The former CBC English boss believes the culture at Canada’s public broadcaster has become less poisonous since he left, but it still faces a huge technological battle against better-funded rivals.
As the former head of English-language services for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Richard Stursberg was on the front line of a yet-to-be-decided battle over Canadian culture and public broadcasting.
Colourful and unabashedly committed to shaking things up, Stursberg pushed hard to transform the CBC from a staid, mandate-driven broadcaster to one that embraced the power, the possibilities – and even the inherent silliness – of the broadcast medium.
During Stursberg’s 2004-2010 tenure, his fixation on ratings meant arts coverage could be replaced with reality shows (like Battle of the Blades). However, he also introduced high-quality scripted programming that reflected Canadian attitudes and values while providing a welcome alternative to U.S. imports, and worked closer with advertisers than at any time in its history.
Stursberg recently published a book detailing his time at the CBC called Tower of Babble (Douglas & McIntyre). It fires several broadsides at the power brokers and “chattering classes” who take a proprietary view of the public broadcaster, while at the same time providing highly readable accounts of his showdown with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman over the all important broadcast rights, his attempts to transform the CBC News department (which he describes in the book as “Fort News”), and his continued attempts to make CBC relevant in a country where the majority of TV viewers prefer foreign programming.
With all the news surrounding budget cuts at the CBC these days, your book arrives at a very opportune time.
In some ways it was accidental. A few months after I left the CBC, I signed a contract to write a book. It was pretty clear even at that point there were going to be some issues about government funding, but beyond that, it was going to face a whole series of other challenges…. Inevitably, it was going to be a good time [to come out with a book], because of all these things precipitated a conversation about what people really want from the Corporation.
What are your thoughts on the current situation faced by the CBC?
I think the real problem with the CBC is that nobody will come clean about what they want from the Corporation. There’s endless tension about whether it should be popular or an elitist organization, and from my point of view it should be popular. I cannot recall any government, Liberal or Tory, actually standing up on behalf of the public that owns the CBC and saying ‘This is what we want it to be.’ You can’t be both popular and elitist, because it’s pulled in conflicting directions.
The thing I find a little bit sad about all this is that, right now, the ratings for radio are the highest in 75 years, ratings for an all-Canadian primetime schedule are the highest they’ve ever been. So what’s going on? Canadians say ‘This is [the programming] we want. We like this much better than what we were getting in the past.’ That’s obviously true because they’re watching and listening and reading [the CBC] more than they used to. The sad part is that even when Canadians say ‘This is what we would like,’ it gets cut nevertheless, and nobody seems to draw the appropriate conclusion that it actually is what Canadians like.
In the wake of the government cuts (up to $115 million in cuts by 2014-15), are the ongoing cost-cutting measures implemented by the CBC in line with what you would have done?
As far as I can see, what they’ve been doing is a little trimming here, a little trimming there. At some point, what they have to realize is that if you water down everybody’s soup, all you’re going to have is watery soup everywhere. I understand it’s very difficult because there is no clear sense of what should be done, and apparently [CBC brass] are not prepared to say ‘We stake our colours to this particular mast.’ If the government won’t say make it popular or make it elite, and if the company won’t stake itself out clearly, they have no option but to pursue the watery soup strategy.
Describing your arrival at the CBC, you outline a poisonous environment characterized by a “cacophony of snubs and embarrassments.” Do you think you helped change the culture within the CBC?
My sense is that a lot of that is gone and they’re much more supportive of each other. If you listen to CBC Radio, they’re promoting CBC TV, which will promote back to CBC Radio. People realize that a rising tide lifts all boats: If the drama department does well it lifts the news, if the sports department does well it lifts the drama. If all the parts are operating better than everybody does better. I think people can see that now, where they couldn’t see it in the past. If you’ve got a 9 p.m. show that’s bringing a million people into The National at 10, it’s going to do better than if you’re giving them 300,000 people.
Now outside and looking in, how do you think the CBC is positioned in this new landscape?
Canada certainly is the most concentrated media market in the industrialized world and I think the CBC’s in a tough spot. What’s going to happen is we’re going to think of broadcasting being less about radio and TV and the delivery of shows – whether they’re on apps or wireless platforms or whatever they happen to be.
If you have a relationship with a big telecom company that has wireless offers and broadband offers and IPTV offers and all this stuff, it’s not just about financial issues – although it’s helpful to have a big daddy – but it’s about the ability to understand and work in these much more advanced environments.
What worries me a little bit for the Corporation is that it’s poor, the other guys are way better financed, and its rivals have partners in terms of their parents that understand much more deeply where these advanced environments are going.
Is there the necessary intelligence within the CBC to grapple with the coming challenges?
I thought we did a pretty good job given where we were, but when you have to compete against companies who are doing this for their business, day in and day out, inevitably they’re going to know more than you know. It’s night and day.
What are CBC’s chances of keeping Hockey Night In Canada? What does Stursberg think of ads on Radio 2? Check back for more.
• The Stursberg Files – Part 2
• The Stursberg Files – Part 3
