CBC to shed 140 local news jobs, add 80 online content jobs

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CBC to shed 140 local news jobs, add 80 online content jobs

Postby radiofan » Thu Mar 26, 2015 3:43 pm

CBC sheds more than 140 jobs in local news
Public broadcaster will add 80 positions to improve online content
CBC News Posted: Mar 26, 2015 1:58 PM ET Last Updated: Mar 26, 2015 2:15 PM ET


CBC English Services has announced that it is shedding more than 140 positions in its local news operations as part of a corporation-wide strategy announced last summer to deal with budget shortfalls.

In making the announcement on Thursday, CBC News general manager and editor in chief Jennifer McGuire said the public broadcaster plans to improve content on the internet and mobile platforms by adding 80 jobs.

"Where we're going with our local services is really prioritizing towards digital," said McGuire. "That's in recognition of where the audience is going – they're migrating to digital, as we know in the news business."

McGuire said that because of factors such as vacancies and unexpected retirements, it's not yet clear how many people will be affected by the 144 job cuts. That will be determined in the next few months through a workplace adjustment process.

Here are the reductions, by province:

Newfoundland and Labrador: 7
Nova Scotia: 11
Prince Edward Island: 2
New Brunswick: 4
Quebec: 9
Ontario: 30
Manitoba: 3
Saskatchewan: 11
Alberta: 37
British Columbia: 25
Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut: 5

Cuts to save $15M

The cuts to local news, which will save about $15 million, are part of a broader "2020 plan" announced last June.

At that time, CBC announced that due to reduced government funding and a drop in advertising revenues, the public broadcaster would be shedding between 1,000 and 1,500 jobs by 2020.

Of the job cuts announced in June 2014, nearly half have been or are in the process of being implemented. By the end of fiscal year 2015-16, two-thirds of the cuts should be in place, with the rest to be announced between 2017 and 2020.

The corporation said that in order to shift its priorities from television and radio to digital and mobile services, it would be undertaking a number of changes, including shortening all of its local supper-hour newscasts beginning in the fall of 2015 and reducing the number of in-house productions.

Radio-Canada, CBC's French-language service, announced today that it is cutting 100 jobs.

http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/canada/story/1.3010204
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Re: CBC to shed 140 local news jobs, add 80 online content j

Postby mccrady » Thu Mar 26, 2015 4:44 pm

Interesting how the biggest cuts are happening right smack in the middle of Tory heartland .. and the PM's home province. How does Alberta lose more people than Ontario?
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Re: CBC to shed 140 local news jobs, add 80 online content j

Postby jon » Thu Mar 26, 2015 5:02 pm

Cuts to CBC Calgary means major reduction in staff
TV news hit hard as 20 jobs being cut at the Calgary broadcast centre
CBC News Posted: Mar 26, 2015 3:01 PM MT
Last Updated: Mar 26, 2015 4:30 PM MT

CBC Calgary will lose nearly one-quarter of its staff as the corporation announced a major restructuring of its local English news service across Canada.

Twenty positions are expected to be lost at CBC Calgary. The full impact of the cuts will be offset by current vacancies and new investment in the digital service. Still, the layoff notices are expected to be handed out in Calgary by the end of April.

Employees were told about the cuts Thursday in a video town hall meeting.

Johnny Michel, the CBC's senior managing director in the west region, explained the corporation is under great financial duress that required a rethink of the news model.

"The unfortunate part is that the west, specifically in Alberta and B.C., we had a lot more," said Michel in an interview. "The unfortunate part is that we stand to lose more."

CBC British Columbia will lose 26 jobs. CBC Edmonton will be trimmed by 18 jobs. In all, the two provinces will absorb 64 job losses — by far the largest of any region. The total cut announced Thursday was 140 positions across the country or $15 million.

Specific jobs to be lost won't be known until April. Joint CBC-Canadian Media Guild committees will be struck in each location to work through the workforce adjustment.

Asked why CBC Calgary was taking such a big cut as compared to locations such as CBC St. John's, Michel said the St. John's has a record of success — particularly in TV news — and that the supper-hour newscast there created a lot of revenue for the corporation.

"We traditionally have not done very well in Alberta on the television side. We do extremely well on radio and we do extremely well on digital," said Michel. "We are still committed to breaking news, we are still committed to enterprise journalism, investigative journalism ... and protect those that do well."

In Calgary, the supper-hour newscast will shrink to 30 minutes as previously announced. Local radio programs will remain largely intact. Seven new positions will be created in the local digital service. The CBC will also create a new bureau in Fort McMurray to enhance coverage of the area.

The cuts revealed Thursday are the next phase of the CBC’s 2020 strategy, announced last June.
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Re: CBC to shed 140 local news jobs, add 80 online content j

Postby mccrady » Fri Mar 27, 2015 10:33 am


Asked why CBC Calgary was taking such a big cut as compared to locations such as CBC St. John's, Michel said the St. John's has a record of success — particularly in TV news — and that the supper-hour newscast there created a lot of revenue for the corporation.
"We traditionally have not done very well in Alberta on the television side.


The reason they haven't done well on the TV side in Alberta is that for years the Tall Foreheads in Never-Never Land have refused to give CBC's local news shows, in this province anyway, time to gain some traction before blowing them all up and starting again.

You don't build audience that way. You lose it. Overnight. And it takes years of consistent, high-quality effort and promotion to get that audience back. People go where they know what they're going to get. CBC hasn't delivered that kind of news show in Alberta for more than 30 years. And to make things worse, they've put people on anchor desks from time to time who were downright dreadful.

Personally, I just don't think they give a damn. Toronto treats "the regions" like an unwanted stepchild. They won't be happy until they've turned the Alberta sticks into repeaters.
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Re: CBC to shed 140 local news jobs, add 80 online content j

Postby albertaboy4life » Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:09 pm

I've said this before on Radiowest . . .

The CBC has long treated Calgary poorly.

The city of 1.2 million plus with a French oil and gas corporation, Total Energy, and a history of welcoming ex-Montrealers since the late '70s and later national corporate head offices (CP Rail, etc.) doesn't register with the Corporation sufficiently enough to justify the CBC French network, SRC, in HD. Conveniently, using a definition to their convenience of what constitutes a "mandatory market." French as a second language is popular among many parents of school-aged children in Calgary. The city's two universities offer considerable numbers of French language courses.

Every time the CBC "needs" to make cuts to its local television services, Calgary is invariably at the top of the list. They killed the top 6 p.m. newscast, the Calgary Newshour, in the late '80s and gave the market away to CFCN/CTV Calgary which didn't have a one hour evening newscast until September 1985. This latest cut to the evening news has to be at least the third occurrence of the axe coming down in Calgary.

Until 1960 and in light of the ineffectiveness of 50,000 watts of transmitter power at 1010 AM with towers near Lacombe, the CBC was of the view that it only needed one service to serve Alberta.

Its television commitment until the disaffiliation of CFAC from the CBC in 1975 was a microwave (tape-delay) relay station.

Again, it's time to sell the individual television stations and focus on being a provider of network programming if not time to completely abandon conventional television and stick to radio.
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Re: CBC to shed 140 local news jobs, add 80 online content j

Postby jon » Fri Mar 27, 2015 5:00 pm

Lots of Calgarians and Edmontonians dumped CBC Supper Hour News from their viewing habits and never came back. Many still hold a Grudge over the fact that Alberta-wide News was done for several years from Calgary, and several more from Edmonton.

Even the Edmonton News junkies that I know still stick to watching Global (CITV) at 5:00 pm and CTV (CFRN) at 6:00 pm.
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