The Witch is Still Dead

It has been over a week since Richard Stursbeg was shoved off the gang plank at CBC. There is still no reason given or available as to why the man who ran the corporation for six years was so unceremoniously dumped. If you read the letters to the staff from Kirstine Stewart, the interim new boss, and Hubert Lacroix, the President of the CBC you get the idea that everything was just fine. Management loved the new direction the CBC was taking. ‘Hubie’ and ‘Kit’ are over the moon over the big ratings increase. Nothing is going to change they shout in unison. Just to make matters really surreal, news honcho Jennifer McGuire sends out a missive extolling the benefits of the changes brought in at CBC news and sends hero-grams out to the folks who covered a few of the stories that CBC news actually got to including sending hosts to the Vancouver Olympics and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill; in the past the coverage would have been a given, now it demands extra notice.

I have a question for Hubert Lacroix, Kirstine Stewart and Jennifer McGuire. If everything at the ‘corpse’ is so hunky-dory, why did the leader who brought us all this success have to spend the last week and a bit removing the knives from back? Stursberg was the unquestioned leader and catalyst in the changes that you all claim were so successful, so why dump the genius before he has finished the job?

The truth is there is an awful lot of “bull” being spread since the manure hit the fan. Guys like John Doyle who got most of it right from the get-go was way off the mark with his characterization of Stursberg as a strong leader the CBC needed and the whining troops were always destined to resent. Stursberg was not a strong leader he was a tyrant and a bully. The CBC needed change, it like any large organization always does. But change cannot be accomplished without the help of the staff. You are talking about 5500 union workers and maybe a thousand more managers. If you ignore them or push them around they will rebel and make your job a lot tougher. Good leaders have the ability to convince the people they lead that they have a plan that will work. They get the majority on side and the workers not only help make the changes happen, they come up with a few ideas for change of their own. When they feel like things are being shoved down their throats they fight back. If John Doyle was right many of the people who were the winners in the Stursberg shuffles would be coming to his defense. So far, I have heard nothing but joy coming from inside the CBC since Stursberg was fired. The folks who worked under him knew him and they didn’t like what they saw.

Then there’s all the spin about the ratings. What a hero Stursberg was because he raised the ratings. How only the CBC would get rid of such a successful boss. What a load. The rating of CBC went up for two reasons: the new people meters added 30 to 40% viewership across the board. CTV and Global saw their numbers jump even higher than CBC did. The second reason: reality programs and American quiz shows. In fact most of Stursberg’s “successes” get poor ratings. Little Mosque on the Prairie is typical. It got a huge starting audience of well over a million viewers. We never hear the end of those numbers. How come we seldom hear about the loss of over half of that audience? In fact of the new shows that came in under Stursberg’s reign, only Dragon’s Den and Battle of the Blades are genuine CBC hits. The dramas and the comedies, whether you like them or you hate them, are getting about the same numbers that the CBC got for dramas and comedies before Stursberg.

Interesting, the purveyors of the great ratings argument come from the right wing press. David Akin who is one of the people behind the new Fox-like news coming to Canada, and the Ottawa Citizen, part of the National Post chain who distinguished themselves by criticizing every CBC move during Stursberg’s tenure are among the leaders of the woe is CBC for dumping Stursberg cabal. Folks, these are the people who want to kill the CBC. These are the people who want the CBC sold off. These are the people who say the CBC is a communist plot against right-thinking Canadians. Yeah, let’s buy into their spin.

