canadian broadcasting corporation

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

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known by the abbreviation CBC, is Canada's government-owned television network and radio network. In French, it is called la Socité Radio-Canada (Radio-Canada or SRC).

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. 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. In 1936, the CRBC became a full Crown corporation, and gained its present name. 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 television and radio networks, in both English and French, as well as a number of Aboriginal languages in the North. Unlike the public broadcasters of many European nations, the CBC's television networks (not radio services) sell advertising and do not collect a licence fee. However, the CBC does receive under a billion dollars annually in federal funding, which has led to controversy in recent years. Critics, often led by private media, accuse the network of cultural elitism and a strong liberal bias that rarely reflects the viewing needs of the Canadian public. Indeed, as private networks have expanded, their viewership often exceeds the CBC's. Private networks often broadcast American programs with higher production values to attract larger audiences than Canadian content can provide. Others counter the CBC acts as a necessary counterbalance to what they perceive to be the obvious conservative bias of private networks. Canadians continue to poll in favour of maintaining funding to the CBC. Many still believe that the CBC is an essential Canadian institution whose function is to preserve Canadian culture against American. 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.


In Quebec, where the majority speaks French, the television of Radio-Canada (the French division of the CBC) is popular and gets some of the highest ratings in the province. The language barrier keeps viewers from tuning to US channels in as large number as the rest of English-speaking Canada, but it is also explained by other cultural differences.

Programming

CBC Television

See: List of programs broadcast by CBC The CBC operates two national broadcast television networks, one in English and one in French. Both sell advertising, and are otherwise similar to the privately-owned networks, but still rely more heavily on Canadian-produced programming than the others. Most CBC television stations, including those in all of the major cities are owned and operated by the CBC itself, and thus deviate very little from the main network schedule (although there are some regional differences from time to time). Some of the stations broadcasting from smaller cities are private affiliates of the CBC, that is, stations which are owned by commercial broadcasters but air a predominantly CBC schedule. Such stations generally follow the CBC schedule, although they may opt out of some CBC programming in order to air locally-produced programs, syndicated series or programs purchased from other broadcasters (especially CH) which do not have a broadcast outlet in the same market. In these cases, the CBC programming being displaced may be broadcast at a different time than the network, or may not be broadcast on the station at all. Private affiliates generally opt out of CBC's afternoon schedule, Thursday night arts programming, ZeD and Canada Now. Private affiliates carry the 10 p.m. broadcast of The National as a core part of the CBC schedule, but do not generally carry the 11 p.m. repeat. Private CBC affiliates are not as common as they were in the past, as many such stations have been purchased either by the CBC itself or by CHUM Limited, becoming NewNet stations. CBC television stations in northern Canada tailor their programming mostly to the local native population, and broadcast in many native languages. The CBC's French arm, Socit Radio-Canada (SRC), has stations or repeaters in every province and territory, and is the only francophone network in Canada which broadcasts nationally. (TVA and TQS only broadcast over the air in Quebec, although TVA is available across Canada on cable.) SRC has some private affiliates in Quebec, although with few sources for non-SRC programming, these affiliates do not deviate from the SRC network schedule as much as the English network's private affiliates do. All SRC service outside of Quebec, however, is provided by the network itself. One of the most popular shows on the television networks of both CBC and Radio-Canada is the weekly Saturday night broadcast of a NHL hockey game. In English, the program is known as "Hockey Night in Canada", and in French, it is called "La soire du hockey". Both shows have been televised since 1952. The French edition was discontinued in 2004.

Other CBC television services

The CBC operates three specialty television channels—CBC Newsworld, an English-language news channel, RDI, a French-language news channel, and CBC Country Canada, a digital service. Through a joint venture with the National Film Board, CBC runs another digital specialty station, the Documentary Channel.

Closed captioning

CBC Television and CBC Newsworld are the only broadcasters in Canada (and very likely the only broadcasters worldwide) required to caption 100% of their programming. On those networks, only outside commercials do not need to be captioned, though a bare majority of them are aired with captions. All shows, bumpers, billboards, promos, and other internal programming must be captioned. The requirement stems from a human-rights complaint filed by deaf lawyer Henry Vlug that was settled in 2002.

