Conservative Bashing Corporation Faces $65M Shortfall;

Media 99 Comments

Globe and Mail;

The CBC is heading toward a new fiscal year with little clarity about its funding from Ottawa, even as it suffers a projected 2008-2009 shortfall in ad revenue of up to $65-million.
This financial uncertainty increases the possibility of job cuts and changes to its services and programming, which CBC senior management says it is having to consider in order to ride out the current crisis hitting the entire media industry. “We are still working away at finalizing plans. Nothing has yet been determined,” CBC President Hubert Lacroix said in a memo to staff yesterday.

More – that stingy little Flaherty guy says they already get lots of money. Mutters something under his breath about biting the hand.
In related developments, a Winnipeg Free Press poll with the potential to go horribly wrong (scroll down main page and look to left) .

99 Replies to “Conservative Bashing Corporation Faces $65M Shortfall;”

  1. Poll currently going horribly wrong. 71% no.
    People frickin’ hate the CBC. I mean, what is there to like if you’re not a granola crunching geezer who likes classical music? What’s on there, anyway? Corner Gas? Ew. Little Mosque on the Prairie? Double ew.
    Half of Ontario’s manufacturing sector is out of work. I think the CBC can take a frickin’ pay cut.

  4. I suppose they could sell some advertising space on one of their cherished programs, what’s that you say? you need to state how many people watch or listen to these programs in order to sell ad time?
    never mind… we’ll just beg for more.

  5. Are they still getting free doughnuts etc. at the Mother*******Corps like they were years ago?

  6. People frickin’ hate the CBC. I mean, what is there to like if you’re not a granola crunching geezer who likes classical music? What’s on there, anyway? Corner Gas? Ew. Little Mosque on the Prairie? Double ew.
    Silly Phantom — Corner Gas is on CTV, and is actually worth watching. Plus, the only good thing that CBC Radio 2 had *was* the classical music. Now, they’ve gone and changed formats, alienating 75% of their listenership. I’d rather listen to Shostakovich than some folk ensemble from Botswana or a new-age fusion quartet from Chicoutimi.

  9. Yukon Gold – amen to Corner Gas and CBC 2. I haven’t listened to CBC 2 since its “remake” – used to list often

  10. If you can not figure how to keep the HNIC theme,and still pay Bob {I have no clue}Cole on the payroll you do not deserve any tax dollars.
    Just wondering if the very pleasant interveiw of PMSH with Mansbridge ,post Obama was just a setup for the money plea. NO,No,NO and NO!

  11. Corner Gas is not produced by CBC and it is funny. It has made money and stands on its own in a free market.

  12. I’d say NOW would be a good time to contact your MP’s and let them know funding should be cut off to the CBC totally. Kick them when they are down sorta scenario.

  13. I’ve been pissed off at the CBC since they canceled The Food Show. It was on at 0-dark-30 on Sunday morning, and I set my alarm so I could listen to it.
    Sell the TV arm. Then smack Radio 1 and 2 with a friggin’ clue-by-four.

  14. Gee, I wonder why the CBC isn’t resonating with the good people of Western Canada. Oh, wait a minute, could it be that we have nothing in common and we just fundamentally see the world differently.

  15. I told my commie NDP MP i wanted cuts to the CBC and he told me I was way wrong and not to think that way. He tried to make me believe these scum plays an important role in the cultural life of our nation and these commie ndp’ers want the $$ to never stop.

  17. The CBC used to be populated with real thinkers, and hardworking investigators. Now it’s full of bloomin’s J-school grads and leftwing neo-libs, babbling away at Commie Party talking points all day.
    I mean, Anna-Maria Tremonti? Geeezzzz… No wonder the Aussie Foreign minister told her she was doofus on live radio…
    Too bad, but just let ’em drown. Actually better yet, why is it that CTV has to compete with massive state subsidies for the CBC. There shouldn’t be a SINGLE ad on CBC. They already get hundreds of millions!

