The title of Wade Rowland's book, Saving the CBC: Balancing Profit and Public Service, suggests an existential struggle, never settled, always in play generation after generation. This time, Rowland warns, the threat to the CBC’s survival is not only real but near at hand.
There will come a time when further cutbacks to the CBC’s funding will no longer lead to quantitative tinkering with its output, but to fundamental, qualitative transformation in the organization itself. I am among a large number of knowledgeable observers who believe that stage will be reached within the next two years. The tipping point will in all likelihood be the loss of NHL hockey and its associated revenue.
Saving the CBC is essentially about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s English-language television service, CBC TV, and its compromised public mission at the hands of commercial advertising. The...
Rudy Buttignol is the president and CEO of Knowledge Network Corporation, British Columbia’s public broadcaster, and president of BBC Kids. He is the former chair of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, and founding chair of the Documentary Organization of Canada.
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