Speeches and Interviews

June 3, 1999

Putting the Public First

By Perrin Beatty, President and CEO, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation at the Newsmaker's Breakfast, National Press Club, Ottawa

They say that exercising the mind is just as important as exercising the body, especially after breakfast. To determine if that's true, here's a scenario to think about.

The managing editors of Maclean's Magazine decide to remake the weekly's editorial pages and modernize its corporate structure. Todo so, they must first explain to a government agency why they want to do it; how much of the magazine's content will be Canadian; how much it will cost; and what it will look like seven years from now. During a public hearing, the Globe and Mail complains that Maclean's should not be allowed to carry advertising because it receives a government subsidy. Citing the same reason, Le Journal de Montréal suggests that Maclean's should be subject to Access to Information laws — which presumably means that the working notes of its journalists will also be open to public scrutiny. Meanwhile, the Southam chain submits that Maclean's should abolish its sports section because it cuts into other media's profits.

It may sound far-fetched and perhaps even preposterous. Yet what we would not accept for one medium, we demand for another. That is the scenario proposed in this very room two days ago. Granted, there are some fundamental differences between reality and fiction. For one, the players are members of the Canadian broadcast system. For another, the media outlet under the public microscope is the CBC. Third, the CBC is the country's public broadcaster which, like the regulatory body examining it, is accountable to Parliament. And most important, the CBC is owned and mostly funded by Canadian taxpayers.

Let me leave no doubt about this very public process we are currently engaged in. We welcome the CRTC's examination of our role in the Canadian broadcasting system and in fact, in Canadian society. We are pleased to have this opportunity to account, and also perhaps to crow a bit, but also to work together with those who regulate our activities, to improve our performance for the ultimate benefit of the Canadian public. This is a critically important juncture for the CBC as we near the next century — our role in Canada's cultural life confirmed and refined. There are no questions which are not valid, no examinations which do not suit us. We are actively and constructively engaged.

The earlier MacLean's example was used as an early morning jolt to remind you of the unique place that the CBC occupies in the Canadian media landscape.

As Canada's public broadcaster, we have a covenant with each and every Canadian to represent their interests and reflect their realities — no matter who they are, where they live or what those interests are. But the finished product, whether it be on radio, on television or in new media, must be a seamless, high-quality package that captures the essence of the country as a whole.

That means providing a wide range of programs and services that enable us to reach all Canadians with an indigenously Canadian cultural product. Many elements of our mandate, as defined in the Broadcasting Act are shared by the system as a whole. But our mandate is truly expansive and inclusive. As a national public broadcaster, the CBC should provide radio and television services that incorporate a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains. Programming should be predominantly and distinctively Canadian, reflecting Canadian values and its regions to national and regional audiences. It should actively contribute to the flow and exchange of cultural expression and be of equivalent quality in English and in French. It should reflect the different needs and circumstances of each official language community while at the same time contribute to a shared national consciousness and identity.

Preserving the CBC hallmark of objectivity, fairness and balance, we must keep at arms-length from the government. At the same time, we must conduct a wide-range of activities in a transparent and fully accountable manner.

As stewards of public money, we must operate in fiscally prudent efficiency that makes the most of every penny yet still accomplishes what our private sector colleagues cannot, or will not, do.

Those may sound like contradictions. But that is the way the CBC has operated since its creation in 1936 and that is the way Canadians expect us to operate into the next century. And we are vigilant in accounting to Canadians on our performance and management. CBC provides annual reports to the public with full disclosure of our expenses and revenue sources. Our books are audited by the Auditor General and those reports are also made public. We provide an on-air report with opportunities for Canadians to question us directly through phone-in programs on English and French radio and television. We meet publicly each year with the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and other Committees of the House of Commons to account. Additionally, we have created a uniquely Canadian cottage industry of Royal Commissions, Task Forces and Study Groups to examine our mandate and performance.

Few institutions are more scrutinized and analyzed, criticized and categorized than the CBC. Even fewer newsgathering operations are routinely turned into newsmakers.

And that is the way it should be. Our shareholders, the Canadian public, have a right to know where their dollars are going. They have a right to know if their voices will continue to be heard in the ever-increasing and global clatter that transforms the communications industry day by day.

The CRTC hearings taking place across the Ottawa River, combined with the regulatory agency's public consultations on the CBC last March, stand as one of the most comprehensive public examinations of the inner workings of the country's public broadcaster in history.

We play a unique role in the system. Under one corporate umbrella, the CBC has committed an impressive array of resources to provide audiences with a distinctive, wide and unmistakably Canadian range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains. The five-year strategic plan we submitted to the CRTC for this hearing hones our priorities and refines our mission. It allowed us to set the CBC on the right path for the highly competitive environment of the 21st century.

The CBC has entered this public accountability process with a willingness to listen to, and to learn from, those with constructive suggestions and legitimate concerns.

That said, I want to respond to some of the criticisms and complaints that have been voiced in the last two weeks, primarily from our private broadcasting colleagues and other interested parties. The comments we have heard from that sector have ranged from the constructive or justifiably argumentative to the patently absurd.

One broadcaster wants us to use their specifications to determine our content — as though it were up to the private sector to set the terms and conditions of CRTC licences. Another wants the CRTC to forbid CBC's French Television from producing or airing a program unless at least two private broadcasters have rejected it. Still others want us to radically cutback advertising while they enjoy substantial benefits from public funds to produce their own programs.

