CHRC logo
The Visible and Invisible Engine:
The CBC/SRC – Canada’s largest cultural
employer
CHRC Submission to the
House of Commons
Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage
26 February 2007
Contents
Executive Summary
I
Introduction - What is the CHRC?
1
II
Cultural Employment and Canada's Film and Television Industry
2
III
CBC/SRC as a Cultural Employer
3
A
B
4
5
5
5
6
Historic CBC/SRC employment levels
Impact of the CBC/SRC on the broad cultural sector
1.
On-air employment
2.
Off-air effects
3.
Technology
IV
The Changing Broadcast Environment
7
V
In Closing…
8
Executive Summary
1
Since 1995 the Cultural Human Resources Council (CHRC) has worked to
strengthen Canada’s 500,000+ strong cultural work force. We appreciate the
Standing Committee’s decision to review the mandate of the CBC/SRC and this
opportunity to speak about the importance of that institution as an employer of
Canadian artists and cultural workers.
2
Canada’s public broadcaster and the broader film and television industry merit the
Committee’s attention due to their economic and employment effects. They are
integral to the health and vitality of Canada’s whole cultural sector which accounted
for 3.8% of Canada’s GDP in 2005. The audio-visual businesses of broadcasting,
film, recording and music publishing make up a third of the cultural sector’s
revenues. Film and television production alone provides employment to over one
hundred thousand artists and cultural workers.
3
The CBC/SRC plays a vital role in the cultural sector, not only for its programming
content, but for the direct, indirect, and long-term consequences of its status as the
largest cultural employer in Canada. It employs 25% of those working in the
regulated broadcasting sector and engages a multitude of independent contactors.
4
The CBC/SRC currently operates 111 programming services, with 7,387
permanent staff. By comparison, the BBC operates 64 programming services in
the UK, with 25,377 staff.
5
The CBC/SRC’s short- and longer-term effects are audible and visible on air, but
are equally important behind the scenes. The careers of Canadians such as Oscar
Peterson, Wayne and Shuster, Lloyd Robertson, Margaret Atwood and William
Shatner were all shaped in some important way by employment on CBC/SRC radio
or television.
6
With less visibility, but as great an impact, the CBC/SRC has helped develop
microwave networking, satellite programming distribution and delivery,
broadcasting in the North, and digital broadcasting. Training and development
opportunities made available by the Corporation affect not only its own staff and
programming, but also the staff and programming of other broadcasters as
CBC/SRC-trained staff take on diverse career challenges in the private sector.
7
If the CBC/SRC did not exist, the ripple effects would extend far beyond the loss of
radio and television content about and for Canadians. Thousands of Canadians –
actors, musicians, writers, composers, directors, producers, technical staff etc. would have to find new employment in an industry where, for example, direct and
indirect television production employment has been declining for several years.
Opportunities for cultural training and development would be dramatically reduced.
8
The CBC/SRC has been the engine driving this sector of our economy for
decades, in visible and less visible ways.
9
We would be pleased to appear before the Committee, and to respond to any
questions the Committee may have about our submission.
1
I
Introduction – What is the CHRC?
1
Created in 1995 to strengthen the Canadian cultural workforce, the Cultural Human
Resources Council (CHRC) is one of 30 sector councils supported by Human Resources and
Social Development Canada. Our mandate is “to strengthen the Canadian cultural workforce
by providing leadership and innovative solutions to human resource issues and to better the
HR environment within the cultural sector”. CHRC’s diverse membership spans the country.
2
The CHRC welcomes the Standing Committee’s decision to review the mandate of the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio Canada (CBC/SRC) and appreciates the
opportunity to present our views.
3
Our main interest in the context of this review is to provide empirical and analytical information
about the critical impact of the CBC/SRC on cultural human resources employment and
development. Canada’s national public broadcaster plays a vital role in this area.
4
Between 1996 and 2002, more than half a million people worked in Canada’s cultural
sector.1 As the Members are aware, the cultural sector comprises literally hundreds of
occupations broadly categorized in seven sub-sectors:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
live performing arts,
writing and publishing,
visuals arts and crafts,
film, television radio
new media,
music and sound recording, and
museums, libraries and heritage.
