8 ms·

I'd be happy to pay my $45.71 per person per year. The BBC makes amazing shows - I don't see that Canada can't do the same. As Canadians, if we believe that we

I'd be happy to pay my $45.71 per person per year. The BBC makes amazing shows - I don't see that Canada can't do the same. As Canadians, if we believe that we have something to say to the world, we need to fund saying it.

erkose 10y ago
There have been some great Canadian shows (e.g. Corner Gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Gas )
- serge2k 10y ago
  On CTV, a private network.
  - neom 10y ago
    Yeah, Anne of Green Gables was probably a better example. :D
problems 10y ago
It provides close to zero value to me, I don't listen to radio at all. What's your proposal to me? I'm supposed to pay $45.71 so other people can listen to the radio ad-free? When they can already listen with ads and basically pay for it themselves?
- chrisfosterelli 10y ago
  This isn't just radio, this is also their television channel and the news website. I don't use the radio but I easily get $45/yr of value from the news I find through CBC.
  - problems 10y ago
    Sure, but you're currently getting that value, it's still not an increase in value to you of $45/year. And it still doesn't rationalize it for someone like me who doesn't consume CBC content much to pay that. I find they're way too politically slanted in their news coverage and I'd rather deal with the ads than pay them $45/year for the few programs I watch occasionally.
    - derrickdirge 10y ago
      You're already paying $36/year and dealing with ads. Going ad-free and getting sixteen extra minutes per hour of additional television content isn't worth an extra $9 every year?
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - problems 10y ago
        It's actually $11 extra per year. And no, it isn't remotely because I don't consume it. I'd rather the whole amount be removed. CBC should be running in the private marketplace just like everyone else, considering the type of news coverage they tend to provide and the generally low quality entertainment they create. Tax payers paying for it seems like a complete waste of money. Just flushing money down the drain.
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        It sounds like you live in the wrong country to be arguing against socialized government services. What next? Universal healthcare!?
        problems 10y ago
        At least with something like universal healthcare I can see a guaranteed benefit in some ways. Both directly and indirectly. It's hard to predict healthcare costs. I can at least see the argument. However, it's very easy to predict CBC consumption desires.
- pjmorris 10y ago
  Seems to me the value proposition for a non-user is that the users the non-user interacts with are better informed through less commercially-biased sources. Something like the herd immunity value of vaccination.
  - problems 10y ago
    That's a terrible value proposition, especially for someone who finds that CBC is extremely politically slanted in their news coverage. I would say I find regular CBC consumers slightly less informed on average if anything.
    - raquo 10y ago
      Which Canadian TV news channel is markedly less biased than CBC?
      - problems 10y ago
        Both Global and CTV's I find tends to do a decent job covering both sides. CBC's leans pretty strongly to the left. We don't have a lot of strongly right leaning TV outlets in Canada, but I wouldn't encourage paying publically for the Sun or National Post either.
        agmcleod 10y ago
        Global is rather conservative biased. I do find CTV to do pretty reasonably, and have some decent talent, but still I'd rather have a publicly funded organization that doesn't have to worry about ratings.
        randomgyatwork 10y ago
        My mom is a Global fan, surely you've noticed their biases as well? Realistically, the CBC's left leaning is a balance to all the conservative leaning of the other broadcasters. There is value in providing content that isn't 100% profit incentivized, especially as a predominately left leaning country (relative to the USA).
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  So what? Why do people think they should get a precise share of the value in public utilities? A public good has a calculable value, it's not simply the aggregate of everyone's private good. I'm so sick of this zero-sum mindset which has no rational basis in economics but rather demonstrates ignorance of anything beyond the individual's own economic activity.
  - problems 10y ago
