BANFF – Ontario Premier Doug Ford's budget released last month unleashed major cuts to TVOntario… the provincial educational broadcaster created by the venerable former Premier Bill Davis – himself a Progressive Conservative.
The damage to TVO was roughly $2 million, a 4.5% cut; on top of a budget freeze since 2015 which, adjusting for inflation, leaves TVO diminished by 11%.
To the south of us, President Trump proposed for the third year in a row the complete elimination of federal funding for PBS.
As well, virtually all of Europe's public broadcasting services face similar challenges: Some combination of budget cuts, populist politicians, economic uncertainty, and fierce competition from large scale global players.
French President Emmanuel Macron has "demanded" close to $400 million in budget cuts to its public broadcasting operations by 2022; Greece shuttered its public broadcaster from 2013-2015; in Poland, Hungary, Turkey, and elsewhere the independence of public broadcasters continues to come under siege. Denmark has ended its mandatory fee to fund public broadcasting; and a Swiss referendum to end a similar license fee was defeated 65-35% after much excited debate.
Yet time after time, research and experience say well-funded and independent public service media is a good indicator of healthy democracies.
Enter the 2019 BWMF's June 10th panel titled "Public Broadcasting: The Promise, The Peril.” Moderator Francois-Pier Pelinard-Lambert, chief editor, of Le Film Francais, wrangled the event and panelists Paula Kerger, president and CEO, PBS; Michael Carrington, acting director entertainment and specialist for ABC Australia; and Barbara Williams, EVP, english services, CBC, were eager to engage.
Keger was quick to point out that only 15% of federal funding goes directly to local stations… but that rural and underserved communities receive a disproportionate chunk of that granting benefit. "There are a lot of media in the U.S., but not much actually within communities… and right now, despite being endorsed by both the House and Senate, we have an assault on journalism which threatens our civil society," she said.
Keger went on with "It's a great opportunity to experiment, for example with our PBS Digital Studios.” Indeed, PBS now provides original web series exploring science, arts, culture etc., on a weekly basis through YouTube, Facebook Watch and PBS.org video content.
But trust seems to be her brand promise "At PBS trust is the absolute key at a time when so many institutions are under siege… and our direct tie to communities".
Williams suggested that "all Canadians have two jobs: their day job and running the CBC… and that (Mother Corp) was here to serve, that doesn't change… but how we do it changes such as through Gem… but we have to stay true to that North Star… our news organization is the beating heart of the CBC, and is especially important in an era of fake news… (plus) local is important… our ambition is that every Canadian has a reason to believe in and value the CBC, be it for morning radio, kids shows, news, our northern service,” she said.
Carrington offred a slightly nuanced opinion from Down Under in that "we're (ABC) driven by our audiences… we're no longer platform driven (e.g. radio, TV, print, digital) but organized by genres such as news and kids… plus we've had huge South East Asian and European immigration… 30% of Aussies come from somewhere else… and that somewhere else often had state media acting as the voice of the state and was mistrusted, so we have to deal with that too,” he said.
“Plus further budget cuts after the last election… then we had the raid (earlier in June Australian police raided ABC HQ over its Afghanistan news coverage)… all of which is a reflection of a fragmented world fuelled by Brexit, by chaos, and a rejection of expertise.”
All three speakers were asked whether the core values of public broadcasting had evolved with the times, and in relative harmony they replied that the values don't evolve – plus the core raison d'etre must be maintained – all while the practicalities of change are strategically embraced.
"We work with everyone, including Amazon and Netflix,” said Kerger, “but their priorities continue to shift. They look at the market… so we look at partnerships that make sense. For example we (PBS) don't have enormous promotion budgets therefore distrubution by OTTs and VODs serves a purpose now.”
Carrington added: "We're Australians, we don't have any enemies… We've had some success leveraging small ABC budgets with Netflix, but the future may be more challenging as Netflix increasingly wants to own all rights.”
“We're guided by service to our mandate and protecting Canadian culture, that's not Netflix's job.” – Barbara Williams, CBC
“Partners remain key,” added Williams. “It's a show by show decision as with Anne With An E (which had Netflix involved in exchage for worldwide distribution), but we're guided by service to our mandate and protecting Canadian culture, that's not Netflix's job.”
Demographics are another consideration.
According to Kerger, “people come into PBS via kids content and we do a lot of research to keep them. In fact Frontline (the acclaimed PBS investigative series), which just won a Gold Baton at the Dupont-Columbia University Awards, has its strongest digital appeal with audiences under 30, while in linear its 60-plus.”
“We also have a commitment to kids,” added Williams “and to keeping them. We're doubling down on kids fare on Gem, with news on Snapchat (CBC Kids News). There's a gap from 9 to 13 year olds on our screens, and we're working out how to pull them to the CBC.”
Carrington then explained ABC Kids and ABC ME are the two most watched children's networks in Australia, reaching 94% of kids under 15, “and where over 90% of our audience five years ago was white and of U.K. origin, that's now 79%. Our recent Triple J (a radio division of ABC focused on music, current affairs and youth) team last election had a lot to say by young people on climate and social cohesion,” he added.
PBS is investing most in news at the moment because “nobody else is in that business in the U.S. except maybe for 60 Minutes. Literacy in media is vital (and) the risk is exploding in the social media space with dreck… but I'm also excited about a most interesting show coming up called Molly of Denali (an animated kids series done with the CBC), the first ever U.S. TV kids show featuring Native Americans as heroes and main characters.”
Williams similarly agreed explaining how CBC launched its kids news service to help with news literacy, “but my favourite (might be) the drama Trickster in 2020 – the first time the CBC has developed a TV show based on an Indigenous writer.”
Finally, and perhaps spurred by the recent CBC-ABC memorandum of understanding, Kerger said organizations like Public Broadcasters International (PBI was founded in 1990 by TVOntario and NHK Japan) are more important now than ever, because partnerships from there lead to more content.
So is there a future for public broadcasting?
In my view, there had better be.
The U.K.'s BBC was the first public broadcaster, founded in 1922, to serve the public interest in the belief that an informed populace was essential to a healthy, vibrant and civil democracy.
In the 1920s, public faith in British government had been shaken by major economic uncertainty and the social hangover of WWI. It desperatley needed an entity that was unabashedly on the side of education, truth, connection, empathy and social discourse, one that reflected all people and their best interests as citizens not just as consumers.
Governments today should see similar writing on the wall (since we’re all now in a world wide battle against liars and misinformation fuelled by social media) and invest public broadcasters with the resources and autonomy to get that modern job done.
At the same time, public media need to keep figuring out how to translate traditional service values into today's digital landscape. It’s not that mysterious or complicated, but the consequences of not doing so are more serious than ever.
