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Thursday, August 20, 2009
MGTV - Manitoba Government TV
The Doer Government is funding a study to see whether there is place for a government run, government owned "educational" TV station.
(On Screen Manitoba executive director Tara) Walker said a provincial education public broadcaster would be a training ground for local filmmakers to tell stories, on TV and on the web, about Manitobans, for Manitobans.
It would also broadcast children's programs, assist in long-distance teaching and learning and let far-flung communities communicate through a public network across the province.
I do believe that all of these things are already available through various broadcasters in the market like, and this other thing that a lot of people use, the interwebs.
What this would do is create a government run broadcaster that would be in competition with private broadcasters that already have similar programming, such as APTN and Treehouse. I am in support of competition, but when the government gets into competition it has numerous advantages over their competitors;
- they don't need to make a profit since they are funded through taxes
- aren't subject to market forces
- they can legislate away their competition (though this is unlikely in this case)
- they don't need to be run in a financially sound manner since it will be run by unaccountable bureaucrats
If a private company wanted to do this, great, enter the market and make a run for it. When the public are forced to pay for non-essentials such as this, while there are real problems with crime and infrastructure, it is a waste.
As it's currently proposed, it's for educational programming. The government is already "educating" children in public schools, and now they want to expand that to "educating" them in your home.
Will you feel comfortable with government programmed TV influencing your kids under the guise of education?
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I welcome feedback and I ask for civility in the exchange of comments. Vulgarity is discouraged. Please express yourself creatively with other language. We discuss ideas here, attacks on a person are discouraged.
Posted by Freedom Manitoba on August 20, 2009 in Canadian Provincial Politics | Permalink
Comments
Isn't the CBC a government owned network? Can't the Manitoba stations of the CBC run local programming too? Thats what PBS does down here.
I'd rather have a law that let the political parties raise the money to launch their own media outlets.
Posted by: Floyd Looney | 2009-08-20 1:31:10 PM
"Isn't the CBC a government owned network?"
Yes, it is owned by the Federal Government. It doesn't have an "education" mandate though, it is more like commercial television.
Posted by: Scott Carnegie | 2009-08-20 1:45:11 PM
You mean like this? http://www.scn.ca/
I participated in a "study" about giving SCN more funding/a larger mandate last year. The questions were completely manipulative. I'm pretty sure the person who gave me the surveyor was convinced I hate children and want to kill boxes of kittens by the time it was over.
We already have huge amounts of educational programming available at a whim. The fact that provincial governments, in 2009, have just decided they need money for programming nobody is going to watch is just absurd.
Posted by: K Stricker | 2009-08-20 2:41:21 PM
More extorted tax money down the hole to send us even more government sponsored "feel good" propoganda. Stalin would have been so proud.
Posted by: The original JC | 2009-08-20 3:02:37 PM
Parents would like it for kids, there won't be commercials.
Guess what, Treehouse and APTN already have commercial free kids shows, and you're already paying for APTN if you have cable.
Posted by: Scott Carnegie | 2009-08-20 3:27:36 PM
Scott,
One of your complaints about publicly owned broadcasters is "they don't need to make a profit ... aren't subject to market forces ... [and] they don't need to be run in a financially sound manner..." thus are unfair competition to private broadcasters. But the same "unfair" competition could just as easily result from a new private broadcaster entering the market.
At one point in the movie Citizen Kane, Kane is told by the banker who served as his childhood guardian that his newspaper is losing a lot of money. He replies, "You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years."
Any owner - private or public - that is not concerned about profit can be "unfair" competition in the same way. Yet somehow when a private owner like Kane does it, it is not objectionable. So if it does not count as an objection to a private broadcaster, there is no reason it should count as an objection to a public one.
Any broadcaster (whether public or private) who cannot meet their business objectives (whether profit or something else) should go out of business. To complain that their falure was due to their competition (whether public or private) doing a good job of meeting their business objectives is just sour grapes. No broadcaster - be it Charles Foster Kane or the Manitoba Government - has an obligation to its competition to try to make a profit if they have other goals they prefer to achieve. Aiming at those other goals to the detrement of profit is not "unfair" to anyone.
As for your last question: "Will you feel comfortable with government programmed TV influencing your kids under the guise of education?" I answer: Anyone who is uncomfortable is free to turn the TV off.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2009-08-20 3:47:53 PM
What about the idea of homegrown talent having an accessible forum for their talents resulting in the homegrown talent making money and being taxed and developing a local industry. Think of this as a television-incubator-making-talent-juggernat that creates jobs and makes your province more prosperous using the creative energies of its people. Believe.
