Dave Bronstetter (CBC photo)

Dave Bronstetter, the veteran CBC Montreal personality who was most recently the host of radio's All in a Weekend, is hanging up the microphone after more than three decades in broadcasting.

The announcement was made Saturday morning on his show by Sonali Karnick, who has been replacing Bronstetter. Bronstetter has been on leave from his show since last fall for reasons that haven't been made very clear publicly.

Karnick said Bronstetter will return to do one final show with her on Feb. 18. They will be running some best-of clips between now and then, and have asked listeners to send in their favourite memories and leave goodbye messages for him.

Most Montrealers will associate Bronstetter with his long stints as host of weekday shows Homerun (in the late 80s) and then Daybreak, from when Royal Orr left 1996 until 2006, when he stepped away from a five-day-a-week job to take the reins at All in a Weekend.

At the time, Bronstetter said burnout and fatigue we having serious effects on his health.

I've been asked a few times over the past few months about why he's been on extended leave. Bronstetter himself has been asked about it a lot as well, at least through posts on his Facebook wall. In response, he's been mostly vague, saying he hopes to come back soon and he's getting better by the day.

Bronstetter just celebrated his 59th birthday, though his Facebook profile has him listed as being born in 1905.

The announcement didn't include news about Bronstetter's permanent replacement at All in a Weekend. Karnick left her job as sports reporter for Daybreak to take up a job at CBC Sports in Toronto. She was recently brought in as the interim host of All in a Weekend, supposedly until the end of the season. Karnick would be an obvious choice, assuming she's interested in staying.

UPDATE: A story from The Gazette, which confirms no permanent replacement has been chosen but Karnick will continue until the end of the season. The news was also mentioned on CTV's local newscast.

UPDATE (Feb. 6): Brendan Kelly, who worked with Bronstetter as a regular contributor to Daybreak, talks to Bronstetter, who confirms he's leaving on the advice of his doctor because he's burned out and depressed.

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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.

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Those folks at CBC Montreal have taken to embarrassing themselves in front of the Internet to promote a holiday fundraiser for Dans la rue.

The Carolling Challenge will see personalities and listeners sing along in an effort to drum up donations. There's even a practice today at 1pm (in case you're not going to either the protest against the Journal de Montréal or the protest in memory of Mohamed Anas Bennis, which are both taking place at the same time), before they hit five locations between Monday and Wednesday. Send a picture of yourself at one and you could even win a bag!

After that, next Sunday, there's the annual Christmas Sing-In, a recording that will air on Christmas Day on the radio.

But if you just like seeing videos of CBC radio personalities singing Christmas songs (and if that's the case, there's something wrong with you), here's a bonus video of Sue Smith singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK0UDIm71Eg

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Nancy Wood

From CBC's Facebook page:

News about Nancy

We know that there is some curiosity about Nancy Wood's next assignment at CBC and we have some news that we're happy to share. Nancy will start work representing English services within Radio-Canada's investigative journalism unit. They are as delighted to be working with one of the CBC's top journalists as she is to join this prestigious team. She will produce regular reports for CBC radio, CBC television and cbc.ca. Nancy will be working alongside the excellent reporters and producers from Radio-Canada doing the groundbreaking investigative work the unit is famous for. You can expect to see her on television and hear her on radio starting in September.

If you have any brown envelopes full of scandal, you can send them to her at: Local A-18, Société Radio-Canada, 1400, René-Lévesque Est, Montréal Quebec, H2L 2M2

Or if it's a virtual envelope you're slipping her, her email remains nancy.wood@cbc.ca

We all wish her the best in her new assignment,

Pia Marquard
Managing Director
CBC Québec

Those of you who watch CBC News Montreal at 5/5:30/6 know that the station routinely piggybacks on Enquête investigations (branding them "CBC-Radio-Canada investigations"). We'll see how Wood's presence on this team changes that.

UPDATE: From Wood herself: "I am looking forward to it. The journalism there is fantastic, the people are great. It's a great opportunity."

Let's hope she enjoys and does well at her new job, and her performance there is judged on something more important than ratings.

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What you do

As a Host for the English Radio of CBC in Montreal, you will host the flagship weekday program "Daybreak", in keeping with Corporation standards and policies. More specifically, you will keep up with all political, social, economic and cultural developments relevant to a local Montreal audience and maintain contacts with various sources. You will do the research necessary for interviews and other program activities. You will write or adapt intros. During production meetings, you will assist in planning and choosing content for the program. Your role as a host will also include community outreach at public events.

Qualifications

We are looking for a candidate with the following:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent.
• Five (5) years' on-air experience or equivalent.
• Proven journalism skills.
• Excellent command of the working language (English).
• Very good knowledge of the other official language (French).
• Extensive general knowledge.
• Extensive knowledge of stories and issues in Montréal and Québec.
• Understanding of the culture of French Canada.
• Strong high-energy on the air, strong ability to connect with audience.
• Team leader.
• Ability to work under stress.

