Talk:Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

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We'd like a photograph of the CBC Regional Broadcast Centre at 700 Hamilton St. in Vancouver. --  Denelson83  17:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

/Archive1

Contents


[edit] Controversies

The controversies section says police arrested terrorists who planned for a violent takeover of the cbc building. This factual event is in no way a controvery about the CBC or a controversy at all! If the writer of this section is implying the policemen made up the fact investigators made up the fact the terrorists were planning to attack the CBC in some kind of media conspiracy it is completely absurd. That small bunch of kids who we called terrorists were planning to blow up the CN tower and behead the PM. They had all sorts of crazy plans who had no chance of working. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.230.121.35 (talk) 23:34, 17 April 2007

[edit] Election related news

CBC was not #1. CTV was. [unsigned]

The day after the election, two ads were run, one from each network. CTV's numbers were for their main channel and did not include CTV Newsnet; CBC's numbers included Newsworld, the equivalent 24-hour news network. Thus, coverage from the CBC drew greater numbers than the equivalent coverage from CTV. To parse the figures otherwise would be disingenuous. -JTBurman 23:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Macleans is running a story on this issue, which adds detail. See it here
-JTBurman 20:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Using Firefox and Adblock

I'm wondering what others think of adding a few lines to point people in the direction of Adblock and FF, in the case of Canadian citizens, we have already paid for the site, and should not have to see ads. Lorax 01:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

To be accurate, you haven't paid for the site, at least not all of it. Canadian citizens only pay for 2/3rds of the CBC's cost. The government hasn't covered the entire budget of the CBC in decades.

So CBC has had to make up the difference. Hence the advertising on the web site. Zedcaster 06:15, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

It's also not Wikipedia's place to promote particular software or provide free advertising in this way. We have to let users make their own decisions about advertising on websites, and how they want to respond to that — the NPOV rule pretty much demands that Wikipedia not express personal opinions that such a matter is objectively a bad thing. Bearcat 19:47, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a relevant argument Bearcat. Debate about the misappropriation of resources within the CBC is best kept on the blogs. :) Lorax 01:22, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unauthenticated recordings?

If the recording added on 2006-03-17 is quite clearly an actor, does that mean it should be removed as a possible origin for this nickname, or perhaps just noted as such? The introduction voice in the recording sounds suspiciously like one of the character voices created by Allan McFee, a CBC broadcaster well known for his spoofs. But of course, this is ... unauthenticated as well.
--ghoti 13:51, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The clip in question isn't verifiable as the origin of the nickname; it seems to be ripped from a quiz show of some kind, and from the wording it would appear that the clip dates from a time when the belief that the network had been so identified on air already existed. It does sound a bit like Allan McFee, you're right — but yeah, it's hard to verify that. That's precisely the problem with this; the only thing we really know about the Broadcorping Castration thing is that there's a documentable belief that it happened. Bearcat 19:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] scra

there is no union called "SCRA"

it's called SCRC

[edit] CBC going totally public

Recently there has been talk about the Canadian government wanting to make CBC 100 per cent public. They want CBC to stop running ads and showing professional sports. If anyone can find a story on this, then it would be a good item to have on the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fishhead2100 (talk • contribs)

You're probably thinking about a senate committee report that made those recommendations. The government itself - i.e. Stephen Harper and the Conservatives - are not bound by it and certainly have not announced any policy to that effect. — stickguy (:^›)— home - talk - 03:19, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pacific Broacast Centre

Anyone here able to write about the Vancouver HQ; maybe I don't have its proper name right...I would have thought it already had an article. Needed for linking off various Vancouver pages.Skookum1 17:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It's called the CBC Regional Broadcast Centre in Vancouver. However, I don't think it deserves its own article.  Denelson83  21:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terrorist Attack?

Should there really be a section dedicated to a supposed plot by a bunch of idiots who were caught before they had any chance succeeding? It seems a little sensationalist to even bother mentioning that the CBC was one of the targets of the attack, let alone giving it its own section.

