Canadian Heritage Committee on May 19th, 2016

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I thought it was just me who went off the wall at this.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

No, no.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

We've had private broadcasters here, and to be honest with you, the private broadcasters locally produce more news than CBC locally. You don't have a noon show locally in my province. You have a five-minute introduction at 10:55, late news. To be frank with you, you're hiring anchors, some at exorbitant wages, to do one newscast that rating-wise you're third or fourth in the market.

If we're going to get into what does local mean to the CBC, when I look at my province, you're getting destroyed because you're on either for 30 minutes or maybe you've extended it to an hour next year, and we don't see you at noon, we don't see you any other time. The anchor who does the six o'clock doesn't even do the late night show. I'd like those jobs.

[Jennifer McGuire]

The way you're framing the question assumes that the definition of “local” is television.

We don't look at the market that way. We know there are different demographics consuming news in different ways across platforms. We know that our services do different things, but we look at local service collectively. We look at it in terms of our radio, digital, and television services.

We don't view our six o'clock broadcast as just a supper-hour team. We expect our hosting talent to be present in other spaces, including our digital platform. We see it as an ecosystem. We see television as being broadcast not only on our own airwaves, but also within social media spaces. It's a different ecosystem. It's multiple outputs and it's a collective service to the audience. The audience is moving and we feel it's our obligation to meet them where they are.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

That's branding. The anchors represent the station. It's pretty hard to brand your station if you only see the anchor at 6:00. Plus, you don't have a vehicle where you can peel the onion on a news story and do a 10-minute sit-down interview with someone. You give me the two-and-a half-minute story, but you don't give me the capabilities on any of the CBC regionals to sit down and peel back the onion to get into an issue.

[Jennifer McGuire]

Certainly, our radio service is framed around current affairs.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I'm talking TV here.

[Jennifer McGuire]

The television service is framed around news. The digital format will do both. It'll do breaking news in depth. It's what consumers want at 6:00. They want a news program; they don't want a long-form interview program at that time of day.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I would say, looking at ratings, that you're wrong.

[Andrew Cochran]

I want to underscore that we no longer look at a single platform as a stand-alone platform. I can't speak to the specifics of the anchor in Saskatchewan. Generally, however, I can say that our anchors and our producers and our reporters typically are working on multiple platforms at any given time on any given day. Where they have a profile in the community, we want to leverage it to increase our connection with audiences. It could be a column online, appearances on one of the radio programs, or doing something out in the community. Our hosts and anchors are also active journalists—they're involved in the writing and the production of the program as well. Believe me, they're busy and we're trying to put them in front of the community at every possible opportunity.

[Marco Dubé]

I would like to answer that question.

I do not know whether you were referring to the French newscast or just the English one, but the people who present the news at six o'clock in the francophone markets are very much sought after on the other platforms, whether it be social media, radio, or the afternoon programs. In several cases, these people eventually become both newsreaders and line-up editors. They are more versatile. They do a range of jobs. These changes have helped us obtain funding to improve our digital services and to add Internet services, whereas we previously did not have more money to carry out our mandate.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I would say CBC has just caught up to the private industry. The privates have been doing this for years. No longer do they just put the mike on and sit in front of the camera. They've been producing news and writing it for years. I think the CBC is just catching up, if you don't mind my saying so. When I went to news conferences, you had a photographer and a reporter from English, a photographer and a reporter from the French, and now you have the digital. So you had five CBC news reporters at one event. I hope you're streamlining that.

[Andrew Cochran]

I take your point and I agree. The production of television has been streamlined. The difference with a CBC local person today is that they are working across all the platforms.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

That's good.

[Jennifer McGuire]

We also use our local reporters on the national platform.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Good.

[Jennifer McGuire]

You would therefore see our local reporters very present on the news channel.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I have one last question.

Talk about your use of freelancers, because your probably most famous panel is the At Issue panel on CBC, and yet they're all freelancers. You're not even branding CBC on maybe your most important 10-minute segment on television on Thursday.

[Jennifer McGuire]

[Inaudible--Editor] So, you said we use freelancers.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Yes, we saw that during the election, which could have been a conflict, but I won't go there right now.

[Jennifer McGuire]

In our local services we use freelancers primarily as radio contributors, and certainly on the news channel, on national television, but not a lot on local TV. It allows us to bring other voices in.

Sometimes freelancers are in places that we're not, and we need access to their ability to bring us to the content.

It is a traditional thing, and it has been going on for a long time.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Okay. Thank you.

I'd like go to Mr. Breton for seven minutes.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being with us here today.

We have looked at all kinds of figures since the start of this meeting. Unless I am mistaken, compared to the previous budget, CBC/Radio-Canada has obtained an increase of $75 million in the first year and $150 million a year over the next four years. That is nearly a 7.2% increase in your budget for the first year and 14.4% for subsequent years. Those are obviously sizable and significant amounts for CBC/Radio-Canada and for all Canadian citizens.

My first question is this: what are your spending priorities for those amounts? How will they benefit Canadians?

[Michel Cormier]

I can talk to you about Radio-Canada and new services but not about the rest.

As I said, we will not be rebuilding what we had five years ago. We are extensively developing digital services and mobility since that has to be done via smart phones if we want to attract a younger new audience. We know that. Consequently, we want to develop our digital activities as a way to leverage the rest of our programming.

Let me give you an example. In the case of the “Enquête” episode that featured aboriginal women in Val d'Or, which caused quite a buzz, we did not just produce a television program. Starting at noon, we began broadcasting capsules for the digital audience containing statements by these women. This gives us leverage in getting other people interested in television. They can thus get informed about a single subject in a variety of ways. We are working hard to expand our content distribution strategy. We want to ensure we have several formats and can develop new digital formats to attract new audiences with quality journalism.

These are some of the basics of what we want to do. As I said, we also have to invest in original content because everyone now has access to general and daily news. What distinguishes Radio-Canada is that we practise original journalism. We even have a Facebook presence. Broadcasters and the media demand original content that is consistent with and confirms Radio-Canada's brand as the public broadcaster. Consequently, in a fragmented world in which a lot of rumours and news circulate, our mandate is to ensure that we continue producing high-quality content. We have to go digital for all the benefits that entails, and we also have to ensure that people can find that product. As you know, an entire debate is under way on the phenomenon of "discoverability". So it is very important for people to be able to find Radio-Canada's content.

Generally speaking, those are more or less the key areas we are working on. The idea is to continue producing quality content and to be in more places for longer, locally, nationally, and internationally. This is very important for us, in addition to ensuring that we have the digital leverage to drive that content and to ensure people know how to find it.