Candidates may be subject to an audition in English and knowledge testing.

This is a contract position.

We recognize the importance of a diverse workforce and we therefore encourage applications from Aboriginal peoples, women, members of a visible minority and persons with a disability.

Sound interesting? Apply now! We thank you for your interest, but only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

Job: Programming and Production

Primary Location: Montreal

Job Posting: Mar 19, 2010

Unposting Date: Mar 30, 2010

Status of Employment: Contract

Work schedule(s): Full-time

It's funny, I know someone who fills all those qualifications perfectly...

Meanwhile, those campaigning for Nancy Wood to get her old job back are running out of steam. Jon Simon, the creator of the Keep Nancy Wood as host of Daybreak Facebook group, has given up after hearing from Wood that she's moving on. This despite the group having 621 members, more than the official Daybreak Facebook page has fans.

UPDATE (April 1): The Suburban's Mike Cohen has some thoughts on possible replacements.

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It's been a rough few days, that's for sure. I am really heartened to see the support I have, especially from listeners. I can't tell you how much I love hosting Daybreak. I just wish the CBC loved me half as much. I guess I'll never really know why they don't want me.

- Nancy Wood, Feb. 22

Nancy Wood hasn't said much since she learned almost a month ago that she was being pulled from the host chair at Daybreak. Part of that is because Wood has never been one to draw too much attention to herself (at least, that's the impression I get from listening to her), and part of it is that there are still discussions happening behind the scenes - and CBC employees have been told not to talk to the media.

The short note above is all she wrote to me when I asked her about this whole thing almost three weeks ago. On Twitter, where she has a personal account, only this tweet, saying she'd be glad to return to her job, but providing no new details about what's going on. On her Facebook account (which isn't open to non-friends), similarly cryptic messages.

Even though I've never conversed with Wood in person, those brief crumbs of thought tug at my heartstrings. Here we have a veteran journalist and a professional radio host who is being forced from her dream job and doesn't even know why. It's been reported that Wood was hospitalized for stress, and while I haven't confirmed that (and it's really none of my business), the emotional impact this has had on her seems pretty apparent.

Is she gone or isn't she?

This whole situation is in a strange kind of limbo because the CBC hasn't yet made any public announcement. So not only has there been no comment from management about what's going on (other than to say she hasn't been fired from the CBC), but there's been no comment on Daybreak itself about the matter. The journalists who work in the Montreal radio newsroom, the same ones who desperately try to track people down for comment about matters of public interest, are under orders from management not to comment themselves, even though many of them are outraged about what's going on. Instead, they're being asked to forward all inquiries to communications man Hugh Brodie (who, of course, hasn't gotten back to me).

Even though no announcement has been made yet, the process of scrubbing Wood has already begun. The Daybreak homepage doesn't even mention her anymore, replacing her photo with one of the "Daybreak team" (which interestingly includes Steve Rukavina, even though he's not a regular Daybreak columnist - Rukavina has been one of the fill-in hosts and is one of the rumoured candidates to replace her). Fill-in hosts now don't even bother mentioning that they're "filling in for Nancy Wood" - instead leaving the whole thing ambiguous and treating listeners like idiots.

The CBC seems to think this decision is official enough to take Wood off the website but not official enough to actually confirm it to listeners. Go figure. Attempts by journalists and others to talk to those in charge have been met with boilerplate answers from the audience relations department saying they don't comment on staff issues.

Voice for the voiceless

While the CBC remains silent, others have spoken up. Four Gazette columnists (Mike Boone, Basem Boshra, Doug Camilli and Henry Aubin -- UPDATE: times three) and one La Presse columnist (Marie-Claude Lortie) have written about the matter, all saying the decision makes no sense (though the fact Wood once worked at The Gazette might have had something to do with it - I hope they're as loyal when I get fired from a radio host job). Letters are still coming in to the Gazette, leading to a lot of ink with her name on it.

Listeners themselves have also gotten in on the action, setting up a Facebook group in protest (almost 500 527 members now), and flooding the program's official Facebook page with questions and demands (all the while, the columnists and researchers who use it pretend like they can't see all the comments, instead talking about the weather and asking for story tips). There are even rumours that there might be a protest outside McLean's Pub on Sunday when the Daybreak team and other CBC personalities will be hosting a pre-St. Patrick's Parade breakfast.

