Hugh For President

Hugh McGuire has thrown his hat into the ring for the CBC president job. He has some excellent points in his 6 point plan for the future of the CBC.

1. Podcast everything audio (none of this “best-of” stuff), and put *all* CBC TV on Youtube (leave the ads in).
Do you want people to consume your stuff? Then let them.

2. Allow all non-commercial stations to use your programming (maybe commercial, too)
I was struck, while in the US recently, that NPR radio shows pop up all over the radio dial on college stations. College stations here should be able to play CBC programs too. See above.

3. Focus internal production on: News and Documentary
A public broadcaster sinks or swims on its news and documentary programming - at least that’s where it’s reputation lies. Stop trying to make dismal “entertainment” programming. It sucks. Just stop it. You are wasting money. (Mostly).

4. Increase budget for external Canadian productions
On radio, much of the good stuff is done by external producers. I don’t know much about TV, but I bet you buying good Canadian-produced programming is a more efficient way of getting good stuff than trying to produce it yourself. And this does just as much to support Canadian culture etc as fat CBC production budgets would.

5. Focus the CBC’s Internet strategy and hire more people who understand the Internet
CBC.ca is getting better, but still isn’t good enough. See point 1. The focus should be: providing tons of good content online, and making it easy to find. Set up a conference with the world’s leading public broadcasters: BBC, Australian Broadcasting Corp, CBC, NPR …and try to figure out what best practices are. Share your experience.

6. CBC Labs
Open content shows? Kids with cameras? Young producers showcase? CBC documentary contests? etc. CBC has done some good stuff here, but lets open it up more. “CBC Labs” with a mandate to “explore the evolving landscape of broadcasting in the Internet age.” Budget, oh, say, $2 million. RIP Zed & Radio3 … Oh, and: Put it all on the web.

While he is definitely wrong about the R.I.P. for Radio 3 (R3 is actually doing everything right.) the plan beyond that has some very strong points. Sadly, being right and having good ideas are unlikely to be criteria that are important to the government. It, in fact, seems to be something that most bureaucracies are apprehensive about.