    Why don't we just have public food? And why only CBC? Why have consumer choice at all? I'm willing to listen to that economic argument when it's hard to calculate the value you get from something or when you may have a large unexpected cost, but with things like this that have a clear use to value proposition and are completely optional, it's pretty clean cut.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      I disagree about your assessment of the use to value proposition. I find a distinct value in being in a population that has a base level of awareness about public affairs, which awareness is likely to be much better supported by a publicly owned broadcaster than one that has to be responsive to the needs of its advertisers. That remains true even if I don't listen to or watch said media myself.
      - problems 10y ago
        > which awareness is likely to be much better supported by a publicly owned broadcaster than one that has to be responsive to the needs of its advertisers Do you have any evidence to support this position? Especially with a biased source like CBC, it seems a pretty big claim.
        bobdole1234 10y ago
        Biased is entertaining.
        anigbrowl 10y ago
- fatbird 10y ago
  > I'm supposed to pay $45.71 so other people can listen to the radio ad-free? Yes. It's part of the basic compact we call a civil society where we don't insist on a direct line between tax dollars paid and personally-felt value gained, because we trust that the larger, more comprehensive value of a strong civil society is worth more than $45.71. After the number of times I've paid hundreds or thousands in extra property taxes to fund a stadium I'll never visit, where people I'll never befriend enjoy a sport I'll never play, I'm okay with this. More happiness all around benefits me generally.
  - amscanne 10y ago
    What you're saying is of course completely true, but it also means that "I'd be happy to pay my $45.71 per person per year" is equally invalid as a indicator as to whether some public good or service is worthwhile. I believe your parent comment was calling that out, rather than making an argument that it's worth nothing at all. As an aside, I think it's reaching quite a lot to say that an ad-free CBC is somehow equivalent to a "strong civil society". I get that you're saying it's an ingredient, but unless you quantify the value then it's an argument you could apply to absolutely everything under the sun. (The government should fund my blog for $0.01 per person, after all a strong civil society is certainly worth a penny each!)
    - fatbird 10y ago
      The parent was saying that he shouldn't have to pay $45.71/year because there's no direct benefit to him. My response was that a strong civil society requires some latitude in how directly one needs to benefit in order to support taxes for things one doesn't directly enjoy. I agree that a mere willingness to fund something is not, in itself, a measure of some tax-funded good's actual value. I do think that there's probably a good argument that a strong civil society requires a public broadcaster, but my analogy was more about relative equity--I'm okay with your sports stadium, if you're okay with my public broadcaster, because our civil society is better when there's public goods for both of us. And that doesn't even get into the direct economic benefits that are the mainstay arguments for sports stadiums and public broadcasters.
- jcrites 10y ago
  I didn't listen to radio at all until, in the last year or two, I learned about and started listening to NPR through its app called "NPR One". It's an app for your mobile device that streams NPR stories one by one, podcast style, starting with live news updated hourly, followed by anything else of significance, and continuing with stories related to your listening preferences. On each item you can click "Interesting" to indicate your preference for more similar material. They are typically mini-segments analogous to a single news article, on the order of 2-15 minutes, though some go longer. There are also specific podcasts to follow such as "Planet Money", "Hidden Brain", and "All Things Considered". Here's a particularly memorable segment that came up on my steam: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-f... - 7:50 story of the unexpected and unconventional economists who saved Brazil from (worse) hyperinflation by introducing "virtual currency". Lately it also has a ton of political content. If you're interested in business, politics, world events, with a bit of science/technology and culture thrown in, then NPR is an excellent listen. It's not usually an activity that I sit down to listen to deliberately, but it does a fantastic job of filling the time while getting dressed in the morning, on the ride to work, etc. Furthermore, following podcasts normally is kind of a pain in the ass, but NPR One makes it easy: just open the app and press play, and it streams segments until you tell it to stop. It's good for hours of content weekly, and has a large back catalog of past stories as well, which it will stream of it exhausts recent segments. I'm not sure if it's available outside the US, but for US audiences it's completely free and has very few ads.
