The Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, will set up a committee of experts to reflect on the future of CBC/Radio-Canada, particularly its financing. The announcement comes a week after the public broadcaster confirmed it was cutting around 10% of its workforce to cope with falling revenues.
Mme St-Onge took advantage of his time on the show Everybody talks about it, Sunday, to discuss the formation of this committee, without however specifying the details. “It is time that we look at the mandate and mission of CBC/Radio-Canada. That’s why in the coming weeks, in the coming months, I will surround myself with a committee of experts,” said the minister, adding that the population would be consulted.
On the set of Everybody talks about it, she remained vague on the issues that this committee will look into. Will the committee look specifically at the public broadcaster’s dependence on advertising revenue? Minister St-Onge remained more than vague on the issue on Sunday evening.
Pierre Karl Péladeau, in particular, has long campaigned for the mandate of the public broadcaster to be changed so that it can no longer benefit from advertising revenue. According to the president and CEO of Quebecor, the state corporation exercises unfair competition by benefiting from public funds to which other broadcasters are not entitled, while monopolizing part of the advertising base, which thus escapes its competitors in the private sector.
The Quebec Minister of Culture, Mathieu Lacombe, surprised last week by speaking in the same direction, affirming in an interview with Duty that the public broadcaster should remove advertising from its platforms. “It would be a good idea for Radio-Canada to leave the advertising base to the media which depend exclusively or almost on it,” said Minister Lacombe, who was a journalist at TVA before making the leap into politics.
Towards fewer advertisements?
The Trudeau government has already been clearly open to the idea of reviewing the method of financing CBC/Radio-Canada. In December 2021, the Prime Minister’s Office asked the Minister of Heritage at the time, Pablo Rodriguez, to increase public funding for Radio-Canada “so that the broadcaster depends less on private advertising.” “The goal is to eliminate advertising during news and other public affairs broadcasts,” read the mandate letter sent to Minister Rodriguez when he took office.
Last year, CBC/Radio-Canada raked in $215.5 million in advertising revenue. This represented approximately 12% of its funding sources.
As with all other players in the television industry, CBC/Radio-Canada has seen its advertising revenues decline in recent years in favor of digital giants. This was one of the reasons cited last week by Catherine Tait, president and CEO of the Crown corporation, to justify the abolition of 800 positions across the country.
Blurry on the 3%
Mme Tait also explained that CBC/Radio-Canada feared a drop in its public funding. In its latest budget, the Trudeau government asked ministries and public bodies to make a budgetary effort of 3% by 2026-2027 in order to curb the growth of spending. During his passage to Everybody talks about itMinister Pascale St-Onge was still not able to say whether or not this measure will apply to the public broadcaster.
“Everyone sees the tax situation we are in. To look at our expenses is an exercise that we asked of everyone, including CBC/Radio-Canada. But no, the final decision has not been made,” indicated the Minister of Heritage.