5
The financial importance of Canada’s cultural sector to our economy may not be generally
known. To put it in perspective, we note that in 1995 Canada’s telecommunications sector
generated 2% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, and ten years later in 2005,
2.5%.2 Since 1995, Canada’s cultural sector has consistently accounted for almost four
percent (3.8%) of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product. Almost a third (32%) of this is
accounted for by broadcasting, film, advertising, sound recording, and music publishing.3
6
Artists and cultural workers not only perform a valuable role by enabling Canadians to see and
hear themselves, their ideas, their stories and their values, they also generate economic
growth through direct and indirect multiplier effects. In brief, culture – and Canada’s cultural
workers – matter to our economy.
Vik Singh, “The impact of the cultural sector on the Canadian economy” Focus on Culture Vol. 15, No. 1 (April
2005) Statistics Canada, at 1-2.
2
1995 data: CRTC, Report to the Governor in Council: Status of Competition in Canadian Telecommunications
Markets – Deployment/Accessibility of Advanced Telecommunications Infrastructure and Services (September 2001) at 7.
2005 data: CRTC: Status of Competition in Canadian Telecommunications Markets – Deployment/Accessibility of
Advanced Telecommunications Infrastructure and Services (July 2006) at I (total telecommunications service revenues of
$34.5 billion in 2005); Statistics Canada, “Gross domestic product, expenditure-based” online: Statistics Canada
<http://www40.statcan.ca/101/cst01/econ04.htm> (total GDP at market prices in 2005 of $1,371.4 billion)
3
Statistics Canada (Vik Singh), Economic Contribution of Culture in Canada, Culture, Tourism and the Centre for
Educational Statistics: Research Papers (Minister of Industry: Ottawa, December 2004) Catalogue no. 81-595MIE2004023, at 3. Broadcasting – 13% of culture GDP 1996-2002, film – 9%, advertising – 7%, sound recording and
publishing – 3%.
1
2
II
Cultural Employment and Canada’s Film and Television Industry
7
Canada’s cultural community is large, dynamic, highly skilled and educated. The cultural
labour force now includes more than 500,000 Canadians. Almost 70% hold a university
degree. People in this sector are twice as likely as the general population to be selfemployed, and apart from being ‘creative’, are also are typically well motivated and
entrepreneurial. The number of people working in the Canadian cultural sector has grown at
more than twice the rate of the total workforce over the past 20 years.
8
A large part of Canada’s cultural work force
works in film and television production.
Over the last decade, employment in
Canadian film and television has almost
trebled, increasing by 180% from 42,526
direct and indirect jobs in 1993, to
119,500 jobs in 2005.4 Typically, each
direct job in film and television production
leads to the creation of another 1.6 jobs
elsewhere. In 2005, for instance, the
45,000 direct, full-time equivalent jobs in
this sector led to another 73,500 indirect
full-time equivalent jobs.5
Film and television production, by
province (average 1993-2005)
PEI 167
Film and Television Production Employment
Multiplier
Direct
Indirect
Total
effect
1993
16,356
26,170
42,526
1.600
1994
20,145
32,231
52,376
1.600
1995
24,125
38,600
62,725
1.600
1996
28,064
44,902
72,966
1.600
1997
36,300
58,100
94,400
1.601
1998
36,400
58,200
94,600
1.599
1999
46,900
75,100 122,000
1.601
2000
53,800
86,100 139,900
1.600
2001
54,000
86,500 140,500
1.602
2002
52,500
83,900 136,400
1.598
2003
54,500
87,200 141,700
1.600
2004
51,900
83,100 135,000
1.601
2005
46,000
73,500 119,500
1.598
1993181.2%
180.9% 181.0%
2005
Source: CFTPA, Profile (various years)
NF 289
NB
544
SK
1,311
MA
1,889
AL
4,400
NS
3,322
BC
29,144
QU
34,533
ON
49,444
0
20,000
40,000
D ire c t a nd indire c t jo bs
4
60,000
9
The data published by the CFTPA suggest that
every province in Canada benefits from this
sectoral employment.
10
Parliament has clearly acknowledged the
importance of employment in Canadian
broadcasting. Subsection 3(1)(d)(iii) of the
Broadcasting Act, 1991 establishes that
employment opportunities in our broadcasting
system should serve Canadians’ interests and
needs:
3. (1) It is hereby declared as the
broadcasting policy for Canada that
…
(d) the Canadian broadcasting system
should
…
(iii) through its programming and the employment
CFTPA, Profile 2006: An Economic Report on the Canadian Film and Television Production Industry (February
2006) at 13; CFTPA, The Canadian Film and Television Production Industry: Profile 2000 (February 2000) at 26.
