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This story was just released today. Can you say "Quid Pro Quo?"
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...Story/National/
Budget holds goodies for CBC
By SUE BAILEY
Sunday, February 20, 2005 Updated at 6:13 PM EST
Canadian Press
Ottawa — The CBC will get a multimillion-dollar boost when the federal budget is tabled Wednesday, The Canadian Press has learned.
The extra cash will be enough to restore local programs — notably regional newscasts, a senior government source said on condition of anonymity.
Local supper-hour newscasts were slashed in 2000 amid deep budget cuts. Staff were laid off across Canada and more than 200,000 viewers tuned out when hour-long regional evening newscasts were shortened.
Critics assailed the CBC's effort to replace the popular local newscasts with Canada Now, a Vancouver-based show that includes regional inserts.
CBC president Robert Rabinovitch recently outlined a plan to restore regional radio and television content. It calls for sustained funding that would gradually increase from $34.4-million in the first year to $61.2-million in the second, levelling off at $82.8-million by the third year.
“Faced with massive government reductions in our funding during the 1990s, CBC/Radio-Canada was forced to make very difficult programming decisions,” Mr. Rabinovitch told employees two weeks ago.
“But we are committed to rebuilding our local and regional service and this plan details how we would do that, and what it would cost.”
About $930 million of the CBC's $1.3-billion annual budget comes from the federal government.
Ian Morrison, spokesman for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, hopes Ottawa will insist that any new funding must be used to boost regional programming. The non-profit, independent watchdog group promotes improved content across the country.
“We do not detect that the senior management at the CBC, president Mr. Rabinovitch and his senior people, are really committed to regional programming,” Mr. Morrison said Sunday in an interview.
“It's going to be important for the government to earmark the funds specifically enough to kind of hold CBC management's feet to the fire.”
Mr. Morrison said Ottawa must “make sure the money is in fact spent at the grassroots rather than ... generating more network programming out of Vancouver or something of that nature.”
A CBC cash injection was foreshadowed in December when the all-party Commons finance committee, during pre-budget consultations, recommended increased and stable funding, he said.
“I saw that as kind of a tea leaf that something would change,” Mr. Morrison said.
Jason MacDonald, a spokesman for CBC/Radio-Canada, said cost estimates for restoring regional programs were prepared at the request of the Commons heritage committee.
“If we were to receive the money for the local/regional plan, that's exactly what we would use it for,” he said.
A spokesman for Heritage Minister Liza Frulla declined to comment Sunday on what's in the minority government's much-anticipated first budget.
“I will learn, like everyone else, on Wednesday,” said Jean-Philippe Coté.
The CBC has also asked that Ottawa make permanent a $60-million annual payout that has been added to its federal funding in each of the last three years. And there are ongoing efforts to get back the CBC's once-protected allotment of 50 per cent of the Canadian Television Fund, a crucial source of program financing for both private and public broadcasters.
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Disco and classical had sex while watching a sci-fi movie. Their child: trance.
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