I sent the following letter (as an e-mail, I'll follow up by sending letters by postal mail) last night to each of the Members of Parliament listed below:
- Bill Siksay, NDP culture critic
- Denis Coderre, Liberal Heritage critic
- John Godfrey, Liberal party
- Jim Abbott, Parliamentary Secretary for Heritage
- Gary Schellenberger, Chair of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage
- Maria Mourani, Vice Chair of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage
- Andy Scott Vice Chair of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage
- Michael D. Chong, Conservative party
- Dean Del Mastro, Conservative party
- Ed Fast, Conservative party
- Hedy Fry, Liberal party
- Luc Malo Bloc Quebecois
- Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal party
The meeting of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage at 3:30 PM today will be televised, according to the meeting notice. Have a look on CPAC and let's see what our elected representatives have to say to the CBC executives!
It is my understanding that there will be a meeting of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on May 1, 2008, and that Mr. Hubert Lacroix, Mr. Sylvain Lafrance and Mr. Richard Stursberg have been invited to the meeting. I understand that the purpose of the meeting is a "Study of Plans and Priorities of CBC/Radio-Canada". I am writing to bring to your attention the following points, which I believe should be especially relevant for such a discussion:
1. I, and many other Canadians, do not believe that CBC Radio is adequately serving the needs and interests of Canadians.
2. I do not believe that CBC Radio management is attempting to solicit the opinions of the CBC Radio listening audience in a manner which allows the listening audience to have a meaningful voice in the choice of programming.
3. I believe CBC Radio management is making programming decisions which do not reflect the needs and interests of Canadians and is doing so based on information that they are unwilling to share with the CBC Radio listening audience.
4. I believe that CBC Radio is unwilling to let listeners comment on the programming changes that have already been made and are operating CBC Radio in an aura of secrecy that is not acceptable for Canada's public broadcasting system.
I provide the following as evidence for each of the above points:
1. I, and many other Canadians, do not believe that CBC Radio is adequately serving the needs and interests of Canadians.
Please see the petition concerning the increasing amount of pop music played on CBC Radio One at the following web site:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/stopcbcpop.
To date (April 30, 2008) this petition has been signed by 2,001 individuals.
Please see the petitions concerning the changes made to the CBC Radio Two programming schedule on March 19, 2007 at:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/returnclassicalmusictocbcradio
and
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/cbcradio2.
To date (April 30, 2008) these petitions have been signed by 248 and 5,004 individuals, respectively.
Please see the membership of the Facebook group "Save Classical Music at the CBC" and the comments made by these members. To date (April 30, 2008) this group has 15,038 members.
Please see the membership of the Facebook group "Save the CBC Radio Orchestra". To date (April 30, 2008) this group has 7,673 members.
Please see the comments made on the Facebook event page for the "Raise a Ruckus for Radio Two", held on April 11, 2008 in cities across Canada.
Please see the comments made concerning the recent programming changes to the evening schedule of CBC Radio Two at the following web sites:
http://www.insidethecbc.com/r2evenings
http://www.insidethecbc.com/newshowdeets#comments
http://www.insidethecbc.com/newr2
Please see the newspaper column written by Mr. Hugh Anderson in the Montreal Gazette on April 9 2007 at this address:
http://www.publicairwaves.ca/index.php?page=1838
Please see the newspaper column written by Mr. Jeffrey Simpson in the Globe and Mail on March 29 2008 at this address:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/subscribe?user_URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fservlet%2Fstory%2FLAC.20080329.COSIMP29%2FTPStory%2F%3Fquery%3Djeffrey%2Bsimpson&ord=156092935&brand=theglobeandmail&force_login=true
Please see the newspaper columns written by Mr. Russell Smith in the Globe and Mail on March 13 and March 20, 2008:
2. I do not believe that CBC Radio management is attempting to solicit the opinions of the CBC Radio listening audience in a manner which allows the listening audience to have a meaningful voice in the choice of programming.
The changes made to the evening programming of CBC Radio Two on March 19, 2007 were made without consulting the CBC Radio Two listening audience and without providing advance notice of the planned changes. There was no opportunity for the CBC Radio Two listening audience to comment on the planned changes before they were introduced. Instead, these programming changes were launched on March 19 2007 as a fait accompli.Subsequent changes to the weekend programming and the recently announced changes to the daytime schedule were also made without consulting the listening audience. The result has been a storm of protest from CBC Radio Two listeners, as noted in point #1 above.