I don’t know what’s going to happen at the CBC in the coming months and years but I do know this: if things were really meant to stay the same, Stursberg would not be gone. There are changes coming, no matter what Hubie and Kirstine say. When a new permanent V.P. is chosen we will get a hint of the direction those changes will take. I will bet real money that the news will be the first place that returns to sanity. I believe there will be room for the odd serious drama to take its place among the fluff. I’m not holding my breath but I would like to see the arts make a re-appearance on the network. There’s no guarantee we will like the direction the new boss has in mind any better than we liked what Stursberg did but if the CBC is going to survive it will have to not only get new viewers but it will have to win back and retain the loyal audience that supported the network before the changes wrought by Stursberg and his gang. That’s how successful enterprises remain successful, they appeal to new consumers while keeping their loyal customers happy. Stursberg threw out the baby with the bathwater. He pissed off the typical CBC type while attracting too few new acolytes.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Battle of the Blades, CBC, CTV, David Akin, Dragon's Den, Global, Hubert Lacroix, Jennifer McGuire, Kirstine Stewart, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Richard Stursburg, The Ottawa Citizen

CBC News is Revolting

You know, you can’t take your eyes off the CBC for even a second. Anytime it looks like there is going to be peace and quiet and an opportunity to sit back and enjoy the hockey playoffs without having to be annoyed by their ever weaker TV newscast, the staff and management of the Corpse somehow find the time to air their dirty laundry.

The latest is an internal survey of 24 CBC Radio national news reporters. The survey was done by a few of the reporters themselves without the okay of management and the results are startling. In all my years in broadcasting, newspapers and on the outside looking in I have never come across a more clear condemnation of the direction that management is taking.

For those of you who don’t know, the same new CBC direction that produced the dreadful new National has had an effect on all of CBC News. Radio and TV reporters now all report to the same desk through what CBC calls “the hub.” The hub is a news desk that was supposed to centralize and make more efficient the assignment process. Thus one reporter and one crew showing up to a media conference rather than one from local TV, one from national TV and two more from local and national radio. It’s a good concept that is used by many successful news organizations and should have saved the CBC both money and manpower, but somehow management has botched the organization of the hub and managed to turn off the news staff. The hub, I am told is too large, too unwieldy and more often than not, bereft of ideas. Worse, it is not taking direction from the reporters in the field across Canada who are in the best position to lead and inform on what stories are interesting and possible.

Here are a few of the amazing responses to the survey:

When asked to compare morale in the national news service 95.2% said it was “lower than ever during my career.” The other 4.8% just said it was low.

When asked if there was a strong commitment to journalism at the moment, only 4.8% agreed. 76.2% disagreed.

Asked to compare the new hub to the old system 83.3% said it was “more difficult/complicated and 79.2% said there is less communication and more unpleasant surprises.

97.5% disagreed with the statement “I feel involved in decisions that influence my work as a national reporter.”

Perhaps most interesting, considering the hub was created to stop conflicts 0% agreed that it has done so and 81% say the integration of TV and radio has not benefited radio news programming.

Not surprisingly, based on the numbers you have seen so far, 100% say “state of radio culture compared to a year ago,” is worse and all but one reporter disagree that radio news is on the right course.

It is hard to believe that there could be a more damning indictment of CBC news management and the direction it has taken. I had one CBC news employee call me to say that if the TV reporters were polled in the same way the results would be the same. That person went on to say that if the news and current affairs staff behind the scenes in both radio and TV were asked the same questions they too would be similarly disaffected and upset.

How do you respond to something like this? Good old Jennifer McGuire, the General Manager and Editor in Chief of CBC News, still living in her bizzaro world that seems to have no resemblance to the one the rest of us live in had this to say in a memo to staff:

First of all, by all measures of success – in terms of audiences and journalism – our radio programs are meeting audience needs. It doesn’t mean there isn’t room to make them better, but they are not broken. They are performing well, to record audiences in fact.

Secondly, if you were to follow the blogs and columns (including some from disgruntled former employees), it reads as if CBC News has abandoned the cornerstone of its mandate: doing quality journalism. Nothing can be further from the truth. The truth is that quality journalism is still our biggest priority. As part of news renewal, we began a discussion about what defines quality journalism, how should it be showcased, and how we make sure it meets the needs of all Canadians in 2010 and beyond. But make no mistake: the quality is still ever present. We have had numerous examples of original, enterprise, exclusive and investigative stories on all our platforms in recent weeks, the most recent being Dave Seglins’ dogged pursuit over the weekend of the investigator linked to the Jaffer-Geurgis story.

