the CBC Design Department

While the source of this video prefers to remain anonymous, you can contact the CBC with your reaction here and/or your Member of Parliament or the Heritage Committee at chpc@parl.gc.ca this video can be found on Google video

Passing this along from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting

FRIENDS is very concerned to note that Prime Minister Harper has allowed the position of Chair of the CBC Board of Directors to remain vacant for six months since the resignation of the previous Chair, Guy Fournier. In the absence of a new Chair, CBC's lame-duck President Robert Rabinovitch has been serving as interim Chair, as well as CEO - keeping an eye on himself!
http://www.friends.ca/Reform-CBC-appointments
The Chair of CBC's Board of Directors is an extremely important position. We believe that Harper's failure to set in motion a procedure to find a suitable replacement - an eminent Canadian who can oversee Rabinovitch and CBC's management - is a troubling and dangerous sign.
FRIENDS has called on the government to follow the advice of its Heritage Committee and set up a procedure so that nominations for CBC's Board leadership no longer come through prime ministerial patronage but instead from a variety of sources to ensure that the best and brightest Canadians direct our national public broadcaster. That Board should have the authority to hire and if necessary, fire the President.
Please take a moment to send a message to your Member of Parliament asking him or her to take this up with the Prime Minister. You can do so easily by visiting FRIENDS' Web Site Action Centre, where we have prepared a draft message. You can personalize it in a matter of seconds, and doing so will add to the force of your message.
When you visit our Action Centre, you will first be invited to identify yourself and supply your postal code. This information will enable our system to direct your message automatically to your MP:
http://www.friends.ca/Reform-CBC-appointments
Thanks for taking this action. I will keep you updated on the results of this campaign.
Best regards!

Ian Morrison
Spokesperson
FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting

Rabinovich asks for a mandate.

The CBC's President, Robert Rabinovich asked the Heritage Committee for a 10 year mandate today.

Quoted from CBC.ca:

"CBC is at a turning point that no one-year plan will address," he said, urging MPs to adopt a long-term charter for the CBC similar to the one enjoyed by the British Broadcasting Corp.

CBC president Robert Rabinovitch says a long-term mandate is needed for the public broadcaster.
(CBC) "Anything less is to pay lip service to public broadcasting while watching it wither," he said.

Yesterday, the Heritage Committee approved an additional $60 million in funding for each of the next two years for original programming on the CBC. This is not really additional funding though. It is a standard amount of "additional funding" that Parliament has been providing for several years, but that the CBC has to return and beg for annually.

After years of benign neglect by the Liberals and, at times, outright hositility to the CBC by the Conservatives it is time that parliament stepped up to the plate, gave the Corp appropriate funding and a mandate that speaks to a truly, uniquely Canadian public broadcaster.

Back Again

Ok, sorry for the long delay. After blogging here for what seemed a very long time - it seemed that I was saying alot of the same things over and over again. With the departure of Teamakers it seemed a good time to take a break. But, there is enough going on that I think it's time for a revival.

It is not that I've been wholly absent. Publicbroadcasting.ca is continuing to grow and draw more traffic - for the CBC and for Canadian arts and media in general. There is a CBC Support page on the site, the petition to double the CBC's funding is still going and the Friends of the CBC on MySpace now has 3,870 'friends' as of 4:00 pm today.