3. I believe CBC Radio management is making programming decisions which do not reflect the needs and interests of Canadians and is doing so based on information that they are unwilling to share with the CBC Radio listening audience.
CBC Radio management has alluded to public consultation that was done prior to the programming changes being announced. I refer you to an article in the March 19 2007 Globe and Mail in which Ms. Jennifer McGuire is quoted as saying: "we have talked to all the organizations. We talked to composers. We talked to them when we started the study [to overhaul CBC Radio] and when we were thinking about what it meant in terms of programming changes ... That conversation continues to be ongoing." However, conspicuous by its absence is any mention of consulting the CBC Radio listening audience.
CBC Radio management has also referred to an "arts and culture study" which is driving many of the recent programming changes. In the meeting report of the New Music Community and CBC Radio, it is reported that CBC Radio is unwilling to make this study public as it is an "internal document". You may view the entire meeting report at the following web site:
http://www.stopcbcpop.ca/CBC_New%20Music_Dec05.htm
To my knowledge, the management of CBC Radio has never released the contents of this report to any interested group.
4. I believe that CBC Radio is unwilling to let listeners comment on the programming changes that have already been made and are operating CBC Radio in an aura of secrecy that is not acceptable for Canada's public broadcasting system.
Although the new CBC Radio Two evening schedule was launched on March 19 2007, there has been no public forum accessible from CBC Radio Two's web site for listeners to comment on the new programming. There is a web site (http://www.insidethecbc.com) that claims to be the "official" CBC Radio blog, but this site has been closed to further public comments on the new CBC Radio Two evening schedule since April 10, 2007. Furthermore, since there is no link to this web site on the CBC Radio Two web site, I do not believe it is known to many listeners or users of the CBC Radio Two web site. There is also a link to provide feedback to CBC Radio (the "Tell Us What You Think" link) but this does not allow one to read comments left by other listeners, and there is no means to see replies left by CBC Radio management. Subsequent changes to the weekend programming have similarly been introduced without allowing CBC Radio Two listeners the opportunity to comment on the programming changes.
I am writing to protest against the behaviour of CBC Radio management since, by excluding the participation of the listening audience in the operation of CBC Radio, CBC Radio management is not adhering to the requirements of the Broadcasting Act, 1991. I am referring specifically to the following clause:
3.(1) It is hereby declared as the broadcasting policy for Canada that
a) the Canadian broadcasting system shall be effectively owned and controlled by Canadians
The Broadcasting Act, 1991 also states:
40. The Corporation is ultimately accountable, through the Minister, to Parliament for the conduct of its affairs.
I therefore urge you to recommend that CBC Radio management take the following specific actions when planning future programming changes:
1. Establish a web site where listeners can post comments. All comments should be permitted, except those that are derogatory, defamatory, use profanity or are otherwise unacceptable in a public forum. The comments should be visible by all users of the site.
2. Post the "arts and culture survey" mentioned above on the CBC Radio web site, with a link that is easily found on the main page of the CBC Radio web site.
3. Release any other surveys of the listening audience that have been done in the past three years and that are being used to justify any further programming changes.
4. Announce any further programming changes three months in advance of their implementation. These announcements should be made on the CBC Radio web site, with a link that is easily found on the main page of the CBC Radio web site.
5. Solicit listener feedback on any programming changes before they are implemented and display this feedback on the CBC Radio web site, with a link to this feedback that is easily found on the main page of the CBC Radio web site. CBC Radio management should not implement any future programming changes if the weight of public opinion, as determined through the feedback received, is not in favour of the proposed programming changes.
6. Establish a Listener's Council, formed from volunteers from the listening audience, performers and members of the arts and culture community to participate in the discussion and implementation of any future programming changes.
I believe that the above recommendations, if implemented by CBC Radio management, will be a good first step in returning CBC Radio to those who deserve to have a voice in the conduct of the corporation - the shareholders in the corporation, who also happen to be the taxpayers of Canada.
Sincerely,
James Wooten
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