[LINK] The Ottawa Citizen on the Maxine Bernier threat to the CBC

[rfmcdonald]

The National Post carries a report, from Jason Fekete of the Ottawa Citizen, about how Maxine Bernier would like to undermine the CBC as a strong broadcaster with adequate public funding.

Conservative leadership candidate Maxime Bernier is promising to overhaul CBC/Radio-Canada – an institution he says “seems frozen in time” — by cutting hundreds of millions in funding, streamlining its mandate and getting it out of the advertising market.

Bernier says CBC/Radio-Canada “should stop doing three-quarters of what it still does” that private broadcasters are already doing, including running game shows and cooking programs, sports programming, music streaming and a website devoted to opinion journalism.

It also needs to stop “unfairly” competing with struggling private media in a shrinking advertising market, he says.

With a media landscape that now includes hundreds of channels and millions of sources of information and culture, “CBC/Radio-Canada seems frozen in time,” he said.

“It tries to occupy every niche, even though it doesn’t have and will never have the means to do so, with the result being lower-quality programming,” Bernier told reporters.

“With my proposal, CBC/Radio-Canada will stop competing unfairly with private media, and will be more respectful of the taxpayers that help fund it. It will also become a more relevant public institution, helping to reinforce our culture and our national identity.”