The More Money CBC Takes From Taxpayers, The More They Fail

Endless taxpayer funding has ‘liberated’ CBC from having to actually respond to what people want, and instead push the state-mandated narrative that is deeply unpopular.

In Communist States, propaganda organs of the Party were widely unpopular, and the butt of many jokes.

People knew they were being lied to, and the propaganda outlets knew the people knew they were lying.

But of course, in those states there was no competition in the media.

Everything was controlled by the state, and alternative opinions weren’t allowed.

So, people had the choice of consuming the garbage state-media, or consuming nothing at all.

And the state would pour endless money into the propaganda outlets, since it was their best way to tell people what the ‘accepted narrative’ was, even if the narrative was total BS and everyone knew it.

But, what happens when you have a combination of endless government funding for state propaganda in a country where some semblance of media competition still remains?

Horrific ratings, and a brutal drain of taxpayers money.

And that brings us to the CBC.

As noted by True North following a Blacklock’s report, the Trudeau government is claiming CBC is under ‘immense pressure’ financially:

“Despite receiving $1.2 billion annually from Canadian taxpayers, the Department of Canadian Heritage claims the CBC is under immense financial pressure.

“The Covid-19 pandemic and the challenges of covering it put immense pressure on CBC’s workforce, operations, finances and systems,” said the April 20 briefing note Funding Support For The CBC, which was first reported on by Blacklocks Reporter.

“The postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics also put additional pressure on its cash flow.”

The CBC was steadily losing advertising revenue long before the pandemic, with CBC TV revenue decreasing 53% between 2014 and 2019.”

True North further notes how “CBC engages with very few Canadians,” as only 0.8% of people in the country watch the evening CBC news program, and just 4% regularly watch CBC television.

$1.2 billion to reach 0.8% of the population.

Those are horrendous numbers for an outlet that has access to both massive taxpayer funding and private ad revenue.

The more they get, the worse they perform

In theory, CBC should be succeeding.

They’ve been taking more and more taxpayer dollars every year, with the Trudeau government giving CBC close to an extra half-billion, and adding many more millions in the past few years. In the latest federal budget, CBC is getting over $20 million more – on top of all the extra funding.

Yet, it seems that more money = worse results for Canada’s state propaganda outlet.

Why would this be?

Because all their taxpayer funding has ‘insulated’ them from actually needing to reach their audience with good content.

If CBC was forced to respond to market forces, if they were forced to compete on an even level, they wouldn’t have the luxury of putting forth such biased opinions and only pushing the government narrative.

They wouldn’t have the luxury of putting out shows that are more about quotas and political correctness rather than entertainment.

That would all still be the case if they only received taxpayer funding. But, they also get funding from private ads, which demonstrates even further the depths of their failure.

With such an advantage over their competitors (as can be seen in how CBC snaps up reporters from outlets across the country), CBC should tower over all others in the ratings, yet it’s exactly the opposite.

And that private ad revenue tells the story of how CBC simply doesn’t provide what any audience is really looking for.

As noted above, CBC lost more than half of their private ad revenue between 2014 and 2019, and the reason is clear.

As True North points out, the government regularly receives complaints about CBC’s bias:

“The government briefing note claims the CBC is a source of “trusted news and information,” but also acknowledged widespread complaints from Canadians. 

“The CRTC received more than 10,000 public interventions, many of which were critical of a perceived left-wing bias in CBC’s news reporting,” the briefing note reads.”

Claiming to be a ‘public broadcaster’ while instead being a state propaganda outlet is more than enough to drive away legions of potential viewers, and that is exactly what has taken place.

Thus, it’s no surprise that CBC has suffered such a drop in private ad revenue.

No incentive to provide good content

When private outlets struggle, they have to adapt, and get a better understanding of why they aren’t succeeding.

For CBC however, they can simply go back to the well of taxpayer dollars.

This creates a feedback loop, where CBC’s poor content hurts their private ad revenue, thus causing them to become further reliant on taxpayer funding, thus weakening the incentive to provide good content, thus hurting private ad revenue, and so on…

Turns out, Canadians don’t like watching an overtly-biased state propaganda outlet, so CBC continuously demands that Canadians be deprived of choice, and instead forced to fund CBC with our tax dollars.

The ‘CBC-ification’ of Canadian media

In a sane world, CBC’s endless struggles and endless demands for taxpayer bailouts would cause the rest of the Canadian establishment press to do the opposite of what CBC does, and would lead to the defunding of CBC.

Instead however, much of Canadian media is becoming more and more like CBC, and CBC keeps getting more money taken from taxpayers.

As Independent Media in this country continues to grow without taxpayer funding, it is evidence that market forces in this country are demanding alternative viewpoints, and want journalists and commentators who actually hold governments accountable.

Meanwhile, the establishment press is becoming more reliant on government bailouts, turning even ‘private outlets’ into quasi-state broadcasters.

That will inevitably lead to a decline in their viewership, and thus a demand for more taxpayer dollars, leading to the same downward cycle CBC finds itself in.

As a result, it’s no surprise that people like Yours Truly, and outlets like True North, The Post Millennial, the Western Standard, The Rebel, The National Telegraph, and more are succeeding and building large and growing audiences.

Attack on free speech

However, because of the growth in Independent Media I mentioned above, the Trudeau government, along with support from the NDP, are pushing legislation like Bill C-10 and Bill C-36 that are clearly meant to give the government more power to shut down outlets they disagree with.

They are doing this because they see how Canadians increasingly choose alternative media when actually given a choice.

Statists hate that.

They hate seeing people choose a non-statist, non-establishment source for news and opinion, so they try to use the power of the government to shut it down.

We are witnessing a clear attack on free speech, and it’s often cheered on by CBC and the establishment press – who just so happen to be dependent on the government that is trying to wipe out their Independent competitors.

Thus, we are now in the middle of a fight for free speech and free expression in Canada, with Independent minded, freedom-supporting Canadians on one-side, and neo-com control-obsessed statists on the other. The winner of that battle will determine whether Canada is a free nation or not.

Spencer Fernando

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