CBC: we hardly knew ye.

The CBC's being killed slowly but surely.

It's being choked off from external and internal threats. They lose broadcasting bids for the Olympics and the Curling championships. They create a TV development division strictly devoted to Reality TV. Then, it released a fall line-up that consisted of mostly reality TV shows based on American and British concepts (Dragon's Den, The Underdog, etc.). It's going to simulcast an ABC American Idol rip-off at 10pm, bumping "the National" news program (the CBC anchor show) to a later time til the end of summer. And to top it off, a Senate report was just released calling for the CBC to drop professional sports programming and to eliminate advertising as revenue. Instead, it called for the CBC to be completely taxpayer-funded.
So, will the CBC become a Canadian PBS, showing no sports, but mainly news and current affairs (though, I can't see any Conservative government willing to pump more taxpayer dollars into the CBC)? Or will it become any other Canadian TV Channel, sans-public funding and fighting with the 800 million other networks on the dial, eventually to be bought out by one of the major media conglomerates? These seem to be the only two directions that people are advocating.

Either fate seems unfortunate for the venerable station that can now only reach every part of Canada through Hockey Night in Canada, all the while being forced to cut back on regional stations and programming because of a lack of revenue. Part of the blame goes to the Canadian viewer, who wouldn't know good programming if it bit them in the butt. Partly goes to CBC, who rarely attempts to back and promote dramatic programs for the long haul (Da Vinci's Inquest is the only recent example I can think of). When CTV shows more Canadian programming (Degrassi, the New Generation, Corner Gas, then the CBC (and kudos to them for doing so), you know something is wrong.

The next few years will be rough on the CBC. They'll have to work hard to justify its existence to the public. They can't rely solely on the National and HNIC to bring in the viewers. But hocking reality-schlock does the Canadian public no justice either. It's a chicken/egg conundrum when it comes to figuring out the lack of Canadian drama on TV and why people aren't watching them. I don't believe that we aren't interested in our own stories. If we're that faithless with ourselves, then the CBC should stick to just news and current affairs. Otherwise, it needs to take risks in people who are willing to tell our stories.

The CBC will change. I'm just hoping it'll change to something for the better.