Epic fail

To say this was a blunder by CBC management is to make a huge understatement. This is a mess. The only thing the corporation can hope for now is that most listeners forget about Wood and move on when they announce who will replace her. This is ironic because morning hosts are humanized so listeners can relate to them, and that builds an emotional connection. That emotional connection is great for building audience loyalty, but it really sucks when their favourite radio host gets the shaft. The audience could leave en masse (unlikely, since they don't have much of an alternative), or decide to turn on the next host, blaming him or her for getting Wood reassigned.

Mike Finnerty got oodles of marketing when he was host of Daybreak. What about Nancy Wood?

On the other hand, maybe forgetting Wood is exactly what most people will do. The CBC didn't spend that much marketing her, and she had only been in the big chair for five months before they decided to pull the plug, giving her no time to build a following. There's clearly a small, motivated group of listeners committed to keeping her there, but it's not clear whether that group will reach a critical mass.

Even if we accept that getting rid of Wood was the right decision (and that will depend a lot on who they bring in to replace her), the way it was handled was awful. To announce to the staff that you're going to get rid of the show host, then tell the staff to keep that information quiet, then tell the host that she actually has to stay on like a lame duck for a few more months to finish out her contract, then to ignore the inevitable protest from listeners, all while not announcing who will replace the jettisoned personality - I can't think of a worse way this could have been done.

In private radio, the decisions are quick and final. Hosts are called in, told they're being let go and asked to surrender their security passes. They're not allowed anywhere near a microphone, so they don't become a loose cannon. The decision is publicized quickly, and program directors make some statement about how they decided to go in another direction.

I've never been entirely comfortable with the way it's done in private radio, not even allowing people a chance to say goodbye, but to have someone on air with a noose around her neck for months is just cruel.

As a result, Wood has hosted Daybreak only once since she heard the news - Friday, Feb. 19, mere hours before The Gazette broke the story that she was being dumped. Since then, fill-in hosts have given no indication why she hasn't been on the air.

Breaking with precedent

If local management at CBC look like they're having trouble writing the book about this kind of staff issues, it may be because they haven't gone through something like this before. The previous seven Daybreak hosts over the past 30 years all left because they decided it was time to move on. Bob McKeown left for the Fifth Estate in 1981, Dennis Trudeau left for As it Happens in 1985, and Jim Duff left in 1987 to start the ill-fated Montreal Daily News. The next three hosts, Jon Kalina (1988-1993), Royal Orr (1994-1996) and Dave Bronstetter (1996-2006), all left because they were tired of getting to work at 4am every weekday. And Mike Finnerty, who lasted from 2007 to 2009, left to join his partner in London.

Ratings aren't everything

Supposedly one of the main reasons for removing Wood from this position is that Daybreak wasn't doing well in ratings numbers (at least not as well as Radio Noon and Home Run).

I'm not against the CBC using ratings as a measurement of a show's performance. I think the CBC could learn a lot from what gets the attention of the people. But there must be considerations of quality above quantity. How was Wood as an interviewer? How well did she do technically? How does she manage her team? How does she connect with listeners? If the CBC's sole concern was ratings, they could just put pop songs on the air, or porn. Clearly they have higher ambitions.

One criticism levelled against Wood is that she's "boring". It's not a nice thing to say, but I see where the comment is coming from (especially in light of the ratings). Wood isn't a personality like Tommy Schnurmacher, Pete Marier or Murray Sherriffs. She's just a regular person like everyone else. And she goes to work and does her job like a professional.

I'm a regular listener to the Daybreak podcast (recorded just after the morning show ends and featuring replays of interviews from the show), so I've heard quite a bit of Wood's voice. It's not a silly voice, it's soothing, warm, but serious. She knows her stuff, and she can be compassionate or aggressive with an interviewee depending on the situation.

But to some people (including, apparently, CBC bosses), that's not enough. They think she lacks personality and leadership.

What's wrong with Daybreak

Daybreak is boring in some ways, some Wood's fault, many not. The show is incredibly repetitive. It keeps repeating the same news headlines, weather, sports news and traffic every 30 minutes, leaving only a tiny window in every half-hour block for actual content. And that content is inevitably filled with an interview with some bureaucrat struggling to express himself in English through the telephone while sipping his morning coffee. That interview will usually be about some serious but boring issue that was brought up in that day's newspaper (or, in many cases, the previous day's). And after six minutes of barely explaining anything, they're awkwardly cut off by the host because it's time to go to traffic again.

The powers that be at Daybreak prefer this to alternatives. Why not record interviews the day before and edit them instead of allowing people to just run out the clock live? Why not have your staff go out and produce package reports about issues and play them for morning listeners? Why not host an in-studio discussion about an important topic instead of relying on your reporters to regurgitate what they learned like an office gossip queen? (These things do happen on occasion, but not nearly as often as the interviews.) Why not have an opinion columnist who can make serious, insightful points about current affairs instead of the knee-jerk uninformed ranting we see in private broadcasting?

