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April 12, 1996

Memo to Mr. Mansbridge: Don't sell private broadcasters short

Michael McCabe, Ottawa 
Article published in the Globe and Mail

For someone who has such a solid reputation as a journalist who deals in facts, it is disappointing to see CBC news anchor Peter Mansbridge stray into the realm of fiction. ("Let me be Blunt", Verbatim, Globe & Mail, April 8/96).

Mr. Mansbridge's observations about the value and importance of the CBC echo an all too-familiar refrain of those who come to its defence by deriding the contribution and role of private broadcasters within the Canadian system. That is a shame, because the CBC has many enthusiastic supporters within the private broadcasting sector, who recognize that it performs a unique and necessary role for Canadians.

However, for Mr. Mansbridge to assert that only the CBC can and does offer Canadians an insight into their country is foolish, and just plain wrong. When he says that Canadian private television broadcasters "run almost exclusively American programming", he ignores the fact that the schedule of all private television stations is 60-per-cent Canadian over all, with 50-per-cent Canadian programming in prime time.

He seems to be unaware that when Canadians watch Canadian programming, 51 per cent of that viewing is on private stations and networks, and that collectively Canadian private broadcasters spend $450-million in non-taxpayer dollars annually on Canadian programming.

Mr. Mansbridge takes justifiable pride in his own program, The National. However when last we looked, The National was still not drawing nearly the audience that CTV News draws, even though it runs an hour earlier at night when more people are watching television. Righteously claiming the CBC National News is "produced by Canadians and for Canadians," he curiously seems oblivious to the reality that the newscasts on CTV, Global and TVA, and all the thousands of hours of news and information programming created by Canadian private local stations and specialty channels, are also produced "by Canadians for Canadians."

What is interesting is how many more Canadians it takes to produce a CBC news item. Anyone who has seen the multi-person CBC news crews at work, compared with the small, efficient news teams from the private stations, knows what I'm talking about.

When Mr. Mansbridge castigates private broadcasters for airing popular American shows, he conveniently forgets that programs such as Star Trek, All My Children, The Simpsons, The Nanny, The World of Disney and One Life to Live populate the CBC's schedule. Why does the CBC run those programs? For exactly the same reason private broadcasters do: because audiences like them, and the revenues those programs generate flow into the creation of Canadian shows.

What we as a country have absolutely no control over is that we live beside the most powerful entertainment machine in the world. The American production industry cranks out thousands of hours of programming a year, and with a population base of 260 million people it can afford to do so. These programs flow with the force of the Fundy tides, unimpeded across the border, where they are distributed throughout the country by cable and satellite. These programs would still be on Canadian television sets even if there were no Canadian private stations, and Mr. Mansbridge knows that.

By purchasing the rights to broadcast these programs, Canadian private television stations and networks generate the revenues that are essential to help pay for their Canadian programming which, for the most part, loses money. Why does it lose money? Because the population base in our country is not big enough for us to support million-dollar-an-hour drama productions, and Mr. Mansbridge knows that as well.

Canada's private broadcasters spend millions of dollars to create thousands of hours of programming at the local level which support and contribute to the development of Canadian talent. The name Alanis Morrisette ring a bell? She got her start in the entertainment industry on CJOH-TV in Ottawa, a private local station. Canada's country-music artists are the focus of The Canadian Country Music Awards on CTV, a show created by CTV because there was no place in Canada where this popular music genre was being recognized.

Canadian actors, producers and technicians are making top-quality dramas such as Due South on CTV and Traders on Global - a Canadian show which, by the way, is neck and neck with Mr. Mansbridge's program on Thursday nights in the Toronto market. CITY-TV in Toronto is exporting its hip, new-age programming around the world. A look across the schedules of private broadcasters, both specialty and conventional, reveals a long list of top-quality programming being generated by the Canadian independent production community working with Canadian broadcasters. A show does not have to be produced from the CBC headquarters on Front Street in Toronto to warrant a maple-leaf label.

Private broadcasters understand and sympathize with Mr. Mansbridge's anxiety about what is happening to the CBC, which is finally being forced to face the same problems as most families and businesses. We in the private sector hope the CBC will emerge from its self-examination with a new and more sharply defined sense of what its role can and should be, as a producer of unique Canadian programming unavailable anywhere else on the dial.

Perhaps Mr. Mansbridge and his CBC compatriots should redirect their energies away from inflammatory rhetoric against their private broadcast colleagues, and follow the advice of Teddy Roosevelt, who said, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

Michael McCabe is President and CEO of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.