Some of you were here for Pierre Karl Péladeau's speech a couple of days ago. It constituted, as press reports pointed out, a frontal assault on the CBC. And where it differed from his network's presentation to the CRTC last Friday is that rhetoric of public interest that had been wrapped around the TQS presentation had been stripped away, leaving no doubt about why the CBC was being attacked. In a system filled with players who put their commercial interests ahead of everything else, we need at least one broadcaster who puts the public's interest first. If anyone ever doubted that point, Mr. Péladeau's performance must have removed it for all time.

Let me deal with the advertising issue.

There are some who suggest that the CBC should reduce the number of advertising minutes permitted per hour or place restrictions on advertising by programming genres such as during the news hour. For your interest, a reduction from 12 to eight minutes per hour would chop a minimum of $110 million from our already diminished budget. That's on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars a year cut from our budgets since 1985.

In a perfect world, CBC's main television services would be also be advertising-free. In a perfect world, not one person would go hungry.

But in the world we live in, advertising contributes $300 million to our programming each year. The reality is that the CBC faced, and continues to face, major financial challenges that threaten the very existence of the Corporation. We make no apologies for providing high quality Canadian programming that is attractive enough to Canadians to also be attractive enough to advertisers. To survive, we must be allowed to grow alongside our colleagues in the private sector. To flourish, we must have our hands untied. And unless we get more government funding we must continue to rely on advertising revenue. Any reduction in advertising revenue would result in a reduction of services. It is simple mathematics.

That said, we do not program to generate ad revenues but rather use the ad revenue to achieve our goals. This is not an isolated Canadian phenomenon. Of the 23 public broadcasters around the world, 17 of them support themselves with some advertising. Out of those 17, the CBC is one of the least dependent on the list. Advertising revenues allow us to provide the mandated programming we are responsible to provide on all of our main services. These revenues mean the difference between a major lack of operating funds and the ability to function normally. The CBC prefers the latter, as I am sure do all Canadians interested in hearing their own voices and their own stories, in their own words.

The tough times that the CBC has come through has made us realists. We are not hopeful that the government would restore our funding to previous levels, even if we were ordered to cut back or entirely abandon our advertising revenues. We are however, resolved to do the best in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

You do not shrink your way to greatness. You do not maintain the status quo and hope that no one notices that you are not where the action is and indeed you are not even part of the game. That goes for the broad issue of how you structure your operation at a time when everyone around you is building integrated and dynamic systems of product delivery and management infrastructure.

That also applies to the kind of distinctive programming you offer to Canadians awash in a world of choices.

The CBC exists to make Canadian voices heard — to as many Canadians as possible. Not one group over another; not one region over another. Our primary responsibility is to connect with the widest reach of Canadians when they want, how they want and no matter where they live. Some have tried to taint this generalist approach. But there is no other way to do it.

Analysis of every other model fails in the task of fulfilling that mission. We could turn ourselves in the PBS of the North, with corporate sponsorships and programming that the private sector neither wants nor can afford to do. But we would then have to settle with a narrow and ultimately elitist service.

That's not what Canadians want.

That's not just my opinion.

In survey after survey and during the CRTC consultations, Canadians sent a loud and overwhelmingly clear message: They want more CBC, not less.

Of the record 4,500 Canadians who submitted an intervention to the CRTC hearings on the CBC currently underway, about 90% supported the CBC's performance. They wanted more of our services or had suggestions for improvements, but there is no doubting the sincerity or the depth of their commitment to the CBC. A COMPAS poll for The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting in May confirmed that the CBC does more than well in serving the public on both a national and a regional level. In fact, 82% of Canadians reported that the CBC has done a good job meeting its mandate. This includes more than half of those who rate the CBC as very good or excellent. In a survey conducted by POLLARA for the CBC last month, 62% of English-speaking Canadians said television delivers the best value for the money spent. Among French-speaking respondents, the number rose to a full 70%. In the same poll, three-in-four respondents rate CBC programming as better than it was five years ago, before the bulk of the budget cuts. The same question was asked by POLLARA in a 1997 independent survey, with only slightly lower results.

What these statistics tell me is that it is time to start looking forward and working together to ensure we have a vital and progressive public broadcast system that is in touch with Canadians and in touch with the realities of the information and knowledge-based economy.

You can't do that by going backwards. You can't do that by half measures. And you can't do that by snipping away at CBC's ability to take advantage of opportunities that enhance, not detract from, the entire Canadian broadcast system, both private and public.

A few years ago, one of your former Ottawa colleagues, Richard Gwyn of The Toronto Star, wrote a book called Nationalism Without Walls. In it, he described the value of national institutions, among them CBC Radio. Treasured institutions, Gwyn wrote, and I quote, "are not just bureaucrats, buildings and budgets. They are memory and spirit, a sense of public duty, and a sense of responsibility to colleagues, past and present."

What caught my eye, though, were the following three sentences: "Once dismantled, institutions cannot be reassembled. Once they go, they are gone forever. Their replacement may be better priced but they will have infinitely less value to the community."

Is that to be the desired fate of the CBC? I don't think so, and neither do most of the Canadians who own it.