So the only way out is to eat more and more and there will be less competition and everything will be fine. In fact, the bigger they get the more impossible it becomes for them to survive. Public broadcasting, on the other hand, has become one of the most important channels for a nation state to communicate with its citizens. Private broadcasting has become more and more about profit, said Saul. Content is there to drive profit.
Public broadcasting has to be about content or there is no point.
What I learned throughout the conference is how public policy over the last 10 or 15 years has gradually shifted funding from the CBC to the private sector. Like many of our public services and social programs, the CBC has been dying of a thousand cuts, but unlike in other areas, the money has not disappeared. While this would help the CBC, it would leave independent producers only one market and given the current state of the corporation, that would be a problem. The closed bureaucratic corporate culture of the CBC itself was also an issue at the conference. Others said the CBC should be reaching out to other public service and community broadcasters like community radio and educational TV networks to share their resources and make strategic alliances.