Posted by: Wacky Ontarian Liberal Capitalist | 2009-08-20 3:49:41 PM
"Yet somehow when a private owner like Kane does it, it is not objectionable. "
Becasue it's his money. Public broadcasters take my money from my pocket to pay for it.
"What about the idea of homegrown talent having an accessible forum for their talents"
They already do.
Posted by: Scott Carnegie | 2009-08-20 3:54:04 PM
Scott,
"Public broadcasters take my money from my pocket to pay for it."
That's a different objection. The fact that a public broadcaster might have a competitive advantage is a completely different issue, and the one you spent a lot of time complaining about. You have conflated two independent issues.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2009-08-20 4:24:55 PM
Several provinces (BC, Sask, Quebec) have had their own government channels. TV Ontario is still going strong, and is widely regarded as doing a good job in public affairs and educational programming. As far as I know the others have been shut down or privatized. We really don't have to speculate about how things like this work; it's all old news. If you want to get real old, Manitoba once had its own government radio network. Notice any long-term effects?
Posted by: ebt | 2009-08-20 5:11:57 PM
The point, FC, is that a public broadcaster will never go out of business even if they perform poorly.
Even if the private broadcasters' ultimate goal is not profits, if they are sufficiently unprofitable eventually they will go bankrupt. You can't ignore profits forever.
Public broadcasters can do whatever they please because there are no consequences to their actions. They can ignore profits forever.
So how does a public entity go out of business anyway?
Posted by: Charles | 2009-08-20 5:23:13 PM
That's a different objection. The fact that a public broadcaster might have a competitive advantage is a completely different issue, and the one you spent a lot of time complaining about. You have conflated two independent issues.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2009-08-20 4:24:55 PM
No. The very first thing on my list is
"they don't need to make a profit since they are funded through taxes"
Posted by: Scott Carnegie | 2009-08-20 5:29:09 PM
Scott,
"No. The very first thing on my list is
" 'they don't need to make a profit since they are funded through taxes' "
It's still a conflation. Just because the money funding a business comes from taxes does not mean it need not make a profit. A business can be structured to need to make a profit (if profit is the objective for the business) even when tax dollars set it up.
So being funded by taxes and having goals other than maning a profit are two separate issues. The Kane example shows that having goals other than maning a profit is not a legitimate basis for objection. Thus none of your "numerous advantages" is a basis to object here.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2009-08-20 5:40:15 PM
Posted by Scott Carnegie on August 20, 2009
"they don't need to make a profit since they are funded through taxes"
It would be hard to make a profit when they would be chartered as a not for profit organization.
"aren't subject to market forces"
What market forces would those be? Commercial broadcasters generate ad revenue based on the rating that a show generates. If you don't run ads ratings don't enter into the equation.
"they can legislate away their competition (though this is unlikely in this case)"
Broadcasting is a federal domain. The only body that can grant or pull a broadcasting license is the CRTC.
"they don't need to be run in a financially sound manner since it will be run by unaccountable bureaucrats"
Yeah get Global / CanWest to run it. They're just down the street. Bwahahahahahaha
Posted by: The Stig | 2009-08-20 6:04:15 PM
Fact Check,
Nice Citizen Kane reference.
I think the objection being made here is really two or three issues intertwined:
1. It's wrong in principle for the government to run an enterprise like a television station (that's simply the libertarian point.)
2. If (1) obtains, it's even worse if the enterprise is not run to make a profit (that's the fiscal conservative talking.)
3. Finally (maybe most importantly) a government-owned enterprise is less likely to be able to make a profit (and less likely to be run in a way that will make a profit) than a private enterprise.
(3) is because, notwithstanding the example of Charles Foster Kane, government-owned enterprises are generally not subject to the same incentive structures as private ones. That isn't to say you won't find private actors who disregard profit -- only that they're less likely, and there are institutional factors that make this so.
Besides, as I recall, Kane didn't have to answer to shareholders (at least not in the beginning?) so he was able to waste his own money without serious reprecussions.
Arguably, in a government-owned enterprise, the taxpayers are or should at least be treated as shareholders. If this is correct, then (insert more complicated argument here) it is a violation of govt's fiduciary duty to act like Kane.
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2009-08-20 6:59:44 PM
Terence,
Two quick replies:
(1) Scott discusses in his original post how a public broadcaster "has numerous advantages" over private ones. My replies were to point out that these advantages are not unfair, thus not a basis for objecting to the existence of a public broadcaster. Your post does not adress the "advantages" issue at all.
