Evidence of meeting #34 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was classical.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
June 5th, 2008 / 4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
How much time do I have?
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
We were supposed to have five minutes, but I'm going to give you a little bit longer because of some of the questions and answers. In this round I'm giving you an extra couple of minutes.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
I'm not going to make any normative claims about what kinds of music are good or not. I'll leave that for other people to debate.
I do think what we have here is less than an ideal situation, because we're playing one musical community off the other. My view has been that the best way forward would have been for CBC to have established a third FM station, both in English and in French, to highlight other genres. If the space doesn't exist, these airwaves are publicly owned. Broadcasters receive a licence to borrow the airwaves to broadcast, and my view is that if we're going to be a community of 33 million people, then we surely can get a third radio station on the air that's a public broadcaster.
That being said, the other problem we face is that we don't have ubiquitous coverage of the existing radio stations across the country. In many parts of the country you can't get CBC Radio 2. You can't get Première Chaîne or Espace Musique across many parts of the country outside of Quebec. That is the other part of the problem. We are not even providing full coverage for the radio stations we do have.
I keep bringing this up at every committee when we talk about radio, because it puts us to shame. There are countries and states like the United Kingdom where they have five stations and they have over 50% market share. This is what we should look to in terms of where the future of CBC radio should go.
My question for you is whether or not the changes that have been put in place at Radio 2 will in fact increase the market share of this station. Presently it is around 3% or 4% market share. I'm wondering whether or not you feel those changes will increase the market share. If you feel they won't increase the market share, what do you propose CBC management do in order to increase that market share?
4:45 p.m.
As an Individual
I am not sure the CBC management sees increasing market share as an end result to be hoped for. I think the changes that are proposed will increase market share. I have no question about that, but that is not really the issue.
We have raised the example of the U.K. with five radio channels, orchestras, and choral groups, and that's fine. Public radio in the U.K. is financed in an entirely different way from how it is in this country. Successive governments in this country have refused to give long-term financial guarantees to the CBC, therefore making it almost impossible for them to do long-term planning.
The budget comes down and it's x for the CBC. Next year it may be more or it may be less. Usually, historically, it seems to have been less. Guaranteed financial commitment to public radio in Canada is really, I think, the issue that matters here, if I may say so.
4:45 p.m.
As an Individual
I definitely support my colleague's last comments on that topic. If I knew for sure that new programming initiatives by CBC Radio 2 were going to draw a bigger market share, I'd be managing much more successful artists, I suppose. Predicting these kinds of things is a difficult business.
In my estimation, it is actually not much different from figuring out whether this artist will succeed and draw a big crowd of fans around themselves and have a long career and the next artist might not. To that extent, as Mr. Knopf suggested, some of the classical personalities are being lost in the shuffle, and I think that is a shame.
Again, if we look at BBC radio, their big shows, the Charlie Gilletts, the Andy Kershaws, and so on, are on the roster of stars basically running their radio shows. They have Peter Mansbridges at every significant show, or they do a lot of that.
I think programming thematic shows, even if there is a wide theme within the show, is one way they might be able to build their market share with these changes they're making.
Something that has not come up yet on this panel, which I'll quickly mention to you, and which is I think an impressive model, is CKUA. I moved to Alberta three years ago, although I was born there too. It has been going for 85 years non-stop. It is, at this point, entirely publicly funded by donation and pledge. The have some thematic shows, but their prime-time run from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. every day is eclectic. The programming is never predictable. It's all over the map. There are parameters. There are certain things you don't hear, but what they drive it on is the hosts. The hosts are there for the morning show, the afternoon drive, this and that. It's not about, “I play blues; I play folk; I play this.” It's about “This is me as a host, and my opinion today about what I'm going to run up against.... I'm going to put opera up against a cappella jazz, followed by Bulgarian folk, and then I'm going to give you Led Zeppelin.” They will just do that in programming blocks. They have a very dedicated listening audience, and I think it is succeeding quite well for what it is.
So the hosts are an important thing, although I couldn't pick one and say this one will be a hit and that one won't.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
I'm going to go to Ms. Whyte, but just before that, Mr. Scott brought one thing to my attention. We do not have any more hard copies of our report concerning our public broadcaster and the 21st century. You can pick up that report on our committee website. It is posted there. Some of it is referring to long-term sustainable funding, which is something we've heard as a committee. I have been here for only five years, but I've heard it for five years. I think it went on before that. There are various suggestions that you might find informative, so you could check that.
I am sorry for the interruption.
Ms. Whyte, go ahead, please.
4:50 p.m.