I say the section should be removed and, at best, added as a small sentence elsewhere in the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.193.85.30 (talk) 23:52, 13 July 2006

Yeh its marginal - it is of note, but it should be cut down and folded into some other category. I would say it should be put into a history section--Omnicog 14:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Those charged with supposedly plotting to bomb the CBC, among other targets, have not yet been found guilty and it may be that this "plot" was never true. Innocent until proven guilty applies despite these individuals supposed devotion to Islam.

[edit] Cosmic Butterfly Corporation

Regarding this logo:

(Image removed by bot per WP:FU)

In one episode of Wayne and Shuster the CBC is referred to as the "Cosmic Butterfly Corporation" based on this logo- since one of the other logos is noted as being nicknamed the "Exploding Pizza" perhaps it's worth noting this mention of the butterfly logo as well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.100.36.249 (talk) 19:09, 9 August 2006

[edit] Kids Program

CBC Radio Canada has a French Children's Program that airs on Access (Channel 9); it's about a girl and a boy (about 5 and 4 years old) that play together, and the show features a lunchbox with cucumber eyes and a watermelon mouth. Can someone please tell me what this program is? I can't tell from all the french in it.Ohyeh 18:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Closed captioning

I added a section on CBC’s history in, and its sometimes-unique requirements for, closed captioning, citing sources all the way.
– joeclark 17:28, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name Change of Article

Does anyone else think that the name of this article shoud be moved to CBC/Radio-Canada instead of just being Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, since the article is refering to the umbrella brand and not just one specific entity, either the CBC or SRC? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.198.108.51 (talk) 23:45, 22 August 2006

Nope. --  Denelson83  00:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
In the 2005 edition of the WRTH, CBC/Radio-Canada is listed as the "Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada", however I don't know if this would be too long for an article name. At least it's not an English translation of something like how for the longest time possible the ARD article was mentioned as the "Alliance of the Public Broadcasters of Germany" when it was more known as ARD. -Daniel Blanchette 18:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Accusation of bias

Saying that the CBC has been accused of bias is all well and good, but citations are needed to show where this is the case. Saying that "many people criticize the CBC" is just not enough of a foundation for this section. Captain canada

Go into any Conservative forum sight and you will get all the foundation you want. CBC is liberally biased, but who is going to report that and form a credible source - most of the other media are somewhat liberal too and are not going to start a media war over those kinds of accusations. Fox News gets pounded because of their conservative slant - obviously the only reason that the same kind of thing doesn't happen to all the liberal media is because they have this huge group of slacker liberals to defend them.--Omnicog 15:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to start any major arguments here, but I find "slacker Liberals" offensive. No point in starting a flame war on the talk page. Actually, CBC's reasonably central on the political spectrum. No, I'm not kidding. Even before I was Liberal, I managed to find a relatively balanced viewpoint from them. To be honest with you, I recognize some bias, but you must realize that all media is biased. That's why you can't watch anything, be it Fox News or CBC, anmd take the information as 100% accurate at face value. In the interest of fairness, if you can find a credible source (as stated above, and no, Conservative blogs & forums don't count. They aren't the most uncyclopedic of sources regardless of political slant). Make reasonable accusations of bias, with proper evidence, if you wish, but I'd advise you to be as neutral as possible, thereby keeping your contributions in a balnced encyclopedic manner. Freedom of expression is wonderful thing, but in an encyclopedia, it's best to keep bias at a minimum. Anyway, this comment's becoming lengthy and repetitive, and I don't want to start any flame wars or anything so I'll be as polite and calm as I can, but I feel it must be said that the media does not hold a Liberal bias. This is typical of the neoconservative paranoia-induced smear campaign. There's bias bith ways. Conservatives merely point out bias against them in the free media, and in Mr. Harper's case, attempt to use it to justify U.S.-style media control. Regardless of whether or not anyone anywhere on the spectrum acknowledges it, the media often portrayed Liberals as criminal in post-Sponsorship Canada. The media "decides to become the opposition" in many cases, because it is far easier to criticize the minority government in power than the majority political opposition. As for Fox News, they aren't Conservative. There's a big difference between Conservative & neoconservative. Bush has rightfully faced much criticize for extreme-right policies, while the Harper government's been called too central on the spectrum. Don't call the media "Liberal-biased" simply because you can't find a credible source to back up extremist accusations. I apologize if I offended. I tend to get passionate about this sort of topic. Brad2 23:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Personalities