The reason they prefer the live interview is because it's easy. Call someone up the previous day, ask if they're willing to spend a few minutes on the phone the next morning, figure out what they're going to say, and write questions into a script. It's not that they don't want to do anything more interesting than that, it's that they don't have the time, and they don't have the budget to hire people with the time.

Of course, this has been how Daybreak has worked for years, and previous hosts had the same problem with many of the same staff, but managed to build an audience to management's liking. Clearly there is something about Wood that isn't taking off here. (But there's something about Bernard St-Laurent that is?) It's her show, and the subdued personality that makes her a great journalist is a fault when it comes to hosting a radio show - especially in the morning, "when boring radio is least acceptable," as one CBC insider told me.

Yes, blame the new boss

Supposedly the main reason Wood was pulled so prematurely was that the CBC was about to bring in a new regional boss - Pia Marquard - and didn't want her to be stained with this decision. That obviously backfired, and for good reason: If she disagreed with the decision, couldn't she just reverse it?

The public outcry from the Nancy Wood saga has probably been larger than the CBC anticipated (certainly larger than Wood herself anticipated). And this is before they've even announced anything to their listeners - that might kick this campaign into the next gear. We'll see if it's enough to sway the new boss to keep her.

But even if they do bring her back (and she said she'd love to come back), the damage is done. The marks of that noose will be around her neck even if she's never hanged, and she won't be able to breathe comfortably so long as she's in that chair.

If you want to express your opinion to the person in charge, you can write Pia Marquard at pia.marquard@cbc.ca.

Bullshit hits the fan

UPDATE (March 11): About the same time I posted this, word finally started coming out of the CBC that Wood had indeed been removed from her Daybreak post. This post on the show's official Facebook page has a text from Marquard that many listeners reported getting word for word:

First, we'd like to thank you for your dedication to Daybreak - we're glad to know that it's part of your weekday morning. We also understand that because you're a regular Daybreak listener, you are concerned about our recent decision to change the show's host.

Nancy Wood joined the Daybreak team as the interim host in August 2009. It was not a permanent assignment and when she returns from her current absence she will begin a new assignment at the CBC.

We understand that some of Daybreak's listeners will not only miss Nancy as the show's host, but have also asked for more details regarding our decision. Our policy, like most organizations, is not to disclose personal and confidential information regarding our employees. We think this is an important principle of privacy and respect for all of our employees.

We sincerely thank Nancy for her continued commitment to the CBC and most recently, while she was in the Daybreak host's chair. We look forward to continuing to work with her when she returns.

Thank you for listening to Daybreak

Pia Marquard
Managing Director, Québec

This is pure, unmitigated bullshit. Whatever the technical status of Wood's contract with the CBC, she was hired as the permanent host of Daybreak. There was an announcement, an interview with Mike Boone, a whole production. Her face became the official face of Daybreak. At no time was the word "interim" mentioned in relation to her post, nor was there any indication that the CBC was looking to replace her during her five months on the job.

Either I'm misunderstanding something pretty fundamental (like the definition of "interim") or Marquard is outright lying here.

As for statements about "personal and confidential information regarding our employees," please. We're not asking for her salary or even the reason she's on temporary leave right now. We want to know why the CBC has decided to make a programming change by removing her as the host of Daybreak.

UPDATE (March 13): Henry Aubin has another column on Wood, focused on the response of anglo Montrealers, who copied him on 92 emails to the CBC. The column also mentions an online petition that has just started.

UPDATE (March 16): Aubin devotes a third column to Wood, taking aim at the CBC in general and its irrational focus on pure ratings. He says that reversing their decision would show that they care what listeners think.

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The new newscasts are being brought in across the country, and will start at 10:55pm, cutting a few minutes into The National.

As I explained last month, the 10-minute newscast would be a rapid-fire recap of the day's events, with some late-breaking news that's updated from the 6pm newscast.

And as I explained, there won't be much of a new budget for this extra programming, so employees will be stetched even further.

CBC Montreal news director Mary-Jo Barr tells Fagstein that Andrew Chang will be the night host, which will have a night reporter filing an updated story, Frank Cavallaro doing live weather, and updates on things like evening Canadiens games. The local newscast will also feature new graphics (an improvement that is sorely needed if you've seen some of those graphics over the past few years).

