Why am I forced to pay for this social liberalism agenda?

[Montgomery Burns]

Like I said earlier--no one is forcing you to buy product from Global's advertisers. However the state is forcing you to pay for the state-run CBC.

True. And the result is that our cultural life is pathetic but we have sophisticated SUVs.

MB, you don't get it - in the same way that Leftist Westerners don't get Steyn's demographic arguments.

Please August. Admit it. Our cultural tastes are very similar to Americans. Check out Canada's Neilson ratings if you doubt this. You stated that there is no difference between Canadian taxpayers being forced to pay for the CBC, and you being "forced" to pay for Global because you are "forced" to buy products from their advertisers.

I contend that you are not "forced" to buy products from Global's advertisers. There is a large market out there. Maybe you don't "vote" with your wallet like I do.

As for Mark Steyn, I do get his demographic argument. I believe that Steyn ( a true conservative) is one of the best social and political commentators out there today.

[Montgomery Burns]

Just to offer a different perspective, there are people in this country that can /only/ receive CBC. Without it they're cut off from the rest of the world. Not everyone can afford a satellite dish; our public broadcaster provides a vital service to them.

True but at what point do we force the 99.9% of the majority to pay for the 1/10th of one percent?

It's like Scott Reid's "beer and popcorn" remark. True, there are the odd parent(s) who will spend the annual $1200 childcare cashback on beer and popcorn, but why should the 99.9% of other parents pay--just because a miniscule amount of parents are irresponsible?

Sometimes living in the boonies of NWT/Yukon/Nunavut isn't always fair.

[wellandboy]

Could not disagree more. Plus who actually has brought us the Olympic coverage for decades now? The CBC. Right field must be short of oxygen these days.

So what? The CBC dedicates huge amounts of it's broadcasting time for two weeks on it's two networks to the Olympics. They can make that decision because they have so little to offer in the way of alternative programming the other 50 weeks of the year. Considering that amounts to 2 weeks each for the summer and winter Olympics every four years is hardly stellar programming.

CBC Radio 1 advertised it would broadcast the Canadian men's and women's hockey games and lo and behold, CBC Toronto chose to instead broadcast their regular drivel. Hardly, responsive to what Canadians might actually want to listen to.

Oh and by the way, it was CTV that broadcast the Olympics for many years back in the 60's and 70's. Things ironically changed when Montreal got the ill fated Olympics in '76. Wonder why?

[shoop]

Thanks for the blanket, unsupported insult Rita. You'll fit right in with the loonie left. On the opposition sidelines!

CTV, Global etc... would definitely bid to carry the Olympics. Might actually be successful if they weren't *competing* with a network subsidized by taxpayer dollars.

Could not disagree more. Plus who actually has brought us the Olympic coverage for decades now? The CBC. Right field must be short of oxygen these days.

[speaker]

Montgomery Burns, it is true that no one is forcing me to buy products that are advertised on any of the commercial packed media. On the other hand pretty much everything short of air is advertised in the commercial packed media. It is then difficult to not support them. Taxation without representation.

It would be no more difficult for someone who doesn't support the CBC to refrain from making enough income to require taxes supporting them.

[shoop]

What are you saying? Because you see advertising it is *difficult* not to buy the products advertised???

How is this in any way shape or form related to "taxation without representation"?

Maybe I don't want to lower my income to the level where I don't pay taxes simply so part of my taxes don't go to the CBC. Maybe it would be better if my taxes didn't go to the CBC period.

On the other hand pretty much everything short of air is advertised in the commercial packed media. It is then difficult to not support them. Taxation without representation.

It would be no more difficult for someone who doesn't support the CBC to refrain from making enough income to require taxes supporting them.

[speaker]

Ya, if everything is advertised then it is difficult not to buy advertised goods. therefore it is difficult not to support the commercial packed media. That industry makes so much money that the tendancy to monopoly is evidently overpowering. Now we don't just have to deal with a really obnoxious system of taxation, commercials to support them, but we have to contend with a media controlled by people who believe that they have the right to use their power to determine public policy with their capitalist bias.

