Quote, unquote: How and why to save the CBC

"Some of our private digital companies and news agencies, whether it’s the Tyee or iPolitics or National Newswatch, may grow up into important services and become surrogates for newspapers and broadcasters, or they may not. It’s a very competitive market for advertising out there. And scale matters hugely. I’m not sure that five, ten years out any of the Canadian companies will generate enough scale in advertising to compete with the global companies. So, we may end up with a branch plant media and a range of local services lacking the scale to have real impact. 

"I think in those circumstances it might be very important to have an institution like the CBC that is particularly concerned about Canada and Canada’s national interest. Not as the lone voice, the sole voice, of a Canadian perspective but as a robust presence for Canada on the media scene. So rather than dismantling it or letting it die a slow death, I think we should be reconsidering the CBC’s mandate and preparing it as a service for a more globally competitive media environment five, ten years out."

-- Kenneth Whyte, senior vice-president of public policy at Rogers Communications, speaking about why it's more important than ever to save the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It was part of a longer Q&A with host Don Hill in the online journal C2C. (It's probably redundant to note that Whyte was publisher of Maclean's, once ran all of Rogers's consumer and b2b magazines and was editor of Saturday Night magazine and of the National Post.)