Showing the face of the CBC from the inside, that is the topic of tonight’s Byline.
Critics of this show like to say that I’m full of it on the CBC. They deny that the state broadcaster is left wing, that it has it’s own biases.
You know the truth and I know the truth. Well now thanks to a new book they can no longer deny the truth.
Richard Stursberg’s tell all insider tale of life at CBC was released on Saturday. CBC lovers are not big fans of Richard Stursberg, not the ones that love CBC as it existed for years – a “shoddy papier-mâché invention run by preeningly smug brainiacs” as Peter C Newman put it in his review. Newman by the way even used the term “state broadcaster.”
As I said in my newspaper column last week this book is a must read whether you love CBC or hate it.
Part of why I love the book is that someone who spent years on the inside, who still loves CBC and wants to see it grow – confirms much of what I have been saying for years. Namely, CBC is biased: it is left-wing.
“The CBC’s legendary inability to meet the most elementary test of good management, and its soft left, anti-business, Toronto-centric, politically correct cultural assumptions created significant problems for the corporation.”
I’d say.
Part of the problem CBC’s internal culture creates is that they dislike success. Not only do they not want to make programs that Canadians want to watch, much of their news coverage, including shows like Fifth Estate, detests success in others and they attack it.
But that’s not the subject of Strurberg’s book.
This book is about detailing his struggles to bring about change in the state broadcaster, to get them to care about producing shows audiences would want to watch.
Remarkably, this was an uphill battle. The culture at CBC was, and likely still is, such that the staff believes that producing good quality shows and producing shows that large audiences will watch are mutually exclusive endeavours.
Despite all this, despite knowing the culture, Richard Stursberg tried and in many ways succeed at turning around the state broadcaster’s dwindling audiences.
When he arrived ratings were at a 30 year low and CBC’s National, the flagship newscast was in third place in a three horse race. He boosted ratings across the board – average minute audiences went up by 52% for CBC between 2004 and 2010. New shows were a hit, old shows were revitalized.
Stursberg had high ratings and a favourable review from management.
So the organization that hates success fired him. In fact, he was fired by a man well known to this audience, Hubert Lacroix.
I may have a different view of the state broadcaster than Richard Stursberg but I must salute his success and his drive. We don’t agree on where the CBC should go but we both agree that if there is to be a CBC it should serve a broad swath of Canada and not as he puts it in the book – “the chatterati, the cultural elites.”
And that’s the Byline.
Buy the book here….
Categories: Byline
I am going to have to get this book Brian, but I will say that as someone who has friends working in the CBC on the technical side, I have a slight soft spot for some of their programming. Hockey Night in Canada, Dragon’s Den, and Republic of Doyle are all must watches for me. Yes, I quit watching Mansbingo and the news a long time ago, but I do watch Marketplace on occasion and the Fifth Estate has had some good stories on things like the OLGC mess over the ticket scams, McKeown’s numerous stories on sport related issues….and the like….
There is a place for the CBC I think if Stursburg is right and it is allowed to do things we would all appreciate. I look at shows like Top Gear on the BBC and realize there is a great role for a national broadcaster to think outside the box. Stursburg however points out how screwed up the CBC was and to an extent still is. Insiders who are my buddies in the technical side always laugh about how no matter how much is cut, the bureaucrats and management never seem to shrink, while the people actually DOING something take it in the ear……
I think most people are indifferent to the CBC,evidenced by how few are commenting on this board.
Having said that,the CBC is in a world unto themselves and only DRASTIC cuts to their funding will force them to change.
Brian, I viewed your interview online this morning, and want to tell you how much I appreciate the respect you showed Mr Stursberg. You asked your question, and then gave him space to reply. Although you clearly gave your own opinion, it was done respectfully. It was possible to hear what he said about his experience with the state broadcaster and his hopes for the network.
A job well done. Thank you.
So the inevitable “tell all” whistleblower book on Mothercorpse hits the shelves – dismal viewer numbers, bloated budgets, wanton waste, arrogant bias, pitiful self-interest and secrecy – all the traits of a bloated hollowed out monster of a crown corp. just begging to be put out of its misery – but it won’t happen. The eternal 20 billion dollar albatross limps on.
Someone please put this suffering animal put of its misery!
My observation, Brian, is that Mr. Stursberg appears to be his own tower of Babel.
For him to allege that the CBC has in the past been politically left of centre but is now more centrist in its reporting, was his talking out of both sides of his mouth, surely another way of describing the tower of Babel/Babble. I’m sorry you didn’t challenge him on this nonsensical and patently false statement. It would have been very informative to have asked him for a few examples of what he meant by that statement.
Although the CBC may have appeared to be a little more lenient towards the CPC in its interviews with CPC members, including PM Harper, during the last election, their principle reporters are indisputably left-of-centre and scathing towards c/Conservatives and their viewpoints.
First of all I second what Cora said about the interview. I do find it difficult to understand how he could think that the CBC is not biased. I do however agree with him when he says the CBC’s (since we are still stuck with it) role should be delivering quality Canadian content that viewers want to watch rather than showing American programs that one can find elsewhere. The CBC has no business competing with the private market as the state broadcaster. If the CBC is not privatised, there needs to be a big house-cleaning to ensure that the bias is removed and that it focus on attracting and satisfying viewers.