As an Individual
That's all right. I just wanted to respond to the whole Radio 3 issue that's been raised by a couple of members here. I have some concerns about that, only because the way I've heard it talked about is that there's a classical music station and then there's everybody else. I don't really think that solves any problems. I think of CBC Radio 2 and I think of a radio station that's about music, and it's about good music. For us to consider kind of migrating all the other genres into a Radio 3 I don't think gets our communities working well together.
I'm sorry to see this kind of schism that's happened between the classical music community and everyone else, and I don't think it's just between pop and.... It's everyone. I think the way of the future is really for all these groups to be working together with the CBC in terms of developing the kind of programming that's going to respond to the needs of a very diverse and broad community. Just marginalizing it onto another network I think is a bit of a slippery slope.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes, I have a very brief response to Mr. Chong's very important question.
My guess is that at the rate things are going right now—and they're going to get a whole lot worse on September 1—the CBC is going to lose whatever audience it has now at Radio 2, and it's not going to replace it. I've just heard, to my total dismay, that they're going to cut Stuart Hamilton and the opera quiz, which is really going to get people. You think you've got letters so far? You're going to get a lot more letters when they do that. Why would they do that? I do not know.
I frankly don't know anybody who listens to Radio 2 any more. I listen to it only to inform myself as to how badly it's going downhill—there's no other reason to listen to it any more. And I listen to it to get the opera on Saturday afternoon. But I know a lot of people my age and younger who simply have turned it off. I rediscovered Radio One, if I can get personal. I enjoy Radio One, and I'm sorry I missed it for all those years. It's really good; it still has many of the old traditions. I wish it still had Lister Sinclair, but we can't reincarnate him either. But it's really good. CBC Radio 2 is just going down the drain.
Jennifer McGuire, who has moved back to news now but was an important manager there until recently, was quoted as saying in the last few weeks something like this: “Well, we didn't lose as many people as we thought we would initially, but we're going to get them later.” I think she's wrong, and I don't know why the CBC isn't publishing the results. They're a public organization; they should be more transparent. I think they're going to lose whatever they have now.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Ms. Pierre, and this is the last for Mr. Chong's question.
4:55 p.m.
As an Individual
As he said, Radio 2 will lose its audience. The thing is that we are a new audience for Radio 2. Just because of the programming last Christmas, and in Black History Month, when CBC did something on Radio 2 for my community, we sat and listened to Radio 2. I was never really a big Radio 2 person until a couple of years ago. But because of those shows, I have other friends who tune in to Radio 2, and we're hearing other stuff we didn't know existed. It's like you're going to lose one audience, yes, but you're going to gain others.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Don Bell Liberal North Vancouver, BC
Thank you.
Thank you for coming. We appreciate this.
Mr. Siksay asked one of the questions I was going to ask Mr. Hornsby about the rethinking of the role. Mr. Chong's question about the need for Radio 3 was of interest to me as well. What I look at is the need for a critical mass to maintain any one kind of market, if you want to call it that.
I know in the retail commercial business, restaurants and retailers change their format sometimes because they don't feel they're getting the growth in the market they want. Most retailers look in terms of growth rather than just survival, I think, but it could be survival as well. They are subject to the viability of that particular market, and I think this is where public radio, or CBC in this case, provides an alternative, just as public television provides an area, and it's the sharing of that. It seems to me there also has to be enough time--that's what we're talking about, bandwidth, time, the combination of the two, enough channels on television--to be able to provide the range of the different genres we want to see.
My concern is that I believe classical music is an encouragement to classical musicians. My experience has been that many of the musicians in the other fields have opportunities through commercial radio, particularly the popular ones.
I'm concerned about the issue of the market. Are not the baby boomers still the largest chunk? Of all the demographics I see going through in terms of population--I'm not saying of the market but of population--the baby boomers are the biggest bulge, and because baby boomers and their children have had fewer children, we're seeing a mushroom effect, the bulge and then the stem.
It seems to me that commercial radio is not serving the bulge as well as it did, because when I was part of that bulge, the leading edge was rock and roll, and now I'm interested in classical music, folk again, and some of the other genres. I don't see that being served.
Does there need to be a critical mass? If you take the time away from Radio 2 that's available now for the CBC Radio Orchestra, for example.... I mentioned at the last meeting that I attended a concert at the Chan Centre, and they were playing pop and semi-pop music in an orchestral sense. It was very stimulating to hear, but it was in a different context. I think we should do what we can. My feeling is to keep that orchestra alive. It has a great tradition, and it's the last of the radio orchestras. Is a critical mass needed to maintain that opportunity?