[wellandboy]

Ya, if everything is advertised then it is difficult not to buy advertised goods. therefore it is difficult not to support the commercial packed media. That industry makes so much money that the tendancy to monopoly is evidently overpowering. Now we don't just have to deal with a really obnoxious system of taxation, commercials to support them, but we have to contend with a media controlled by people who believe that they have the right to use their power to determine public policy with their capitalist bias.

This argument makes no sense. Obviously your fear of the media in the free market that has to compete for your viewership is greater than a government controlled media outlet that has everything to gain by skewing the news to their partisan view of the world. The former creates wealth, the latter as in the case of the CBC creates power.

[shoop]

The ways in which the CBC helps create power for the Liberals is insidious.

Always working to perpetuate the idea of the Liberals as the "Natural Governing Party" of Canada.

Right now people should be informed about what the new Conservative goverment is doing.

At CBC right now there is one story about the Conservatives buried bottom of the fold. *Directly below* it is a fluff piece about the Political Rise of John Turner.

Why no coverage of Joe Clark or Kim Campbell???

The CBC can never, ever let the Canadian public forget about the *importance* of the Liberal Party of Canada in Canadian society.

Sickening. :angry:

This argument makes no sense. Obviously your fear of the media in the free market that has to compete for your viewership is greater than a government controlled media outlet that has everything to gain by skewing the news to their partisan view of the world. The former creates wealth, the latter as in the case of the CBC creates power.

[Riverwind]

Maybe I don't want to lower my income to the level where I don't pay taxes simply so part of my taxes don't go to the CBC. Maybe it would be better if my taxes didn't go to the CBC period.

Maybe it would be better if my taxes did not go to pay for olympic atheletes, subsidizes to churches or enforcing a ban on marijuana?

Your constant argument that there is something unfair about CBC subsidies because some minority of taxpayers do not like the CBC makes no sense.

Do you realize you have to pay a 5% tax on all goods purchased in this country to the VISA companies? This tax is mandatory because VISA does not allow retailers to offer discounts to customers who pay cash or debit. I have no choice but to pay this tax because every retailer of any size includes the 'Visa' tax into their prices.

The ways in which the CBC helps create power for the Liberals is insidious.

Always working to perpetuate the idea of the Liberals as the "Natural Governing Party" of Canada.

The liberals represent the center of the political spectrum which means close to 60-70% of the country would consider voting for them. Any news source that caters to the predispositions of the majority of canadians is going to sound like it supports the liberals.

You really have to distiguish between cause and effect. The CBC does not make people vote Liberal.

[shoop]

If the CBC embrasses an unbiased view than I am for continuing the subsidy.

It doesn't and the evidence is huge.

On CBC's Politics and Economy page there are profiles of thirteen Canadians who are primarily identified with a given political party.

Here is how the profiles breakdown along partisan lines.

Liberals 8 - 62%

Turner (What?)

Trudeau (Of Course!)

Chretien

Pearson

Mackenzie King

Roberta Bourassa

Sauve

John F. Kennedy (The Kennedy myth is the Liberals wet dream for a candidate.)

Conservatives 3 - 23%

Diefenbaker

Macdonald

Mulroney

NDP 2 - 15%

Douglas

Broadbent

What is going on??? The left gets 77% of the airtime?

That isn't even attempting to be balanced.

We got 36% of the vote, but only 23% of CBCs *representative* view of Canada?

[wellandboy]

Further evidence was demonstrated during the election. In mid January the CBC broadcast the old Trudeau documentary and in the last week of the election dug out the Mulroney airbus piece fo the Fifth Estate. That in my view was a blatant attempt by the CBC to sway voters in critical points in an election campaign.

That crossed the line from journalism to propaganda. Regardless of your political beliefs this type of action by the CBC should be very worrisome.

[shoop]

It is only worrisome because it is a public broadcaster. Stop the flow of public money and let them be.

Please drop the facade of representing all Canadians...

Regardless of your political beliefs this type of action by the CBC should be very worrisome.

[Riverwind]

Please drop the facade of representing all Canadians...

It is impossible for any broadcaster to represent all Canadians - it is rediculous to expect CBC to.

You previous post just just bizarre. You find a page on the CBC website with well over 30 articles - you select 13 of those (8 of which are stories about former PMs most of whom happen to be Liberal) and scream bias. Claiming that a story about JFK is equivalent to 'Liberal' bias even makes less sense.