The list is missing Zintar Sehrs (sp?) The name is impossible to spell, but I'm sure someone knows it, and can add it to the list.Landroo 14:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The number of personalities in the "present" list needs to be a multiple of five, for aesthetic reasons. --  Denelson83  19:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The trouble with someone like Zintar Sehrs (and bravo, according to this CBC transcript you did get the name right) is that the CBC's own website doesn't actually have a profile of him (they don't have a profile of Robert Fisher, either, but at least there's other stuff about him on the web since he used to be with Global), and even a Google search brings up very little. So while we could theoretically list him, we have almost no realistic prospect of actually being able to write an article about him anytime soon, and the ability to write an article that we can wikilink to is a major consideration in who gets listed there or not. Bearcat 18:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

More recently, there was a bit of an ongoing revert war over whether the list should be replaced with a text link to the category for CBC personalities. As a compromise, I've moved the list of personalities to a separate list article, List of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation personalities. That's arranged as a straight list, so multiples of five are no longer an issue; consequently, I added Zintar Sehrs as well. Though if somebody wants to actually write an article about him, I wish them lots of luck finding any actual information. Bearcat 19:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The name is actually Dzintars Cers (Reporter/Editor in English Radio News). I've updated the list. Google finds a few hits for that name, if anyone wants to try to assemble a page.
Heck, we could always go with his name in IPA, /'zɪn.tɑɹ sɝz/. :) --  Denelson83  17:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, gotcha. You gotta admit, it is a very hard name to spell if you're exposed to it mainly on the radio. Bearcat 23:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

A few months ago I added Don Cherry to the Personalities list, but now I see that he has been removed. Does someone have a problem with Cherry? He is on the CBC payroll and is probably better known than anyone else on that list. Vgy7ujm 02:58, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1940-58 logo & Newfoundland

Seen on this page, the logo said to have been used between 1940 and 1958 includes Newfoundland coloured as if to include it in the Canadian federation. However, Newfoundland was joined to the federation in 1949. Does anyone know if, before 1949, the logo did not colour Newfoundland? --Liberlogos 06:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest that the colour of Newfoundland on the logo mirrors the red or pink that Canadian (and British) maps of the day used for all of the British Empire. Both Canada and Newfoundland would have been the same colour on those maps in the 1940's and 50's. So the logo isn't suggesting that Newfoundland is part of Canada, just part of the "Empire".

The logo designer probably felt that the map would look odd without NL and that it was almost a part of Canada, so he bent the facts slightly and included it. Vgy7ujm 02:58, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] All night programming

This is probably not worth mentioning in the article but CBC has started to be on-air 24/7. Was there any announcement made whether this is permanent or not? I've only noticed that this was the case a couple of weeks ago.

[edit] Privately owned stations and publicly conducted edit wars

Could we possibly hash this one out here on the talk page rather than lapsing into an edit war over it? Thanks. Bearcat 23:11, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite for style, 2006.11.22

I did a paper-edit and a rewrite for style. I changed not many facts. As ever when someone edits an entire article, the advice is to remain calm. Not only can you revert the whole thing, which would be imprudent based on the improvements I made, you can reverse anything you can demonstrate warrants reversal.

[edit] Redundancies removed

  • Linking Canada "from east to west to north” (and previous graf).
  • “Today, the CBC operates several radio, terrestrial television and cable television networks, in both English and French, as well as a number of Aboriginal languages in the North.”
  • “The CBC’s radio networks do not air commercial advertising.” Moved similar sentence up.
  • “The September 11, 2001 attacks and key events surrounding them”: Already mentioned.
  • “The language barrier, in addition to other cultural differences, keeps viewers from tuning to American channels in as large numbers as in English-speaking Canada.”
  • CMG “represented on-air, production and administrative personnel in those territories” and we only have to be told once.