Among other changes on the docket:

• CBC Newsworld gets renamed CBC News Network. This sounds very similar to CTV rebranding CTV Newsnet as CTV News Channel, and about as pointless. The new CBC NN (not to be confused with CNN) will have a new schedule with some new shows, for anyone who actually cares about the schedule of a 24-hour news network.
• An online 10-minute version of The National by 6pm. A good idea, provided they can provide it in enough formats for it to be accessible (like, say, in a downloadable podcast form for those of us on the go). The newscast will also be "customizable", in that viewers will be able to select which stories will be part of it. Not quite sure how that will work, but the concept makes sense.
• The National moves to 6pm on Saturday to avoid conflicting with NHL coverage. Because hockey is more important than news.
• A "faster pace" and "new format" for The National which includes more stuff from Marketplace and the Fifth Estate. In other words, reusing staff from one show to provide cheap content for another.
• More "transparency" in news reporting. It's unclear what they mean by this, though they give the example of explaining the CBC's policy on reporting on kidnappings. Of course, this would be welcome by people like me, but I'm skeptical that CBC News can get a culture of true transparency going without it getting torpedoed by marketing interests eventually.
• Wendy Mesley will appear regularly on The National to generate "debate". Make your own Wendy Mesley/Peter Mansbridge joke here.
• Kady O'Malley starts a political blog. You know Kady, she used to blog for Maclean's before CBC poached her.
• World Report, which airs mornings at the top of the hour, will add a newscast at 5am for those poor souls who are up at that hour. This sounds a bit odd, considering Daybreak starts at 5:30. Are they going to fill that extra 20 minutes with national content, or just continue their overnight programming?

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Stuart Robertson (CBC photo)

If the plants in your garden seem a bit limp today, they might be water-logged from the rain, or they might be mourning the death this morning of local gardening expert Stuart Robertson.

According to obituaries in The Gazette and at CBC, Robertson died Wednesday morning of complications from pneumonia after a long battle with lymphoma.

Robertson, who worked at CBC Radio in Montreal (among other things, as a traffic reporter) until retiring in June, turned his gardening expertise into a weekly column in The Gazette (the last one was just this past Saturday), a regular column on CBC television, and a weekly (sometimes more than that) spot on CBC's Radio Noon. He also wrote two books on gardening.

The CBC obit mentions that Robertson was a popular columnist on Radio Noon. This can't be overemphasized. His gardening call-in was by far the most popular regular segment. While other times the call-in segment would struggle for a trickle of calls, when the topic was gardening everyone wanted to get on and ask him a question. The only thing stopping the station from having him on more often was a concern that Radio Noon not turn into the Stuart Robertson Gardening Show.

Stuart Robertson was a quiet man, but his departure leaves an ominous silence.

UPDATE: The full Gazette obit got Page 1 treatment on Thursday.

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According to multiple sources within the CBC, the new 11pm newscast would be a short, 10-minute recap of the top stories, similar to what airs currently in Vancouver.

You can see an example of Vancouver at Eleven here. It's five minutes long, sandwiched between The National and The Hour. Vancouver's newscast will be expanding to 10 minutes, which should hopefully give the anchor an opportunity to breathe properly. Other markets are also planning similar newscasts.

CBC Montreal news director Mary-Jo Barr was coy when I asked her about the new newscast, neither confirming nor denying its existence. She would say only that "there's some excitement over here at CBC Montreal" and hinted at an upcoming announcement.

Ten minutes might not sound like much, but when you add local news in the evening newscasts together, you get to about that figure. Vancouver at Eleven contains no advertising, and only a brief weather segment. It's not clear whether that would still be the case in a 10-minute newscast.

CBMT hasn't aired an 11pm newscast since Newswatch was cancelled in 2000. Drastic cutbacks at the CBC led to the idea of "Canada Now", a one-hour evening newscast whose first half-hour was hosted by Ian Hanomansing in Vancouver and the rest by local anchors. That finally ended in 2007, when plummeting ratings forced the CBC to reconsider and bring back one-hour local newscasts. CBMT has been slowly building back the audience it forfeited to CFCF ever since.

Sources tell Fagstein the 11pm newscast should begin around Thanksgiving (in other words, mid-October).

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Michel Godbout: "Returning to the field"

Instead, the CBC is going younger, picking one familiar and one unfamiliar name to sit in the big chairs. Godbout, the release says, is going back to reporting, "returning to the field." The release suggests Godbout is eager to get back on the front lines, though that's not quite the impression one gets when reading his Twitter post on the subject. Godbout, a known softie, tells us below not to read too much into that Tweet.

Replacing Godbout on Sept. 8 (a week after the new 90-minute newscast debuts) are reporters Andrew Chang and Jennifer Hall.

The announcement was sent to the media shortly before the 6pm newscast and was made on the air by Jeniene Phillips, who is replacing the vacationing Godbout in the anchor chair, at the very end of the hour-long newscast. It included video of Hall and Chang at their desk in what appears to be a new set:

Jennifer Hall and Andrew Chang try out their new anchor chairs

Chang is a familiar face to CBC Montreal viewers, one of the youngest faces on the newscast and a solid multimedia reporter who has been with the station since 2005.

Hall, on the other hand, is an import. She comes from Ontario, where she served as national reporter for CTV's "A" News network. Though she has experience as a news anchor, she's spent her career (and education) in Ontario and is entirely new to the Montreal news scene.

Frank Cavallaro remains at his post as the weather presenter.

CBC's release is below:

JENNIFER HALL AND ANDREW CHANG TO CO-ANCHOR CBC NEWS: MONTREAL SUPPER-HOUR NEWSCAST

Montreal, August 20, 2009 -- Beginning Tuesday, September 8, Jennifer Hall and Andrew Chang will take the helm as co-anchors of CBC NEWS: MONTREAL, the expanded 90-minute newscast from 5-6:30 p.m. on CBC Television.

Jennifer Hall joins the team at CBC Montreal fresh from the corridors of Parliament Hill, where a passion for politics led to her role as National Affairs Reporter for CTVglobemedia's 'A' network. She broadcast live from the House of Commons each night during one of the most tumultuous sessions in recent political memory, with the minority government coming close to falling.

In years prior, Jennifer established her diversity of skills as both host and producer of the provincial current affairs program Inquiry with Jennifer Hall. Her ability to stickhandle a panel of guests on hot-button issues garnered national recognition. Jennifer's move to the anchor desk is familiar territory, as she has held the role for many of the past 20 years.

“Coming to Montreal is a natural next step for me and my family. We've always loved this city. The people, culture and language give it soul and character like no other place in Canada,” said Hall. “I'm also thrilled to be joining CBC Montreal. The CBC just can't be matched when it comes to journalism that matters to Montrealers. I can't wait to get started.”

Andrew Chang is a familiar face to CBC News: Montreal viewers. His wide-ranging stories and compelling, in-depth style have made him one of the top journalists in the city. He has reported on many of the biggest Quebec stories in recent memory, including the Dawson College shootings, the Laval overpass collapse, the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, and the Montreal Canadiens riots. In 2008, he covered the Quebec election from the campaign trail, filing daily to CBC Montreal Radio, TV and the web. More recently, he was part of the CBC Montreal team that uncovered and broke the Earl Jones financial scandal.

"With Jennifer as co-anchor and the top-notch CBC Montreal news team at our side, I look forward to keeping Montrealers on top of the news and their city,” said Chang. “The audience can also expect something a little different. I’m a front-line journalist. I like to be where the story is happening. I plan on getting out from behind the desk as much as possible, and bringing the viewers along with me.”

After four years as host of CBC NEWS: MONTREAL AT 6, Michel Godbout is looking forward to returning to the field. He will of course continue to play a very prominent role in the newscast and report on some of the top stories that matter most to Montrealers.

“We are very excited about introducing the co-anchor format as we expand our local news coverage to better serve Montrealers,” said Mary-Jo Barr, News Director, CBC Montreal. “The new 90-minute supper hour format allows us to bring even more timely, in-depth local news and information to our viewers, and having a co-anchor team will provide a fresh approach and a different perspective to the broadcast.”

CBC NEWS: MONTREAL will begin airing on August 31, bringing Montrealers in-depth local and breaking news coverage with ongoing updates, top national and international stories and Frank Cavallaro’s accurate weather forecast. The new format, divided into three 30-minute newscasts at 5, 5:30 and 6, provides more options for Montrealers. Viewers will get the day’s top stories, including weather, in each half-hour and developing stories as they unfold. The content will be up-to-the-minute with the context and depth Montrealers expect of CBC News.

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Two of them are from Montreal:

• Charlie Edwards Award (Spot News) - CJAD 800 for Montreal North Riots
• Sam Ross Award (Editorial/Commentary) - CBC News: Montreal for Daycare Fees

I also note that one winner is the A-Channel station in Windsor, which CTV decided to pull the plug on until Shaw came in to rescue it.

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Some familiar voices from CBC Montreal read some passages from dearoldlove.com for Jonathan Goldstein's Wiretap show last month (complete audio of the show is here). Can you pick them out?

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Michel Godbout has been hosting CBC News Montreal at Six alone since 2006. (Fagstein photo illustration)

Thomas tips me off to a job posting from the CBC for a co-anchor for its weeknight Montreal newscast (the only remaining local programming on CBMT).

The posting doesn't make it clear, but I'm assuming the co-anchor will be added to the desk next to current anchor Michel Godbout, who has been hosting the newscast since he replaced longtime Newswatch anchor Dennis Trudeau.

I'm not quite sure about the strategy behind this. Dual anchors are at best redundant, and while a lot of News at Six involves Godbout speaking, he does it well enough. Especially considering the current firing craze at the network, it seems silly to hire someone new for purely aesthetic reasons.

And even then, what's the point? Silly host banter? We already have that with Godbout and "weather specialist" Frank Cavallaro.

Besides, the studio space allotted to CBC News at Six is so tiny, it would be cramped with two people inside.

Applications are due by June 10. Any takers?

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So when the CBC announced it was cutting 800 jobs on Wednesday, we knew it was bad, but we didn't know how.

Now, details are beginning to emerge about more specific cuts to CBC programming. There are already lists of cuts nationally for English and French services, mainly from the English headquarters in Toronto and the French headquarters in Montreal.

In Quebec, as far as local programming goes, Quebec City will be hit worse than Montreal. Here's what's on the chopping block:

• Living Montreal, the last English-language non-news local program in Quebec, will be cancelled, as will similar shows across Canada. This completely rids English Montreal of television programming about arts, life and culture in the city, outside of the newscasts and what you'll find on CJNT or VOX. Much as I think Living Montreal was a bit too fluffy and relied too much on regular columnists, this cut bothers me the most because it was the last of its kind here. Sue Smith, its host, gets a fairly soft landing, having already taken up a job hosting Radio Noon. Which brings us to...
• Radio Noon, the Montreal-based Quebec-wide call-in show, will be reduced from two hours to one.
• English and French services in Quebec City will be cut, with 15 jobs lost.
• Téléjournal midi Québec with Caroline Gaudreault and Téléjournal midi Estrie with Réjean Blais will be cancelled at the end of June, as will noon-hour news shows in Ottawa and Moncton. Staff will instead combine resources on the 6pm newscasts in those markets. Which brings us to...
• The 6pm Téléjournal in Quebec City and Sherbrooke (along with Ottawa and Moncton) will be cut from an hour to half an hour
• Un dimanche à Québec with Michel Lamarche, the last remaining locally-produced programming in Quebec City on Sundays, will be cancelled.
• The CBC won't be covering CONCACAF Champions League games anymore, which means if the Impact (or Whitecaps or Toronto FC) make another deep run into the tournament, we won't see it on TV.

Even with these cuts, it's apparent that it could have been a lot worse. The network level is taking the brunt of the job losses, and the CBC has promised that no regional stations will be shut down.

Employees at the Téléjournal serving eastern Quebec are breathing a sigh of relief (and perhaps disbelief) that their broadcast won't be cancelled.

News about cuts at CBC News in Montreal won't come until mid-April, after employees decide whether or not to take buyouts.

Even with all this, I know of only one person who's actually been cut. No doubt there will be more in the weeks ahead.

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Catherine Cullen (right) totally not flirting with Living Montreal's Sue Smith

Sue Smith, the host of Living Montreal (perhaps the only English television program left that's produced for a local Montreal audience) apparently ran out of ideas this week and did five shows themed on CBC Montreal and the Maison Radio-Canada.

Above is some little-known nerd reporter from CBC Radio who on Thursday's show did a chocolate-chip cookie recipe she got off the Internet. (Actually, it's my former classmate Catherine Cullen, whose career has now officially outperformed mine, allowing me to make fun of her with the photo below.) They're actually shown on a set in the basement made by the production department specifically for this segment, which is kind of cute (did it have running water?).

Catherine Cullen is just happy to be on TV

Sadly, too little of the 115 minutes over the week involved actually exploring the iconic CBC building (and too much on graphical segues and plugs for the website). The trips through various offices act more as a backdrop for various food/style/shopping/other chick stuff.

Still, if you're a junkie for inside journalism like me, take a peek at these:

• Some retro clips of Smith and Gerri Barrer from their days at Citybeat.
• CBC weatherguy Frank Cavallaro talking about local establishments he likes to frequent (spoiler alert: Little Italy), and tours of the costume and props department at Maison RadCan, which produces much of the network's comedy and drama programming in addition to news.
• Monday and Tuesday's shows are at CBC Radio Montreal, where I spent all of two weeks but remember some of the faces. Tuesday's show has almost throw-away shout-outs to Julie Chamberland, Shawn Apel and Justin Hayward
• Monday's show also has Homerun host Bernard St-Laurent giving his pick for favourite (underrated) Montreal park: Parc René-Lévesque
• Tuesday's show also has Daybreak host Mike Finnerty talking about a pie place.

And while you're exploring the Living Montreal site, you can take a peek at segments from the Flab Gab column which stars The Gazette's June Thompson, who was brought on board in December.

P.S. To Living Montreal (or whoever is responsible for its website): Your Flash-based video system looks cool and seems to work OK (except for the minor issue that if I pause a video I can't restart it ...  actually that's a pretty serious issue), but this post would have been made a lot easier if you had some simple way to copy a link to individual videos. I had to get the ones above through the "Send to a friend" feature, sending myself half a dozen unnecessary emails.

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I'm speaking, of course, about television reporters.

Every day, dozens of them roam the city, looking for a suitable backdrop for their story about health care or education or politics, and for many the ideal spot for a stand-up report is standing on a street corner. It's active, it's bright, in some cases it might even be relevant to the story.

But in most cases, they're patently unnecessary.

Something must be done.

I warn you, the images below may disturb you. Each features a television reporter standing outside long enough to welcome frostbite for a mere 20 or 30 seconds of TV time (some are from this week, others are from last winter, when conditions were not quite as severe). Some are "live hits" just for the sake of it. Others are prepackaged reports. In both cases, reporters have to stand much longer than they appear on camera, keeping still, with the wind wiping away whatever warmth they might hope to generate with their bodies.

Global's Valerie Boyer reports on computer hacking. In the middle of the street.

Global's Caroline Plante reports on the Castonguay report on health care. Outside, in the dark.

Global's Amanda Jelowicki reports on Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence and Canadian reaction to it. From the sidewalk of a residential street.

Global's Domenic Fazioli reports on police looking for two suspects, in front of a bus shelter.

Global's Elysia Bryan-Baynes reports on small hospitals that don't want to merge with superhospitals, in front of a hospital.

Global's Tim Sargeant reports on an economic government trade-deal something-or-other.

CBC's Amanda Margison reports on a water main break downtown, 12 hours after it happened, from in front of City Hall (the break was over a kilometre west of there).

CTV's Cindy Sherwin, desperate to keep warm, reports on the same water main break (though at least in daylight).

CTV's Caroline van Vlaardigen reports on Hydro-Quebec asking people to reduce electricity usage, from the middle of the street.

CTV's Tarah Schwartz reports on a story about whether unions should take part in protests. From some street somewhere (after having interviewed a subject in a warm building).

There have been no published reports of lasting injuries because of reporters being forced to stand out in the cold, but this is no reason to continue this barbaric act. Even dogs get better treatment than this.

We must do something now. Call or email your local TV station and demand they bring these poor defenceless creatures in from the cold.

Thank you.

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I think we should take a step back here. 25% seems large, but only represents about 6,000 actual viewers. CBC Montreal's news audience is still an order of magnitude smaller than CTV, which has dominated the race since CBC gutted Newswatch.

Though I'm sure Cavallaro has a loyal audience, the numbers probably have more to do with people slowly trickling back to CBC after the network decided to bring back a local one-hour newscast. And the station still has plenty of ground to make up. It needs a new studio (well, actually, it needs its own studio), a graphics department, and other things that only money can buy.

Meanwhile, The Suburban notices that Paul Graif, a victim of Global Quebec's job cuts, is now at CTV. Another example of why we have one local news program here and two pretend local news programs.

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I see you're reporting on Habs Ryan O'Byrne and Tom Kostopoulos being arrested. OK, sure.

Why are you standing outside in the cold? This story happened in Tampa, Florida. You're clearly not in Tampa, considering the fog coming out of your mouth as you talk. How does being outside instead of in studio (as you did this afternoon) help us understand the situation any better?

As for you, CBC News, is a streeter really necessary here? Are you going to find someone on the street who's going to take the players' side? Why did you waste a reporter on getting idiots on the street to say they don't approve of stealing ladies' purses?

And why is that reporter, Stéphanie Tremblay, reporting on her streeter package live from the middle of a forest somewhere? It hardly needs an introduction anyway.

(CTV took a more nuanced approach, asking viewers if this would have an impact on the team. Their streeter ran as-is with no introduction)

There's gimmickry for gimmickry's sake and then there's wasting resources on stupidity.

Incidentally, tonight is Frank Cavallaro's debut on CBC News at Six. Though the production quality is much lower than CTV News, the voice is the same and I don't think his groupies will take issue with the transition.

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Frank Cavallaro, who was unceremoniously booted from CTV News Montreal when his contract wasn't renewed on Dec. 31, has found a new job at their direct competitor CBC News.

Michel Godbout announced yesterday on the Montreal evening newscast that Cavallaro will become their new "weather specialist" starting in a couple of weeks. He replaces Geeta Nadkarni, who moves to environment reporting.

Frank also announced the news himself on his new blog.

One advantage that being on CBC gives him is potential international exposure. CBC Montreal puts its evening News at Six on its website in Windows Media format.

The appointment gives Montreal viewers a choice, between experience and professionalism at CBC (well, as much professionalism as a guy associated with zucchini can have anyway) and cheery perkiness of CTV's weatherbabes.

Which of these will Montrealers choose?

UPDATE (Jan. 30): Boone compares Cavallaro with Andrew Marquis, who died shortly after being stolen away by CBC Montreal from Pulse News.

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