In the past, the CBC-SRC has been at the forefront in the creation and production of children's programs that have, among other things, won a number of national and international awards. CBC-SRC used to be a creative incubator for new Canadian talent in this area; however, in recent years CBC-SRC seems to have lost some of its enthusiasm for creating and developing children's and youth programming.
CRTC was quite clear in what it expected from the CBC-SRC when it said, in the last licence renewal, that
A wide variety of children's programs is available to English-speaking Canadians on commercial, educational, specialty and pay television services. Notwithstanding this availability, because the CBC reaches almost all Canadians, it has a unique responsibility to provide informative, educational and entertaining programming directed toward Canadian children and youth, and to foster the development of the artists who represent the future of the television industry.
We strongly believe that CBC-SRC has a responsibility to invest in developing programs for young Canadians, in addition to seeking out ways of reaching our children and youth through new technological innovations. With such investment, the CBC will not only train a new generation of Canadian talent, but it will also develop the loyalty of new audiences in the future.
The extensive study entitled “The Case for Children's Programming”, in which the alliance participated last year with the CFTPA, the National Film Board, and the Shaw Rocket Fund, which was released in February 2007, clearly demonstrates a downward curve of funding within the Canadian broadcasting system for the production of Canadian television programming for children, moving from a high of $380 million in 1999-2000 to $283 million in 2005-2006. This was a drop of more than 25% in a very short period of time.
During the same period, the share of total production budgets for children's programming, when compared to total Canadian television programming budgets, went from 22% of the total to 16% of the total. In addition to this, from 1998-1999 to 2005-2006, the average budget for a 30-minute program for young Canadians fell 11%, from $224,000 to $200,000 in constant dollars.
We believe that CBC-SRC should be doing more and spending more on children two to eleven years, and on youth eleven to seventeen years, on original programming that recognizes the important role television can play in forming the attitudes of young Canadians who are increasingly coming from different parts of the world to contribute to Canadian society.
We strongly recommend that the committee send a clear message to CBC-SRC about the leadership role it should be taking in developing and broadcasting high-quality programming that will not only be of interest to our youth but also challenge their intelligence and inform them on subject matters that will contribute to their development as proud Canadians.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the Alliance for Children and Television has the expertise, the ability, and the will to contribute effectively to the Canadian broadcasting system, and particularly in this case to work with our national public broadcaster, the CBC-SRC, to develop new initiatives that will ultimately benefit our children across the country.
Let there be no doubt in our position: The CBC should be called upon to be doing more for children's programming and providing our children with interesting and challenging content that will contribute to their intellectual, social, and cultural development.
This completes our oral presentation. We look forward to responding to any questions you may have.
Thank you.