  18. Yukon you must admit you’re not really the middle of the CBC consuming demographic. How many seconds does it normally take before you yell at Peter Mansbridge?
    Anyway, CTV, CBC, hard to tell the difference anymore. I don’t watch either of them. At all. Ever.
    In fact, this very month I told Bell Expressvue to shove their $100/month satellite dish. Twelve HUNDRED dollars a year for 500 channels of nothing on? Pffft.
    I may eventually get around to hooking up the antenna, maybe even add an HD antenna. Maybe. We’ll see when the weather gets nicer. In the meanwhile I’m hard pressed to see a down side to having no idiot box to burn time in front of.
    I burn enough time at SDA as it is. ~:D

  19. I agree with the “kill them while they’re too weak to fight back” idea. It’s an upward spiral, kill off the CBC. They and their lib-lefty fan base will scream bloody murder for a while (they always do) but the screaming will end quickly and then they’ll have one less outlet to continue spreading or reinforcing their poisons groupthink.

  20. Yukon you must admit you’re not really the middle of the CBC consuming demographic. How many seconds does it normally take before you yell at Peter Mansbridge?
    No arguments there. I estimate it at 0.2 seconds, and that’s only because Pete looks like my dad would if he shaved his beard and lost his sense of humour.
    But the Radio 2 thing was different! I loved waking up to Tom Allen and a little classical. Heck, if got me, a 33-year-old informed Prairie Conservative, to listen to that station they had to be doing something right.

  22. I wake up to a CD. Darude, “Before The Storm”. The pump needs a serious kickstart before it begins to move blood first thing in the morning. 🙂

  23. I went to the poll, and it was 86% no, so I would say that it is actually going wonderfully right.

  24. I just went to the site and voted. It just reset back to the main page. I clicked on “view results” but showed me nothing but the main page again. Maybe its over. Sounds like an ass-whoopin to me.

  25. Thank God the people understand what a waste of money, CBC is!
    Glad that the government did not cave into the begging of the elite mother corp!

  26. Just caught the tail end of this, government will not cover their 65m shortfall, was that right?

  27. I haven’t had a tv in a coupla decades. I am a radio nut though. I have internet radio (12,000 stations) xm and of course terrestial radio (Adler etc). I just can’t think of a reason why taxpayers should provide me with a form of entertainment that I want to listen to. I like Limbaugh Savage and Liddy. I pay to listen to them. These are extraorinary times. Most of us have not experienced this type of financial unrest. To suggest that a tax funded public broadcaster should escape unscathed is unconscionable. What sets them apart?

  29. Toronto Star Poll from today
    Should Ottawa give the CBC $65 million to cover an unexpected shortfall?
    Should Ottawa give the CBC $65 million to cover an unexpected shortfall?
    Yes 1426 31%
    No 3008 66%
    Don’t know 108 2%

  30. Not only the CBC, but every government employee in this country(federal, provincial, municipal)should take a 10% pay and benefits cut.
    We cannot afford all of this fluff trough wallowing any more!
    Time. For. Some. Cuts.

  31. Worth noting that although Corner Gas is on CTV, it too is paid for with tax dollars from the Canadian Television Fund.
    In fact, CBC’s own productions, with the exception of News and Children’s programming, are paid for with money from the Canadian Television Fund.

  32. Let us see now.
    If they cut the pay of the CBC, let’s say 15 % that would solve the perceived problem with some cash to spare and return back to the taxpayer.
    What is strange in most cases, like municipalities, cities and towns they threaten layoffs in hope the more senior government will throw some monies their way. They never, ever consider cut in pay, at least not for public consumption.
    It is clear that the taxpayer financed corporation should consider reducing interference in the life of the population to base minimum with projection of going out of businesses.
    Though the channel 933 on Bell could continue. There is no money in classical music.
    There is no CBC 2 in Okanagan, the lotus eaters don’t listen to classics.

  33. Boo hoo: The CBC is going to have to make some “difficult choices,” just like the rest of us. Well, duh. It’s been a long time coming.
    I’ve never been able to understand how come the CBC is allowed to collect advertising revenue when it already receives $1 billion plus from the Canadian taxpayers and then dares to ask for more. And what assets are they planning to sell? What assets does the CBC have that don’t belong to the taxpayers of Canada?
    It’s time the CBC brass took a good, hard look at why their revenues are down. Might it be that what they’re offering is of absolutely no interest to a majority of Canadians? Might it be that a great many requests for balanced reporting instead of a constant lib-left bias have fallen on deaf ears? Might it be because CBC CEOs receive BONUSES at the end of the year, even when hardly anyone watches their programs and even when they’re a publicly funded corporation?
    Tough times at the CBC are the logical consequence of years of arrogance and entitlement. Canadian taxpayers who are having to cut back should not have to bail out a bloated, unresponsive broadcast bureaucracy. Like the rest of us, they’re going to have to cut back and live within their means … and I’m hoping that means scrapping Little Mosque on the Prairie, to name just one extravagance that needs to go.

