The Knowledge Network fired its longtime president and CEO, citing the need for the organization to “evolve” after an audit this year found major gaps in the amount of money produced by color manufacturers compared to whites.
The network confirmed the dismissal of Rudy Butignol in a statement on Friday. The announcement did not directly mention the audit of racial justice published in February, but said the board was looking to grow.
“The board has decided that now is the time to renew, as it looks to the future and how best to move the organization forward,” the board said in a statement.
“The board is looking for new opportunities to build on the success of the Knowledge Network as the organization evolves and adapts to changes in the broadcasting industry and the changing needs of British Colombians.”
Butignol’s departure takes effect on June 30. In an email to the CBC on Friday, he said he would not comment on his dismissal.
This year’s audit found that the Knowledge Network spent more than 98 percent of its pre-licensing funding – money set aside to launch original programming in exchange for first broadcast rights – for production companies with what they described as “non-diverse” owners. over the previous seven years.
That left only 1.7 percent of funding for manufacturing companies owned by people of color, and nothing for companies owned by the local majority.
A chart in a February report broke down how funding for the Knowledge Network before the license was granted over the past seven years. (Knowledge Network)
The Knowledge Network, which has been BC’s free public broadcast since 1981, is funded by an annual operating grant from the provincial government along with more than 40,000 individual donors. Its ad-free programming, which is available via cable and streaming, ranges from documentaries and dramas to children’s shows.
Butignol told the CBC in February that he had “great reservations” about the audit’s findings, but acknowledged that the network had “a lot of work to do.”
He said the network’s focus until last year was on looking at diversity within the project’s creative leaders – such as directors and screenwriters, rather than the corporate property of a production company.
Buttignol’s audit and response sparked an open letter and petition from several producers in British Columbia calling for his replacement.
“Too bad it went that way”
Niles Patel, a documentary filmmaker and executive director of the Racial Equity Screen Office, said Butignol’s departure was expected but “disappointing”.
“The board has apparently lost confidence in Rudy’s ability to take on this transformational change,” Patel, who is not a co-author of the open letter, said in an interview Friday.
“Rudy has so much experience and so much relationships in a truly isolated industry in Canada and so much knowledge … If he was able to do the job, it would be very helpful to bring racial equality to this organization.
“It would have been the best of both worlds … it’s a shame it went that way.”
In response to the audit, the network said it would commission 50 percent of its feature films and short films over the next three years from independent, black and color producers, and more than 25 percent of those films from BC-based independent local production companies. companies.
Butignol was president and CEO of the network for 15 years. The network said it would begin a “comprehensive, national recruitment process” in July to find a replacement.
Patel said it was not a small rent.
“They really need to focus on watching someone who has a qualification for the mandate of racial justice … along with the pragmatics of hiring someone who is in charge of the role of CEO of public television,” he said.
“They need to be more careful than just going to a bounty hunter.”
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