Darned if the CBC isn’t the most fascinating network to follow these days. Every week it is caught in another imbroglio or two.

Plenty has transpired since Playback’s last issue. Among the latest developments: Peter Mansbridge and many others are livid because The National will get moved on Tuesdays this summer in favor of an imported reality show. And the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications released its Final Report on the Canadian News Media, recommending that the CBC evolve into the opposite of what the pubcaster’s current braintrust is trying to make it out to be.

Most interesting in the Senate report is Recommendation 15, which states that the CBC should not duplicate services provided by private broadcasters, specifically referring to the airing of sporting events, including the Olympics, and popular Hollywood movies. This comes on the heels of a rare week in which the Ceeb had multiple showings in the ratings Top 10 – for the Stanley Cup Finals and a broadcast of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

The drafters of the report would also disapprove of the Ceeb’s decision to pick up ABC’s talent search show The One: Making a Music Star. Even worse, in the new regime’s quest for big eyeballs, the pubcaster will simulcast the program, forcing it to bump The National by one hour one night per week.

Playback readers by and large don’t side with the network on this move, according to results from our latest online poll, with 74% of respondents voting that CBC should not simulcast U.S. shows.

In principle, I’m not against the notion of CBC airing U.S. programs. It did that with M*A*S*H for 12 years, and it didn’t seem wrong at the time. But, of course, that show offered the best of both worlds – a ratings bonanza that was also one of the most critically acclaimed sitcoms of all time. In that sense it seemed to be serving the public good, which defines a pubcaster’s mandate.

But yet another talent show? It’s just a transparent attempt at a ratings grab, and even in that vein shows the Ceeb arriving a tad late to the party. Yes, the format was a hit when it was called Star Académie and it aired in Quebec. Problem is, in the meanwhile, in English Canada, CTV’s Idol juggernauts have become firmly ingrained with viewers, and Global’s Rock Star series is also doing fairly well. Can the market really bear another show of this ilk? Time will tell.

But folks have every right to be incensed that their pubcaster’s nightly news show is being bumped for this. It certainly runs contrary to the Senate report’s belief that the CBC should, in fact, be placing greater emphasis on its news coverage.

CBC president Robert Rabinovitch once thought this way himself. Three years ago, Rabinovitch told the same Senate committee, ‘While the Quebecor Media various holdings were covering at length the reality show Star Académie broadcast on its flagship television network TVA, CBC/Radio-Canada was busy covering the war in Iraq.’

But the report jumps the track in urging the Ceeb to abandon sports coverage. Watching the raising of Lord Stanley’s mug on Hockey Night in Canada has been an indelible part of Canuck culture since 1952. It is our national pastime, so doesn’t it make sense that our pubcaster would cover it? Likewise, the Olympics bring the country together every couple of years in a nationalistic cause, and so CBC’s participation seems only right.

The report’s contention that the CBC should abandon coverage of hockey and the Olympics because private casters have encroached on these areas is unconvincing. Of course, CTV could bump the Ceeb out anyway. CTV, with deep pockets and guns a-blazin’, grabbed the rights to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, and is said to be looking to make a major play for NHL rights after two more seasons. But in terms of its mandate philosophy, the Ceeb should be allowed to carry on with its well-entrenched sports coverage. Let’s allow the network to continue on with its bread and butter.

Unless, that is, you buy into the report’s bold Recommendation 14, which says that the network should ultimately head in the direction of no advertising, à la PBS – can you see Rex Murphy heading up the membership drives – and that Ottawa should provide sufficient funding to facilitate this. An intriguing notion, but with funding for the Ceeb lately on the wane, this is wildly unrealistic.

Minister of Canadian Heritage Bev Oda was reportedly going to call for the review of the CBC’s mandate at the Banff World Television Festival, but, if that was ever really the case, she backed down. The thorny issue of the CBC’s future is too delicate for a minority government trying to hold on to power.

If Oda wants to pay heed to the Senate report, however, the time to act is now. As the forthcoming simulcast of The One illustrates, the CBC is headed in an entirely different direction. At this rate, we could be nearing a time when the difference between our pubcaster and the privates is not so easy to discern.