Comments on: CBC cuts 800 jobs

By: Fagstein » Union to mourn as axe falls at CBC

Fagstein » Union to mourn as axe falls at CBC — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:40:59 +0000

[...] word about a “day or mourning” organized by her union. On Tuesday, the real brunt of those 800 job cuts hits as the corporation reveals a list of the positions deemed “redundant”, and the [...]

By: Fagstein » Geeking out with Macadam tribus

Fagstein » Geeking out with Macadam tribus — Sun, 10 May 2009 20:40:03 +0000

[...] Macadam tribus was one of the victims of CBC/RadCan’s 800 job cuts, and will disappear from the airwaves on June 20. That decision can be read between the lines of a [...]

By: Fagstein » CBC cuts hit closer to home

Fagstein » CBC cuts hit closer to home — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:58:28 +0000

[...] when the CBC announced it was cutting 800 jobs on Wednesday, we knew it was bad, but we didn’t know [...]

By: Westerner

Westerner — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:41:32 +0000

In the end it will come to to carriage charges on satellite and cable for local television news, sports events etc.. Currently, as you know, the subtitution of Ads is only required in the extended coverage area of a terrestrial broadcaster. No one is watching the local channels, but they need to provide the signal for substitution rights. This applys to large markets as well.

The CRTC turned this down as the cable operators voiced opposition to this a year ago last June at the Calgary Conventional television hearings (well, subsequent to these hearings). They also went fairly hard on the possible requirments for HD for substitution rights to continue.

The CRTC in view of the current economic situation is going to re-visit this decision. Interesting, that some companies have holdings in both cable and conventional TV (Rogers and CORUS being the big ones).

On the rebroads, yes CTV announced it plans not to renew licences for 43 of them.

I guess one will see.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:13:10 +0000

G&M is reporting today that "80 positions from CBC News" may be part of the cuts.

By: Cedric

Cedric — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 07:10:09 +0000

Hey, I turned out to be one of the very few people being cut from the Radio-Canada.ca staff.

According to the address we got this morning, Hubert wants the Corporation's various sectors, to think cross-platform, asking, say, TV producers to think in terms of the web and vice-versa (by creating a fictional Facebook profile for a TV series character? or offer the same electoral map on TV and on the web?).

Otherwise, my sector is one of those left relatively unscathed from the onslaught. Hubert had been stressing the word "new platforms" so much in preemptive memos. Beyond the usual web as we know it today (web pages in a browser?), I think that there's a huge potential in mobile devices and the merging between real life and virtual space (Got bless the GPS). There's also a tremendous potential in creating accessible interfaces to masses of unhelpfully scattered/hidden public data...

By: Fagstein

Fagstein — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:11:57 +0000

No one is forcing CTV or Global to operate regional stations. They could shut them down at any time (and in some cases, they are doing exactly that). In addition to getting that 10% of television viewers who don't have cable, having a broadcast station also gives stations guaranteed carriage on cable and a position low on the cable dial. Whether that's incentive enough, we'll see.

By: Westerner

Westerner — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:59:26 +0000

"Scandalous that they are still handing out bonuses to senior management"

Only 50% of what the bonuses were before!!! or so we are told.

Lacroix is likely right in what he is saying. In Canada, the penetration of cable and satellite is over 92% across the nation. Why should the CBC, CTV or any other terrestrial broadcaster be forced to operate expensive technical transmission infrastrure which no one is watching. You can thank the CRTC for this as the broadcasters incuding CBC had a plan to shut down a number of terrestrial transmitters and the CRTC turned this down. Many of these retransmission facilities are in very remote areas which are very expensive to maintain. In most of these communities people are receiving their TV via satellite and don't even bother with the local channel. Whats the point??

By: Horonymous

Horonymous — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:04:54 +0000

Scandalous that they are still handing out bonuses to senior management.

By: Fagstein

Fagstein — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:34:10 +0000

I don't have an exact number, but the ballpark is between 7,000 and 9,000. So this represents about 10% of the workforce.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:31:12 +0000

800 out of how many positions, anyone know? One wouldn't think that a $65 million shortfall in an organization that had $1.53 billion in overall revenue in 2006 (most recent year cited on Wikipedia) would lead to this level of hardship, but I guess it shows how much of that money goes to simply maintaining their technical infrastructure?