  - problems 10y ago
    NPR content is much, much better than CBC content though. And it costs about 1/10th the money per capita.
    - randomgyatwork 10y ago
      There are 10x as many people in the USA as in Canada.
      - deleted 10y ago
- rajacombinator 10y ago
  Even better: if you don't pay they'll send armed soldiers to imprison you or worse!
- I-M-S 10y ago
  CBC issued a well-researched Strategy available at http://future.cbc.ca/ http://future.cbc.ca/ that addresses some of your concerns. Just a few most compelling arguments: 1. Every $1 invested in CBC contributes to $2 to the Canadian economy as a whole (+ 7.200 jobs created, even though it's debatable if this is a good thing if these jobs are really as unnecessary as some of the contributors here comment) 2. CBC is supporting local talent and culture of Canada, which is threatened by the hegemony of its southern neighbour. It offers its viewers differing views to topics such Syria refugees or economical plight America's rustbelt towns that influence political dynamics in the U.S. election. Not to mention the value it brings to French or indigenous speaking parts of the country. 3. The whole advertising business model for traditional media is breaking down, as explained in Chapter 3 of the Strategy. Without government funding of the content that matters, we risk of being left in the world where a handful of Silicon Valley corporations make billions in advertising profits from people sharing self-made fake news. This is also an argument for redirecting the ad money to CBC's private Canadian competitors - they are going to need all the help they can get to survive the disrupting media landscape. 4. Chapter 4 offers a showcase where similar strategies made a considerable difference in both quality of programming and its sustainability - that of BBC. 5. Digital innovation is an integral part of the laid-out strategy, offering hope that this is not a short term plan to get more money from tax payers to fix a leaking bucket. All in all, I find the strategy thought out, well-researched, and worthy of support. (edited for formatting)
- ew 10y ago
  This isn't a valid argument. You pay taxes for thousands of public services that you may or may not use. You elect the government that decides these things for you. You don't get to choose. Some perfect examples: pot holes and road maintenance, tree care in your city, national parks, etc. etc. You could sit home and use nothing and still pay, and rightly so.
  - problems 10y ago
    I've already addressed this. This isn't a valid argument, by that logic we should socialize everything and live in communism. Why don't we start with subsidizing your blog? How about socialized netflix subscriptions for all? Clearly there's a point at which something doesn't provide enough value to the average citizen to be worth paying for in taxes, but which they can go out and purchase themselves. Finding this line is the goal. So my argument here is perfectly valid. To address your point more directly, many of those things benefit everyone generally. CBC however is neutral or even harmful to public knowledge. It benefits no one, except for those who share its biases. Media consumption needs to be a consumer choice to prevent the government promoting a certain set of biases that favor them. For the same reason we don't have socialized food or cars, we shouldn't have socialized media. The market does a very good job sorting the wheat from the chaff when it comes to media as it does in most other industries. Worse still, this creates an environment for socialized propaganda. We don't need a government mouthpiece we're forced to pay for. It's harmful to civilized society at large. Media is the very last thing we should socialize and the fact it's partially paid with tax revenue is enough of an insult to Canadians already. This is a negative value to citizens.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
$45.71 for how long? They'll need more money each year, surely,yes?
ckcheng 10y ago
I'm also happy to pay - it's less than Netflix. It would be great to go ad-free so I could watch online without the commercials. I watch it almost daily. The thought also occurs to me that if CBC could make headway into immigrant and minority communities with their programming somehow, it could serve as a cultural bridge.... or something. Just a thought.
bagacrap 10y ago
Yet you'd probably pay much more than that. Consider that many people pay little up no taxes (i.e. children, unemployed, etc) and presumably Canada has a progressive income tax system so the typical hacker news commenter is paying more than average tax. Children actually pay negative tax in that they reduce their parents' tax burden, in the US anyway.
rapind 10y ago
I'd be happy the pay that as well BUT for news and related non-fiction shows only. I don't mind also funding arts but IMO they shouldn't be lumped together.

