No amount of money can force a product on people who don’t like it.

CBC has received a massive injection of taxpayer money under the Trudeau government.

Despite already being well-funded previously, Trudeau upped their budget to the point at which CBC now gets around $1.5 billion per year.

And that money is on top of the advertising revenue they receive, as CBC is allowed to benefit both from being State Media, and from the private advertising market.

This gives CBC a totally unfair advantage, putting private broadcasters on an unequal footing.

Yet despite this huge built in advantage, CBC is unable to convince people to watch their biggest news show – The National.

As noted by Graeme Gordon in the Toronto Sun, the ratings of the revamped 4-host show are quite bad:

“More than 18 months have passed since CBC poured a boatload of money into rebooting and heavily promoting its flagship news show, The National. Now with four hosts and flagging ratings, the public broadcaster is stubbornly staying the course with the new format despite it clearly not resonating with the average Canadian.”

Graeme points out that The National lost 10% of their views following the show being rebooted, with the audience dropping to 460,000 And now, the audience has fallen again:

“More than a year has passed and the show’s average ratings dropped another 59,000 or 13%, according to a CBC spokesman. Meanwhile, CTV National News still cracks well above 1 million viewers. Unlike The National, though, CTV’s flagship actually sticks to the point when reporting the news and usually leads with important national stories.”

The National is now averaging 401,000 viewers – less than half of what CTV National News brings in.

Gordon notes that much of CBC coverage is now “the Trump Show,” with a focus on what’s happening in the US instead of talking about Canadian news.

It’s a point that has also been made by Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, when he discussed his plans for CBC if he wins the upcoming election:

“When we look and see how much coverage is devoted on CBC to U.S. politics, the inner workings of U.S. politics, making sure that it’s focused on the things that are going on here in Canada — I think that’s something that many Canadians have said we should ensure that it’s focused on the core mandate of being concentrated on Canada.”

The fact is, if we want to watch US politics we can tune in to one of the many US networks. CBC coverage is often identical to CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, NBC News, ABC, and more.

That is a betrayal of CBC’s supposed mandate to serve Canadians.

And while CBC often tries to claim they aren’t ‘state media,’ the reality is that ‘state media’ is exactly what CBC is. Often times, CBC coverage is focused on what’s happening in the US while a huge scandal is brewing here in Canada, and that coverage focus (or lack-thereof) serves the Trudeau government as they seek to change the channel – exactly what the State Broadcaster seeks to do.

Spencer Fernando

Photo – Twitter

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