CBC president and CEO Hubert Lacroix answered questions from the public as part of the broadcaster's first annual public meeting. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)Financial constraints dominated the discussion at CBC/Radio-Canada's first annual public meeting, held in Ottawa on Wednesday and accessible across the country via internet broadcast.

Hubert Lacroix, president and CEO of the public broadcaster, was joined by Suzanne Morris, vice-president and chief financial officer, and Tim Casgrain, president of the CBC board of directors, for the hour-long presentation and question-and-answer session hosted by Emmanuelle Latraverse, CBC's Ottawa bureau chief of French national news.

The meeting began with a video montage that offered a taste of upcoming English and French television and radio programming, and also promoted CBC and Radio-Canada's websites and archives.

Lacroix reiterated that the $34 per capita in annual funding the broadcaster receives is less than half of the $76 average of many other countries.

Though CBC and Radio-Canada's platforms achieved great successes during 2008-09, the past year was also a paradox because the good news came amid daunting financial challenges, Lacroix said. He also reminded attendees that the broadcaster faces a $171-million shortfall for 2009-10 fiscal year, but outlined the broadcaster's plan for recovery, including a renewed focus on content.

"CBC has become a content company, in which everyone collaborates," Lacroix said.

The goal is "to develop deeper, richer Canadian content" to be "delivered across all platforms," he added, citing as examples English radio's arts and entertainment program Q and French TV's current affairs talk show Tout Le Monde en Parle — which are distributed on multiple platforms (radio, TV, podcast) and encourage public interaction via online applications such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Lacroix and Casgrain also repeated the appeal for stable, ongoing government funding.

Money concerns dominate answers

The CBC's precarious financial situation also figured into many of the answers to the questions posed by the public (most of which came from those watching online).

Responding to a question about the CBC's dedication to regional stations, Lacroix noted that "it's extremely important if you want to be a national public broadcaster to be deeply rooted in the regions," but acknowledged that the cuts the company was forced to make this summer "wounded" regional operations.

He clarified that the approximately $1 billion the CBC receives annually for its parliamentary appropriation is "a lot of money, but it doesn't cover all the services CBC/Radio-Canada delivers to all Canadians."

Lacroix also defended changes to CBC Radio, disagreeing with a comment that it "sounds like commercial radio."

"Radio One is totally distinctive, no one does programming like it," he said, adding that Radio 2's changes meant "asking people who love classical to share the airwaves" with other Canadian musical genres that "you don't hear on commercial radio."

In-house production for English TV dramas and comedies, updating all transmitters for high definition and axing TV commercials on Radio-Canada are also unfeasible because of finances, the CBC officials noted.

Earlier on Wednesday, media watchdog Friends of Canadian Broadcasting delivered a petition to the CBC's Ottawa studios, calling on CBC-TV to retain the one-hour format and 10 p.m. timeslot for its flagship newscast The National. This summer, the CBC flatly denied the group's allegation that a forthcoming revamp of The National would include moving the nightly news program to a later, 11 p.m. timeslot to make room for entertainment programming.