(2) Your closing paragraph is entirely wrong. You assume that making money is the only (or at least primary) goal that any shareholder owned operation can have. Nonsense. If Kane had had shareholders who liked what he was doing with the newspaper, despite its financial loss, he would actually be violating his fiduciary responsibility of he stopped doing what he was doing in order to make the paper profitable. Treating taxpayers as shareholders only means that a profit should be the goal if that is what the majority of shareholders really want. But in many cases what people really want from government services is the provision of the service, not a monetary return on investment. Thus the government acting like Kane could well be the right way to meet their fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayer / shareholders.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2009-08-20 7:39:42 PM
I think it would be better to bring up real world example than using a fictional piece of work to prove a point.
Unfair business advanatages is only one objection, the main objection (with this and nearly all government actions) is that the government has no business spending other peoples money for their pet projects, especially when that production that project provides is already being met in the market.
If the government set-up a sandwhich shop in downtown Toronto, atx-payer subsidized, would it have an advantage? Or if they set-up a quick oil change shop?
Posted by: Scott Carnegie | 2009-08-20 7:59:43 PM
I think it would be better to bring up real world example than using a fictional piece of work to prove a point.
Posted by: Scott Carnegie | 2009-08-20 7:59:43 PM
As I understand it one of the core mandates would be to provide distance learning throughout Manitoba. Do you know of any commercial broadcasters that this would mandate would adversely affect?
Posted by: The Stig | 2009-08-20 8:18:32 PM
As I understand it one of the core mandates would be to provide distance learning throughout Manitoba. Do you know of any commercial broadcasters that this would mandate would adversely affect?
Posted by: The Stig | 2009-08-20 8:18:32 PM
This assumes that it should be up to a broadcaster. The colleges already provide distance education through video conferencing and the internet. There is not shortage in that regard.
This also assumes that it is the responsibility of the government to educate people, I would disagree.
Posted by: Scott Carnegie | 2009-08-20 8:27:41 PM
I'd side with private enterprise here but for one thing: I think the private networks, and the CBC as well, broadcast nothing but crap. Here in BC, when Global News is finished, Entertainment Tonight comes on, and it and most of what follows would make me want to claw my eyes out, if I ever watched it.
Fortunately we have The Knowledge Network, BC's non-commercial channel, like the PBS in the US only better, because it doesn't broadcast left propaganda. It's the only reason I haven't cancelled cable...
Posted by: BillBC | 2009-08-20 8:49:37 PM
Here is an idea. Let Manitoba find private corporate funding and sell shares to the public.
Citizen Kane did not have the force of government putting guns to peoples head. That is a huge difference.
Posted by: Floyd Looney | 2009-08-20 11:57:54 PM
Fact Check,
Ok ok, good demolition job (although I realized at the time a more complicated argument was necessary, as mentioned.)
I didn't address (1) because, while I share the view that there is a moral issue here, I'm not sure it's an issue of fairness per se. It's more an issue of legitimacy -- is it legitimate for government to use its power to set up and run a television station?
Libertarians will say no (obviously, there is a more complicated argument here, too.) But illegitimacy is not the same as unfairness, at least the way the terms are commonly used.
As I take your point, a government owned television station or other enterprise wouldn't necessarily get any advantage not available to privately owned ones, as long as the latter were willing to forgo certain goals (e.g. profit-making) in exchange for other ones (e.g. "making a difference" or somesuch.) That's correct, isn't it?
If the legitimacy point is taken off the table or taken for granted, what's left of the fairness objection? Maybe this: isn't it unfair that station owner X should be legally required to fund his own competition, in the form of a tax subsidized, non-profit-making government-owned firm?
At least if the government station is making a profit and recovering its costs, the owner of an alternative station won't be forced to continually provide it with funding. That could be one reason to desire that at least some government-owned firms be run to make a profit.
That's a suggestion, anyway. Thanks for smacking me around -- that'll teach me to have a cup of coffee before entering a thread with you around!
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2009-08-22 8:48:10 PM
Terrence,
If the goal of a private broacaster is profit, then they wouldn't be competeing the the advertisement free children's education market. If the private broadcaster's objective is educating children, then 1) it isn't paying taxes 2) it would be happy to pay taxes since its objective is the education of children and not profit or market share.
You can object to this as a poor use of tax payer money, but I don't see much of an arguement past that. The arguement that government should not provide anything more than the most basic services is not one which would convince the general populace.
Floyd Looney. You come off as a moron when you inffer the government threatens to murder people who dont file their income tax.
Posted by: Steven Wilson | 2009-08-23 6:14:17 AM
Terrence,
Flattery will get you nowhere! Let me explain the conflation of issues that is going on here through an example. [NB to Scott: You might as well stop reading here since you have decided that fictional cases can teach us nothing.]
