How the CBC lost Hockey Night in Canada

It was a marriage that many thought would last forever.

From the initial radio broadcast with play-by-play by Foster Hewitt in 1926 to the move to television in the early 1950s, Hockey Night in Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation were inseparable — until 2013, when Rogers Communications won the exclusive rights to broadcast NHL games in Canada in a 12-year, $5.2-billion deal.

How the CBC lost Hockey Night in Canada — and all the ways Rogers's big win went wrong — are detailed in Globe & Mail reporter David Shoalts's book, Hockey Fight in Canada: The Big Media Face Off Over the NHL.

Read the full story here.

Storm clouds gathering over the CBC

The CBC should make a TV drama about the CBC.

It would be darker than any show currently on the network.

CBC Sports, once a vital department, is now on the brink of extinction.

The truth is, existential threats have been gathering like storm clouds over the CBC for more than a decade, especially in the fiercely competitive arena of sports media.

Read the full story here.

CBC Wrong on Natural Health Again

In a Q&A on the CBC web site, Dr. Sean Wharton, a “weight management expert,” was asked, “Are products that replace good gut bacteria helpful?” for weight loss. “Probably not,” he answered. Fact check? . . .

Dr. Wharton said yogurt drinks contain insufficient quantities of probiotics. But he didn’t stop there. He broadened his answer by saying that you should “Be wary of products claiming to replace your good gut bacteria.” He included all “over-the-counter products.”

Did Dr. Wharton go too far? Is his total dismissal of probiotics as an aid to weight management correct? It’s not.

Despite CBC’s dismissive claim about probiotics and weight management, the recent science has begun to support a role for probiotics in weight management.

Read the full story here.

CBC admits it wrongly reported hyped-up insurance 'climate risks'

The Insurance Bureau of Canada’s decades-long campaign to raise alarms about the ravages of floods continued last week with an appearance by Blair Feltmate, a favourite star climate-change witness for the biggest insurers, at the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority’s annual meeting.

Robert Muir, an Ontario municipal engineer and member of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, complained to the CBC ombudsman, pointing to flaws in Feltmate’s and the insurance lobby group’s claims. He alleged that the CBC report was misrepresenting science and insurance risks.

In his review of Muir’s complaint, the ombudsman delivered a scathing critique of the CBC coverage on its Radio Canada International site, saying that the CBC report had “failed to comply with journalistic standards” in assessing and reporting on the industry’s claims.

Read the full story here.

The immorality of CBC funding

Was Radio-Canada’s choice of Easter Sunday to broadcast an interview with a former Islamic extremist a deliberate attempt to provoke Christians on their highest holiday? Maybe, but probably not.

And while the studio audience offered Khadr a fawning standing ovation and the host, Guy LePage, tossed up a few friendly questions, there was nothing wrong with the show having Khadr as a guest – JUST NOT ON YOUR DIME AND MINE.

The Khadr appearance was a sophomoric effort to turn public opinion in his favour, to encourage him that he has plenty of elite support and tweak the noses of those who object to his current treatment by the federal government and courts.

However, while the episode may qualify as “fair comment,” it is as good an example as any of why the CBC should no longer receive an annual taxpayer subsidy in the neighbourhood of $1.2 billion (or roughly four times what they P.E.I. government receives in equalization).

As legitimate as the CBC’s pro-Khadr views are (wrong, but legitimate), there are millions of Canadians with equally legitimate and valid views against his repatriation to Canada from an American prison, his early release from a Canadian jail and the federal government’s 2017 compensation to him of $10.5 million. Yet the CBC never represents those opponents’ views with the same amount of time or respect. Mother Corp’s annual budget, though, comes equally from the taxes of his opponents and supporters.

That’s the immorality of CBC funding.

Read the full story here.

CBC is selective with facts

In the early 2000s, CBC faced charges of deep-seated left-wing bias. In recent years, it cleaned up its act and is rated centre-left by Media Bias/Fact Check, a website that rates accuracy and political bias in news media. Not unbiased but a big improvement from where it was.

Yet, the CBC’s flagship National newscast recently reported distorted facts and ignored relevant material on the crisis in Venezuela. The result created a false moral equivalence between the democratic opposition trying to bring in desperately-needed aid and the brutal dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro that’s blocking food from getting to starving people.

CBC is selective with facts. It approvingly quotes Amnesty International saying U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s oil “will surely hurt on the streets” but had not a bad word for the regime, which has inflicted massive human suffering.

So the CBC report makes a moral equivalence between the regime responsible for a humanitarian catastrophe and a democratically-elected opposition trying to get food to the starving, by quoting the impartiality of groups forced to be impartial for humanitarian or political imperatives.

This is not news and analysis, but spin to create a false equivalence while ignoring facts that directly contradict the spin.

Is the old CBC back?

Read the full story here.

CBC Fake News Show Hires Actor

It seems that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Marketplace show was unable to find a racist Trump supporter. Instead, they hired an actor named Mike to portray one as you shall see. 

