Speeches and Interviews

March 9, 2006

Notes for Remarks by Robert Rabinovitch at the Empire Club of Toronto

Notes for Remarks by Robert Rabinovitch, President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada, at the Empire Club of Toronto

(Please check against delivery)

I have been President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada for six years now and one of the things I've discovered is that Canadians are not shy about sharing their opinions about CBC -- good or bad.

They tell me when they don't like the way we've covered a particular News story. They tell me about a documentary that moved them, a program that made them laugh, or how they wake up every morning to one of our Radio hosts and go to bed every night after Peter Mansbridge or Bernard Derome have put the day's events into context.

Those conversations are the fun ones. But I also have more troubling conversations -- though perhaps more important -- about the future of CBC.

Some argue that CBC's best days are behind it; that in a multi-channel, multi-media universe where you can access any and all kinds of content, we no longer need a public broadcaster.

I firmly believe that is not the case.

I'm here to tell you that while CBC has a proud past, the future of public broadcasting is just as exciting.

You may have read recently that our new Canadian Heritage Minister feels the time might be ripe for a review of CBC's mandate. I think that is a good thing. We welcome all discussion of the role and place of the national public broadcaster.

In fact, we will have an excellent opportunity to talk about those very things towards the end of this year when we appear before the CRTC to apply for the renewal of all of our broadcast licenses for the next seven years.

So we have to ask ourselves what is the role of the public broadcaster in the Canada, not just today, but for the next seven years? What must we do to ensure that Canadians still have a voice on the airwaves? CBC must be the undisputed champion of compelling Canadian programming in all of its forms and on all of its services. The undisputed champion of compelling Canadian programming -- that is what we should be. That is our goal. That is our vision.

So, what is CBC today? In response to the public's desire for specialized services, we are delivering a wider range of programs in more ways:

• ten Radio or audio services;
• eight Television networks delivered over the air, on cable, on satellite, online, on demand, and by wireless;
• two full-service websites, and several specialized ones.

We are also a content provider. We produce, acquire and broadcast everything from News and current affairs, to drama, music, children's, sports, and performing arts programming. And we now have the flexibility to show programs when you, the public, want to see them -- the News show, The National, for instance is on at 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 and midnight each night.

In the last six years we've invested considerable effort into making CBC even more of a public service broadcaster. We've had some wonderful successes:

• Our English and French Radio services continue to have the largest audiences in the country because we have the best programmers and most distinct, unique programming. It takes about three seconds of listening to know when you are tuned to CBC Radio One or the Première Chaîne, versus a private station.
• Radio de Radio-Canada is riding high on the successful launch of Espace musique, our response to the lack of musical diversity on the airwaves.
• Three years ago, Télévision de Radio-Canada launched a repositioning exercise. With the objective of producing more audacious, engaging, challenging programming, Radio-Canada has produced much-talked-about programs like Les Bougon -- c'est aussi ça la vie!, and Tout le monde en parle. And the public has embraced the network's efforts.
• CBC.ca and Radio-Canada.ca remain among the country's top News and information websites and are places Canadians turn to for breaking News. They are also places Canadians go to download some of their favourite programs for listening to on their iPods or MP3 players. (And soon they'll be downloading their favourite Television shows.)

But we need to do more. If our Radio services are to retain their position, their programming must change to reflect the evolving needs and interests of Canadians.

This means that CBC Radio Two must preserve its valued past while also expanding its scope to give voice to more Canadian talent. It must reach out beyond its current comfort zone. CBC Radio's success will be defined by the positive and measurable impact it has on the creative community across Canada.

Our Radio services, French and English, must look at new technologies -- like podcasting and satellite radio. By partnering with SIRIUS to launch a Canadian service, we have not only launched six new CBC/Radio-Canada channels, but we've also expanded the reach of our Radio services to new audiences across North America. We have created a North American market for Canadian talent and ideas.

Radio, as a fundamentally local service, must also adapt to shifts in population. For example, Hamilton -- just 60 kilometres down the QEW -- has a population of approximately 500,000. It receives no local CBC programming; only the Toronto signal -- so does Kitchener/Waterloo, and what about Saskatoon? Our current broadcast footprint was conceived in the early 1970s. Today there are six million Canadians who do not receive appropriate local programming from CBC Radio One.

So we constantly have to ask, what's next? What do Canadians want from us next year and in the next seven years?

On the operational front, we must also ask what more can we do to operate more efficiently? To be more effective? How can we generate savings and revenues that can be invested in programming?

