Op Ed On The CBC, Part 1: "Death Rattle" by journalist and former CBC'er, Dan MacLeod
[From Media Channel.org]

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. was created by act of Parliament in 1933 to provide national radio in both French and English, the country's two official languages. It was specifically set up to safeguard against Canada's being overrun by U.S. culture (to paraphrase a government minister).

When television came of age a generation later, that sentiment seemed all the more clairvoyant. In fact, from the '50s through the '70s, the CBC was one of the world's great public broadcasters.

But the Corporation was also evolving into its own self-contained world of bigger budgets, exploding infrastructure, myriad administrators and, ultimately, a kind of on-air arrogance. By 1984 a memo was pinned up in CBC newsrooms across the country: "Don't wear your fur coat in the studio."

Now, after 16 years of government cuts coupled with a stubborn in-house refusal to change, the Corporation is an object of derision for stand-up comics and columnists alike. What's left of the "people's network" remains out of touch, and the citizens who pay the bill are staying away in droves. The CBC is well on the road to oblivion..."

Read Article:
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/oped/macleod-cbc.shtml
( via Arts Journal, www.artsjournal.com )

PS: This article is from a new (Feb. '00) e-ziine, "Media Channel.org,: Eye On Global Media"
http://www.mediachannel.org/
This issue's general theme: "Reforming Public Broadcasters, Part 1"

Another article: "Teamsters And Turtles, Hackers And Tigers: Cyber Activism, Independents And The PBS Fortress"
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/oped/halleck.shtml

--Read the editor's column from their start-up issue:
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/oped/macleod-cbc.shtml

--They even dragged out 'America's most trusted man', Walter Cronkite, to write re the start-up!
http://www.mediachannel.org/originals/cronkite.shtml