Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Ideas For Cutting CBC Budget

The CBC is going to have its funding cut by 5% in the next federal budget and I have some ideas on how they can save money (your suggestions are also welcome). The obvious solution of reducing the salaries and expense accounts of Milewski, O'Malley, et all obviously deserves some consideration. However that is just small potatoes and does not lead the way to the larger budget cuts we'd all like to see. My solution is for the CBC to cancel 85% of its "original" programming. After reviewing the top 30 Canadian TV ratings for each week of 2011, the only CBC shows to make the list consistently are Hockey Night in Canada and Dragon's Den. The Rick Mercer Report showed up a few times, and Heartland cracked the bottom of the list twice. American syndicated game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy get better ratings on the CBC than almost everything else they air! (HNC & DD notwithstanding)

Republic of Doyle, scrap it. Insecurity, scrap it. Being Erica, scrap it. Little Mosque on the Prairie, scrap it. Men With Brooms (I like curling, but this is a brutally awful sitcom), scrap it. Any shows that I'm forgetting, scrap them. Let's stop production on all these terrible sitcoms that nobody watches and replace them with American game shows and vintage movies. There, we just saved the CBC millions of dollars...

15 comments:

  1. James Moore - should be turfed and soon!

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  2. In a sense CBC television can fill a nich and cover cultural and Canadian special events. It would be useful for our Country to have something like a knowledge network on a National scale.
    No justification exists to have our tax dollars competing for Hockey, football and any paid for sports events. Commercial networks can handle those events quite well.
    As well documentaries can be well managed by a public network.
    It would take some time, but a workable timetable could be put into place to transform CBC television into something that meets the public need.
    I'm sure that stepping away from high priced sports, alleged news and poorly rated sitcoms could save well over a billion dollars.
    The friends could have their CBC television and the taxpayer would save a bundle.

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  3. What "melvin" said.

    Plus, the top management has to be fired and people with expertise in running a profitable TV network put in their place.

    No sense trying to revamp the CBC as long as the same old boys club is in charge,hiring friends and sponsoring politically correct shows that garner no ratings.

    DMorris

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  4. Cut the money spent buying the rights to shows like "Wheel of Fortune" and so on.

    Buying and broadcasting these shows at taxpayer expense makes a mockery of the supposed mandate of the CBC, and should be eliminated at once. The CBC should be told "tough" when they ask for more money for Canadian programming to fill the holes, they can do internal economies such as salary cuts and eliminating executive perques to fund these shows.

    Indeed, they can go further and sell their studios across canada to community groups and offer CBC brand programming for sale to anyone who cares to buy it (specialty broadcast licence anyone?) There is a twofer; multiple community stations broadcasting local content (the supposed role of the CBC) and a central repository to park those leftist drones who want to make our viewing choices for us.

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  5. Yes but Wheel of Fortune is one of the highest rated shows on the CBC. I don't know how much they pay for the rights, but I can guarantee you it brings in a hell of a lot more ad revenue than a sink-hole like the Republic of O'Doyle.

    If the ad revenue of the game shows is greater than or equal to the amount it costs them for the rights, then tax payers aren't paying for it. However I do not have access to this financial information. I should do an access to information request to find out if the game shows turn a profit.

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  6. They could also cancel the $60 mill the Harper party has just given them.

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  7. When I was a kid back in the 50's I remember my Dad saying the CBC should be scrapped mainly due to its unprofessional and corny programming. Nothing has changed to this day. Shut it down.

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  8. The concept of the CBC requires a large rethink. Cutting won't necessarily do it, but I like your ideas around cutting the in house shows. My thoughts would be to cut the subsidy and divert it into a larger concept of a film pool. In Regina, there is an organization which lends equipment to producers and directors. The organization then provides a venue for the finished product. My thought would be to turn the CBC into a transmission station only for work produced by those producers and directors. Provide a small budget to each facility for maintenance of building and equipment and mandate the channel to rebroadcast the finished works not just locally, but also the best of the work produced country wide. You might find the quality going up, but even if you didn't you still wouldn't be sinking more than 100 million into it each budget year. If Sun can operate on a 20 Million budget, then the CBC should be able to run twice as many TV facilities and all their radio operations on 100 Million.

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  9. Imagine we could elect what CBC would show? That would be awesome. Citizens nominate shows and documentaries in certain categories and time slots. Canadians programming the CBC by popular vote. Goodbye Agenda. Hello democratic oversight. Better yet, citizens pay a fee to vote for their show.

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  10. sell the cbc or shut it down. it is not needed except by those at the trough.

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  11. It just goes to show you that CBC is INCAPABLE of running a network with taxpayers dollars.
    Why work hard,or provide good decent shows when the have money at disposal to do with for their own pleasure.
    Other television network rely on private corporations for support at the same time producing good shows.

    CBC CANNOT SURVIVE ON ITS OWN.

    Didn't he judge order CBC to open the books..have they done so or are they (CBC) in control of the judges as well.

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  12. CBC must survive because it is a bastion of Canadian culture. Besides, it gives many artists jobs. Really in the end, the only reason that anyone would want to shut it down would be because it is too "left". And ideology like that is just pathetic

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  13. Actually anonymous, I disagree with your assertion that "the only reason that anyone would want to shut it down would be because it is too "left"". That's not the point. I don't advocate scrapping it, but rather ending tax funding and putting the network up for auction. They can have whatever opinions they want, but make them do as other networks do and survive without tax funding.

    Should tax payers be forced to subsidize "artists" who can't get a decent job elsewhere? If their art is so precious, how come so few care to watch it? Really, you think the Republic of Doyle is a symbol of Canadian culture that tax payers should be forced to pay for even if they don't watch the show?

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  14. If taxpayers shouldn't subsidize artists, why then are we subsidizing big business and the big oil corporations. Every show requires many people to set up and create, giving those people jobs. The corporations do the same thing but no one on the right would dare take away their subsidies. Subsidies for big business (which sounds like big government to me) or having small government, sounds like hypocrisy to me.

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  15. Simple. Big business gets tax breaks because they are the ones taking the risk on ventures that create jobs, tax revenue, and wealth for the country. Artists... well they smear poop on paintings, suckle at the public teet, and offer little back. Those that are GOOD artists can find a market for their art. The rest are simply asserting we should pay up cuz they're awesome in their own minds.

    And please... there's SO much more to "Canadian Culture" than what the CBC shows. They just re-run the same old recycled self-stereotypes in different forms. It's pretty clear that Canadians aren't buying that the CBC is telling them they should be - indicated by their ratings.

    There's NO good reason CBC should be getting a dime of taxpayer money. It should make it on its own merits or become extinct like the dinosaur it is.

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