CPAC cuts a dozen staff and cancels 2 shows amid ‘accelerating revenue decline’

CPAC, the Canadian service that provides direct coverage of political events, says declining revenues have led it to cancel two flagship programs, PrimeTime Politics and L’Essentiel.

It cited “accelerating revenue decline,” an uncertain broadcasting landscape and delays in modernizing the broadcast system in a release announcing the cuts Tuesday.

The move comes shortly after the federal broadcast regulator increased CPAC’s funding. President and CEO Christa Dickenson said that wasn’t enough to make up the shortfall.

Dickenson said in an interview CPAC “did forecasting over and over and over again,” both with the increase and without it, and “in order to be able to navigate the next couple of years, we came to the conclusion that this was inevitable and had to be done.”

The reductions amount to a 15 per cent staffing cut, affecting 12 people, including host Michael Serapio.

CPAC is a non-profit entity owned by cable companies. The CRTC noted in its rate increase decision CPAC “cannot broadcast commercial messages other than sponsorship messages in support of the provision of closed captioning or described video. As a result, it has few means other than a rate increase to address the rising operating costs it faces.”

Its offerings include footage of parliamentary procedure, such as announcements, news conferences and media scrums. It’s a popular tool for Canadian political reporters, particularly in Ottawa.

Dickenson said she needs to protect CPAC’s core programming, which is “long-form, unfiltered coverage of parliamentary proceedings, political affairs.” Since January, CPAC has been the only outlet to carry all three main federal political parties’ conventions, she noted.

“We provided access to Canadians in its entirely, in both languages, and we’ve archived it. It’s not one sound bite,” she said. “I need to protect that at all costs.”

The channel is funded though wholesale rates paid by TV service providers like cable companies on a per-subscriber basis.

Earlier this month, the CRTC granted CPAC a $0.03 increase to that monthly rate.

Drop-off in TV subscribers

Dickenson said CPAC asked for that $0.03 increase in 2024, based on how many subscribers it expected TV providers to retain — but subscribers have been abandoning traditional TV in greater numbers than CPAC expected.

Its math was based on an 11 per cent subscriber loss over five years, she said. In its decision, the CRTC said CPAC’s subscription revenues fell by 11 per cent between the broadcast years 2018-2019 and 2022-2023.

Dickenson said she couldn’t have anticipated another 12.5 per cent loss in the following two years.

“So now together, we’re getting awfully close to 25 per cent of our only means of revenue. That is the decline. That is the hole that we are looking at,” she said.

CPAC also says the CRTC is to blame for being too slow to modernize the broadcasting system, something the regulator has been tasked with through the implementation of the Online Streaming Act.

Dickenson said that should include a new funding framework for services like CPAC, but the CRTC hasn’t made a decision on a fund yet.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne told the reporters on Parliament Hill Tuesday the news was “very sad for the folks at CPAC.”

Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller said in a statement posted to X that he was thinking of all the people at CPAC who were affected by the layoffs.