We all have two jobs in Canada: our own and the head of the CBC.
We all think we can do the second job better, and at least it saves us from doing our first one better.
The prime minister did as well as anyone could last week to appoint Catherine Tait from her first Canadian job to the second one – that is, to make her the new president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
It is a merciful first step in a preservation mission. CBC can ill afford less relevance in an age of abundance.
A second step, less noticed, was the appointment of Michael Goldbloom, former newspaper publisher and current Bishop’s University principal, as chairman of the board.
Both bring to bear decades of talent for understanding and valuing content, and no amount of technological determinism or financial engineering or stakeholder consultation or political charm offensive will make any difference if CBC doesn’t better deliver programs and news we like. And soon.
Sad to say, this notion was shuffled around in the obsession with budgets and restructuring and the CBC version of the digital disruption in recent times. Even though the Stephen Harper government didn’t fully starve CBC for funds, the public broadcaster was on a grapefruit diet as it was climbing Everest in a storm with no Sherpa.
It’s hardly the case that private competitors have been profiteering bandits, either. The conventional television and radio businesses are headed down the mountain on their hindquarters, and fast. Podcasts are on the rise, streaming services are hoovering our disposable time and subscription fees and cable cords are being cut.
But consider this lunacy: until recently, neither the chair, nor the president, nor the board, nor the senior-most executives had ever produced a program or a news story – the two things CBC does and is expected to do better than anyone in Canada.
Tait did very well in her first statement to identify the gaps CBC can and should fill in the culture it generates and distributes: stories more clearly articulating our diverse country and differentiated regions, our Indigenous foundations, our LGBTQ communities and our profound relationships in the world. All the while being both sophisticated and popular.
Tait has come from the world of independent television and film production. She had successes where there is no easy slice of life, so she will presumably treat CBC’s money as her own. There might seem a fair amount of it – $1.7 billion annually, about $1.1 billion from taxpayers. But considering the jumbo-sized mandate – English, French, TV, radio, online, CBC North – the jam is spread across many loaves.
The previous regime seemed fixated on the transformation to a digital world. Fair enough, our habits have changed and more of us want our programs when we want them and not when a broadcaster wishes us to see or hear them.
But along the way CBC forgot to also make what it made great – to do fewer things, but do them so well that we remembered them and got off the case about what we provide it in funds. Good heavens, our petulance at times on this roughly $30 per year per person is as if every nickel were a manhole cover.
With content-savvy generals, presumably that taste will trickle down to the lieutenants in the war for our time. To fight the fight, there have to be the right weapons, and CBC has hurt itself by commissioning a weak arsenal. It does too much with too little, and Canadians no longer watch loyally. Other broadcasters and services like Netflix have found Canadian gems in quality, not quantity – think Alias Grace or Anne.
Tait is correct to understand the public broadcaster role in producing what the private sector would typically under-supply, but that private sector now is moving into documentaries, diversity, Indigenous stories, even children’s shows and amateur sports. CBC can’t occupy those niches as a form of insurance unless it occupies them superbly.
If CBC wants a lesson, it should turn on the radio and listen to itself. Quality attracts quantity in Canada. •
Kirk LaPointe is editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver Media Group and vice-president of Glacier Media.