What you seem to forget in all of your anti-CBC rants is:

1) All media is biased in some way because it directs its programming at a target audience that has certain preconceptions and ideas.

2) The target audience for the CBC is a broad range of a Canadians in the polictical center. This is an appropriate audience for public broadcaster to target.

3) Making the CBC 'biased' to support your conservative views would simply increase the 'right wing' bias that the CBC already has from the point of view of people on the left. In other words, it is impossible to produce programming that everyone will agree is unbiased.

[Montgomery Burns]

Ritamd:

Could not disagree more. Plus who actually has brought us the Olympic coverage for decades now? The CBC. Right field must be short of oxygen these days.

The CBC likely uses Canadian taxpayers to outbid CTV and Global. Do you seriously think that there would be no Olympic coverage in Canada if not for the CBC?

The state should not be competing against its citizens (private business).

[Riverwind]

The state should not be competing against its citizens (private business).

Agreed. So lets increase CBC's funding so it can focus on providing Canadian content without competing with private broadcasters for advertising dollars.

[Montgomery Burns]

The state should not be competing against its citizens (private business).

Agreed. So lets increase CBC's funding so it can focus on providing Canadian content without competing with private broadcasters for advertising dollars.

Here's the latest ratings from Feb 13-19 of the top 30 shows in Canada. It appears that the public is not as enamored of Canadian content as you are. Indeed, throw out the Olympics and not one CBC show is listed--although to be fair, Hockey Night in Canada is usually in the top 30.

All the other shows are from CTV and Global.

For Canadian content, all I see is CTV National News (Lloyd Robertson), Corner Gas, Global News w/Kevin Newman, and CTV weekend news.

Unless I missed some shows, I believe all the rest are American.

It appears that the public is not too enamored of the CBC and its social liberal "Canadian values" (ball-waxing videos?) being shoved down our throats. So why are taxpayers propping up a channel that gets worse ratings than Global and CTV?

Why are Global and CTV banned from having a 24 hour news channel--while state-run TV is allowed a 24 hour news channel?

Why was the Fox News Channel banned for 5 years in Canada? (but not in Parliament--watching the enemy?)

[margrace]

The state should not be competing against its citizens (private business).

Agreed. So lets increase CBC's funding so it can focus on providing Canadian content without competing with private broadcasters for advertising dollars.

Here's the latest ratings from Feb 13-19 of the top 30 shows in Canada. It appears that the public is not as enamored of Canadian content as you are. Indeed, throw out the Olympics and not one CBC show is listed--although to be fair, Hockey Night in Canada is usually in the top 30.

All the other shows are from CTV and Global.

For Canadian content, all I see is CTV National News (Lloyd Robertson), Corner Gas, Global News w/Kevin Newman, and CTV weekend news.

Unless I missed some shows, I believe all the rest are American.

It appears that the public is not too enamored of the CBC and its social liberal "Canadian values" (ball-waxing videos?) being shoved down our throats. So why are taxpayers propping up a channel that gets worse ratings than Global and CTV?

Why are Global and CTV banned from having a 24 hour news channel--while state-run TV is allowed a 24 hour news channel?

Why was the Fox News Channel banned for 5 years in Canada? (but not in Parliament--watching the enemy?)

CtV does have a news chanel, on our dish CBC is 390 and CTV is 391

[Montgomery Burns]

Harper is a Nazi Media Alert for state-run CBC

During the election, the CBC twice insinuated that Harper was a nazi--although they said it was a mistake and that it was just the purest of coincidence that these "mistakes" always happen in only one direction.

Today, I found another way for the state-run CBC to spend Canadian tax dollars referring to Harper as a Nazi.

February 22, 2006

Ottawa, Ontario

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will meet with Jennifer Heil, mogul skier and winner of Canada’s first gold medal at the Turin Winter Olympic Games, today in his Parliament Hill office. A photo-op will take place at the beginning of the meeting.

I can imagine the CBC story would be something like this:

Jennifer Heil Harper in his Parliament Office.

CBC: Whoooops. We forgot to insert "is to meet Stephen" between Heil and Harper...but it was an honest mistake on our part.

