A Reflection on Publicly Funded Media in Canada

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Communications

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Apr 3, 2024

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The Value of CBC: A Reflection on Publicly Funded Media in Canada Jiyaa Sidhu McMaster University CMST 1A03: Introduction to Communication Dr. Dilyana Mincheva Wednesday, March 20, 2024

CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), which was founded as national public broadcaster of Canada, is the key figure of the Canadian media scene. Financed by taxes levied on the public, the CBC offers numerous services involving television, radio, and streamed content. This article will be looking at the significance and contributions of having the public broadcasters such as CBC in a time in which private streaming giants like Netflix are the leaders. It covers the issues for and against the public financing of CBC, touching on the role and benefits of CBC to Canada, CBC’s challenges of popularity and relevance, and why CBC can never beat Netflix. CBC fulfils an important role by being the primary means for preserving and developing the Canadian identity and culture. The CBC through the production of content reflecting Canada’s diversity and dual nature, plays an unspeakable role in keeping a nation geographically large and culturally diverse intact. The Corporation's mission to promote, educate, and entertain ensures that it cater its programming to the needs and interests of the country. Indeed, television's initial function was not only commercial in nature. While commercial companies are driven by the market demand for the products which maximize their profitability, CBC has a mandate to provide informative and educational content. It is composed of detailed news reporting, documentaries that depict our history, politics, and culture, thereby molding a well-informed society (House of Commons, 2008). CBC offers Canadian artists, writers, and creators a medium where they can have their works displayed and this reduces the chances of the market getting saturated with the American made films. This support is indispensable not only for nurturing the Canadian entertainment industry, but also for the purpose of seeing through Canadian filmmaking visions (Oberman, 2019). Although the opponents claim that the CBC is not skilful in competing for ad dollars with the private broadcasters, particularly concerning its online

content, this does not stop the broadcaster in pushing the limits further towards the top (Ahearn, 2021). Therefore, competition between networks and internet streaming services is viewed as impeding the range of private Canadian media organizations’ development. With the widespread typification of the international offerings through online streaming platforms such as Netflix, CBC and other public networks become more and more in demand among the Canadian viewers. The possibility of the government to influence CBC while the latter as an organization is funded by government concerns many people. The question arises that this may generate partisan media or news that is aligned to the current government interests (Kline, 2023). The opposite effect would be that news reporting is in over this media platform and makes the independent journalism unstable. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is extremely important in promoting Canadian culture and identity, it is a way of representing country's multicultural aspect and duality. While it has overcome the obstacle of not being one of the global champions of online streaming and facing serious competition from well-known giants like Netflix, it has still managed to endure. The CBC’s programming budget is in a difficult situation simply because the media production costs are increasing, ad revenue is declining from television, and competition from digital platforms is growing, which have fewer series renewals and new series and it has a poorly impact over the viewership base of the CBC. Additionally, the way the CBC's programming works, centered around its public mandate, differs from the usual coverage of Netflix. Whilst the CBC endeavours to inform, enlighten, and educate individuals in a manner that is distinctly Canadian, Netflix provides services on subscription-based schemes, without such civil mandates that enable it to opt for a wider, more commercially driven content base. This makes Netflix a subscription-based model

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