My final point is about the culture we want to create here in CBC News. Some of the comments made public about colleagues are not attributed, unsubstantiated and unconscionable.

This is damaging. And let’s be clear, it damages us all in the public’s mind, including the authors and participants in the survey. It embarrasses us all. And all of you are working incredibly hard and deserve accolades.

So, while I totally understand the motivation of former CBC’ers with an axe to grind, I am more perplexed as to why people who are invested in CBC News would not engage in conversations through channels that would actually make things better.

My point is not to censor what you have to say, nor hide the fact that there are still things to fix and work to do, but rather to encourage you if you have concerns or feedback to engage in the process of making it better and moving us forward.

Jennifer, Jennifer please. Pay attention to your employees. They are trying to tell you that the plan is not working. Radio numbers may be holding but TV news numbers are at historical lows even with the new rating system that’s inflating numbers at CTV and Global. I have yet to meet a single person who thinks, as you seem to, that quality journalism is still a goal at CBC News. In fact most people I talk to lament the disappearance of quality journalism. The example, by the way, of the Jaffer-Guergis story being a highlight of CBC journalism is kind of humorous. I guess Jennifer either doesn’t read the Toronto Star or worse she doesn’t even know where her own stories are coming from. CBC News has been following every lead the Toronto Star digs up. If there is something that has appeared on CBC News before the Star reported it I must have missed it.

As one CBC staffer told me you have to feel sorry for the reporters and news staffs they didn’t cut 2 minutes out of World Report, fire the host, change the staff…(then) do the same thing at World at Six…they didn’t add 30 minutes to local TV news, shift them into an afternoon dead zone…told them to follow everything the consultants said to the letter…instead of interesting, informative journalism we have the same drek stories you find on any local station…

CBC management as it stands today has lost their news and current affairs staffs. Nobody is buying the bull. In baseball or hockey when a manager or a coach loses the room they have to be fired. That time has come for the CBC.

Filed under: Media Commentary, CBC News, CBC Radio, CTV, Global, Jennifer McGuire, The National, The Toronto Star, World at Six, World Report

CBC in the News

All things considered, the short four day week before Good Friday was a momentous week for our national broadcaster. The CBC managed to make headlines for two negative stories, while making no headlines for breaking a big story on their national newscast.

Let’s start with The National’s excellent two part documentary on the rules that Canadian pilots work under. This was great journalism. The documentary showed how tired airline pilots can be dangerous to the health and survival of their passengers. The item also showed what other jurisdictions are doing to combat this problem.

In past years an expose of this sort would have demanded a massive response by Canadian newspapers and would have led to questions in the House of Commons and a condemnation of the country’s lax rules governing air travel. All reasonable responses to the frightening revelations.

Does the fact that I have not seen a single response, anywhere, speak to the dwindling power of CBC News? I fear it does. Based on audience numbers and worse, audience interest, it seems to me that The National is becoming more and more irrelevant. There was a time when a scoop by CBC became a national topic of conversation. Today I seldom hear anyone mentioning CBC News in conversation. Heck even CBC people have stopped tuning in to what has become an entirely pedestrian newscast that seldom rises beyond the petty parroting of The Globe and Mail. So when CBC breaks a story does anyone see it or care about it? If a tree falls…

I was also struck by the crime The National inflicted upon itself with the massacring of their documentary unit. It took a two part report of about 35 minutes to highlight what we have been missing on The National. Not too long ago reports like the one produced last week were the norm for the back half of the news. Depth and journalism had a place, an outlet, on the program. Today that has all but disappeared, last weeks’ docs proving to be the exception that proves the rule. The long reports have been replaced by silly little interviews with reporters, business talk, predictable panels, and worst of all filler stories that come from nowhere and seem to go back to from where they came.