erkose 10y ago

There have been some great Canadian shows (e.g. Corner Gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Gas )

serge2k 10y ago
On CTV, a private network.
- neom 10y ago
  Yeah, Anne of Green Gables was probably a better example. :D

problems 10y ago

It provides close to zero value to me, I don't listen to radio at all. What's your proposal to me? I'm supposed to pay $45.71 so other people can listen to the radio ad-free? When they can already listen with ads and basically pay for it themselves?

chrisfosterelli 10y ago
This isn't just radio, this is also their television channel and the news website. I don't use the radio but I easily get $45/yr of value from the news I find through CBC.
- problems 10y ago
  Sure, but you're currently getting that value, it's still not an increase in value to you of $45/year. And it still doesn't rationalize it for someone like me who doesn't consume CBC content much to pay that. I find they're way too politically slanted in their news coverage and I'd rather deal with the ads than pay them $45/year for the few programs I watch occasionally.
  - derrickdirge 10y ago
    You're already paying $36/year and dealing with ads. Going ad-free and getting sixteen extra minutes per hour of additional television content isn't worth an extra $9 every year?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - problems 10y ago
      It's actually $11 extra per year. And no, it isn't remotely because I don't consume it. I'd rather the whole amount be removed. CBC should be running in the private marketplace just like everyone else, considering the type of news coverage they tend to provide and the generally low quality entertainment they create. Tax payers paying for it seems like a complete waste of money. Just flushing money down the drain.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        It sounds like you live in the wrong country to be arguing against socialized government services. What next? Universal healthcare!?
        problems 10y ago
        At least with something like universal healthcare I can see a guaranteed benefit in some ways. Both directly and indirectly. It's hard to predict healthcare costs. I can at least see the argument. However, it's very easy to predict CBC consumption desires.
pjmorris 10y ago
Seems to me the value proposition for a non-user is that the users the non-user interacts with are better informed through less commercially-biased sources. Something like the herd immunity value of vaccination.
- problems 10y ago
  That's a terrible value proposition, especially for someone who finds that CBC is extremely politically slanted in their news coverage. I would say I find regular CBC consumers slightly less informed on average if anything.
  - raquo 10y ago
    Which Canadian TV news channel is markedly less biased than CBC?
    - problems 10y ago
      Both Global and CTV's I find tends to do a decent job covering both sides. CBC's leans pretty strongly to the left. We don't have a lot of strongly right leaning TV outlets in Canada, but I wouldn't encourage paying publically for the Sun or National Post either.
      - agmcleod 10y ago
        Global is rather conservative biased. I do find CTV to do pretty reasonably, and have some decent talent, but still I'd rather have a publicly funded organization that doesn't have to worry about ratings.
      - randomgyatwork 10y ago
        My mom is a Global fan, surely you've noticed their biases as well? Realistically, the CBC's left leaning is a balance to all the conservative leaning of the other broadcasters. There is value in providing content that isn't 100% profit incentivized, especially as a predominately left leaning country (relative to the USA).
anigbrowl 10y ago
So what? Why do people think they should get a precise share of the value in public utilities? A public good has a calculable value, it's not simply the aggregate of everyone's private good. I'm so sick of this zero-sum mindset which has no rational basis in economics but rather demonstrates ignorance of anything beyond the individual's own economic activity.
- problems 10y ago
  Why don't we just have public food? And why only CBC? Why have consumer choice at all? I'm willing to listen to that economic argument when it's hard to calculate the value you get from something or when you may have a large unexpected cost, but with things like this that have a clear use to value proposition and are completely optional, it's pretty clean cut.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    I disagree about your assessment of the use to value proposition. I find a distinct value in being in a population that has a base level of awareness about public affairs, which awareness is likely to be much better supported by a publicly owned broadcaster than one that has to be responsive to the needs of its advertisers. That remains true even if I don't listen to or watch said media myself.
    - problems 10y ago
      > which awareness is likely to be much better supported by a publicly owned broadcaster than one that has to be responsive to the needs of its advertisers Do you have any evidence to support this position? Especially with a biased source like CBC, it seems a pretty big claim.
      - bobdole1234 10y ago
        Biased is entertaining.
      - anigbrowl 10y ago
fatbird 10y ago
> I'm supposed to pay $45.71 so other people can listen to the radio ad-free? Yes. It's part of the basic compact we call a civil society where we don't insist on a direct line between tax dollars paid and personally-felt value gained, because we trust that the larger, more comprehensive value of a strong civil society is worth more than $45.71. After the number of times I've paid hundreds or thousands in extra property taxes to fund a stadium I'll never visit, where people I'll never befriend enjoy a sport I'll never play, I'm okay with this. More happiness all around benefits me generally.
- amscanne 10y ago
  What you're saying is of course completely true, but it also means that "I'd be happy to pay my $45.71 per person per year" is equally invalid as a indicator as to whether some public good or service is worthwhile. I believe your parent comment was calling that out, rather than making an argument that it's worth nothing at all. As an aside, I think it's reaching quite a lot to say that an ad-free CBC is somehow equivalent to a "strong civil society". I get that you're saying it's an ingredient, but unless you quantify the value then it's an argument you could apply to absolutely everything under the sun. (The government should fund my blog for $0.01 per person, after all a strong civil society is certainly worth a penny each!)
  - fatbird 10y ago