5
Ibid., at 5.
3
opportunities arising out of its operations, serve the needs and interests, and reflect the
circumstances and aspirations, of Canadian men, women and children, including equal rights, the
linguistic duality and multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society and the special
place of aboriginal peoples within that society ….
11
Indeed, Parliament specifically requires every broadcasting station or network to use
Canadian creative resources, through section 3(1)(f) of the Act
3(1)(f)
each broadcasting undertaking shall make maximum use, and in no case
less than predominant use, of Canadian creative and other resources in the creation
and presentation of programming, unless the nature of the service provided by the
undertaking, such as specialized content or format or the use of languages other than
French and English, renders that use impracticable, in which case the undertaking shall
make the greatest practicable use of those resources ….
12
Canada’s national public broadcaster is a key lever available to Parliament and the
government to enable Canadians to work, develop and succeed in this sector.
III
CBC/SRC as a Cultural Employer
13
The CBC/SRC as we now know it was created in 1936, following the 1929 Report of the Royal
Commission on Broadcasting headed by Sir John Aird, president of the Canadian Bank of
Commerce.6 Until the late 1940s, the CBC/SRC’s main function was to provide French- and
English-language radio programs to Canadians across its network of ten radio stations and a
larger pool of privately-owned radio affiliates. In 1949, however, Parliament lent the
CBC/SRC $4.5 million to establish television stations in Montreal and Toronto.7
14
Since the 1950s, the number of services operated by the CBC/SRC has grown by a factor of
ten. Apart from its work online and with affiliates, community rebroadcasters, the CBC/SRC
now operates 111 programming services for Canadians:
8 French-language TV stations
16 English-language TV stations
English-language TV network
French-language TV network
Le Réseau d’information (RDI) (1995)
CBC Newsworld (1987)
The Documentary Channel (2000)
27 TV services & 2 networks
28 French-language radio stations
50 English-language radio stations
2 English-language radio networks
2 French-language radio networks
CBC Galaxie (pay audio) (1995)
79 radio services & 4 networks
To produce, broadcast, transmit and deliver these services, across five time zones and
in both official languages, the CBC/SRC currently employs, trains and develops just
over 7,000 people itself, and also hires independent producers and others to provide services
that result not just in the production of more radio and television programming, but in the
development and financial compensation of many others in Canada’s audio-visual sector.
15
6
By way of perspective, the British Broadcasting Corporation currently operates 64
programming services across the United Kingdom, with a staff of 25,377.8
The Canadian Broadcasting Act, 1936 1. Edward VIII, c. 24.
CBC, Annual Report, 1949-1950 at 40.
8
BBC, Annual Report and Accounts, 2005/2006, at 109. The BBC operates 8 TV channels, 10 radio networks and
46 national and local radio services.
7
4
A
Historic CBC/SRC employment levels
16
Over the last fifty years, the CBC/SRC’s
workforce has expanded and contracted.
The size of the CBC/SRC’s staff has
declined for two decades – from its
highest point over twenty years ago of
12,334 staff, to its current level of 7,387.9
The CBC/SRC’s staff comprise 25% of
staffing in our regulated broadcasting sector.
17
We understand that the majority of the
CBC/SRC’s staff works in programming.
Data from the mid-1990s indicate that 81%,
or more than 9,000 of the CBC/SRC’s staff,
worked in this area. The remaining 19%
were divided among technical, sales and
administrative positions.
18
Although we do not have firm numbers, we also understand that in part through the Canadian
Television Fund, the CBC/SRC enters into contracts with many independent producers across
Canada to provide programming in both French and English. Reaching beyond its own walls,
the CBC/SRC stimulates employment throughout the cultural sector and across the country by
licensing independent productions. As a result, the CBC/SRC’s impact extends well beyond its
own doors, to many others working directly or indirectly outside the CBC/SRC.
19
We are aware that other broadcasters offer employment in Canada’s cultural sector. At the
same time however, and although the CBC/SRC’s permanent employment levels have
decreased for some time, the CBC/SRC remains Canada’s single largest, cultural
employer, when compared with the entire private radio and television broadcasting sector. In
2005 the private sector employed 22,281 people – divided among more than 700 private
radio, television, pay and specialty broadcasting stations and services.
9
Dominion Bureau of Statistics and Statistics Canada, Radio and television broadcasting (various years); CBC
reports.
