Canadian Broadcasting Corporation In The 1930's

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Introduction

In the early 1930’s, the inception of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) came about in response to overwhelming American broadcasting and a concern that Canada would be dominated by U.S culture (Manera, T., 2015, The CBC: Past, Present, and Future, paras. 2-3). The CBC is different from other broadcasters in that it is publicly funded and as a result must aim to be reflective of all Canadians and be representative of both languages. In addition to this mandate, the CBC must be accountable to parliament and transparent with its use of public funds (Menard, M., 2016. CBC/Radio Canada). As with all broadcasters, there have been a number of changes that have taken place in this industry over the last …show more content…

In 2005, in response to the increase in hiring of contract workers, and 15 months of failing negotiations, an eight-week lockout began (Cordon, S., 2005, para. 1). Rabinovitch was heavily criticized for undermining labour relations, going against the board of directors and further alienating parliament, not to mention the losses in advertising during the lockout (Cordon, S., 2005, paras. 12-14). This was the beginning of the end for the CEO. While some of his changes were successful, his overall philosophy of rebranding and having a clear vision had ultimately faded. His vision of distinct programming and less commercialism to differentiate itself from the private networks had become a contradictory mission statement when the CBC continued to compete with the private sector for advertising dollars as it had in the past (Maich, S., 2005, paras. 12, …show more content…

A planned change involving cost-cutting, while fiscally responsible took a turn for the worse, resulting in all-time low labour relations. The CBC is a very traditional organization which mimics a mechanistic design (Cummings, T., Worley, C., 2015, p. 536). I think this type of organizational design worked against the CBC’s own missions. The CBC was looking to be more innovative, both in its programming and in its vision to rebrand. The problem was that the management processes were top down, and employee involvement in decision making was non-existent, unlike an Organic Design (Cummings, T., Worley, C., 2015, p. 536). In fairness, this is not one person's failure. For over a decade the government had given the CBC mixed messages on its value. Continual cuts from Parliament, a demand for a "public broadcaster" with an unclear definition of what that would look like was a recipe for status quo. In order for change activities to lead to effective change management, there needs to be political support (in this case quite literally), a roadmap to follow to the future state and a sustained momentum (Cummings, T., Worley, C., 2015, p. 180). Unfortunately, the pressures of trying to compete with the private networks quashed the momentum and future state of the organization. These pressures led to the extreme measures of labour, from deep cuts of core talent

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