TVO is seriously showing up the CBC

Today, when I checked out the Democracy Channel Guide, I noticed that The Agenda with Steve Paikin is available as a video podcast. If you don’t know (or don’t live in Ontario) The Agenda is TVO’s daily current affairs program, and it’s excellent. As a podcast, they offer the entire program as a large downloadable .mp4 file.

You hear that CBC?

TVO offers the entire program as a download.

Not just a selection of clips, like The Hour podcast. Or a ridiculous Windows Media stream, like The National. Or a bizarre collection of flash videos on the official CBC YouTube channel. Or a partnership with a video site that no one uses. Or like on the radio side of things, a daily “Best Of” podcast of a single interview from The Current, or As It Happens.

Did I mention that TVO offers the whole show? Each and every day? All of it?

TVO runs itself on $60 million in government dough. The CBC gets about a billion.

Seriously, this is starting to get embarrassing. Give me one good reason, as someone who contributes to CBC’s billion dollars a year, why I can’t subscribe to and download the programming I pay for. It’s very quickly becoming unacceptable.

In terms of online video, the CBC is no longer falling behind. It has fallen behind.