The recommendation that the CBC should get out of both advertising and sports coverage has reignited long-standing debates about the network while making for strange bedfellows among lobbyists and insiders.

A report released by the Senate committee on transport and communications on June 21 urges that CBC TV should eventually go ad-free – freeing it from the race for ratings. The report on Canada’s news media, based on three years of research and deliberation, also says the network should move away from Hollywood movies and sports coverage, dropping its ratings bonanza Hockey Night in Canada.

The ideas are ‘radical and impressive,’ according to Ian Morrison, spokesperson for the lobby group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

‘While advertisers themselves might not like losing the CBC as a venue, the private networks, CTV, Global and CHUM, would be thrilled at the increase in advertising,’ he says.

Cutting ads would leave a $400-million hole in CBC’s $1-billion budget, to be filled by Ottawa, while adding roughly that same amount to the advertising market courted by other TV outlets.

And yet Our Public Airwaves – a lobby group often in line with FCB, and one that has long called for ads to be taken off the network – has come out against the report.

‘The solutions proposed by the Senate report, while appealing on some levels, are ultimately facile and unrealistic,’ says exec director Arthur Lewis. ‘No government is likely to give CBC the $400 million needed to eliminate commercials.’

Lewis also argues that sporting events such as hockey and the Olympics are also cultural and, since they bind Canadians together, should remain on the CBC.

The advertising world seems to agree with OPA. ‘The Stanley Cup playoffs were a huge success for the CBC, bringing in a great deal of advertising revenue. I doubt the CBC wants to give that up,’ says Kim Dougherty of the media-buying firm OMD Canada.

But the recommendations of the Final Report on Canadian News Media are ‘more feasible than people might think,’ she adds. ‘The CBC sells advertising at a lower rate than CTV or Global. In a sense, it would be easier on the CBC to concentrate on 100% Canadian content and not to worry about selling ads.’

Pierre Pontbriand, VP of communications for the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, which represents private casters, questions whether advertisers would welcome an ad-free CBC.

‘I don’t know how much this would benefit the private broadcasters,’ he says. ‘There are only so many ad dollars to go around. As well, the advertisers might not want to give up the CBC. It’s a very effective way to reach a lot of people.’

The report landed within days of the unveiling of CBC’s fall schedule, part of the third-placed network’s renewed push for ratings, and just as the net controversially bumped its Tuesday night broadcast of The National to make room for the simulcast of an American reality TV show, The One: Making a Music Star, the first move of its kind for CBC.

The flagship newscast will air an hour earlier on the East Coast and an hour later in Quebec and Ontario during the series’ summer-long run.

It is thought that the federal Tories would prefer to hold or cut the Ceeb’s budget, although Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Bev Oda, the minister of heritage, have been quiet on the subject.

A spokesperson for the minister says Oda has not yet read the 233-page report, and will comment later.

Liberal heritage critic Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa-Vanier) says he has also not yet read the entire document.

‘The future of the CBC is of serious concern to us. We have argued that funding must be maintained,’ he says. ‘We feel the CBC mandate should be reviewed, and other models should be considered, including that of the ad-free BBC.’

Morrison doubts the minority Harper government will touch the CBC. ‘Their priority is to gain a majority. The CBC is a divisive issue for Conservatives – it could be seen as a wedge issue. Many Conservatives don’t like the CBC, but the public, overwhelmingly, does. So they’re not going to shoot the CBC. At least not yet,’ he says.

CBC spokesperson Katherine Heath-Eves says Oda seems to be ‘very strong’ on the issue of public broadcasting, but concedes that ‘there is a sense of uncertainty in the air’ about CBC.

Oda was reportedly scheduled to make an announcement about the network’s mandate during the Banff TV festival in June, but in the end only reassured the crowd of Ottawa’s support of the CBC.

Heath-Eves says the net is ‘really happy’ with the committee’s recommendations. ‘They argue for a strong public broadcaster and a long-term commitment to it,’ she says.

However, ‘if we were to drop advertising, there would need to be some way to make up the shortfall. The CBC has endured 15 years of deep cuts. We are one of the worst-funded public broadcasters in the world.’

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