Here's what media mogul Rupert Murdoch says: "Much of what passes for quality on British television is no more than a reflection of the narrow elite which controls it and has always thought that its tastes were synonymous with quality."

Which brings us, of course, to the narrow Canadian elite who believe that Canadian values and CBC values are synonymous, and taxpayers should be happy to pay as much as it takes to keep the CBC doing what it does.

And who better to represent the elite than Liberal MP Bob Rae - Ontario's former failed NDP leader - who, at a time when pretty well all television networks and newspapers are losing money comes rushing to the aid of the CBC?

The fact that the CBC faces a $65 million shortfall - which is less than CTV and Global face - is not a symptom of our economic times. No sir, it's a plot by Tories to force the CBC "into crisis...Why is the government taking away the voice of all Canadians?" says Rae.

For one thing, the Government isn't taking anything away. It's handing the CBC $1.l billion in your money. For another, the CBC is hardly "the voice of all Canadians." It is one voice among many, an increasingly shrinking voice at that.

CBC television, for example, captures less than 8 per cent of prime time viewership and its flagship news show trail CTV and Global.

CTV, which doesn't get government handouts, is facing a loss of $100 million, but we don't hear Rae and his fellow travelers demanding money for them. Same thing with Global. In Rae's world, it seems, the 92 per cent of Canadians who watch other networks don't count - except, of course, when it comes to taking more money from their pockets to finance the CBC.

Your correspondent is not convinced the CBC should get any government funding, let alone $1.1 billion. That may have made sense 60 years ago when there were few other options, but with widespread access to cable and/or satellite, the idea of a state-sponsored broadcaster has outlived its usefulness.

The CBC is facing the same economic struggles which everyone is confronting.

A weekend New York Times article shows the same problems are plaguing U.S. networks too. CBS, for example, featured 12 of the top 20 U.S. shows, yet operating income in its television segment plummeted 40 percent during the fourth quarter of last year. News Corporation, which owns Fox - despite the extraordinary popularity of "American Idol" - saw its operating income drop by $18 million in broadcast television. Disney's broadcasting arm suffered a catastrophic 60 per cent drop in operating income.

And so it goes. Yet the elites - which includes the so-called Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, a group which rarely displays friendship for anything but the CBC - want taxpayers to rush in and bail out their favorite network, no questions asked.

Why should we?

For those of us who occupy the right-of-centre spectrum of Canadian opinion, it has long been clear that the CBC - both radio and television news and public affairs - has consistently leaned hard to the left, both in the stories it chooses to pursue, and the slant it pursues them with.

There is no better indication of the elitist nature of the CBC than its' ongoing insistence that, unlike all other media outlets, it forego on-air radio advertising. Apparently running ads for consumer goods would sully the otherwise pristine presentation of our one-sided national broadcasters. Too bad. It can be as pure as it wishes, just not on our dime.

CBC brass, ever ready to declare a cultural crisis to coerce governments into writing bigger cheques, have declared that without more help they may have to bring in more U.S. programming. Oh no. How could we live with programs which people actually want to watch? For apart from Hockey Night in Canada - which, low brow as it may be, consistently draws huge audiences - the CBC has a pretty good record of presenting programs which few Canadians actually want to watch.

So far, the Tories haven't said much, although, Kory Teneyke, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's spokesman, did say they don't intend to "insulate" the CBC from tough economic times.

Let us hope not. Unless, of course, it's prepared to bail out CTV, Global, and a host of struggling newspapers and radio stations too.

If Rae and his elite pals are so concerned about the CBC's bottom line, let them send money. They're rich. Leave the rest of us alone to wallow in our own cultural swamps.