  35. The poll question that has to be asked – Should the Government sell the CBC at a time when the deficit is $30 billion and the CBC gets over $1 billion.

  36. Should Ottawa give the CBC a funding boost?
    Yes 15%
    No 84%
    Total Votes: 542
    as of minutes past……I think they are getting the message.
    This CBC funding is just another political subsidy—just for the LIBRANO$……..
    Poor LIBRANO$….broke and maybe disconnected from their taxpayer funded media propaganda network.
    HEE HEE HOO HOO HAW HAW HEE HEE HOO HOO HAW HAW HAW
    I’ll be alright…give me a mo….

  37. I am all for introducing cyanide into the CBC’s veins. People(socialists)will be upset at first, but after a week or so they won’t remember. Honestly what’s to remember? I personally like Mercer, but he sells his show to CBC so he can go anywhere. Other than him, CBC sucks arse. I honestly haven’t seen much evidence that government funding provides quality. Don’t even try and use health care as an example, because I have never been able to experience a family doctor.

  42. The more I think about it the more I am convinced the government should give the CBC its $65 million on the following conditions.
    1. Meaningful Affirmative Action of Employees. 40% of all employees working at the CBC must be true Conservatives by the end of 2009.
    2. Meaningful Affirmative Action of Programming. 40% of all programming must be Conservative oriented. For example Kathy Shaidle should be given a talk show entitled “Why MultiCulturalism Sucks”. Ezra Levant should be given a show entitled “Why HRC’s and Political Correctness Suck” and Mark Steyn should be given a show where he sings old show tunes and reads his columns.
    3. Ron McLean is fired from Hockey Night in Canada and the Toronto Maple Leafs are only shown once per year.

  44. I don’t think there is a real big difference in the budget of the CBC and the RCMP. The CBC gets 1.1 billion plus what they can dig out of the government from other sources. The RCMP gets about 1.5 billion and is taking a pay cut. The way I see at it is they give some of the money to the guys and gals with guns. Let the CBC have a telethon to raise the shortfall. I hear Andean nose flute music is a cash cow.

  45. Personally, outside of HNIC (and since I live in Toronto, that “H” is used pretty loosely), I haven’t watched the CBC for years. I used to love Barbara Frum on the Journal, but sadly, she’s gone on to her reward, and while Wendy Mesley is easy on the eyes, she’s no Babs.
    However, they bought Jeopardy! rights this year, so I’ve been forced to watch the Corpse. What galls me are their ads touting Mansonsbridge’s “The National” as the most watched newscast in the country. Say what? It’s easy enough to check the BBM measurements, which show that CTV news is the ONLY Canadian news program to break into the top 20 week after week. Global National occasionally sneaks into the list. The CBC? NEVER. So, isn’t there someone I can complain to about truth in advertising? The CRTC? The Broadcast Standards Council? Any advice?

  47. One word solution to the cbc’s woes:
    LAYOFFS.
    It’s happening everywhere else in the private sector, and those are jobs that are actually adding to the economic base, not draining it.
    Oh, and maybe the revenues generated by Little Mosque may not be sufficient to let that propaganda turkey strut and gobble under its own weight; perhaps it’s time to harvest that bird, too.
    mhb23re
    at gmail d0t calm

  48. They are a caricature within a farce within a lie. Making up a microcosm of fleas with delusions of power. In an opium dream of simulated fame beyond reality.

  50. Ahem: “granola-crunching geezers” who did, indeed, enjoy Bob Kerr and Gilmour’s Albums on CBC Radio have been told to go to Hell by present CBC management. So in between bites of granola the said geezers are … muttering seriously impolite comments about the CBC being a money-pit and so forth.
    It has not escaped our notice that the new geezer-unfriendly programming doesn’t seem to appeal to anyone else either.
    Gee – $65 million – it is a lot of money in personal terms, but it is so tiny compared to the amounts that our American cousins are throwing around these days.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation