In 1981, the CRTC decided one CBC-TV channel was enough
Broadcast regulator turned down licence application to launch second CBC network
Four decades ago, the CBC had an ambitious plan to double the Canadian content it showed on television.
How? By launching a second television network, available on cable, to be called CBC-2, or Télé-2 in French, which would bring new and already-aired programming to viewers.
For $30 million a year, the CBC believed it could "provide a prime time, commercial-free alternative to the present broadcasting mix," as reporter Bill Casey put it, when explaining the concept on The National.
But the CRTC wasn't convinced of the plan's merits and it rejected the CBC's licence application for the proposed network on May 27, 1981.
A too-small audience?
According to Casey's report, the CRTC had concerns that the budget needs of CBC-2 would eventually become a drag on the existing CBC network.
And the CRTC also believed the potential audience for CBC-2 and Télé-2 — "some 17 per cent of the population, through optional cable facilities," as Casey described it — would be too limited to justify the existence of the second network.
"When one started looking at who would actually be in a position to enjoy it, the number of people likely to be involved, we obviously judged that that [audience] claim perhaps was not going to be met," said the CRTC's John Meisel.
'The death knell' for Canadian broadcasting?
CBC President Al Johnson expressed disappointment with the CRTC's decision. He also had concerns for its implications for the future of Canadian TV.
"Well, I wouldn't want to say that this is the death knell," said Johnson.
"But I would go so far as to say that if the CRTC and the government don't form a partnership very, very quickly to Canadianize television in this country, we're going to be swamped with more of American channels ... and Canada will become fully a cultural colony of the United States."
