Thursday, February 11, 2010

A Book about the CBC; any Blogging Tories care to contribute?

A wise man once said "I get by with a little help from my friends" and as I embark on my journey writing a book about the CBC, I would like to know if any Blogging Tories would like to make a literary contribution? The objective of the book is to examine the CBC's parliamentary appropriations, revenues, ratings, and expenditures in order to determine what exactly our billions of tax dollars have been paying for.  I am starting to like the title "where have all our loonies gone?" (originally a play on where have all the cowboys gone) as loonie in this case has a double entendre as dollars spent and an accumulation of lunatics.

As I have been writing about my plans, I have received some messages from other bloggers asking if they can help. I have been thinking about it, and I would like to extend an offer; if any of my fellow bloggers would like to contribute a chapter to my book, I will put your name on the cover and agree to sign over a percentage of revenues on sales. If the book is 300 pages and you chip in 15 pages, you would be entitled to 5% of whatever share is allocated to the author(s).  The more site hosts who have a monetary stake, the more avenues there are for promotion.  Don't call me Joe the Plumber, because I'd like to spread the wealth!

For example, I would like to dedicate a chapter to Harvey Cashore and his "Gulliver's expense reports", but I am not an expert on his crusade against Brian Mulroney. Is there anybody out there who would like to chip in a few thousand words on the Mulroney-Schreiber affair or any other abuse of CBC funding or influence? How much did that entire escapade cost Canadian tax payers? If any Blogging Tories have an existing catalogue on CBC spending and bias and would like to parlay that with new material into co-writing a book about the CBC, please send your ideas to icemanthe96@yahoo.ca.

I have not yet started looking for a book deal and don't know where to start. Since I have yet to write a book, I imagine that I will have to write most of the content before I can consider finding a publisher. I already have a catalogue of material, but the meat and potatoes of my new content will depend on what I can acquire in my Access to Information request, which has been completed and will be sent in the mail shortly. To complete your own access to information request, visit this site, fill out the form, and send your request (along with $5) to :

Canadian Broadcast Corporation
Meg Angevine
Access to Information and Privacy Coordinator
181 Queen St
P.O Box 3220 Station C
Ottawa, ON, K1Y 1E4

For interests sake, here is a copy of the memo I sent along with my request.  I am planning on sending a carbon copy of my request to Stockwell Day at the Treasury Board as a hedge.

I am a private citizen and I would like to request more information about the CBC’s parliamentary appropriations, how those monies were spent, in addition to as much information as exists on ratings, revenue, and expenditures as reported by all divisions of the Corporation. I currently have the 2005 Auditor General’s Report as my base of reference. I was formerly a Registration Officer with Elections Canada. Here is a more detailed description of the information I am seeking.

1) I would like to request information on all parliamentary appropriations received by the CBC, and where those funds were distributed among the various divisions of the Corporation. The CRTC license for the CBC specialty channels states that:

24. From the time they were issued, RDI and Newsworld’s respective licenses have included conditions requiring the licensees to maintain separate accounts from the CBC's television networks. The licensees file an annual statement of accounts relating to their specific revenues and expenditures.

25. The purpose of these conditions of license is to ensure that specialty services funded largely through subscriber fees, are not underwritten by the CBC’s parliamentary grants; tax dollars intended to fund the over-the-air radio and television services. This rationale is still valid and the Commission has re-imposed these conditions.

2) I would like to request the annual statements of accounts dating back to 2005, including the annual revenue generated by Newsworld and the main channels, and the total sum of expenditures incurred by those entities.


3) What revenue is generated from each CBC franchise? I would be interested to review expense reports and operational decisions made between Newsworld and the main channels. How much does it cost to produce Power and Politics, what are their television ratings, and how much revenue does that franchise generate?


4) On the issue of television ratings, my programs of interest include: Politics with Don Newman, Power and Politics with Evan Soloman, The Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Royal Canadian Air Farce, Hockey Night in Canada, and the National.

On page 23 of the 2005 Auditor General’s Report, there is a mandated list of six performance indicators that the CBC are required to track in order to maintain quality of service. These include:

1) Weekly Reach, number of people who use each service each week
2) Weekly Share, percentage of all viewing time captured by each service
3) Essential Service, the percentage of adult Canadians who agree that it is essential that the service provided by the Corporation is available to Canadians
4) Satisfaction, the percentage of adult Canadians who agree that they are satisfied with the programming.