5
B
Impact of the CBC/SRC on the broad cultural sector
20
The Committee’s Members have doubtless frequently heard anecdotes about the role and
effects of the CBC/SRC. Anecdotes often take the place of empirical evidence, when
quantitative data exists, but cannot easily be gathered. With that in mind, we would like to
invite the Committee to consider the impact of the CBC/SRC first by reviewing some of these
anecdotal accounts, and then by imagining what our audio-visual and cultural sector might
look like, if the CBC/SRC did not exist at all.
1.
On-air employment
21
Throughout its history the CBC/SRC has offered Canadians an entry point into the
broadcasting industry. Many well-known Canadian journalists, actors and producers who
have since worked with the private sector, worked with the CBC/SRC early in their careers. A
few examples include

Oscar Peterson, who won a national amateur contest with the CBC/SRC in 1939, at
the age of 14, which led to a weekly radio show and work on the CBC/SRC’s The
Happy Gang,

Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster, who began the Wayne and Shuster Show for
CBC/SRC Radio in 1946,

Monique Giroux, whose career as an SRC radio program host began in 1986, at 23.

Lloyd Robertson, who began working in television in 1954 with the CBC/SRC,

Christopher Plummer, whose first television performance in 1951 was in a CBC/SRC
production of Othello and

William Shatner, whose acting career began CBC/SRC radio in 1956.

Margaret Atwood, who in 1967 at the age of 28 read her work on CBC Television's
Extensions, a series dedicated to new Canadian poets

Monique Giroux, Jacques Languirand, Bernard Derome, Céline Galipeau.
6
22
In our view, even this short list of examples demonstrates the important, longer-term influence
the CBC/SRC has had on Canadian broadcasting, Canadian cultural workers and Canadians
themselves, whether informally through employment opportunities, or through more formal
training programs. We think this influence remains with those the CBC/SRC has employed,
well after they leave the CBC/SRC’s doors.
23
The CBC/SRC’s training and development programs focus not only on programming
content, but on technology. We understand that the Corporation offers its staff the opportunity
to develop skills ranging from copy-writing for electronic media and live media integration
techniques, to video editing, media composition and HDTV.
24
The CBC/SRC has also had a long-standing policy to ensure that Canada’s cultural diversity
is reflected both on and off the air. The Corporation has given public voices and faces to
Canadian diversity, ensuring that young Canadians from diverse backgrounds realize the
breadth of employment opportunities available in this sector of the economy.
2.
Off-air effects
25
The CBC/SRC has employment effects that extend beyond its own employees. The
Corporation often takes the time, for instance, to mention local and regional cultural events,
providing their audience with an opportunity to participate in such events and offering the
performers and organizers the opportunity to strengthen their revenue base.
26
The influence of the CBC/SRC extends well beyond Canada’s urban centres. The CBC/SRC
launched its Northern Service in 1958, carrying radio and television programming to the
Canadian Arctic.
27
The CBC/SRC also used satellites to carry the proceedings of Parliament into Canadians’
homes. The CBC/SRC launched the Parliamentary channel in 1979, distributing the service
by satellite to cable systems across the country in what it then thought would be temporary
broadcasts of Parliament.10 Within three years, several applicants proposed new, satellitedelivered television programming services to the CRTC – among them, MuchMusic.
28
The CBC/SRC’s influence extends even farther today, than in the past. In 2004 the CBC/SRC
created the Canadian Institute for Training in Public Broadcasting, to share its knowledge
and experience with foreign broadcasters in television, radio, the Internet and multimedia.
The CBC/SRC has provided training courses in digital archiving, interactive programming,
parliamentary reporting to broadcasters from Algeria, Haiti, and Iraq, among other countries.
The CBC/SRC has therefore been able to encourage the development of democracy around
the world, by educating managers, journalists, technicians and other media professionals from
emerging societies.
3.
Technology
29
The CBC/SRC’s development and work in telecommunications have linked Canadians for
decades. Consider that ‘bicycling’ radio and television tapes across the country was standard
for almost fifty years in Canadian broadcasting. In 1958, however, the CBC/SRC used a first
microwave network from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, to carry the country’s first coast-tocoast live TV broadcast. The CBC/SRC’s technical work laid the foundation for other
television networks, such as CTV that the CRTC licensed in 1960.
10
CBC Annual Report, 1980-81, at 9.