[edit] Requests for repair

  • NWI: Contradiction between “Newsworld International (or NWI), an American cable channel which rebroadcast much of the programming of CBC Newsworld” and “However, the CBC continued to program NWI, with much of its programming simulcast on the domestic Newsworld service.” Can someone fix?
  • Need confirmation on second logo: “The version shown here was used by Radio-Canada, while the CBC used a version with the legends transposed.” Proof? Photo?
  • “Nonetheless, some personalities, chiefly journalists and particularly in foreign news bureaux, appear on both English- and French-language networks”: I know it’s true, but can someone come up with a list?
  • What is the Unicode character in Gwichʼin? Why isn’t it an apostrophe? (You’d think I’d know this, but I don’t.)
  • “and recently announced plans to buy the outstanding majority (82%) of Documentary Channel, pending CRTC approval.” OK, what does the 82% refer to? The amount CBC didn’t own before the announced acquisition or the amount it will own afterward?
  • “ADR Database, a tri-medial project”: “Tri-medial” isn’t a word. What does this refer to? Removed provisionally.
  • Source, please: “The head of the CBC and the commissioners of the CRTC are all selected by the Prime Minister, causing some private broadcasters to suspect favouritism for the CBC.”
  • Need more rigour in italicizing French network names and leaving English ones in roman. I caught most of those.
  • Much less use of “as well,” please. Just use “and” or write two sentences.
  • “Accusations of bias” section should go somewhere else, but I don’t quite know where.
  • Perhaps terms like “CBC Newsworld” and “crown corporation” are linked too many times.

[edit] Corrections

  • Removed mediumwave, which was immediately explained as being “AM radio” anyway.
  • No longer true: Public funding “amounts to more than twice the corporation’s total advertising revenue.” Removed while I look up the reference from Rabinovitch in the last two weeks.
  • Removed “www.” prefixes of titles of Web sites; added capitalization.
  • Removed “Ironically, INdTV has met with producers of the CBC program ZeD, which is similar in format to Current’s proposed programming,” as it doesn’t seem relevant, encyclopædic, or backed up by a citation.
  • I’m sorry, but while CBC may wish the title of The Fifth Estate to be written entirely in lower case, they cannot have their way any more than “kd lang” or “KISS” might.
  • We’re not going to call Tony Burman the Editor in Chief. He isn’t the prime minister. We’re just going to call him Tony Burman.
  • Changed bit about Sirius carriage of radio channels to talk only about the U.S., the subject of the section in question.
  • CBC and CRTC are not per se government-controlled.
  • CBC Watch does not criticize only the “liberal bias” of CBC. It reprints any article critical of CBC (even my analysis of captioning failings).
  • Removed bold in Nicknames section.
  • “Canadian Broadcorping Castration” is a spoonerism and has been linked as such.
  • Added notation (M) to major news bureaux (and I love that spelling; let’s keep it). Under accessibility guidelines, it isn’t recommended to use font changes of this sort for significant meaning differences. (Bold is still there, though.)
  • Frontier Coverage Package could use a rewrite and better integration. I don’t quite understand the “Package” part.

I stopped before the “Presidents” section. – joeclark 18:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coverage discription of 2006 Biennial Liberal Convention

Not sure how to provide a varifiable source for this, but CBC has been erroneously discribing the Biennial Liberal Convention (CBC coverage Nov 29-Dec 1) as the Liberal Leadership Convention. The Liberal Leadership Convention only begins on Dec 2. Could or should, anyone (with a source), add this to the article? GoodDay 19:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

See my reply at Talk:CTV television network. — stickguy (:^›)— || talk || 20:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. GoodDay 20:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Article title

Can I suggest this article be change to reflect its bilingual corporate status: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada ? Its trivial but as a Brit only having the English name confers a English biased viewpoint and doesn't take into account that Radio-Canada also has non-sports programming worthy of being included in this article, not just on the Télévision de Radio-Canada article.