The most interesting rumor I heard last week was that the docs had higher ratings than the news that preceded them. Yes they got large ads in Canada’s newspapers, but this is unheard of. Television audiences generally go down throughout a show. Not this time. The docs caused a spike in the numbers. What does this say about the “new direction” the Corp chose? I believe it is a condemnation of the new National. It speaks to what Canadians and more important CBC viewers want to watch and what The National is not providing.

Also last week, CBC Radio chose to fire Barbara Budd as host of As it Happens. They will say they decided not to renew her contract. That’s semantics, they dumped her. I was at a CBC party just after the news broke and was surprised to hear CBC insiders say,” it was about time.” They said Budd mangled pronunciations and continually made reading mistakes. They went further. They also said she was hard to get along with, a difficult co-worker who caused problems for the staff.

Truthfully, if she made all those mistakes I did not notice them. I heard a CBC announcer with rare personality who had the ability to speak to and sometimes touch the listening audience. I did not have to work with her so I have no idea about her prickly nature. I did however, speak to a former host of As It Happens about six months ago who predicted Barbara Budd would soon be gone. That former host said it would be a huge mistake for CBC Radio and the program. I was told, “the folks at CBC Radio seem to have no idea how popular and more important how good Barbara is.” The former host went on to tell me that yes Ms. Budd can be difficult but that’s a small price to pay for the kind of talent she brings to her job. I was told the decision will be made for the convenience of the staff and to the detriment of the audience. Sound familiar?

One big question looms over the Barbara Budd firing. If the staffers were right and Budd mangled pronunciations and fumbled scripts, why did it take 15 years to get rid of her? That was a poser the CBC types could not answer. Why indeed was all they had to offer.

Finally, there is the sad story of Krista Erickson. She’s the CBC reporter who is allowed to travel for free on the taxpayers’ dime because she is partner to Lee Richardson, a Tory Member of Parliament from Calgary. You may remember Krista because she got in trouble before for leaking information to the opposition that resulted in embarrassing questions to the government. Ludicrously she seems to have gotten off again. Her boss, Jennifer McGuire, who seems to have no noticeable relationship with journalistic ethics, has come to her defense. Ms. McGuire has chosen to attack those who stand for the ethical practice of journalism, she said, “It is particularly unfortunate that the Canadian Association of Journalists and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation would see fit to weigh in with their ad hoc pronouncements…The CAJ and the CFT suggest that Krista Erickson, in her role as a CBC journalist, is acting improperly. This is categorically incorrect and frankly unfair.”

Wow. What Bizzaro planet did Ms. McGuire come from? The best coverage of the events comes from Canadian Press:

OTTAWA- …It is odd that the CBC is taking such a hard line in the letter, says Geoff Turnbull, a journalism ethics instructor at the University of King’s College in Halifax who spent 30 years as a CBC journalist.
“That’s a strange response on her part,” he said of McGuire’s letter.
Having Erickson cover national politics while taking free flights as the travelling partner of a member of the government is an unacceptable conflict, Turnbull said, and at odds with his experience of normal CBC procedure.
“People were taken off beats, asked to go on extended leaves of absence, refused the right to do certain kinds of coverage and accept certain kinds of benefits,” he said. “This situation is not in the spirit of the kind of journalistic management that I’m used to at CBC.”
The CBC prevents Erickson from reporting on the MP — Lee Richardson of Calgary Centre — and daily political stories on Parliament Hill, but she does report on stories involving politics.
On the evening the Chronicle Herald story was published, for example, CBC-TV’s The National led with an Erickson story featuring Prime Minister Stephen Harper commenting on serial killer Clifford Olson’s government pension.
Stephen Ward, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin, said it is good that the CBC is monitoring the situation, “but there is more to conflicts of interest than what an internal body of editors deem to be OK.”
The criticism of the CBC appears to be justified, he said.
“The CAJ’s critical comments are not ad hoc but based on a legitimate concern for the public’s perception of the independence of journalism,” he said. “It is one thing for newsrooms to not interfere with journalists’ personal lives, but it is another matter when journalists benefit from taxpayer dollars. In addition, conflicts of interest also speak to the public’s perception of a possible conflict or influence on the reporter. In this case, it is not unreasonable for the public to wonder about a reporter’s independence when benefiting from her personal relationship.”
Erickson should not fly on taxpayer-funded flights as Richardson’s partner, Ward said.
“In this case, the CBC’s conflict rules should be extended to disallow such benefits,” he said. “As a public person and journalist, this is the ‘price’ that Erickson or any other reporter in this position should pay. The best policy is this: Drop the benefits and move on.”