Suppose you run a coffee shop and then I decide to open one right next door to you. I like the idea of having a coffee shop, so don't care if I make any money at it. I just want to have the shop. If I have Kane's money to burn, that could be bad news for you, because I might undercut your prices to get more business. Since I like the atmosphere of a busy shop, I might decide to operate at a loss to achieve that, and thus you go out of business. In this story, all's fair in the world of competitive businesses.
Now suppose we have the same story as before, but it turns out that I don't have Kane's money, but you do. Also, unbeknownst to you, I have been stealing money from you and using that to finance my shop. I have found a way to steal money continuously as I need it to keep my business afloat. In this story you clearly have a legitimate grievance about the fact that I am stealing from you, but you have no legitimate grievance about how I am spending that money. Since it is spent the same way in both stories, either it is wrong in both cases or neither.
Admittedly, as angry as you would be upon finding that I have been stealing your money, you will likely be much more angry when you find out that I have been using it to hurt your business, but that does not add up to grounds for claiming that how I spent the money wronged you. Besides, even in the first case where I have Kane's money you might be pissed at how I am spending my money. Understandable anger does not add up to a wrong.
To belabour the point just a bit, suppose in a third scenario I steal money from someone other than you who has Kane's money to run my shop. In that case, clearly I have wronged the person I stole from and clearly you might be annoyed that I am putting you out of business, but it does not follow from that that I have wronged you. Whether I have the money of Kane or I stole it, you are in the same predicament either way.
In the case of TV stations, the parallel should be clear. Owners of private stations could be angry, like any other taxpayers, that money to finance the new station is being taken from them without their consent and, according to libertarians, this constitutes theft. Thus libertarians will say the government has gotten the money to run the station illegitimately. But while private station owners who have to compete with the government station might be more angry about this "theft" because of how the money is being used, that does not constitute a further wrong.
What is being described as the "unfairness" point is really just the "legitimacy" point recycled. The grievance is that the government is taking money from people without their permission, thus "stealing" it. So long as government money is legitimately acquired, no other objection remains. Complaining that the government does not play by the same rules when conducting a business is not valid. It's not the not trying to make a profit that wrongs anyone, it's the "theft" of the start-up money.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2009-08-23 11:28:07 AM
Fact Check,
Well done. Yes, I agree that legitimacy, or the lack of it, is the real issue. Good example.
(Excellent comment as well, Steve Wilson.)
One thing I have noticed that makes me sympathetic to Scott's approach is that libertarian arguments about legitimacy tend only to convince those who don't need convincing, i.e. libertarians. That's why I felt the need to run with the argument, to see where it led (nowhere, apparently!)
As a concept, fairness has wider resonance. Even people who might not share libertarian views about the role of the state can be convinced of the unfairness of particular laws or regulations.
I'm not sure why it is that people are so responsive to allegations of unfairness (evolution?) Moreover, it's a double-edged sword for libertarians. After all, progressive income taxation is also defended on fairness grounds.
Justice-as-fairness, indeed!
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2009-08-23 1:17:10 PM
"Even people who might not share libertarian views about the role of the state can be convinced of the unfairness of particular laws or regulations."
That was part of the point in making this post. Yes, since it is government funded it would be in opposition to the Libertarian position, but how many times do you make the same argument on different subjects. Part of my reasoning is to show the average person why the free market seems to be better than regulation, such as this case with Manitoba TV.
Posted by: Scott Carnegie | 2009-08-23 2:23:31 PM
Floyd Looney. You come off as a moron when you inffer the government threatens to murder people who dont file their income tax.
Posted by: Steven Wilson
No they'll just put a lein on your property and seize your assets and threaten to ruin your life if you don't pay up.
Well, I'm not testing that theory any time soon.
PS- Its a figure of speech down here
Posted by: GeronL | 2009-08-24 6:30:00 PM
Floyd Looney. You come off as a moron when you inffer the government threatens to murder people who dont file their income tax.
Posted by: Steven Wilson | 2009-08-23 6:14:17 AM
They will come take you away if you don't pay, and if you don't want to go they will shoot you, or at least threaten too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_and_Elaine_Brown
Posted by: Scott Carnegie | 2009-08-24 6:51:01 PM
He he, I remember that. That was awesome. But in my opinion they had guns drawn because they thought he was dangerous, not because of the taxes...
Flyod's statement is accurate enough. And I see that I brought up a silly point over semantics. That was wrong of me. My name calling was also inappropriate.
Posted by: Steven Wilson | 2009-08-25 9:05:06 AM
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