Saving the CBC: Balancing Profit and Public Service

by Wade Rowland

Asked to name the institutions that best define this country, most Canadians place our public broadcaster somewhere high on the list. But there is a very real danger that the CBC will not survive beyond the next two years in any recognizable form. Decades of budget cuts have left it dangerously weakened, and now a massive loss of television advertising revenue is predicted with the loss of NHL hockey rights to private broadcasters. Saving the CBC looks back at the history of the public broadcaster, digs into the goals and ideals of public service media, and plots a detailed plan for survival and growth.

Genres: Nonfiction, Canada

134 pages, Paperback

First published March 23, 2013

About the author

Wade Rowland is the author of more than a dozen books, including Galileo's Mistake, Spirit of the Web, and Ockham's Razor. He is a former holder of the Maclean Hunter Chair of Ethics in Communications at Ryerson University in Toronto and currently lectures in the social history of communications technologies at Trent University in Peterborough. He lives near Port Hope, Ontario, with his wife, Christine.

Reviews

[Chad C · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable, short read with some information on public broadcasting as a concept and some of the changes that the CBC has seen over the years - for better or worse - ending with some proposals for a CBC with greater reach and potential.

I have little criticism for this book, as the author made many well-researched and reasonable points, but one thing that made me reluctant to rate full stars was the continued criticism of Richard Stursberg. Whether you agree with his philosophy for the CBC or changes he made while leading it, the continued derogatory statements of him got a bit tiring. The author's main issues with his leadership surrounded the format/style change of The National, the "cheaper" reality TV programming, an emphasis on ratings and appeal to advertisers, and the CBC's decision to change Radio 2 from classical and jazz into a more contemporary, wider-ranging network. Again, his points are well-argued and articulated. However the continuous criticism of Stursberg-era policy is a bit much. It was the one thing in the book that really stood out for me. Other than that, well worth reading. Food for thought, at least, and still very relevant today as we shift from the Harper government into the Trudeau government and see what changes, if any, lie ahead for the CBC in the near future.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our society needs to know more about the value of public broadcasting and the differences between it and for-profit broadcasting. Ideally, it should be covered in the high school curriculum, but it isn't and I don't know how society can learn about it unless books like this one and written and read. We need to be informed and then take action before we lose something very important to our society and culture. So, pick-up and read this book, recommend it to your friends and coworkers and discuss. I think it would be a great book club read.