    The parent was saying that he shouldn't have to pay $45.71/year because there's no direct benefit to him. My response was that a strong civil society requires some latitude in how directly one needs to benefit in order to support taxes for things one doesn't directly enjoy. I agree that a mere willingness to fund something is not, in itself, a measure of some tax-funded good's actual value. I do think that there's probably a good argument that a strong civil society requires a public broadcaster, but my analogy was more about relative equity--I'm okay with your sports stadium, if you're okay with my public broadcaster, because our civil society is better when there's public goods for both of us. And that doesn't even get into the direct economic benefits that are the mainstay arguments for sports stadiums and public broadcasters.
jcrites 10y ago
I didn't listen to radio at all until, in the last year or two, I learned about and started listening to NPR through its app called "NPR One". It's an app for your mobile device that streams NPR stories one by one, podcast style, starting with live news updated hourly, followed by anything else of significance, and continuing with stories related to your listening preferences. On each item you can click "Interesting" to indicate your preference for more similar material. They are typically mini-segments analogous to a single news article, on the order of 2-15 minutes, though some go longer. There are also specific podcasts to follow such as "Planet Money", "Hidden Brain", and "All Things Considered". Here's a particularly memorable segment that came up on my steam: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-f... - 7:50 story of the unexpected and unconventional economists who saved Brazil from (worse) hyperinflation by introducing "virtual currency". Lately it also has a ton of political content. If you're interested in business, politics, world events, with a bit of science/technology and culture thrown in, then NPR is an excellent listen. It's not usually an activity that I sit down to listen to deliberately, but it does a fantastic job of filling the time while getting dressed in the morning, on the ride to work, etc. Furthermore, following podcasts normally is kind of a pain in the ass, but NPR One makes it easy: just open the app and press play, and it streams segments until you tell it to stop. It's good for hours of content weekly, and has a large back catalog of past stories as well, which it will stream of it exhausts recent segments. I'm not sure if it's available outside the US, but for US audiences it's completely free and has very few ads.
- problems 10y ago
  NPR content is much, much better than CBC content though. And it costs about 1/10th the money per capita.
  - randomgyatwork 10y ago
    There are 10x as many people in the USA as in Canada.
    - deleted 10y ago
rajacombinator 10y ago
Even better: if you don't pay they'll send armed soldiers to imprison you or worse!
I-M-S 10y ago
CBC issued a well-researched Strategy available at http://future.cbc.ca/ http://future.cbc.ca/ that addresses some of your concerns. Just a few most compelling arguments: 1. Every $1 invested in CBC contributes to $2 to the Canadian economy as a whole (+ 7.200 jobs created, even though it's debatable if this is a good thing if these jobs are really as unnecessary as some of the contributors here comment) 2. CBC is supporting local talent and culture of Canada, which is threatened by the hegemony of its southern neighbour. It offers its viewers differing views to topics such Syria refugees or economical plight America's rustbelt towns that influence political dynamics in the U.S. election. Not to mention the value it brings to French or indigenous speaking parts of the country. 3. The whole advertising business model for traditional media is breaking down, as explained in Chapter 3 of the Strategy. Without government funding of the content that matters, we risk of being left in the world where a handful of Silicon Valley corporations make billions in advertising profits from people sharing self-made fake news. This is also an argument for redirecting the ad money to CBC's private Canadian competitors - they are going to need all the help they can get to survive the disrupting media landscape. 4. Chapter 4 offers a showcase where similar strategies made a considerable difference in both quality of programming and its sustainability - that of BBC. 5. Digital innovation is an integral part of the laid-out strategy, offering hope that this is not a short term plan to get more money from tax payers to fix a leaking bucket. All in all, I find the strategy thought out, well-researched, and worthy of support. (edited for formatting)
ew 10y ago
This isn't a valid argument. You pay taxes for thousands of public services that you may or may not use. You elect the government that decides these things for you. You don't get to choose. Some perfect examples: pot holes and road maintenance, tree care in your city, national parks, etc. etc. You could sit home and use nothing and still pay, and rightly so.
- problems 10y ago
  I've already addressed this. This isn't a valid argument, by that logic we should socialize everything and live in communism. Why don't we start with subsidizing your blog? How about socialized netflix subscriptions for all? Clearly there's a point at which something doesn't provide enough value to the average citizen to be worth paying for in taxes, but which they can go out and purchase themselves. Finding this line is the goal. So my argument here is perfectly valid. To address your point more directly, many of those things benefit everyone generally. CBC however is neutral or even harmful to public knowledge. It benefits no one, except for those who share its biases. Media consumption needs to be a consumer choice to prevent the government promoting a certain set of biases that favor them. For the same reason we don't have socialized food or cars, we shouldn't have socialized media. The market does a very good job sorting the wheat from the chaff when it comes to media as it does in most other industries. Worse still, this creates an environment for socialized propaganda. We don't need a government mouthpiece we're forced to pay for. It's harmful to civilized society at large. Media is the very last thing we should socialize and the fact it's partially paid with tax revenue is enough of an insult to Canadians already. This is a negative value to citizens.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

$45.71 for how long? They'll need more money each year, surely,yes?

ckcheng 10y ago

I'm also happy to pay - it's less than Netflix. It would be great to go ad-free so I could watch online without the commercials. I watch it almost daily. The thought also occurs to me that if CBC could make headway into immigrant and minority communities with their programming somehow, it could serve as a cultural bridge.... or something. Just a thought.

bagacrap 10y ago

Yet you'd probably pay much more than that. Consider that many people pay little up no taxes (i.e. children, unemployed, etc) and presumably Canada has a progressive income tax system so the typical hacker news commenter is paying more than average tax. Children actually pay negative tax in that they reduce their parents' tax burden, in the US anyway.

rapind 10y ago

I'd be happy the pay that as well BUT for news and related non-fiction shows only. I don't mind also funding arts but IMO they shouldn't be lumped together.