A Controversial Request

For the past 40 years, CBC and Radio-Canada radio has been a haven free from the bar­rage of com­mer­cials typ­i­cal of most other radio providers. As it stands, one can lis­ten to music or the debat­ing of impor­tant ques­tions on CBC/Radio-Canada radio with­out inter­rup­tion. But fol­low­ing recent cuts intro­duced in Jim Flaherty’s 2012 fed­eral bud­get, the Cor­po­ra­tion has asked the CRTC for per­mis­sion to broad­cast national com­mer­cials over Radio 2 and Espace Musique air­waves. Accord­ing to the CBC, this will lead to $15–20 mil­lion in rev­enue after two years, reach­ing $35-million by year seven.

The major­ity of par­tic­i­pants in the debate sur­round­ing the CBC’s request have been against the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of CBC Radio. Accord­ing to the Cana­dian Asso­ci­a­tion of Broad­cast­ers (CAB), a prece­dent will be set if the CRTC grants the CBC’s request. “Adver­tis­ing on Radio 2 and Espace Musique would cre­ate a prece­dent and could result in the cor­po­ra­tion ask­ing for the right to have adver­tis­ing on its other radio prop­er­ties, Radio 1 and La Pre­mière Chaîne,” argues the CAB. This “would ulti­mately recon­fig­ure the bal­ance of public/private ser­vices and the diver­sity in con­tent and for­mat each brings to the Cana­dian broad­cast­ing sys­tem.” In its memo con­cern­ing the request, Open Media/PIAC (Pub­lic Inter­est Advo­cacy Cen­tre) expressed con­cern as to “whether the need for com­mer­cial adver­tis­ing on these ser­vices will become a dom­i­nant con­cern for the CBC and change the nature of the pro­gram­ming in a way that under­mines its abil­ity to serve the pub­lic interest.”

Astral agrees that: “If today the CRTC were to approve the real­lo­ca­tion of the CBC’s par­lia­men­tary radio appro­pri­a­tions to tele­vi­sion, as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for autho­riz­ing the air­ing of com­mer­cials on Espace Musique and Radio Two, tomor­row it will be forced to allow the Cor­po­ra­tion to allo­cate a larger por­tion of its appro­pri­a­tions to tele­vi­sion, to arti­fi­cially jus­tify the need of its other sta­tions, La Pre­mière Chaîne and Radio One, to resort in their turn to com­mer­cial advertising.”

The Friends of Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing affirm that the allowance of com­mer­cials on Radio 2 and Espace Musique air­waves will have “a pro­foundly dele­te­ri­ous effect on the pub­lic ser­vice ori­en­ta­tion of the net­work, and deeply alien­ate its remain­ing audience.”

While the Asso­ci­a­tion québé­coise de l’industrie du disque, du spec­ta­cle et de la vidéo (ADISQ) hes­i­tates to accept the CBC’s request and has asked many ques­tions, the Cana­dian Inde­pen­dent Music Asso­ci­a­tion (CIMA) con­cedes that com­mer­cial adver­tis­ing is a nec­es­sary evil: “CIMA sup­ports the pro­posal in Item 11 by Radio 2 that the Con­di­tion of License pro­hibit­ing com­mer­cial mes­sages in most cir­cum­stances be changed by per­mit­ting the broad­cast of national adver­tis­ing. While not an ideal solu­tion, it goes some way to resolv­ing CBC’s cur­rent finan­cial chal­lenges. In today’s world, the need for pri­vate sec­tor financ­ing is a real­ity and it there­fore mer­its support.”