Raising the ire of the mainstream media

CBC should focus on broadcasting

If the federal government set up an agency to publish publicly funded newspapers to provide news and information across Canada, the move would be met with almost universal opposition.

There’s no need to pour tax dollars into something that the private sector is already doing without a subsidy, unless the goal is propaganda.

So why is the CBC promising to turn itself into something that looks a lot like what newspapers are already doing in every community across the country?

CBC President Hubert Lacroix could have been mistaken for a newspaper executive when he outlined the public broadcaster’s dilemma and its solution. The traditional model of broadcasting is broken and the new model of digital media doesn’t generate enough revenue to make up for lost funding. The solution is a leaner organization that does mobile first, targeting smartphones and tablets to find an audience.

Perhaps Lacroix missed the first few lines in the document outlining the changes, entitled "A Space For Us All." It spells out quite clearly – and correctly – that "CBC/Radio-Canada was created to ensure that this country would have a place on its own airwaves."

The CBC was started to ensure there was a place in the scarce resource of the airwaves for Canadian content and that it was not drowned out by dominant American broadcasters.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/blogs/cox/264944996.html