Slogans

CBC:

1966: "Television is CBC"
1977: "Bringing Canadians Together"
1988: "Best on the Box"
1996: "Television to Call Our Own"
2002: "Canada's Own"

SRC:

Ici Radio-Canada (tr. "This is Radio-Canada" or, literally, "Here is Radio-Canada")
Vous allez voir (tr. "You are going to see")

CBC Radio

CBC Radio has four separate services: two in English, known as CBC Radio One and CBC Radio Two, and two in French, known as La Premire Chane and Espace Musique. All radio services are commercial-free. CBC Radio One and La Premire Chane focus on news and information programming, but air some music programs, variety shows, comedy, and sports programming as well. Historically, CBC Radio One has broadcast primarily on the AM band, but many stations have moved over to the FM band, especially in larger cities where radio-frequency interference affects AM radio reception. CBC Radio Two and Espace Musique, which are found exclusively on FM, air arts and cultural programming, with a primary focus on music, mostly classical. CBC Radio also operates two shortwave services. One is a domestic service for Northern Quebec, and the other is Radio Canada International, which broadcasts to the United States and around the world. Two CBC Radio One stations, one in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, and one in Vancouver, British Columbia, also operate shortwave relay transmitters. All transmitters run at 1 kilowatt of output power and are barely audible in their intended target areas due to increased terrestrial noise from electrial and electronic systems. There is a proposal on the Internet for a high power shortwave DRM CBC Radio service, using 2 50-kW SW transmitters to cover about 95% of Canada's total surface area with CBC-SRC Radio (http://cbc.am/cbc-src.htm). However, the CBC-SRC's ongoing implementation of terrestrial HDTV & DAB transmission services will make this overdue service improvement economically impossible for the next several years.

Other ventures

CBC Radio Three is a broadband online magazine only available on the Internet (the magazine is being shelved as the CBC re-designs the arts & culture portals on its website), providing streaming audio devoted to youth culture and independent music. It is operated through the CBC's New Media division. Despite its name, it is not a radio network, although some of its content airs as a Saturday evening program on Radio Two. Bandeapart is the French equivalent, and also airs content as a weekend program on Espace musique. CBC/Radio-Canada offers a 24-hour, 45-channel digital audio service known as Galaxie. The service is available on digital cable and direct broadcast satellite television providers across Canada. CBC/Radio-Canada also offer an extensive, free Archives service, available on the Internet, showcasing pivotal moments in Canadian history from the 1930s on. Over 8,000 clips and interviews from news and information programs provide an in-depth look at Canada's past. The CBC has also announced a partnership with Standard Broadcasting and Sirius Satellite Radio, with the intent of introducing satellite radio service to Canada. Its application and two others for satellite radio service are currently before the CRTC. If the application is approved, CBC Radio Three and Bandeapart will become full-time stations on that service. CBC Transmission has extensive experience in the design, installation and maintenance of broadcast transmission facilities and is able to provide a full menu of service offerings to the private sector. The company has also been experimented with podcasting of some of their radio programming. It's been a move that's been praised by some tech pundits as unusually ambitious for a public broadcaster.

CBC in the United States

From 1994 to 2000, the CBC also owned Newsworld International, an American cable channel which rebroadcast much of the programming of CBC Newsworld, and Trio, an arts and entertainment channel. In 2000, it sold the channels to Barry Diller's USA Networks. Diller's company was later acquired by Vivendi Universal, which in turn merged with NBC to form NBC Universal. NBC Universal sold Newsworld International to Joel Hyatt and former Vice-President of the United States Al Gore in 2004. Although the channel is no longer CBC-owned, the CBC continues to act as the channel's programmer. NBC continues to own Trio, which no longer has any association with the CBC. Newsworld International airs live CBC Newsworld coverage of major events affecting Canadians. On September 11, 2001, several American broadcasters without their own news operations, including C-SPAN, carried the CBC's coverage of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, DC. In the days after September 11, C-SPAN carried CBC's nightly newscast, The National, anchored by Peter Mansbridge. C-SPAN has also carried CBC's coverage of major events affecting Canadians. Among them:

Canadian federal elections.
Six emotional days in September 2000 that marked the death and state funeral of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
9/11 and key events surrounding it.
War in Iraq. "The National" aired on C-SPAN each night for about 3 weeks following the attacks on Iraq.
Power Outage Crisis.
Key Proceedings in Canadian Parliament. For example, the opening of another session of Parliament.
U.S. presidential elections

In 2004, C-SPAN picked up "The National" the day after the election for the Canadian view to the election.

State and official visits of American presidents to Canada.

During MSNBC's coverage of President George W. Bush's visit to Canada, the CBC senior parliamentary editor, Don Newman, appeared on MSNBC.

Several PBS stations also air some CBC programming, especially The Red Green Show, although no CBC programming currently airs on the full network schedule. Some CBC Radio One programs, most notably As It Happens, also air on some stations associated with American Public Media.