Cbc Privatise It

[Craig Read]

The CBC - Canada's left wing mouthpiece - is funded by the taxpayer - most of whom do not care to watch it. Why they are they forced to pay for it ? For nation building, for political purposes and because the CBC strongly supports the Lie-beral party. Nary a murmur of dissent emanates from the Mansbridgeans.

In fact like all gov't coddled and protected businesses the CBC operates like a business but with special favours and regulations.

Link Byfield at the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy wrote a nice article on the CBC and how it can be privatised:

It is a sealed corporate culture, self-selecting, self-perpetuating and self-serving.

As a result it is snotty, preachy, predictable, unsympathetic and dull.

If the CBC is ever to become a "public" broadcaster it must become accountable in some way to the public.

Suppose, for a moment, that the national government shifted the CBC to a funding formula which was one-third public donations and only two-thirds tax-funding. A notice appears on tax forms explaining that for every dollar it gets in tax-deductible donations, the CBC gets two more from the government. And that's all it gets.

A formula of this sort, phased in over five or six years, would force the CBC to canvas high and low for public interest subjects and audiences--on the left, on the right, in the biggest cities and in the remotest regions.

For every David Suzuki yammering about "climate change" we'd get at least one Tim Ball refuting it. For every Naomi Klein calling us to the WTO barricades we'd get a Michael Walker calling us to our senses. It would be as right-wing as it is left-wing, as regional as it is urban, as pragmatic as it is artsy.

For this I'd willingly toss in about $100 a year, instead of $50 unwillingly. Add the matching government grant and it's $300.

If by appealing to individuals, churches, business and professional groups and nonprofit organizations, across the spectrum and across the country, they can build a strong national audience, well and good.

And if they can't, why are they there?

- Link Byfield

Good idea - though only 1/3 privatisation is too small. It must be mostly a private run company with some gov't aid for nation building [entirely a suspect idea]. Socialist mouth pieces are a relic of the 1930s.

Time to join the modern world.

[Michael Hardner]

Well, I like it. I think it provides a needed service - especially CBC radio. $50/year doesn't seem like that much compared to $500/year I pay for cable.

I do think they could manage it better, though.

[Morgan]

It's not just the cost factor that I object to re: CBC. It's that state run media flies in the face of democracy, of intellectual freedom.

Totalitarian regimes have used state run media to "control" the masses by controlling the "message" and CBC serves the very same function.

[Craig Read]

That is $50 per every citizen more than a $100 if you are a working taxpayer. It is unaccountable, non transparent and the CBC head is appointed by the PM. It has no debate and runs the station according to its own internal ethos and philosophy - both of which are extremely left wing. The BBC and the CBC both suffer from declining viewers, unbalanced narratives and special privileges - they act like private corps, [they need advertising revenues] but are funded by the public which mitigates the CBC from actually having to produce programs that are sustainable in the market place.

The folly of this approach can be shown not only on their political newscasts which distort reality but on the lack of debate on any major topic. Informed minds will not watch the CBC unless they have a macabre interest in one sided phillipics that twist reality. So the CBC plays to the lowest common denominator in society - the supine burping nationalist.

[Morgan]

A scathing article in today's National Post[via NealeNews] calls for the privatization of CBC.

The writer, Gerry Nicholls, vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, says it's clear that CBC is politicized and it abuses taxpayers' money to promote its agenda.

Nicholls cites the latest example of CBC's flagrant bias that occurred when CBC used the Mary Walsh stunt to ridicule Stephen Harper on the night he announced his intention to run for the PC leadership.Read it full text and see if you agree. I do.

Harper stunt smacks of CBC bias by Gerry Nicholls, Nat'l Post, Jan.14/04

I like to think I have a pretty good sense of humour.But I did not think there was anything even remotely funny about the way a CBC employee, dressed up as warrior princess, recently humiliated the possible future leader of Canada's opposition party.

Stephen Harper was holding an event to announce his intention to run for the leadership of the newly formed Conservative party. Suddenly, actress Mary Walsh of the CBC television program This Hour Has 22 Minutes waltzed in and began to plant kisses on a stunned Harper.

