Source : Canadian Press

Keep Canadian broadcasting in Canadian hands. Diversify media ownership. Strengthen the CBC.

Those are three wishes highlighted by the watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting in its Thursday appearance before the Senate committee on transport and communications.

To bolster its case for a revised broadcasting policy for the country, Friends offered a sneak peek at a new Ipsos-Reid survey the organization commissioned and intends to release in full next week.

"If this Senate committee just said no to gutting the laws that keep our media and communications companies in Canadian hands, you would have the support of most Canadians," said Noreen Golfman, chair of Friends' steering committee and associate dean of graduate studies at Memorial University.

Friends, which calls itself a non-partisan media watchdog supported by 60,000 Canadian households, says the survey indicates that two-thirds of the public has an unfavourable opinion of foreign ownership of Canadian cable and telephone companies, while 70 per cent hold a negative view of foreign ownership and control of Canadian media companies.

Also, the survey suggests 60 per cent think there's already too much media concentration and that it's undermining Canadian democracy, and 75 per cent agree that media owners insert too many of their own opinions into the news.

As well there is strong support for, and confidence in, the CBC which gets top marks for protecting Canadian culture and identity. Nine out of 10 respondents want CBC funding maintained or increased, especially to strengthen the broadcaster's capacity to provide local and regional content.

The survey was conducted between May 4 and 9 among a random sample of 1,100 adult Canadians, with results accurate to within three percentage points 19 times out of 20.

The committee is at present studying the state of Canadian media industries.

Echoing the sentiments of last year's Commons heritage committee report, Our Cultural Sovereignty, the group's presentation emphasized the need to prevent community and regional broadcasting from becoming an endangered species, a reference to the way budget cutbacks have seen the CBC reducing local services.

Friends spokesman Ian Morrison says advocating a stronger CBC means more than just money. It also means ensuring that the president and board are no longer patronage appointments.

"In the U.K. you don't get the BBC having its board of governors loaded up with a bunch of supporters of the current government. It's the best and the brightest people."

Morrison concedes there's a federal election in the wind but notes that's not an issue for the senators who will still return to Parliament Hill after the vote.

As for the optics of increasing the tax-dollar budget of a broadcaster with plunging ratings, Morrison points out that if you take away all the American programming offered by the private Canadian broadcasters, CBC has a substantial share of what's left.

"From our poll, it's very clear that the public regards the CBC much more highly than any other audio-visual institution in the country," he says. "So the CBC still has one asset, a lot of credibility with the general public."

© Canadian Press

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