CBC execs talk digital shift, competition at Heritage committee

OTTAWA — CBC/Radio-Canada has prioritized a shift to digital platforms to reach all Canadians, but ensuring they are able to access those platforms isn’t part of the public broadcaster’s mandate, CBC representatives told parliamentarians Tuesday. In response to a question from Liberal MP Dan Vandal about serving Franco-Manitoban communities that are spread across the province, Louis Lalande, executive vice-president of French services at Radio-Canada, said he knows that there are areas that don’t have “consistently reliable digital service.” “We try and remind decision makers that this is the case but the infrastructure really doesn’t depend on Radio-Canada,” Lalande said in French during a Tuesday morning appearance in front of the House of Commons’ standing committee on Canadian heritage. “So we need the digital infrastructure, but we’re not responsible for that digital infrastructure ourselves and we try to take opportunities to make this known.” Lalande, along with CBC president Hubert Lacroix and executive vice-president of English services Heather Conway, spent two hours in front of the committee, having been invited to discuss the broadcaster’s plan for the $675-million investment promised by the Liberal government. The money allowed the CBC “breathing room” to carry out its five-year strategic plan, Lacroix said. The accountability plan for the reinvestment “will be shared with Canadians soon,” he added. During their appearance, the CBC executives also repeatedly defended the mandate of the public broadcaster to “inform, enlighten and entertain.” Conservative MP Peter Van Loan pointed to critics of the CBC who have come before the committee arguing that it’s “inappropriate” for the CBC to compete with the private broadcasters in both programming and advertising. Conway pointed to CBC shows, such as the new Kim’s Convenience and Baroness von Sketch Show, and said she would argue “comedy is a deeply cultural product. There is a Canadian sense of humour and Canadians like to see it reflected on the CBC.” She added that comedies and dramas “are places where Canadians can see what Canadian creators have to offer and if not the public broadcaster, there really isn’t a lot of space in the private sector broadcaster schedules in prime time for any of that.” On the advertising side, Lacroix said he didn’t see the fact that CBC solicits advertising as putting it in competition with private outlets as it fulfills its mandate. “We actually seek to service Canadians with the dollars that we receive from government in this mixed model that we have, mixed model of funding, which right now has us going after some commercial revenues, including advertising revenues, to make all of these services available to Canadians,” Lacroix said. “So there’s nothing in the Act, or there’s nothing in our mandate that prevents us, on the contrary, from delivering these services to Canadians in the most effective way.” — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

CBC execs talk digital shift, competition at Heritage committee

Broadcast | October 25, 2016

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CBC execs talk digital shift, competition at Heritage committee

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