Move on indeed. Perhaps it is time for CBC’s news management, if they agree with McGuire, to move on. Now wouldn’t that be positive move we could all get behind?

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary, As It Happens, Barbara Budd, Canadian Association of Journalists, CBC News, CBC Radio, Jennifer McGuire, Krista Erickson, Lee Richardson, The Globe and Mail, The National

Humpty Dumpty News

An observer of Canada and especially the CBC would be forgiven if they thought all the drama in the country was taking place at CBC News and CBC News Network. Being Erica can’t compete and Dragon’s Den doesn’t come close to the reality TV nonsense swirling around Peter Mansbridge, Richard Stursberg et al at Canada’s national network.

A few weeks after the disastrous launch of the new National and the unwatchable programming on CBCNN, the drama continues. From the outside it looks like Stursberg and his happy band of naysayers are attempting to build a wall around the Corpse that will keep out all the negative reactions. So far they do not, at least publicly, admit that there are any problems with the new direction that CBC News has attempted to sell to a dwindling audience.

Unfortunately for the CBC they have accomplished only one goal: yes, they have united Canadians, created consensus. Everybody hates the new news. Forgive me if I exaggerate, I have seen two articles from people who mildly like the new direction, but I have yet to speak to a single person who has anything positive to say about CBC News as it appears today. I have had conversations with people of all ages from many different parts of Canada. Not one likes what he or she is seeing.

What’s worse, whenever two media people get together, or whenever a CBC News staffer meets a news viewer, the dreadfulness, is that a word, of the changes is still the main topic of conversation. Rather than going away, it is growing. The viewers are as pissed off at CBC management as the news staffs are. Really, the entire episode is a great embarrassment, or at least it should be.

The most damning result of the changes to CBC News is playing out in the ratings. CBC made the changes to combat poor news numbers. Most nights the CBC peaked at about 600,000 viewers. CTV and Global generally got over one million viewers for their national newscasts. Now the CBC is barely breaking the 400,000 viewer mark. That’s a drop of one third of the audience. If rumours are to be believed, the back half, where the documentaries once ran, is losing viewers at an even greater pace. Failure has been swift and clear cut. In the meantime numbers at CTV and Global are rising. The damage is actually worse than the last CBC disaster when they tried to move the news to nine p.m.

So what can the CBC do to deal with the self inflicted wounds before they become fatal? The first step, it would seem obvious, is to admit there have been big mistakes made. You cannot begin to make changes if you don’t admit change is necessary. Step back. Have a look at the programming. Remove the rose coloured glasses. Look at CBC News for what it has become, not what you predicted, attempted or wanted. News viewers, especially CBC News viewers, want depth, context, serious reporting. They want interviews and documentaries that engage and inform. They want the news content as it was before. As far as style is concerned, they are willing to accept change that is motivated by bringing better quality coverage. They don’t want standing for the sake of standing and moving graphics because a U.S. TV doctor says that’s what you need to be young and modern. If you can’t answer the question “Why is Peter standing?” then he shouldn’t be standing.