In the last few years, through efficient management of our resources, we've freed up $102 million in one-time savings, and launched initiatives that are generating $65 million in annual ongoing savings and revenues. Funding is one of the central hurdles facing CBC and these efforts to improve efficiency have been critical to our ability to achieve the programming successes I described above.

But it's not enough.

You should know:

• In 1985, our Government operating funding was worth $1.3 billion in today's dollars. Our funding now is worth $335 million less -- that is just less than $1 billion.
• Some of the money we do receive from Government is not permanent. It is difficult to create new programs when you don't know if the funding will be available.
• Except for salary increases, it has been more than 30 years since we have received a permanent increase in our Government operating funding.
• So, we have grown in the number of services we provide while our funding has decreased. I tell you, we're dying the death of a thousand cuts.

We're not just crying the blues, either. A recent study of public broadcasting systems in 26 OECD countries found that when you consider funding in terms of a percentage of GDP, Canada placed 22nd out of 26 countries surveyed.

Countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway, and the UK all had public funding expenditures that were three-to-four times greater than what is spent in Canada.

Held up as the gold standard of public broadcasting, the BBC receives $7.3 billion in public funding, broadcasts primarily in English, and doesn't span six time zones. That is $122 per person.

For less than $1 billion in Government money, Canadians get 27 national and international services, in English and French, and eight Aboriginal languages. And for that, each Canadian pays annually about $30.

Compare that value to satellite radio at $160 per year, your cable fee or even the $11 you pay at your Cineplex for a single movie.

Efficiency and adequate funding are necessary conditions for success but they are not sufficient. We also need to change how we think about our audiences, our programming and how we develop, commission and broadcast programs.

We need to be leaner, to have shorter lines of decision-making, to remove the bureaucracy that inhibits creativity. We need to open ourselves up to the broader creative community of Canada. We employ some of the best, most innovative broadcast artists in the world and they would tell you that we are too insular, too satisfied and too slow-moving. Why does it take months to accept or reject a program? We must create a better environment for ourselves and for our partners in the independent production industry.

In short, we are not as creative an organization as we need to be. We must become more nimble.

Having said this, I believe, while not without challenges, most of our services are well-positioned for an exciting future.

Let's now look at CBC's English Television. You'll note that when I listed some of our successes I didn't mention CBC Television. While the network has its success stories, it is the one piece of the public broadcasting puzzle that needs the most consideration.

First some facts:

CBC's English Television receives a little more than a quarter of the Corporation's total Government funding. The rest of its budget, more than 50 per cent, is derived from commercial operations -- advertising, subscription fees, program sales. How can you call yourself a public broadcaster when over 50 per cent of your budget comes from competing with the private sector? The reality is that CBC Television is only partly a public broadcaster.

Don't get me wrong, CBC Television's News, documentaries, public affairs, children's, arts, and sports programming are second to none.

But the network is faced with a significant challenge. And that challenge is also one of the greatest cultural challenges we have as a country.

If you look at the arts and culture sector in English Canada you'll see that, overall, it is healthy, if not thriving.

Just this week a Canadian Director/Producer won the Best Film Oscar and one of the two highest grossing films in the charts, The Pink Panther -- was written in Montreal by Len Blum. Our authors, artists, dancers, documentary producers, and musicians are enjoying success not just at home but also abroad.

But there's something missing and that something is drama: televised English-language drama. And that is where CBC Television comes in.

What we are talking about is dramatic series, comedy and entertainment programming -- shows that are not only produced in Canada, but made for Canadians and reflecting our unique sensibility.

Despite the growth of new types of media, despite new technologies, despite the fragmentation of audiences, television remains the most pervasive mass medium in the Western world -- it is the principle disseminator of culture in society and a powerful vehicle for sharing identity.

Yet Canada hasn't made the breakthrough in televised drama that we have in other sectors -- like music and literature.

If we look back almost two decades to Europe and Australia, we see that people there were watching very little homegrown programming -- programming that spoke to them, their reality, that reflected their countries and their interests. Like Canada today, they were dominated by foreign programming, primarily from the U.S.

That has now changed. If you look at Europe, at the UK or Australia today, their prime-time schedules are dominated by domestic programming.

How did it happen? Broadcasters, governments and the independent production community focused their efforts on making domestic dramas that resonate with their audiences, that tell their stories.

CBC Television should be taking risks and producing programs that innovate -- Canadian equivalents to The Office from the UK or Six Feet Under from next door.

