[problems]

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?

[fatbird]

> 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]

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]

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.

[problems]

> The parent was saying that he shouldn't have to pay $45.71/year because there's no direct benefit to him.

It provides no indirect benefit either. Instead it misguides and misinforms people. The problem is that something like CBC provides no benefit to anyone in society who doesn't share it's biases. A government mouthpiece is absolutely not necessary for civilized society. Nor does it truly provide a benefit to anyone, but a detriment to society at large. I don't believe society should be forced to pay to pander to a specific political niche.

But if you're making this argument, why stop at socialized media? Certainly some people could benefit from socialized food or cars? Why do those things deserve consumer choice, but media doesn't? The market arguably does an even better job with media than those things.

[fatbird]

First, slippery slope is a fallacy: having a public broadcaster does not lead to socialized cars.

Second, we do have socialized food, it's called welfare, and going forward, that situation will only increase under the name 'guaranteed basic income' because we're automating away all the jobs people might have.

Third, you have media choice in Canada: elsewhere you say CTV and Global are better. Good choice.

> It provides no indirect benefit either.

This is silly. It provides a lot of jobs that pay well or offer good security or both, which benefits the economy generally in a number of ways. It provides funding for the arts, also economically beneficial but also culturally valuable, to some at least. It provides a media outlet directly subject to government controls, which takes some heat off CTV and Global to meet policy goals that the CBC can fulfill, like Canadian Content. It provides a public good for people like me so that when a new levy for a stadium comes around, I'm okay with paying the levy even if I'll get no direct benefit myself.

> Instead it misguides and misinforms people.

Okay, you don't like seeing a viewpoint you find wrong and harmful to be funded with your tax dollars; if the gov't funded a version of Fox News up here, I'd probably feel the same way. Whether or not I actually opposed that public Fox North would depend on my feeling about whether I can tolerate it as part of the broader program of public spending--maybe I'd be fine with it if the CBC was then allowed to drift even further left.

The point remains that we collectively compromise in order to ensure that the public good reaches the broadest number of citizens. If you're unable to tolerate $45.71 a year going to something that your fellow citizens enjoy, suck it up: I'm sure there's lots you're enjoying now that they'd prefer not to fund.

[problems]

> First, slippery slope is a fallacy: having a public broadcaster does not lead to socialized cars.

I was merely trying to draw a comparison to things we can agree shouldn't be socialized, where consumer choice matters, not that one leads to the other. I believe slippery slope fallacy requires the implication that in this case, publicly funding CBC leads to socialized cars. Which I didn't mean to imply is true if it came off that way. Just to draw a comparison to see how you thought of it differently, because I find them fairly comparable personally.

Even in welfare or the mincome proposals you have consumer choice over where to spend and exactly how much to spend on food. Which you don't in this case with CBC's media. That's the part I have a problem with.

> I'm sure there's lots you're enjoying now that they'd prefer not to fund.

And I'm quite confident there's not. In fact, there are very, very few things I feel that the government should be funding. I'm more than willing to give up just about anything the government provides me if they're willing to do the same.

Why is the opposite proposal of saying we should remove these things rejected outright? How about we all just pay for the stuff we use instead of paying for other people's stuff? If we had a mincome-style system, would you be more okay with this sort of proposal?

I'd be much more open to mincome proposals if we could get rid of cruft like this we're paying for. I think it could generate real economic efficiency in cases like this.

[I-M-S]

CBC issued a well-researched Strategy available at 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)

[anigbrowl]

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]

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]

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]

> 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.

[anigbrowl]

I do, and I'm delighted you asked. There is some academic evidence (linked below in a relevant news article) but I would have held much the same attitude anyway having grown up and lived in countries with a public broadcaster and then moved to the US which doesn't really have one in the same way. My personal impression is that US consumers enjoy massive choice but that most of the products in he media market are total crap. Consumers are entertained, but that's like saying that consumers who eat a lot of fast food are satisfied by the taste; we can point to a legitimate economic preference, but we're fooling ourselves if we think that a Big Mac is high quality food.

Quality in media is hard to define, but I'd say it means delivering a decent awareness (in the aggregate obviously) of current affairs, sufficient cultural literacy to know a basic history of art, science, and nations, and somewhat greater familiarity with the history of the home country, stuff like that. It would be nice if there were no bias or ideological slant, but that's probably an unachievable goal, and only through the lens of history can we have much certainty about who was objectively right on any given topic. A charter should aim to minimize bias, while accepting its existence as an unavoidable trade-off of media organizations in general, and aiming for measurable improvements in functional knowledge among its consumers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/1...

[agmcleod]

I can't disagree on them being biased, i don't watch enough of them to say one way or the other. But they are one of the better news stations in Canada by far.

[bobdole1234]

Biased is entertaining.

[pjmorris]

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]

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.

[randomgyatwork]

Personally, I find CBC the only news that is palatable. They do have a left slant, but that seem consistent with the average citizens position when compared to the USA and the news/media we get from them.

The stories are different too, which might come from an incentive to provide a public service rather than a sensationalization of what is happen as a profit motive.

[uabstraction]

Perhaps freedom from advertisers' influence will have a positive affect on this (I'm not placing any bets though).

[raquo]

Which Canadian TV news channel is markedly less biased than CBC?

[problems]

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.

[randomgyatwork]

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).

[agmcleod]

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.

[chrisfosterelli]

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]

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.

[rpeden]

Politically slanted in what direction?

I remember them criticizing the Chretien and Martin governments pretty heavily, then saw them do the same for Harper, and am seeing them criticize Trudeau quite heavily now that he seems to be dragging his feet on electoral reform.

A few elections ago, I remember a CBC host (can't remember which one) giving Jack Layton a hard time because he kept repeating talking points instead of actually answering questions.

I've voted for all three major parties at various points in my life, and I've watched CBC news criticize them all, which seemed fair to me.

But I completely understand that they way they cover things comes across differently to you.

I also find their non-political news coverage to be more calm and balanced than most alternatives. I was living in Ottawa during the Parliament Hill shooting a couple of years ago, and I remember following the coverage on both CBC and CNN. CNN had Wolf Blitzer flipping out and talking about multiple gunmen, while CBC had Peter Mansbridge staying calm, trying hard to separate fact from rumour. There were lots of remarks later on about the differences between the CBC and CNN coverage of the event[1].

It's fair to ask if the cost is worth it, but it's also fair to remember that it not being worth $45 a year for you doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. I pay more tax than the average Canadian, and lots of it goes to things I'll never benefit from personally. I'm sure some it even goes to things I personally dislike. But I find that life is pretty decent overall, and what's best for me personally is not necessarily what's best for the country.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/canad...

[derrickdirge]

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?

[problems]

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]

It sounds like you live in the wrong country to be arguing against socialized government services.

What next? Universal healthcare!?

[problems]

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.

[derrickdirge]

Do you think the low quality of the content has anything to do with the fact that advertisers pay for ratings? Conventional wisdom dictates that the best way to boost ratings is to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

[jcrites]

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-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]

NPR content is much, much better than CBC content though. And it costs about 1/10th the money per capita.

[randomgyatwork]

There are 10x as many people in the USA as in Canada.

[ew]

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]

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.

[rajacombinator]

Even better: if you don't pay they'll send armed soldiers to imprison you or worse!