I repeat, all of this is predicated on the CBC bosses admitting they goofed…big time. The way the CBC works I can’t see that happening. Last time CBC goofed Ron Crocker and Tim Kotcheff were run out of the CBC. They took all the blame even though they were mainly there to implement what the entire braintrust had created. Sure they played their part in the changes but they were no more responsible than the rest, the ones who took over and changed the news back to 10 o’clock and the old format. This time that will be more difficult. Many of the old bosses, the ones who know what they are doing, have been shuffled off the news if not out of the CBC entirely. The new bosses come from radio, from current affairs. It is questionable as to whether they know what they are doing and further whether they even know how to put the news back together. There are no possible scapegoats that are not directly tied to Uber boss Richard Stursberg. If Stursberg were to fire Jennifer McGuire it would reflect directly on him personally and his poor judgment. I don’t know Stursberg, but I know people who do know him, and they tell me this is not going to happen. They tell me according to King Richard, he doesn’t make mistakes.

In the meantime, as viewers drift away and the credibility of the news service suffers, major cracks are starting to appear inside the newsroom. Insiders tell me the news team is finding it almost impossible to fill the hour. The news desk is begging all the units to send them stories, any length…even long docs of 20 minutes or more. Many of the best reporters are beginning to revolt. They want to produce better stories but feel the desk has no understanding of what that takes in time and energy. They also feel they are being made to look bad. Their reputations are suffering. I think they are right. The editors are saying the new young producers don’t understand how news works. They are generally unprepared and don’t understand the editing process. Fingers are being pointed in all directions. Everyone is looking for someone to blame and Richard Stursberg and Jennifer McGuire are the names I hear most often. We are talking about massive breakdown at all levels.

Humpty Dumpty has fallen down. Predictably, all King Richard’s horses and all his men so far cannot put Humpty together again.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Being Erica, CBC News, CTV, Dragon's Den, Global, Jennifer McGuire, Peter Mansbridge, Richard Stursberg, The National

Burying the Local News

A friend of mine, a long suffering CBC news writer, producer and experienced news editor, asked to write a guest blog for Medium Close Up. What a great idea I responded. This is a real insider’s view of CBC News and the new directions that it is being taken by a leadership that is saying they want to improve the news. Here’s “Burying the Local News.”

Most novice journalists learn the hard way – read the entire news release. The gold is never in the first paragraph, it’s usually buried inside a ponderous quote or tacked to the end. It’s a silly trick that p.r. people use to disguise their real intentions. It usually works when the reporter has little experience, or little time to examine what is actually being said. Experienced reporters and editors are supposed to know the ropes when it comes to politicians and businesses – but what to do when the journalism organizations themselves try that old trick … and everyone falls for it?

A perfect example of ‘spin’ and how it is swallowed whole by overworked, frustrated and worried journalists was the CBC’s “thrilling” announcement on July 28, that it is expanding local news.

In a news release, Jennifer McGuire the new head of CBC News, said the expansion of the local newscasts from 60 to 90 minutes is an opportunity to “better serve Canadians in an economic environment where the inclination could be to retreat.”

What’s the truth here? Is the CBC really trying to “better serve” Canadians or is this nothing more than a hideously simple plot to grab more ratings?

It’s the last line of the news release where the gold is. In a matter of fact way it tosses off the sentence: “Coinciding with the expansion of local supper-hour newscasts, CBC Television will air Ghost Whisperer at 4 p.m., Coronation Street at 6:30 p.m., Wheel of Fortune at 7 p.m. and Jeopardy at 7:30 p.m.”

Now think about this. The CBC is expanding its local news coverage by 30 minutes, but shifting the start time by an hour. Instead of starting a 90 minute newscast at 6 p.m., or 5:30 p.m., it has decided to start the newscast at 5 p.m. – in effect moving the local newscast to a dead zone where it will be unlikely to ever get a significant audience ever again.