[[Neasden Villa 21:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)]]

Oppose. It's already Société Radio-Canada on fr.wikipedia.org, which is the correct Francophone title. Having bilingual titles in English Wikipedia, even for proper names, would be too onerous in my opinion. pbryan 23:43, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with pbryan here; generally, the rule on Wikipedia is to always use the simplest title possible that doesn't conflict with other things (that latter clause being why we can't just bump this down to "CBC"). It's perfectly legitimate for this article to provide an overview of all CBC/SRC operations in both English and French, but the most appropriate title on en: is Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, while the French name is the most appropriate title on fr: And furthermore, the French title does exist on en: as a redirect to this one. Bearcat 02:27, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm on side with pbryan here too. In English WP, we can use English terms. I wouldn't expact to see Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada as an article name on fr.wikipedia.org, any more than I would here. If the viewpoint appears biased, PLEASE feel free to fix it. WP:BIAS should have everyone's attention.  :-)  ◉ ghoti 03:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The article on the BBC uses the short form, so why can't CBC? Alx xlA 00:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps along the lines of SRG SSR idée suisse, we could use the name CBC/Radio-Canada here. --  Denelson83  08:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
"CBC" means other things in addition to the Canadian broadcaster, such as the pretty basic medical term complete blood count. BBC has no other meanings that are significant enough to challenge the British broadcaster for primary title status. It's not bias; it's simple disambiguation rules. Bearcat 00:40, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Logos

I understand the rationale for lining up the logos, but now I need to scroll the page horizontally on a 1024x768 screen. This seems a bit unreasonable to me. Anyone else experiencing the same thing? pbryan 02:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


I seem to recall hearing, in the 1990s or early 2000s that the CBC paid a very large sum of money for a consultant to 'redesign' their logo, but the consultant simply advised them to keep the classic one. I haven't been able to track down any info on this - was this simply a Canadian urban legend, or did it actually happen? Is it referring to the 1992 redesign, and if so, does anyone know how much was spent? 198.103.223.51 (talk) 17:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)CBC

[edit] Frontier Coverage Package

I have a reliable newspaper source ("Microwave Hook-Up Gives North Live TV", Winnipeg Free Press, April 29, 1969, p. 28) that says Lynn Lake, Manitoba had a Frontier Coverage Package station as early as September, 1967. However, the article states that:

The first FCP station was started in Yellowknife in 1967, the second in Whitehorse in 1968.

So the Whitehorse station couldn't possibly be the second. --Jimj wpg 08:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Make the change in the article, and cite the newspaper story. --  Denelson83  17:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I guess there should be a distinction between a FCP station that is a primary transmitter like the Whitehorse and Yellowknife stations, and the retransmitters like Lynn Lake, Manitoba. Just figuring out how to word this. --Jimj wpg 22:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Thing is, an FCP only had a video playback machine and a transmitter, not a microwave signal receiver. --  Denelson83  08:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Logo construction

I've put together a construction sheet for the CBC logo used between 1974 and 1992, if anyone is interested. --  Denelson83  08:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] International carriers

Can someone explain why no major cable or satellite company in the US carries the CBC? Is it due to legal restrictions ala those that prevent the Voice of America from being beamed home or is it just some sort of gross oversight/unwillingness to sit through a screening of Trailer Park Boys? MrZaiustalk 18:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

If you RTFA, you'll notice that many cable companies in the US near the Canadian border do indeed carry a CBC station. --  Denelson83  19:08, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Public opinion of the CBC

The article claims that 92% of the Canadian population considers the CBC to be an essential service, but the CBC is constantly mocked by many Canadians. Then again, many Canadian magazines and newspapers view the CBC in a favourable light. The whole issue is very confusing. Maybe it's just like our proud Canadian tradition of poking fun at our public health care system, but saying "Heck No!" to U.S. style private health care. The Legend of Miyamoto (talk) 01:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

It's very common to mock and make fun of powerful institutions that have a lot of influence in daily life, and yet completely blanch at any suggestion that said institution should actually be eliminated. Though Canadians are certainly expert practitioners of this particular art, it's not a uniquely Canadian trait. Bearcat (talk) 17:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Budget etc?

Does anyone know what the CBC budget is? And how much is publicly funded and how much private ad revenue there is? I think that is a pretty important part of the picture that should be in the article. Also where the budget goes (ie radio, TV etc) TastyCakes (talk) 18:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)