The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Twitter profile has a new label that Elon Musk wrote specifically for Canada’s public broadcaster: “69% Government-funded Media.” While Musk appears to be enjoying his feud with media outlets, his insistence on using “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” labels for public broadcasters has driven several news organizations to quit the social network that he bought for $44 billion.
“Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they’re ‘less than 70% government-funded,’ so we corrected the label,” Musk wrote in a tweet last night. The tweet included a screenshot of CBC’s Twitter profile with the new “69% Government-funded Media” label.
The “69% Government-funded” label, while obviously a joke, appears to be inaccurate. The CBC may not have told Musk the exact percentage, but the organization’s publicly available 2022 financial report says it received $1.24 billion in government funding and another $651.4 million in revenue from advertising, subscriber fees, and investments. That would mean government allocations accounted for about 66 percent of the CBC’s 2022 funding and revenue.
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