Here are some audience facts and figures (which come from the CBC by the way) from Tuesday July 28. This is just a random day, I have no specific reason to pick it other than all of the programs I want to discuss ran that day in their proper time slots:

Time               Program                     National       Toronto      Calgary

4:00 p.m.     Fashion File               22,000         3,000          No rating

4:30 p.m.     Rick Mercer                34,000        No rating    No rating

5:00 p.m.     The Simpsons           169,000      13,000         9,000

5:30 p.m.     Wheel of Fortune     370,000     18,000         3,000

6:00 p.m.     Local News                294,000       44,000        6,000

7:00 p.m.    Coronation Street   557,000       173,000     11,000

7:30 p.m.     Jeopardy!                  683,000       161,000       9,000

It’s easy to see that the most popular shows on CBC in the early evening are Coronation Street and Jeopardy! (which benefits from simulcasting). But look at Wheel of Fortune. Its numbers are terrible sitting at 5:30. If you’re a programmer you must find ways to increase the Wheel of Fortune audience in order to sell more advertising. If Wheel runs at 7, then it will have a much larger audience available and benefit from simulcasting which will pump the audience even more. But if you run Wheel at 7, what will you do with Coronation Street which for years was the CBC’s number one show, while being tossed all over the schedule, much to the anger of its extraordinarily loyal audience?

Someone, somewhere in the CBC, came up with the idea of running Coronation Street at 6:30 p.m., which would make it virtually impervious to schedule changes in the Eastern time zones, especially during the hockey playoffs. It would also give the CBC three back-to-back proven ratings winners. When the changes take place the CBC’s early evening lineup will be a force – but anyone can see that the loser is local news.

“This initiative by the CBC demonstrates leadership in the Canadian television market at a time when the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has asked all broadcasters to invest more in their local stations,” the statement read.

Really. How stupid does the CBC think its own workforce is? The answer is, I guess, extraordinarily.

Right now the CBC’s local news shows are mired in a ratings pit they are unlikely to ever get out of. Pushing them back to 5 p.m. isn’t going to help. There’s no audience there to get. Even if they manage to double the audience the CBC gets right now at 5 p.m. in Toronto that would mean 26,000 thousand viewers. In Calgary it would mean 6,000. The chance of doubling the audience is, of course, miniscule.

It just doesn’t make sense to spend millions of dollars producing newscasts for those paltry audiences. The work that goes into making a daily 60-minute newscast is enormous. The tension, stress and competitiveness is a grind that is every bit as difficult as any in the journalism or entertainment business. Making a 90-minute newscast for a few thousand people will destroy whatever little bit of morale still exists inside the CBC.

The journalists who work on the regional shows have had their shows canceled by one president [Robert Rabinovich], only to be reinstated a few weeks later after political protests. Budgets have been slashed. There have been layoffs, contractions, amalgamations and now “integration.”

In the late 1990s the shows were cut to half an hour so that the “Canada Now” experiment could fail. CBC executives were told from the start that running national and international news at 6:00 p.m., followed by local news at 6:30 was absolutely ass-backwards. They did it anyway to demonstrate how fearless, stupid and deaf they were to advice from their own people as well as industry watchers.

Any realist would tell you that with this latest decision the programming department is wagging the news department and to top it all off weary CBC staffers have to swallow idiotic statements from news executives that say, “It’s really quite thrilling to be able to expand our local news coverage …”

Journalists at the CBC don’t swallow this crap, but most are too busy to have time to think about what’s happening around them. They know the leadership in news serves at the pleasure of Richard Stursberg – and that’s why the leadership team is considered to be the weakest ever assembled at the public broadcaster. They know that the entire news division is teetering on the brink and ready to collapse under the constant, unending pressure to do more, more, more.

It would be nice if someone, anyone, in the executive offices would speak up and say they’re willing to take responsibility for the changes. Would anyone be willing to put their job on the line if this “thrilling” opportunity should turn into a colossal failure? Is there any way to measure success or failure?

Filed under: Media Commentary, CBC News, Coronation Street, CRTC, Ghost Whisperer, Jennifer McGuire, Jeopardy!, Richard Stursburg, Robert Rabinovich, Wheel of Fortune