Sure, there have been great Canadian success stories -- Corner Gas, DaVinci's Inquest, Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion -- but not on the scale of the programs I just mentioned. Why can't the public broadcaster consistently broadcast high-quality Canadian programs that draw a million or more viewers? Our entertainment programming should be the place where big risks are expected, where there is occasional failure and where there is astounding success.

In a world where audience interests and needs evolve rapidly and where programs change more quickly, you have to be adaptable. While we cannot afford to do dozens of pilot programs to choose only one, as they do in the U.S., we also cannot afford to simply leave a program on air because we've already produced it. If a program is not working, we have to admit that and try something new. Not when the program ends its run. Now!

Audiences will not continue to watch or listen to a program simply because we have it on air, nor will they wait forever for us to come up with something better. The simple truth is that if we're not relevant, Canadians don't need us. We must be more in tune with our audiences.

What we need is a critical mass of Canadian-made drama. It is not enough to make one or two good shows; we need to rehabilitate the entire genre. If it's made accessible to Canadians, in sufficient quantity and of a high enough quality and shown at times when people are actually watching television, Canadian drama will attract audiences.

Repatriating our prime-time Television dramatic programming may look impossible when you learn that last year nine of the top ten programs in Canada were American. But every other developed nation has done it and we have done it as well.

Let me tell you a story:

In August 2002, I appointed Daniel Gourd Executive Vice-President of Télévision de Radio-Canada. At the time, the network had seen a decade of declining viewership, the competition was producing increasingly high-quality, prime-time drama, and people were questioning Radio-Canada's relevance and utility.

Morale was low and there was a sense of defeatism -- a sense that we couldn't do anything right. Télévision de Radio-Canada was in crisis, in a downward spiral.

Daniel did some basic things:

He made a few hard-nosed, difficult decisions that were unpopular at the time -- reducing non-programming budgets and cancelling some failing but iconic series. This freed up enough financing to allow a significant investment in new shows. He set out a few clear attributes for new programming: daring, with broad appeal and passion. Then he stuck to them, he took big risks and he launched successive seasons of new dramatic and entertainment series.

What happened? Some of those new shows failed and were quickly taken off the air. Others are still being watched by close to two million viewers a week in a market of just seven million. Over three years, our prime-time audience share has moved from 16.5 to 22 per cent. Ratings are up, revenues are up, creativity is way up. In the same period the network increased its current affairs programming to over 40 hours a week. Instead of attacking us for being irrelevant, our detractors now attack us for being too popular.

Ladies and gentlemen, it can be done. We can do it. We have done it.

To do it in English Canada, though, requires a commitment. We made some very difficult decisions at our French networks in order to free up funding to invest in new programming. As you have seen in the last couple of weeks, we will do the same thing at CBC Television. But the investment required to provide Canadians with the kind and quality of programming they expect from CBC Television is simply too great to be found through internal savings alone.

It is time we asked the question: Do we want public television in Canada? Do we want Canadian programming in Canada? If the answer is yes, then we have to come up with funding solutions that work.

Solutions that allow us to respond to the realities of today's broadcasting universe.

CBC Television needs a new funding formula that recognizes not just its unique circumstances, but also its unique role.

I am a realist about the future. I don't really expect Government to decide tomorrow to make good our commercial revenue plus top up our annual appropriation so that we can attack the challenge of television drama. But we need to reverse the trend towards more and more dependence on commercial revenue and we need to implement a concerted plan to take on Canada's most pressing cultural challenge.

In return, if properly resourced, we can make CBC Television the cornerstone of Canadian dramatic programming, just like public broadcasters everywhere else in the world.

As we look forward, it is clear that there are a number of things we need to do -- across all of our services -- to succeed:

• We need to ensure that all significant communities in Canada have access to local CBC Radio programming.
• We need to become more courageous and to take more risks.
• We need to break down the structure that slows down program decision-making, limits our access to the best talent available and limits our ability to innovate.
• We need to successfully adapt our programming to new, emerging technologies -- as we did in presenting the Olympics on cell phones and video on demand.
• And we need to create domestic dramatic television that you literally rush home to see.

Technologies are making the world smaller and choice of foreign content is multiplying and will continue to multiply. These are arguments for, not against, a strong, vibrant national public broadcaster.

We need to carve out a public space in these new and in existing media for Canadian programming -- be it on Radio, Television or the new, exciting, emerging technologies. A place where CBC can champion compelling Canadian content, where Canadians can see and hear themselves and their stories.

With your help, we look forward to renewing and reinvigorating an institution that should be as important to our future as it has been to our past.

Thank you.