wouldn't dream of not programming your cell phone to download.

Technologies are making the world smaller and choice of foreign content is multiplying and will continue to multiply. These are arguments for, not against, a strong, vibrant national public broadcaster.

We need to carve out a little public space in these new and existing media for Canadian programming--be it on radio, TV or the new, exciting, emerging technologies. A place where CBC can champion compelling Canadian content, where Canadians can see and hear themselves and their stories.

So that is what we are working towards. The future is not without its hurdles, but it is an exciting one and one that is worth doing.

With your help, we look forward to renewing and reinvigorating an institution that should be as important to our future as it has been to our past.

Thank you.

The appreciation of the meeting was expressed by Bart J. Mindszenthy, APR, Fellow CPRS, Partner, Mindszenthy & Roberts Corp., and Immediate Past President, The Empire Club of Canada.