5) I would like to request any and all information regarding these performance statistics dating back to 2005. I would like to see ratings information for all Newsworld programming to measure against revenue and cost information.


6) What information has the CBC accumulated about who is watching, are they satisfied, and how many rate the service provided as an essential service?

12 comments:

  1. You should also look into David Suzuki's The Nature Of Things.

    Are you going to be looking into bias as well? If it's a government entity, shouldn't it be more like CPAC and not the dissenting voice of the Opposition, who only make up part of Parliament?

    I would like to pre-order your book when it's done.

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  2. I plan to do an observational study on media bias when Parliament resumes in March. I don't watch CPAC (which I believe is privately owned), and besides, "watching CPAC so you don't have to" doesn't have the same ring to it.

    Yes you are correct. I need to dedicate a chapter to "David Suzuki; where environmentalism ends and Marxism begins". I used to love his show back when it was about nature, saving whales and rain forests, etc and not how taking the bus to work will prevent an ice age.

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  3. I have a large catalogue on Environmental Marxism.

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  4. o/t Iffy demands what PMSH announced in January.
    What a clown.

    Afghan detainees hearings to resume in March
    by Juliet O'Neill, Canwest News Service
    January 27, 2010

    OTTAWA — The government has opened the way for more formal hearings on the Afghan detainees affair, pledging Wednesday to reconvene the special Commons committee on Afghanistan when Parliament resumes in early March.

    http://www.canada.com/Afghan+detainees+hearings+resume+March/2490526/story.html

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  5. That's funny wilson, I am knee deep in my next post about Ignatieff's new found demands... :)

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  6. Don't forget strombo and The Hour. He does his share of advocating and politicking.

    Let me think about what I could contribute. I'm not so prolific as I'd like to be but if I can think of a slice of the appropriate size I might be able to help.

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  7. It doesn't have to be an entire chapter. It can just be an essay. I don't mind alloting revenue sharing in 1% increments.

    Do you want to write an essay about Strombo? Fill out a Access to Information request form form more details about the program, production costs, ratings, revenues, etc. This is of course if you don't mind sending a $5 fee to the CBC.

    I am expecting heavily redacted information, if I am permitted any at all.

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  8. Speaking of George, he has grown fond of his "Going Prorogue" segment. I'm wondering who was the first online to use "Going Prorogue", because I wrote a post with that title on Christmas Eve. Did anyone beat me to it, or was I the first? Because I have seen a lot of people in the media exploiting that phrase for financial gain.

    "Originality is the art of concealing your sources"

    -Albert Einstein

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  9. How far back are you going? There was that incredibly biased documentary about our veterans "The Valour and the Horror" in 1992. The second part "Death by Moonlight: Bomber Command" portrayed our courageous airmen as guilty of war crimes. This was directed by Brian McKenna of Fifth Estate fame.

    The series was shown on both the English and French networks. After numerous complaints, the CRTC investigated the documentary.

    By the way I see PBS Vermont this Monday showed a similar biased documentary on American bombers in Germany. The leftists always play the same stories over and over again about our war crimes (Hiroshima is another one they never get tired of).

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  10. I am going back to 2005 in my request for financial reports and ratings information, but for skeletons of biased journalism in their closet, there is no statute of limitations.

    Not unlike how Don Newman takes credit for scuddling Meech Lake.

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  11. Speaking of bias in the media, I would just like to draw your attention to Le Devoir which published two articles about Jews on its front page today.

    One article talks about the Jewish private schools and the 'horrible'
    possibility that the trial balloon of opening schools on Saturday is really
    because of Jewish pressure. The second article talks about the late Rémy
    Beauregard of Rights and Democracy and how a memo written by Beauregard six
    months before his death caused by stress has turned up. The memo claims that new members of
    the board of governors of the non-profit government subsidized organization
    criticized the president of the organization for not being sufficiently
    sensitive to Jewish issues among other crimes.

    While the latter article recaps an article from Maclean's, I find it
    disturbing that Le Devoir has two articles of this nature on its front page.
    This is not the first time either that the paper has repeatedly underlined
    the 'non-conformity' of Jewish private schools, despite the fact that the
    schools were either on the way to reaching an agreement with the Minister of
    Education or the fact that these schools have a few hundred students versus
    the vast numbers of students across Quebec.

    Le Devoir's priorities are bizarre, if not downright anti-semitic.

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  12. If you need help on this, may I suggest The Teamakers?

    http://theteamakers.com

    They were a big help when I did some polls on what people wanted out of the CBC last year.

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