7
30
And although we take it for granted today – attested to by the several hundred satellitedelivered pay and specialty services that the CRTC has licensed – using satellites to distribute
television signals is only a quarter of a century old. The CBC/SRC was the first Canadian
broadcaster to distribute its signals across the country by satellite, beginning in 1973
using Telesat Canada’s first satellite, the Anik A1. The system used a unique master control
system designed and developed by CBC/SRC engineering. In 1999, the National Academy of
Television Arts and Sciences awarded the CBC/SRC an Emmy for this ground-breaking
achievement.
31
Over the last fifteen years, the CBC/SRC’s background in technological development enabled
it to provide support and leadership in the development of digital broadcasting technology, for
both radio and television.
32
The CBC/SRC’s engineering staff has won awards for its achievements. It used advanced
video coding and modulation techniques to increase satellite transponder capacity for video
signals by 40%, combining all of its English-language television network satellite distribution
feeds onto a single Anik F1 C-band transponder. This satellite distribution system was the first
of its kind in the world, and resulted in the CBC/SRC’s being awarded the 2001 Gemini Award
for Outstanding Technical Achievement.
33
In brief, the CHRC believes that the CBC/SRC has functioned well as the engine powering
Canada’s cultural sector: it has played a critical and fundamental role in cultural training
and development, with respect to programming content and the distribution of content. Many
CBC/SRC staff have moved on to work for other broadcasters or elsewhere in the cultural
sector. The training and development opportunities available through experience at the
CBC/SRC remain invaluable, and we hope that the CBC/SRC will be able to maintain its
efforts in this area.
IV
The Changing Broadcast Environment
34
We realize that our communications sector is changing. Technology is transforming almost
every job in the cultural sector – from the way companies are organized and the way they
market their products, to the media through which works are created, produced, conserved
and brought to the public. Change occurs steadily, however. Over the last century
Canada’s broadcasting system and the CBC/SRC have been buffeted frequently by new
technologies and their effects: from radio in 1906, to television (1952), and from there, on to
cablevision (1952), micro-wave relays and computers (1953), pay television (1960 and 1982),
satellite distribution (1973), personal computers (1981), direct-to-home satellite transmission
(1982), specialty television (1987), the internet (~1995), webcasts (2003), and now, mobile
television and podcasts (2006).
35
We believe that it is critical to stay abreast of new technological change which is now a fact of
life, but our focus must first be on our human resources: we must maintain a focus on
Canada’s short-, medium- and long-term objectives for cultural sector employment.
36
Rather than focussing on the effects of technological change on the CBC/SRC, we wonder
what our cultural sector would look like if the Corporation no longer existed.
8
37
38
Without the CBC/SRC,
the thousands of
Canadians it now
employs would have to
find new employment, in
an industry that would
not be able to absorb all
of them. CFTPA data
show that the number of
direct and indirect
jobs in Canadian
television production
has been declining
steadily for the last five
years.
TV production employment: 1997-2005
Indirect jobs
60,000
Direct jobs
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
To tal jo bs
38,000
35,300
56,200
56,900
53,300
50,200
50,100
44,700
44,700
Indirect jo bs
23,400
21,700
34,600
35,000
32,800
30,900
30,800
27,500
27,500
Direct jo bs
14,600
13,600
21,600
21,900
20,500
19,300
19,300
17,200
17,200
Data from the CRTC also establish that employment opportunities in Canada’s private radio,
television and pay and specialty
Private broadcasting employment: 1985-2005
television services have not been
12,000
growing, but have remained steady over
the last decade after declining from
10,000
higher levels in the 1980s. Although pay
and specialty television services offer a
8,000
new source of employment and
6,000
development opportunities, these
Radio
several hundred services altogether
TV
4,000
employ fewer than five thousand people.
Pay & specailty
V
In Closing…
40
We encourage the Standing Committee to consider the huge impact that the CBC/SRC has
on employment in the cultural sector in Canada, as we have highlighted in this submission;
and take that into account when assessing the future place of the Corporation in Canada’s
broadcasting system – and its cultural sector.
41
We have greatly appreciated the opportunity to discuss the importance of the CBC as a
cultural employer in Canada.
42
We would welcome the opportunity to appear before the Committee and present our views in
person. Should the Committee have any questions about our submission, we would be
pleased to respond.
20
05
20
03
20
01
19
99
19
97
19
95
19
93
19
91
19
89
19
87
The direct and indirect effects of the
CBC/SRC and its employment, training
and development opportunities – both
measurable and more-difficult-tomeasure effects – would be virtually
impossible to recreate from thin air.
19
85
39
2,000