A day after Ottawa said no to bailing out the CBC, the pubcaster on Thursday rolled out Plan B.

CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO Hubert Lacroix told the Empire Club in Toronto that his network will possibly look to air more American programming and sell off broadcast assets to make up for a 7% year-on-year drop in ad revenue made worse by the current recession.

Among the money-raising scenarios the CBC will now consider are ‘introducing more American programming into our television schedules, downgrading or selling parts or the whole of some of our TV or radio services, increasing the advertising we accept on the air, or shrinking our geographic coverage of the country by consolidating local stations,’ Lacroix said.

The CBC earlier Thursday confirmed that Ottawa will not advance operating funds from the 2009/10 fiscal year to deal with a projected $65-million TV ad revenue shortfall for the current year to March 31.

That decision could open the way for possible job and programming cuts at the CBC.

‘If we are to maintain our strategic momentum, we must protect, to the extent possible, our key assets,¬ our people and our programs. But we too will be looking at reducing our services in the new fiscal year,’ Lacroix warned.

The CBC president accepted his network had taken flak for airing Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! in early primetime. But he defended those U.S. program purchases as necessary to subsidize the production of Canadian programming.

CBC programmers late Thursday said Lacroix’s comments on American fare do not necessarily mean an increase in foreign content on the CBC schedule over the coming year.

Instead, the CBC could trade up on its existing U.S. series like the American game shows, while maintaining current Canadian-content levels.