May 24, 2000
The CBC and the future of local news - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- The other day, the CBC’s president, Robert Rabinovich stood before the House of Commons’ standing committee on heritage proposing a plan to rid the public broadcaster of local newscasts.
In the mid-1980’s, in this town, Bill Good was anchoring the CBC Evening News. He posed as the standard to which local news was compared to, as in those years there was only the CBC and the even then-mighty BCTV News Hour. After Good left, and was followed by the tandem of Walters and Evans, and when they left, the CBC never meant anything anymore. There was also the emergence of CanWest Global’s efforts, which went from VU-13 to UTV, but that’s another column.
In the last 4 or 5 years, the local CBC newscast in this town has only ended up 4th in a 4 show market. The CBC tried to tinker with their format, changing its name to Broadcast 1, adding a costly and ill-fated ad campaign, yet more people went over to VTV, Global or BCTV.
4% of the market, for any other TV show, would yield swift cancellation or immediate tinkering, but since it’s the CBC, why bother? The money flows in anyways. Worse yet, from you and I, the taxpayer.
This past fall, I did a series of articles on the state of the public broadcaster, at the time Mr. Rabinovich took over the CBC. Now, he is getting all kinds of flack, mostly from the bleeding hearts of this lobby group called the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. They’re clamouring up, yelling and harping on about Rabinovich turning the venerable CBC into a PBS-typed institution.
I do not see anything wrong with the CBC going back to its roots of a public institution. The CBC went wrong when it changed its direction and went into the same markets of CTV and Global and went for attracting viewers. The PBS model is roughly what the CBC was when it first hit the airwaves, way back in the ‘30s. Mr. Rabinovich is being turned into this monster, with the moniker Mr. Son-of-a-bitch, and that’s absolutely unfair. He’s doing his best in making sure the CBC isn’t a bottomless pit, where money is sucked from the taxpayer.
I am not a viewer of the CBC, need it be the main network or Newsworld. I do not listen to CBC Radio 1 or 2, I find CKNW much better, but that’s my opinion. Even, though I am not a consumer, I think the CBC should be saved, but not the current CBC in the form that it is now. What should happen is that what we are paying for be defined clearly. (Much like the current healthcare debacle.) The other thing that the CBC should do is not go into the game of trying to best the commercial networks, be it in on a national or local level.
I wouldn’t be terribly angry if they got rid of Broadcast 1 here in Vancouver. Gloria Mackernko (sic), being the talent she is will certainly land on her feet, if not in the local market but on the national scene. I don’t watch it so it won’t make a difference. The hue and cries from people saying the gutting of local newscasts will yield a decrease in Canadian content or Canadian identity.
All I can say is, much like that Molson’s ad with lumberjack Joe saying he is Canadian, if we have to look to the CBC for our national identity or examples of our culture, then we are in serious trouble. Why look to the CBC? I guess, we’re that Canadian.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .