http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWDpVqqVPTs
As part of its 75th anniversary, and on the weekend of Culture Days/Journées de la culture, CBC and Radio-Canada stations across the country are opening their doors to the public and showing them around.
Among locations in Quebec are:
- Bas-Saint-Laurent/Rimouski (Saturday 1pm-4pm)
- Côte-Nord/Sept-Îles (Saturday 1pm-4pm)
- Estrie/Sherbrooke (Saturday 12:30pm-3:30pm)
- Gaspésie/Matane (Saturday 1pm-4pm)
- Mauricie/Trois-Rivières (Saturday 1pm-4pm)
- Quebec City (Saturday 9am-1pm)
- Rouyn-Noranda
- Saguenay/Chicoutimi (Saturday 1pm-4pm)
- and, of course, Montreal.
Pretty well everywhere that creates programming.
Specific crowd-pleasers are planned in various large cities, though on the English side it’s mostly in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver.
At Maison Radio-Canada, where understandably most of the interesting stuff will be in French, there’s still plenty of interest for anglos. Besides the tours and personalities, a Hockey Night in Canada display is promised, as well as opportunities for kids who are fans of CBC Television’s children’s programming.
The Montreal building on René-Lévesque Blvd. will offer guided tours, one a short one of about an hour and another a longer one of an hour and 45 minutes. The CBC Montreal and Radio Canada International portions are included only in the longer tour. (See a full list of attractions in this PDF flyer)
Doors are open from 10am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. On-air TV stars like Debra Arbec, Andrew Chang and Amanda Margison have said they’ll be around for about lunch time on Saturday.
You might recall that CTV Montreal held open houses in 2009 and 2010. In both cases the studio considered the events a huge success, and though there is definitely a desire to repeat the process in the future, there aren’t any specific plans yet for another one.
Kind of amazing that Quebec has 9 CBC facilities (Matane AND Rimouski separately?), as many as the two largest predominantly-anglo provinces combined (Ontario has Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Windsor, Toronto and Ottawa; British Columbia has Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna and Prince George).
Most of them are small, and Matane (Gaspésie/Les-Îles), Rimouski (Bas-Saint-Laurent) and Sept-Îles (Côte-Nord) are grouped together as “Est-du-Québec”. But sure, there’s plenty of Radio-Canada infrastructure in small regions of Quebec, which is a result of an attempt at parity between the two languages even though one has a much smaller population and geographic area.
I just don’t see why you need parity in this particular aspect. Labrador, for instance, is pretty distinct from Newfoundland, and I’d argue a place like that would benefit more from local CBC than Matane.
CBC NL has offices in Labrador City and Happy Valley-Goose Bay. I don’t know how much local content comes out of there, but I don’t imagine it’s much different from places like Matane and Sept Îles.
Hopefully, the last hurrah before the big bad budget cuts start sending government owned media to the curb. i hate to sound too much like Peladeau, but how much is this costing me?
“Specific crowd-pleasers are planned in various large cities”.?
I hope that you mean us taxpayers get to witness some mass layoffs at the CBC/SRC .
A friend of mine works there and told me that sections of the tower are now vacant? A lot of the staff are in the basement, and with the effect of cuts, some floors in the tower are available for rent, but are sitting empty because the rates at the Maison are higher than other buildings in the area?
“open house”??
cbc especially montreal has never been open about anything, remember the nancy wood fiasco?
and the Finnerty return…now Sona is back???(only a rabid place like cbc montreal english services would take her back, or take her at all!…and wher’s bronsteter?
we pay taxes so Pia M. can work out in gym and travel back home several times a year.
Was this dude at the celebration?
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/10/07/cbc-journalist-retires-early-after-scandal
Retires early? Hmm still getting the pension ?
BTW Steve, if you are gonna have a blog, maybe you should show up more than once a fortnight. Just saying:)
The CBC is a public good that most Canadians do not want – just look at the ratings! The federal government should privatize the CBC and spend the savings on the Canada Health and Social Transfer, which is the money transferred to the provinces for use in health care and education.
Please tell me how I can most effectively express my dissatisfaction with CBC One broadcasting in Montreal.
CBC radio has always been VERY important to me, as I have no TV, I cannot stomach commercial radio, and I would not have time to read a daily newspaper even if there were a decent one in Montreal.
I do not expect every on-air CBC radio broadcaster to be very intelligent and articulate. It is enough for me that many are. What I do expect is that every staff person who goes on air sounds pleasant, professional, and interesting to listen to.
After being a fan for four decades, I find that I have to turn the radio off when one of the “CBC mice” is on the air. I find that I cannot bear to listen to the discordant, squeaky and unprofessional voices of Salimah Shivji and Sabrina Marandola.
I would personally contribute to a fundraising effort that would pay for voice training lessons for these two “hopefuls”. Who knows. Maybe they have great potential.
Who in management is responsible for bringing us such an unusual and totally unexpected experience? Is hiring and on-air placement done by a single, all-powerful person, or was there a cabal involved?
H M Hirsh