Btw, tell your teen children to go to our website and watch our ball-waxing video.

[Montgomery Burns]

The state should not be competing against its citizens (private business).

Agreed. So lets increase CBC's funding so it can focus on providing Canadian content without competing with private broadcasters for advertising dollars.

Here's the latest ratings from Feb 13-19 of the top 30 shows in Canada. It appears that the public is not as enamored of Canadian content as you are. Indeed, throw out the Olympics and not one CBC show is listed--although to be fair, Hockey Night in Canada is usually in the top 30.

All the other shows are from CTV and Global.

For Canadian content, all I see is CTV National News (Lloyd Robertson), Corner Gas, Global News w/Kevin Newman, and CTV weekend news.

Unless I missed some shows, I believe all the rest are American.

It appears that the public is not too enamored of the CBC and its social liberal "Canadian values" (ball-waxing videos?) being shoved down our throats. So why are taxpayers propping up a channel that gets worse ratings than Global and CTV?

Why are Global and CTV banned from having a 24 hour news channel--while state-run TV is allowed a 24 hour news channel?

Why was the Fox News Channel banned for 5 years in Canada? (but not in Parliament--watching the enemy?)

CtV does have a news chanel, on our dish CBC is 390 and CTV is 391

Do you have a link to CTV's 24 hour news channel? And I don't mean CTV Newsnet which is a headline news chennel--the same thing repeated every 15 minutes.

And why is the very popular HBO banned in Canada?

[Riverwind]

Here's the latest ratings from Feb 13-19 of the top 30 shows in Canada. It appears that the public is not as enamored of Canadian content as you are. Indeed, throw out the Olympics and not one CBC show is listed--although to be fair, Hockey Night in Canada is usually in the top 30.

Ratings are only part of the story. Polls I have seen say a majority of Canadians support the CBC and feel it makes a important contribution to the country.

[Canuck E Stan]

Polls I have seen say a majority of Canadians support the CBC and feel it makes a important contribution to the country.

Must of seen these polls on CBC...... of course.

[Riverwind]

Must of seen these polls on CBC...... of course.

Would you expect the the commerical networks to carry the story?

Here is a survey

This poll was conducted by Ipsos-Reid and says 94% of Canadians want to see the CBC 'survive and propser' and 77% feel the CBC 'provides value for taxpayers money'.

In other words, Canadians want the CBC to work.

[Canuck E Stan]

This poll was conducted by Ipsos-Reid and says 94% of Canadians want to see the CBC 'survive and propser' and 77% feel the CBC 'provides value for taxpayers money'.

In other words, Canadians want the CBC to work.

That's really a good one Spar, I 'll try to stop laughing long enough to write.

An Ipsos-Reid poll conducted for(drumroll here) Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

The CBC recieved the highest rating when asked the question:

"I am going to read to you the names of several groups. Please tell me how much confidence or trust you personally have in each group to protect Canadian culture and identity ON TELEVISION using a scale of 1 meaning very low trust and confidence to 7 meaning very high trust and confidence.(read and randomize)"

The groups that were comparied:

CBC

TVA(french only)

CTV network(English only)

Special channels like (ENglish --Much Music,TSN, The History Channel;

French-Musique Plus,RDS,ou le canal D)

TQS(French only)

The Gobal TV Network(English only)

The CRTC

Consumers Group

The Federal Government

Your Provincial Government

Telephone Companies

Cable Television companies

Satellite television companies

What an outstanding group for comparisionof protecting culture and trust ON TELEVISION.

The CRTC?,Phone companies?Special channels? ect.ect. How come we didn't get the RCMP,the military or our health care system in there too?

Protecting our culture,

And with our trust,

In Canada,

ON TELEVISION.

Thanks Spar,I have to go pee now.

[Riverwind]

An Ipsos-Reid poll conducted for(drumroll here) Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. The CBC recieved the highest rating when asked the question:

I don't see your point. When asked 77% of people felt they got value for their tax money from the CBC. In a more recent online poll on G&M, 65% said Canada needs the CBC.

CBC has a lot of public support - enough to justify its gov't funding. I realize that there is a segment of conservative thinkers in this country have convinced themselves that nobody cares about the CBC however I don't believe the facts support that conclusion.