Tuesday, January 15, 2008

CBC Identity Crisis Continues

There have been two posts in two days on insidethecbc.com on their need for yet more ad revenue. Yesterday it was publicly announced that they were looking for "Brand Integration" Partners for the CBC's new daytime show Steven and Chris. For those of you who don't know, Brand Integration is according to wikipedia:
[the] "combination of an audio-visual program (TV, radio, podcast, etc.) and a brand. It can be initiated either by the brand or by the broadcaster. The purpose of a branded entertainment program is to give the opportunity for brands to promote their brand image to their target audience by creating positive links between the brand and the program in the viewers. In broader terms, the term is used for describing the blurring lines between advertising and entertainment."
In other words the advertisements are built right into the show content, blurring the line between entertainment and infomercials.

Today it was announced that the CBC would begin placing banner ads on CBC radio pages. It should be noted that CBC Banner Ads as well as those of many other websites can be blocked in Firefox using this or visit http://www.floppymoose.com/ for info on adblocking for various browsers including Firefox, Safari, Netscape, Camino and Mozilla.

It seems more and more every day that the CBC is, as DJ Murray commented on InsidetheCBC yesterday "drifting aimlessly in a multichannel universe." The Ceeb does not seem to know whether it wants to be a public broadcaster, bringing Canadians quality Canadian arts, entertainment and news in a non-commercial way or whether it wants to be a private broadcaster, competing with CTV, City and the Amnets for advertising $ and viewers. The reality is it can't be both and sooner or later either parliament (which of late has offered neither adequate funding nor direction) or the CBC will have to make a decision.

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