CBC-Radio Canada Outlets across Canada
November 30, 2024
The devil makes work for idle hands and lately MPs from the filibuster-becalmed House of Commons amuse themselves by summoning CBC Presidents before the Heritage Committee. Once in the dock, prosecutorial MPs flay the witness and then video clip for their social media posts.
I call it, “whip and clip.”
On Thursday Heritage MPs had the incoming CBC President Marie-Philippe Bouchard before them.
Some MPs had trouble with their facts. Not without justification, MP Kevin Waugh cited the public broadcaster for raking in $400 million in advertising revenue that could otherwise be available to private media. The true dollar figure is $270 million; Google and Facebook have the rest.
MP Jamil Javani claimed that CBC English language television has a 2.1% share of viewing audience. The CBC’s percentage for prime time viewing in television, excluding its all-news and documentary channels, is more than twice that at 5.2 %. By comparison, Canadian private broadcasters collectively take 26%, a wide array of specialty channels are at 53% and US networks are at 13%.
Conservative MPs dwelled upon the bonus payout for senior CBC executives. Bouchard defused the situation by agreeing to review the payments, make her review transparent, and gently reminded MPs that the correct term is “variable pay” (the at-risk performance pay that is part of every senior manager’s compensation package in the modern world).
MP Niki Ashton from northern Manitoba assailed the CBC for its retreat from local television news. She’s not imagining that: in response to the deep Liberal budget cuts during the 1990s, the public broadcaster closed stations and reduced coverage across Canada. The coverage-killing budget cuts didn’t stop there: between 2013 and 2023, the CBC responded to Parliament’s austerity by reducing its spending on television programming in English Canada by 40% in real dollars as it shifted resources to online news.
Bouchard’s reply to MPs was noteworthy: local news will be a “big focus” as the incoming CEO. Last month the CBC announced it was spending its $7 million of “Google money” on hiring 25 journalists in underserved markets.
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In a previous post I did the CRTC an injustice by accusing Commission staff of “twiddling around” in its investigation of whether Meta is offside by selectively waving some news items through its block of Canadian news content.
I said that because the Commission appeared to be too patient in allowing Meta lawyers to rag the puck in response to the CRTC’s demand for the details on the porous news block, details which the regulator intends to make public in the course of its inquiry.
Last Monday the Commission fired off another letter to Meta and, if you read for nuance, you will conclude that the CRTC has lost patience with Mr. Zuckerberg’s demands to keep his explanation a secret and is ready to post Meta’s unredacted explanation of its news block.
Meta has until tomorrow to play ball or else. Else what, we shall see. Once Meta’s statement of defence is public, the next step will be a decision from the CRTC on whether to investigate further.
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There may never have been a busier week for Big Tech lawyers responding to legislation and lawsuits around the world.
Here’s a quick run down:
- Australia passed a law banning kids under 16 years old from having their own social media accounts (WhatsApp and YouTube excepted). The ban takes effect a year from now —-an eternity in political time—- as the thorny issue of age verification gets sorted out. The debate over the legislation was the occasion for Elon Musk to tweet accusations of censorship, a rebuke from the CEO of the Australian public broadcaster Kim Williams and then Musk responding by unleashing a troll storm against Williams.
- The Australian government dropped its version of our Bill C-63, the Online Safety Act. Its “misinformation bill” was destined to fail in the Australian upper chamber where the government does not enjoy a majority.
- The Canadian Competition Bureau has filed suit against Google for allegedly abusing its market power in digital advertising. Having cleared Google of this very charge in 2013, it seems likely the Bureau has more evidence in hand as a result of the ongoing anti-trust trial against Google in the US.
- Canadian news outlets have filed a copyright lawsuit against the Microsoft-backed OpenAI and its ChatGPT app —-in the wake of a similar lawsuit by the New York Times—- for ingesting millions of the outlets’ online news articles. There’s already an AI-ingestion lawsuit proceeding in Canada between two smaller players as recounted by the University of Calgary’s Hugh Stephens in a blog post.
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The Globe and Mail’s Cathal Kelly is a born-with-the-muse columnist who just happens to write about sports.
His cheeky take on Canadian content and retired hockey enforcer Paul Bissonette is delightful (provided you aren’t squeamish about bar fights).
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