Introduction: The Legacy of Graham Spry and the Future of Public Media

Abstract

Over the past twenty years, public media services worldwide have been facing increasing pressure from commercialization, marketization, and privatization. This situation is exemplified by the Cana-dian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) latest revenue shortfall and the subsequent austerity measures of the corporation. Indeed, CBC, as an iconic corporation of Canadian’s media landscape, is key to the country’s future policy-making in the media realm. The CBC’s current crisis, already exert-ing significant pressures towards the restructuring of the corporation, is seen by some critics as a warning of the corporation’s potential imminent collapse (Rowland, 2013). However, just as there has be a constant pressure toward marketization over public media, over the past few years the struggles of public media also offer a precious opportunity to re-imagine an alternative future for public communication services.