It was their laughably unsubtle attempt to link Donald Trump to racism. Now Melanie Joly, Trudeau's culture minister, wants a national crack-down on "fake news." And the first place to start a crack-down on "fake news" in Canada is on CBC's own Marketplace.

See the story here.

She says ... CBC says ...

When the CBC was sued by a former employee for wrongful dismissal last year, the public broadcaster filed a statement in response that included a laundry list of alleged bad behaviour that would get almost anyone fired from their job.

Audrey James, CBC Television’s former senior director of scheduling, was terminated for just cause on March 2, 2018, ending a 29-year career at the broadcaster.

According to the CBC’s statement of defence in her subsequent suit, James was found to have violated the CBC’s code of conduct and policies on harassment and ethics, after a series of complaints made around the spring of 2017. Among other things, they allege James “made scheduling decisions…based on the negative relationships James had with her colleagues.”

James’s statement of claim calls the investigation into her conduct “tendentious,” arguing that the allegations the CBC relied on were “trivial” and “did not amount to just cause.” James asks for $366,494 of lost remuneration, along with other damages that account for the loss of pension value. James, who earned a $135,000 salary in her role, said she had not been able to find new employment that uses her skills and offers a similar salary.

Read the full story here.

CBC president Catherine Tait wandered off script

As she may now regret having done, CBC president Catherine Tait wandered off script last week to compare the popularity of Netflix, a U.S. multinational, with the French and British empires.

There’s nothing worse you can call somebody in this day and age than “imperialist.”

Except that if Netflix is imperialism, it seems a lot like United Nations imperialism.

Netflix has internationalized to the point where we now actually favour subtitles.

Should Netflix pay tax? Of course it should. It provides a newly produced service, and the whole idea of the GST is to tax all newly produced goods and services, with the rate of tax getting lower and lower as the tax base gets wider and wider. That said, it would take a brave politician, or a foolhardy one, to tax people’s Netflix.

Should Netflix have to contribute to a Canadian film and TV production fund? No, it shouldn’t. Earmarked taxes are a bad idea.

Netflix is a for-profit company: If the world wants something, you can bet Netflix will provide it.

It may not be imperialism when a government takes your money to produce films and TV you don’t care to watch, but it’s nothing good.

Read the full story here.

CBC questions Netflix Canadian content

CBC president Catherine Tait pointed a finger at Netflix at a recent conference panel in Ottawa, saying the U.S.-based streaming giant doesn’t have “boots on the ground” like other Canadian broadcasters providing Canadian content.

Tait was joined onstage by Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) president Reynolds Mastin, Corus Entertainment president and CEO Doug Murphy, Bell Media president of content and programming Mike Cosentino, and Netflix Canada director of public policy Stéphane Cardin.

Cardin, a former vice president of public and industry relations for the Canada Media Fund (CMF) who joined Netflix in August 2018, said he disagreed with Tait’s comments about Netflix.

He argued that the streaming giant is still involved in producing Canadian content even if the company isn’t physically located in Canada.

Referencing the Trailer Park Boys franchise picked up by Netflix in its eighth season, Cardin asked whether the franchise still counts as Canadian content now that it’s available on the streaming giant’s platform.

“Does that make it such that Trailer Park Boys is no longer Canadian?” asked Cardin.

Cardin added that “No one has the monopoly or the authority to tell a true Canadian story.” 

Read the full story here.

CBC president under fire

The president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. has likened Netflix to the British Raj, arguing Canada needs to be wary of the negative effects of cultural imperialism that could result from an onslaught of foreign-owned media services.

She made the comments at the close of a sometimes heated panel at which Stéphane Cardin, Netflix’s director of public policy for Canada, noted the streaming service had already committed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on production in Canada without being required to do so by regulation.

Read the full story here.

CBC releases incorrect information to media

CBC claims to be open, transparent and accountable for the $1 billion dollars in taxpayers' money it receives. The $1 billion is spent on English and French radio and TV and miscellaneous other services. If more funding is needed to serve Canadian audiences, especially in TV, CBC needs to be far more transparent about how it spends its money and explain more convincingly why more dollars are required. The problem: CBC is too secretive and misleading.

CBC releases financial and other data to the media which often leads to inaccurate reports.

CBC has also released incorrect information to the media about the number of staff it has and the number cut in the past few years.

Misinformation and cuts to radio have alienated many CBC supporters and caused a major rift between CBC staff and management and CBC radio and TV staff.

Read the full story here.

CBC News spread false information

CBC News has apologized for spreading false information about the Covington Catholic School students two months after the network first reported on it.

In January, CBC reported that after the Washington, DC March for Life, a group of students made an offensive chant in the face of a Native American protester, categorizing the students as “teenage bullies.”

The CBC is now acknowledging this claim was false.

Read the full story here.

CBC subsidized by government is conflict of interest

While I understand a limited amount of public subsidy for CBC Radio, I do not feel the same way about CBC television and I certainly believe that any news or public affairs functions of the CBC should NOT be financially supported by government. If nothing else, it is a conflict of interest. Almost blasphemy.

