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Well, this parable provides a small window into why Canada’s beleaguered private media is more-than-usually upset at the CBC right now.

The CBC is a broadcaster with resources the likes of which most can only dream. It has bureaus in every province and territory. It has correspondents in virtually every Canadian ethnic and linguistic community. It has $1 billion in stable government funding and an extra $150 million per year to come.

In the right hands, this kind of wealth could be wielded in awesome, history-changing ways.

Look at NPR. Even with a budget only five per cent supported by government, it has rolled out revolutionary projects like Planet Money. NPR member station WBEZ, meanwhile, provided seed funding for Serial. Both projects have permanently changed the face of the podcast medium.

Or the NPR One app, a listening app that uses state-of-the-art metrics and A/B testing to automatically generate a personalized radio stream for each user.

Across the Atlantic, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation has pioneered “slow television,” a strategy of broadcasting hours-long commercial-free specials featuring nothing more than a camera mounted on a ferry, train or birdfeeder. It was a huge risk, but it paid off: The NBC’s slow TV specials have seen up to 20 per cent of the Norwegian population tuning in.

So it’s this kind of stuff that CBC could be doing. Instead, they have a really bad habit of simply cribbing their notes from the private sector.

First there was CBC Comedy. In an internet utterly overflowing with comedic videos and satirical news sites, CBC decided that Canada needed one that was state-sponsored. The site’s utter absence from your Facebook feed should be a clue to how well it’s going.

Then there was the CBC News App, a Smartphone app that primarily offers text content, much of it reprinted from Reuters, Canadian Press and other wire services. In the words of iPolitics executive editor Stephen Maher, the app (and CBC’s various websites) makes the CBC the “biggest newspaper in Canada.”

And now there’s CBC Opinion, a newly opened section of the CBC website devoted solely to written opinion. Somehow, a room full of CBC executives came to the conclusion that Canada is critically in need of more people spouting their opinions on the web.

I need not remind you that this is all coming during a time of unprecedented constriction and competition in the online news business. Having a Crown Corporation busily developing new ways to crib revenue streams isn’t helping.

The whole point of giving taxpayer money to a broadcaster is so they’re able to perform a service that wouldn’t exist without government support.