Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

:CBC redirects here, as this is the most common use of the abbreviation in English. For other uses, see CBC (disambiguation).

Overview

The CBC's predecessor, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, was established in 1932 by the government of R.B. Bennett after an intense lobbying campaign by Graham Spry and Alan Plaunt of the Canadian Radio League which had been set up in 1930 to campaign for the implementation of recommendations by the Aird Commission on public broadcasting. A major concern was the growing influence of American radio broadcasting as US based networks began to expand into Canada.

Related Topics:
1932 - R.B. Bennett - Graham Spry - Alan Plaunt - Canadian Radio League - 1930 - Aird Commission

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The CRBC took over a network of radio stations formerly set up by the federal Crown corporation Canadian National Railways, which were used to broadcast programming to riders aboard its passenger trains, with coverage primarily in central and eastern Canada. On November 2, 1936, the CRBC became a full Crown corporation, and gained its present name.

Related Topics:
Radio station - Canadian National Railways - November 2 - 1936

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For the next few decades, the CBC was responsible for all broadcasting innovation in Canada. It introduced FM radio to Canada in 1946. Television broadcasts from the CBC began on September 6, 1952, with the opening of a station in Montreal, Quebec (CBFT), and a station in Toronto, Ontario (CBLT) opening two days later. On July 1, 1958, CBC TV was linked from coast to coast. Colour television broadcasts began on July 1, 1966, with full colour service being achieved in 1974. In 1978, CBC became the first broadcaster in the world to use an orbiting satellite for television service, linking Canada "from east to west to north". Since the 1970s, the CBC has not dominated broadcasting in Canada like it formerly did, but still plays an important role. Today, the CBC operates several radio, terrestrial television and cable television networks, in both English and French, as well as a number of Aboriginal languages in the North.

Related Topics:
FM radio - 1946 - September 6 - 1952 - Montreal, Quebec - CBFT - Toronto, Ontario - CBLT - July 1 - 1958 - 1966 - 1974 - 1978 - 1970s - Radio - Terrestrial television - Cable television - English - French

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Unlike the public broadcasters of many European nations, the CBC's television networks sell advertising and do not collect a licence fee. However, the CBC does receive under a billion dollars annually in federal funding, which is the source of heated debates. The CBC's radio networks do not air any commercial advertising.

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This and other aspects make the CBC more controversial than most other public broadcasters, including the BBC. Critics, often led by private media, sometimes accuse the network of cultural elitism, liberal bias, or bias in favour of the current governing party. The CBC is also sometimes thought to have an unfair advantage in the Canadian television marketplace, because it competes with private broadcasters for advertising dollars, while simultaneously receiving the subsidy of a government grant.

Related Topics:
BBC - Liberal bias

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The CBC?s cultural influence, like that of many public broadcasters, has waned in recent decades. This is partly due to severe budget cuts by the Canadian federal government, which began in the late 1980s and levelled off in the late 1990s. It is also due to industry-wide fragmentation of TV audiences (the decline of network TV generally, due to the rise in specialty channel viewership, as well as the increase of non-TV entertainment options such as videogames, the Internet, etc.). Private networks in Canada face the same competition, but their viewership has declined less than that of CBC TV, because Canadian private TV networks primarily rebroadcast American programming with Canadian advertising inserted in it. American shows are very popular among Canadians, and often attract much higher audiences than made-in-Canada programming.

Related Topics:
1980s - 1990s

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Many believe the CBC acts as a necessary counterbalance to what they perceive to be the conservative bias of private networks, or that it preserves Canadian culture against the homogenizing influence of rebroadcast American programming. Canadians continue to poll in favour of maintaining funding to the CBC. As it was initially conceived, the CBC ensures that Canadian stations act as more than just affiliates broadcasting foreign content. The Canadian government attempts to balance funding inequities between private and public networks by providing large subsidies for private production of Canadian content.

Related Topics:
Conservative bias - Canadian culture

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It should be noted that CBC and Radio-Canada are often, mistakenly, considered two separate entities when they are in fact, from a legal standpoint, one and the same. Indeed many personalities, particularly in news, and occasionally some individual series appear on both English- and French-language networks. Nonetheless it is generally clear to the casual observer that the English and French operations are very different from each other in matters such as branding, programming, and bases of operations, owing to the cultural differences between English and French Canada. While there have been attempts at corporate branding, including using "SRC" as the main French-language brand instead of "Radio-Canada", most such efforts have failed. Moreover, the CBC has never attempted to impose the "CBC" brand on French Canada in the way the "BBC" brand has come to be used on Welsh, Gaelic, and other non-English broadcasts.

Related Topics:
English - French Canada - BBC

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