Ingrid, you made a comment, and I will quote it: “as long as CBC Radio 2 continues to support classical music as its cornerstone”, I think was the word you used. I'm wondering what the mass is to keep that cornerstone. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. most people are working and students are in school, and I know that younger people are getting their music through iPods, computers, and other forms, while they're studying as well.
I hope that's clear. I don't know who can answer that directly.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Almost no time for answers because it almost took four minutes, but I will go a little bit longer. I think it's very important that we get these questions answered.
Mr. Hornsby, go first, please.
5 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you. I'll take a first stab at it, at least answering some of it.
One thing—I guess this is the educator in me speaking—is that the aging audience we talk about is a continually aging audience. One thing about classical music is that it's not something a typical 12-year-old in Canada is probably going to grab on to. But a typical 10- or 12-year-old doesn't like broccoli either. It's an exposure thing, which over a period of time people seem to gravitate towards.
We're not going to lose these people. They're not just going to die off; they're being replenished continually. It's something that people tend to come to. Even colleagues and friends of mine who are not musicians at all but are in their thirties and forties are starting to go to classical music concerts for the first time, because now is the right time in their life to experience that style of music. It works for them.
Classical music has been going on for over 1,000 years. It's not a fly-by-night operation; it's going to be there. I'm not sure whether I'm addressing your question quite correctly, but if we ask about critical mass, my belief is, again as an educator, that it's always going to be there. It's mainly because of the way in which, since the middle of the 20th century, so much of our consumption of entertainment and culture has become commercially based that there is now perhaps a smaller percentage of people who are experiencing it.
It's rather the same argument I think as that about museums, for instance: what the percentage of the population is of those who go to a museum, compared with, if you polled the same total population, how many believe they should have a museum in their community. I believe the latter number would be huge compared with the number of people who actually walked in the door, but they still believe it should be there.
I also fully appreciate that this applies to classical music as well, but I don't think it's going away. There are no indications. As I said, I just came from teaching 400 kids north of Toronto, from every ethnic group under the sun. They're playing those instruments; they're playing that style of music.
Just to finish that—because I'm also a jazz musician, and I represent popular musicians as well through the industry association—it's not a partisan comment that I'm making; it's just that I think sometimes classical music is relegated to the old people who are going into the homes, which, as somebody mentioned, is not true.
5 p.m.
Conservative
5 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you.
I'm not going to address the critical mass issue about blocks of airtime, but I want to say something that offers at least my opinion about the radio orchestra. I'm not heavily involved in classical music, although I have an appreciation for it, and as I mentioned, some artists have recently done recording work with classical ensembles or string ensembles. I think there could conceivably be a role for a radio orchestra.
But as I see it, there are still many orchestras, and perhaps the CBC could take some of their initiative in money to bring additional support to other orchestras—the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and so on—allowing more opportunity for them to commission new work that can be recorded and broadcast, the kinds of stuff that I assume was the cornerstone of what the radio orchestra would do.
I'm not vehemently opposed to the radio orchestra, certainly. It's really a question of what they can do with other existing classical ensembles to help enhance their reality. If the CBC can do that to a multitude of other ensembles or orchestras, then I think that would be a net gain, although I'm glad I'm not the lead violinist for the radio orchestra.
5 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
I totally agree with what Richard Hornsby said. There is no doubt that we would get more people attending the National Gallery if we were to turn it over to Disney Corporation and fill it full of Mickey Mouse exhibits, but that's not the point. Our taxpayers want to have a national gallery, even though it's full of quality. We don't relegate all European art to the back room between 10 and 3 and fill it full of Disney during the day. We could get more people attending our national parks if we turned the management over to Canada's Wonderland and had McDonald's concessions, but we don't want that.
I think there will always be a relatively small—I hate to use the word—elite taste for the finer things in the arts and culture. I think it's the CBC's job to deal with that, because that's why they get $1.5 billion a year from the taxpayers. If they're not going to deal with it, then they don't need a subsidy; let them compete with Moses Znaimer and Garth Drabinsky and Canada's Wonderland, and all the other people who do the commercial stuff very well.
So yes, there is a core, there is a niche, and I don't think we should worry too much about whether it's 3% or 4% or 2.9%. It just has to be done, as long as we're going to have a CBC.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, we're kind of looking into the CBC Radio 2 decision and the orchestra at the same time. If I could get fairly concise answers, I'd appreciate it, because we don't have a lot of time.
The first question I'd like to ask is this. In your opinion, is the CBC Radio Orchestra a national institution?