Heritage Minister appoints CBC advisory committee

Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge announced Monday the appointment of the advisory committee that will help develop policies regarding the future of CBC/Radio-Canada’s funding, governance, and mandate. Seven experts from various fields – four of which have previous experience working for the CBC – make up the committee and will help St-Onge meet her commitment to redefine the role of the public broadcaster before the next federal election, which is scheduled to take place in late-2025. St-Onge said in February there will be no public consultations on CBC/Radio-Canada’s new mandate. “CBC/Radio-Canada is a cornerstone of Canadian culture. For almost 90 years, our public broadcaster has been a daily presence for Canadians, sharing our stories across the country. But the world has changed since the broadcaster started in 1936. Canadians need a strong, innovative and independent public broadcaster that is ready to meet the challenges of this period of transformation and upheaval in news and content creation,” said the heritage minister in a press release. Committee members include: Marie-Philippe Bouchard, CEO of French-language specialty channel TV5 Québec Canada; Jesse Wente, chair of the Canada Council for the Arts and founding executive director of the Indigenous Screen Office; Jennifer McGuire, managing director of LGBTQ2S+ media organization Pink Triangle Press; David Skok, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Logic; Mike Ananny, associate professor of communication and journalism at the University of Southern California; Loc Dao, executive director of not-for-profit organization DigiBC; and Catalina Briceno, media school professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal. At least four members have previous work experience with CBC/Radio-Canada. Bouchard worked a total of 27 years and six months at the public broadcaster from 1987 to 2016. She notably served 11 of her earlier years as a legal advisor for CBC/Radio-Canada, followed by a one year stint as special projects coordinator for regulatory affairs. Bouchard’s last three years were spent as Radio-Canada’s general manager of music and digital services. Wente served 26 years and eight months from 1996 to 2022 as a columnist for CBC Radio One’s Metro Morning. McGuire served as CBC News’ general manager and editor-in-chief for almost 11 years, from 2009 to 2020. Dao spent 14 years working at the CBC from 1994 to 2006. He began as a radio technician for over two years, later serving almost nine years as executive producer and co-founder of CBC Radio 3. CBC/Radio-Canada has been in hot water in recent months after announcing it would be laying off hundreds of workers to make up for an anticipated financial shortfall of $125 million. That shortfall has since been reduced to about $20 million, CEO Catherine Tait announced in front of the House of Commons heritage committee last week. This financial recovery allows the public broadcaster to continue operating without any further job cuts beyond the 141 workers and 205 vacant positions that were removed. According to the 2024 federal budget and CBC/Radio-Canada’s financial reports, the public broadcaster is receiving an extra $42 million above the almost $1.3 billion in government funding it received last year. CBC/Radio-Canada has also been the subject of criticism after reports circulated saying that it would be integrating some of its French and English-language operations. Tait clarified last week that programming for the two services would remain separate, it is only looking into developing more efficient ways to share resources between them as it continues the transition to a digital-only model. – Reporting by Phalen Tynes-MacDonald at pcreed@thewirereport.ca

Heritage Minister appoints CBC advisory committee

Broadcast | May 14, 2024

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Heritage Minister appoints CBC advisory committee

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