In Who's Best Interest?

by Clint Lalonde

In July of 1989, the radio station where I was working, CFGP, was sold to Rogers Broadcasting. Within a year, CFGP went from being a strong regional broadcaster to a hollow shell of what it had once been. Staff was cut from 36 to 20. The newsroom, the most costly and unprofitable portion of the station, was cut from 6 to 2, and local news was replaced by "rip and read" wire copy. Professionally trained staff were replaced with high school and college work experience students. The only department that survived unscathed was Sales. At the time I thought I was lucky to have survived, but surviving meant doing the work that three people had once done. I spent the next 5 years watching an old friend whither away until it had become indistinguishable from Rogers stations in Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver. CFGP had been assimilated.

In August of 1993, a negative environmental assessment of Weyerhaeuser, the city's largest employer and a dominant advertiser on CFGP, was released by the Alberta Government. An unacceptably large number of toxins had been found in the river downstream from the pulp mill. I remember the management meeting in which we discussed whether we should report on it, or let it pass by unnoticed for fear of upsetting the business community. The decision was made to report, but that meeting proved to be a defining moment for me because it was the first time I saw the inherent danger of what Canadian media had become, and continues to be today. It is a media that is driven by the bottom line instead of the public interest. As fewer people control more of the media and profit remains the ultimate goal, the media in Canada has homogenized itself to the point where citizens are numbed into accepting the lowest common denominator: if it doesn’t sell then it is not worth talking about. If the continuing monopolization of media in Canada continues, we will soon see the corporate opinions of people like Conrad Black and Ted Rogers become the prevailing attitudes of Canadian citizens simply because they will not know there is any other opinion.

At one time, Canadians could count on a strong public broadcaster to balance the corporate agenda. However, with recent budget cuts, the CBC is in danger of becoming a shadow of its former self. By the end of 1997, 1 in 3 jobs will have been eliminated from the public broadcaster. CBC radio has already announced that their fall programming schedule will feature significantly less new material, and instead will rely on repeats of exisitng programs. If this trend continues, the CBC, cited by most Canadians as one of the major institutions that ties us together as Canadians, will cease to exist. Once that happens, it is possible that the only Canadian identity the media will portray is the one that is the most profitable.

After slaving away in the salt factory known as commercial radio for 7 years, Clint recently tossed the yoke of oppression from his svelte shoulders and broke free for the greener pastures of community broadcasting. Clint is now learning how to assemble a life that does not include remote broadcasts from cowboy boot factories on Saturdays and mc'ing Sunday afternoon stock car qualifying heats. One of his greatest talents is the ability to maintain a straight face while uttering the words, "I'm not bitter." Clint hates whiners. You can contact Clint at lalondec@camosun.bc.ca or visit his web-site at Camosun College's 103.1 CKMO Radio.