Cabinet awarded a retroactive 10.3% pay raise to CBC chief executive Hubert Lacroix, though he left the Crown corporation five years ago..The Department of Canadian Heritage yesterday would not comment on the backdated pay raise, typically awarded to boost pension payments, according to Blacklock's Reporter..“Unfortunately we cannot help you,” said David Larose, spokesperson for the Heritage department. The $44,000 raise was recommended by the prime minister, according to cabinet records..Lacroix left the CBC in 2018 at $428,000 a year as then the highest paid chief executive in the network’s history. The cabinet order retroactively raised his pay to $472,000 a year, the equivalent of $131,000 more than his predecessor, Robert Rabinovitch of Montréal..Lacroix was earlier cited by auditors for improper billing of $29,192 in expenses — he repaid the money in 2013 — and drawing annual bonuses “around 20 or 21%,” Lacroix testified at 2014 hearings of the Senate transport and communications committee..As CEO Lacroix was best known for losing the CBC’s 65-year monopoly on licensing for Hockey Night In Canada broadcasts resulting in disastrous declines in ad revenues..Rogers Communications in 2014 outbid the CBC for 12-year NHL rights at $5.2 billion. Lacroix in 2015 Senate committee testimony mistakenly insisted the network lost money on hockey broadcasts..“Over the life of the Hockey Night In Canada contract, the one that just ended, we didn’t make money off this contract,” said Lacroix. “We lost a few dollars.”.Senators scoffed at the claim. “If you can’t make money on hockey in Canada I don’t know what you could make money on,” Senator Michael MacDonald (NS) said at the time..“This was very poor management.”.The Department of Canadian Heritage in a 2019 Access To Information memo confirmed the loss of hockey rights cost money..“Advertising revenues have generally declined,” said the memo CBC/Radio-Canada Trends In Funding Levels..Ad revenue peaked at $523 million in 2014, the last year the CBC held monopoly rights to Hockey Night In Canada. Advertising revenue in 2021 totaled $253 million, accounts show..“You not only lose the profits from hockey, you also lose your capacity to sell the rest of your advertising at reasonable prices,” Richard Stursberg, former CBC executive vice-president earlier testified at Senate committee hearings..“The way you would do it is you’d say, ‘If you would like to have hockey, then you have to buy this dog over here that nobody wants.’ I would say, ‘But I don’t want the dog,’ and you would say: ‘I’m sorry, you have to take the dog if you want the hockey,’” said Stursberg. “So, hockey is not only important in its own right, it’s important because it props up the rest of the advertising sales.”.The CRTC in a 2019 report Conventional Television Statistical & Financial Summaries showed steep declines in local ad sales by 27 CBC stations in all regions but Québec. Local ad revenues fell 75% at five Ontario stations, 58% at three stations in B.C. and the Territories, 17.5% in five Atlantic Canada stations and 11% at seven Prairie stations.