The next day the front pages of newspapers across the country featured poor Harper in Walsh's clutches --his face smudged with lipstick. Hardly the kind of image a man who seeks to be Prime Minister would like to project.

With her juvenile stunt, Walsh not only accosted Harper -- can you imagine a male actor treating a female politician in such a manner? -- she also humiliated him and quite possibly may have undermined his political future.

After all, nothing is worse for a politician than ridicule. Just ask Dan Quayle.What angers me is that the CBC is using our tax dollars to promote its own political agenda.

It's curious, for instance, why Walsh failed to stage a similar surprise attack on Prime Minister Paul Martin a few months ago when he became Liberal leader.

Of course, the likely answer is she would probably have been fired.

After all, the CBC depends on government handouts and Paul Martin is the one handing out the dough. Rather than kissing the Prime Minister, it seems the CBC would rather kiss up to him.

But maybe it's time to change the CBC, to privatize it and hand it over to the private sector so that it would be more responsive to Canadians, and less to Ottawa politicians and bureaucrats.

[Michael Hardner]

Jeez ! Lighten up !

No sense of humour whatsoever. I would think that seeing Harper with Mary Walsh on the front page might improve his stogy image a bit.

Even Preston Manning went on City TV's Speaker's Corner.

[Neal.F.]

Not many people thought it was so funny when Crouton got pied....

That photo in yesterday's Globe will be put up over and over again.....

It's Stanfield dropping the football all over again. The only difference is,Harper cannot be blamed in any way for what happened to him.

[Craig Read]

It is an outrage. Walsh is just another idiot but unfortunately with a wide audience. The CBC has always systematically targeted the CA with propaganda. It is indefensible that tax payer dollars fund such insouciance and flagrant political commentary. Nicholls is correct in calling for its privatisation. State owned propaganda died with the collapse of Soviet Russia.

[Lost in Manitoba]

I would like to see the CBC fall under the control of someone else. The fact that their budget can be cut if too hard on the existing gov't bothers me. I imagine the CBC under the control of a senate body.

As for being biased, I hear of more unsettling news about our gov't, scandals and the like, on the CBC, than I do on cable news. Sometimes I feel they are overly harsh and prying. One thing I'd like to see with regards to the CBC, is that Elected officials or management at crown companinies, be obligated to give interviews when asked. Nothing pisses me off more when a media report on some doings of the government brings them to an MP or gov't bigwig who refuses to talk to the CBC. Even if he says 'no comment', it's better than hiding in an office refusing to take calls.

[theWatcher]

The original mandate for the CBC was to provide television services to all areas of the country including the remote north. There were many locations that had too few potential subscribers to make a profitable cable company, and during that time the CBC was definitely needed.

But now technology has improved to the point where that is not an issue. Anyone can buy a $100 dish and receive upwards of 300 channels. Private operators can rebroadcast the signals much cheaper than before.

It's time to reevaluate the CBC's role in this new time and age.

[KrustyKidd]

With satillite available everywhere I find it astounding that any thinking person can find ONE REDEEMING QUALITY in the CBC except to throw away money.

'I'd rather throw $50 away than pay $500 for satillite' or somethng like that. Well, I would rather not pay $50 and thereby reward incompetence and mediocracy. I do know that "Vern, from Kamloops BC, just wanted to say hi. And we sure have a lot of snow." listens. So does "Hello, this is Gail, from Halifax. I just wanted to wish everybody a happy thanksgiving." So I do know that it is importent to some.

Let them pay for the frickin' station because it is crap! It can't survive on it's own, over 90% of the people don't want it. At least team it up with that other failure in the south PBS to make a continent wide snooze station.

BTW, I went to the same school as Link before his fur trapping days and considered him a type of mentor as his father Ted also taught there. He was too kind in his suggestions. Have to rethink my opinions of him. I had 'boil in oil' and making them actually compete for their supper with no government money allocatied in mind.