Source : Winnipeg Free Press

It is somewhat ironic that the Free Press would publish an article (CanWest hypocritical in attack on CBC, May 16) by Maggie Siggins under the heading The View from the West, when the article simply rehashes old and inaccurate information put out in March by a lobbying organization based in Toronto.

First of all, Ms Siggins does not reveal that she is a member of the steering committee for that organization, which calls itself Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and which is, in fact, a Toronto-based corporation that solicits funds from individual Canadians for its causes. Nor does Ms Siggins reveal that some of the highly selective statistics she quotes were contained in a news release from that same organization that was issued on March 21.

Now, what about the so-called "facts" in her article? Well, the CBC and those who wish to criticize private broadcasting have been consistently replaying their song about viewing of Canadian programs in prime time. But what does that really mean? First of, all let's understand that prime time is four hours per night – 7 to 11. And in those four hours, on weeknights, the CBC includes an hour of news, while private broadcasters like CTV have their major newscasts outside the prime-time hours. And on Saturday nights, the CBC includes Hockey Night in Canada – a sports program that would be provided to Canadians whether or not there was a CBC.

If hours tuned to news and sports were removed from the data, then CBC's Canadian content offerings might not compare as favourably. In fact, the CBC's own Peter Mansbridge, anchor of the CBC National News, recently complained about the low audience for the CBC's Canadian programming that precedes his newscast.

Ironically, by focusing so relentlessly on prime time, the CBC and its supporters are, effectively, reducing the debate over CBC English Television's future to this simple question: What is the best way to produce and distribute three to four more hours per night of high-quality Canadian content that Canadians will watch?

If that is, indeed, the real question, then it might well be argued that there are far more efficient ways of producing and distributing that three or four hours per night of Canadian content than spending it on the entire infrastructure of the CBC – particularly since the CBC and its supporters seem to be so vigorously downplaying anything but prime time.

If one considers the whole television schedule – all day, seven days a week – then a very different audience picture emerges. Every year, data from the BBM ratings service are sent to the CRTC, the federal broadcast regulator. CRTC staff code those data for program type and origin. The data are then administered by Statistics Canada, under a program financed in part by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

It is interesting to make the tuning comparison based on data from that source, over a whole broadcast week, among English-speaking Canadians. In fall 2000, the CBC's English-language conventional stations delivered 22.5 million hours of tuning to Canadian programs. Global's conventional stations delivered 21.6 million hours of tuning to Canadian programs. But the comparison changes dramatically if sports programs are excluded – the sports programs that would be provided whether or not there was a CBC. Without sports, CBC delivered 14.8 million hours of tuning to Canadian programs, compared to Global's 20.6 million hours.

And what of Ms Siggins' claim that private broadcasters are somehow subsidized by the taxpayers? Simply not true. Subsidies for program production go overwhelmingly to independent production companies.

Ms Siggins also claims that private broadcasters are asking that "a $90-million rebate on licence fees be given back to them each year." Again, simply not true. Private broadcasters are merely asking that the licence fees be set at a fair level that reflects the actual cost of regulating the industry.

Perhaps the next time the Free Press runs a View from the West on this subject, you will check to ensure that the view from the West isn't really a rehashed news release from a lobbying organization based in Toronto.

GEOFFREY ELLIOT
Vice-president, Corporate Affairs
CanWest Global Communications Corp.

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