And that’s where, if something needs to be “done” about CBC – which, in both the online and television worlds, is a full-blown commercial operator – it should be done.
The nation’s television broadcasting world has forever been distorted by the existence of a publicly-funded entity such as CBC that competes not only for viewers but for advertising income. It has always been entirely unfair to the private sector that its own tax dollars are used to compete against it.
Publicly-funded radio may compete with the private sector for listeners but never for money.
About 40 per cent of Canada’s advertising dollars are spent online, making that medium by far the most dominant, followed by TV a good 10 points behind, then radio and newspapers. That means that by employing an aggressive online strategy, CBC now competes for a share of about 70 per cent of the advertising dollars at play in the market.
So newspapers, radio and other Internet platforms are now, in addition to television companies, paying taxes that subsidize their competition to their detriment.
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