Is This Thing On?

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s operating licence will expire at the end of August, and the Mother Corp is seeking a five-year renewal from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. “As part of the CBC/Radio‑Canada licence renewal process,” a November press release read, “the CRTC wants to hear from Canadians across the country to ensure that the content produced and distributed by the public broadcaster reflects the diversity of Canada’s population, while meeting its needs in both official languages.” That call resulted in hundreds of interventions from individuals and interest groups from across the country, and it’s not an overstatement to suggest that the future of our national public service broadcaster, established in 1936, has never been so uncertain.

As the CRTC mulls over that future, two distinguished communications scholars have marshalled the case that, at the very least, the broadcaster’s English-language television...