Council and staff to work with local CBC Radio Advocates to produce letter of support for local service

With the CBC set to seek a license renewal for its broadcasting service across Canada in the months to come, fans of the public broadcaster on the North Coast are making ready to show their support for local CBC programming and perhaps ask for a more expansive presence in the city.

Monday night Kathleen Palm, the spokesperson for the local group appeared at City Council to recruit the council members in their crusade.

Making note of the work of past City Council's towards the campaign, she outlined the local groups hopes of receiving a letter of support from the city as they move forward with a postcard plan to show how much the CBC is appreciated in the region.

During the course of her twelve minute presentation to Council, Ms. Palm took the city councillors through some recent history of the local station, highlighting some of their past service to the community and some of the previous campaigns that were launched by the local friends of the public broadcaster in the region.

Among the most dedicated of advocates over the years when it comes to CBC Radio in the city has been former city councillor Evelyn Basso, who made the CBC one of her largest passions during her time on Council.

Ms. Basso could not be in attendance for Monday's presentation but Ms. Palm provided some points on the topic for Council to consider from the long time former Council member.

"CBC is a national service that we have paid for, CBC helps promote local communities it's the cheapest form of advertising any of us have, attracting tourist dollars and raising awareness of the investment potential in many of our regions"

As part of their call for action of the community, the group is asking for the City of Prince Rupert to address the CRTC, CBC's Catherine Tait and its Board of Directors to endorse public support for CBC Radio One.

Towards that goal,  Ms. Palm added that she would like to see the City provide a letter of support that would include a number of recommendations, among them:

Recommend that CBC one will continue to be the most timely source of Canadian immediate information, original news and programming, predominately and distinctively Canadian and vitally the audience of CBC one to be declared Canadians in Canada.

Members of the community can also lend a hand in sharing support for the public broadcaster, with the group having created locally designed post cards, printed in the community to help with the campaign.

She also noted that CBC management are making plans to come to Prince Rupert sometime in the future and she outlined how she would like to impress upon them the opportunity that the Prince Rupert station offers to expand on their current programming and become a leader in broadcasting from the North Coast.

Following her presentation Councillors Cunningham and Adey provided their own testimonies of support for the public broadcaster and its importance to the community.

Council then approved a plan that would see city staff consult with the local advocates for public broadcasting to work on the letter of support, a document that they hope to have up for discussion at the next City Council session.

You can review more of the presentation to Council from our Council Timeline feature here, as well as through the video from the Council session, the CBC topic makes for the first item of business on the evening.




More notes on Council themes from Monday can be found here, while a larger overview of past Council topics can be explored on our Council Discussion page.

Further items if interest on the media in the Northwest can be explored here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.