The problem is not that the CBC leans left. Many media outlets have their politics. The problem is that the CBC is subsidized by the government. They should not be. It is a conflict of interest for both parties. The CBC should call the shots as they see them, with prejudice, or otherwise. But they should do it on their own dime, without subsidy, just like everyone else in the business.

Read the full story here.

CBC can’t succeed with $1.5 billion per year

CBC gets about $1.5 BILLION per year in taxpayer funding.

As if that wasn’t enough, they also get private sector ads just like their competitors.

So, they get public money and private money, leading to a totally uncompetitive playing field.

And yet, their ratings are still in the toilet.

So, we are paying tons of money to a network that can’t even get people to watch it.

This only furthers the case that we shouldn’t be forced to fund CBC. If they can’t succeed with $1.5 billion per year, why should they keep getting our money?

Read the full story here.

Allegations that CBC defamed church

The CBC and its investigative news program Fifth Estate is being sued by the Iglesia Ni Cristo Church of Christ (INC) after officials said a Nov. 11 broadcast Church of Secrets defamed their church.

“Even in their program, they admit that their whole show was without evidence and it was a very slanderous show against the Church of Christ or the Iglesia Ni Cristo and we just want vindication,” said Rod Bruno, a Toronto-based minister and church spokesperson.

Read the full story here.

CBC Goliath entering the on-line local news fray

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation operates as our national public broadcaster for both radio and television services. Its mandate is to reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions.

CBC operating costs last year amounted to $1.7 billion, the large majority of which was funded by taxpayers like you and me.

However, I take exception to the unthinking use of its considerable financial muscle. In particular, I deplore that they’re directly competing with much smaller regional private enterprises who work hard to keep their businesses afloat, without external support.

A current example in our region that should concern us, is the move of “CBC News – Nova Scotia” to upgrade its on-line local news website, which provides free, continuous coverage of our provincial news.

Our national broadcaster holds nothing back in asking “How do you like our new format?” Or “We’re experimenting with a new look.” They even use their broadcast staff to author local news articles. And they don’t hesitate to feature video news footage that our local newspapers have no hope of emulating with their tight budgets.

Deliberately or not, CBC competes directly with the Chronicle Herald’s paid subscription, on-line local news offering, which has to be a key platform in the Herald’s future, as it faces inevitable declines in its print edition circulation in future years.

I’ m fully aware that competitive situations exist in the Canadian TV broadcast world, where CBC competes with CTV and Global, but these are well-financed players, with large markets, that can take care of themselves.

But news organisations such as our Chronicle Herald and its stable of small community news outlets, both print and on-line, are having a tough enough time as it is without having to worry about a Goliath like the CBC entering the on-line local news fray.

Read the full story here.

CBC has suddenly become the country’s largest newspaper

Over the last few years — fuelled in part by a $675 million boost to its funding by the Liberal government — CBC has pursued an aggressive policy of expanding its online news site.

This site is not a complement to its radio and television arms. Rather, it functions as a standalone news site, with opinion columns, reprinted wire content and stories specifically reported for print.

The result is that CBC has suddenly become the country’s largest newspaper. Albeit with two major differences: This newspaper is free and it has bottomless resources.

Running any business rapidly becomes much more difficult when the government opens up a competitor down the street offering all the same wares for free.

Read the full story here.

Another CBC report biased against Israel

Not surprisingly, our public broadcaster’s coverage of the “Great March of Return” riots at the Gaza-Israel border this past weekend was biased against Israel, prompting HonestReporting Canada to file complaints calling for remedial action.

On March 30 at 3:03 pm, CBC Radio aired a report from Lauren Izo (sp?) about the “March of Return” protests. Ms. Izo mentioned that two young Palestinians were killed and more than 100 injured according to the “Gaza Health Ministry” and that in the past year, 250 Palestinians have been killed. Importantly, Ms. Izo failed to mention that the Hamas terror group runs the Gaza Health Ministry and that an Israeli soldier was killed in a sniper attack and over a dozen soldiers injured in the past year.

Some of this context should have been acknowledged by the CBC in the interests of fairness and balance.

Read the full report here.

CBC article was parochial, insensitive and cynical

An article (and tweets) on CBC, seeking good news for Canada on what many agree is a dark day for Brazil, has sparked fierce criticism. And rightly so. It was parochial, insensitive and cynical, portraying a troubling break in Latin America’s democratic consensus as though it were business as normal.

The CBC has since apologized (sort of), for presenting what should have been tagged as “analysis” as “news.”

But let’s take the article at face value. What’s the problem?

Here’s the problem. First, the article and tweets demonstrate a stunning parochialism.

Second, the focus on advantages to be gained by select Canadian businesses (above all, in resource extraction) shows a worrying insensitivity.

Third, the article and the CBC’s Twitter feed indicate breath-taking cynicism.

Fourth, the CBC is here not merely reporting events. This is not even “analysis.” It is actively making the news.

Read the full story here.