CBC Montreal to start 11pm newscast: sources

It’s not a secret at the CBC, but it’s being treated that way with the outside world: CBMT, CBC’s Montreal television station, is planning to launch an 11pm newscast next month.

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).

13 thoughts on “CBC Montreal to start 11pm newscast: sources

  1. Horonymous

    Wil it contain updated stories or just a rehash of the stories from 5:00, 5:30 & 6:00?

    Live show or taped?

    Some anchors from the early evening news or another anchor?

    Reply
    1. Fagstein Post author

      Judging from the formula in Vancouver, it would be a live broadcast, with top local news stories, updated as warranted. Who will anchor it is a good question that I don’t have the answer to yet.

      Reply
      1. Horonymous

        For some reason I can only get the audio on my MacBook using Safari. Launched Firefox and was able to watch the Vancouver 11:00 pm newscast.

        But the problem may be on my end as I can’t even spell “will” properly in my first post.

        CBC at 11 in Vancouver has a different anchor at 11. You think the CBC could have scheduled one of the two anchors from their early show to read the late news.

        Don’t think the reporter on the first story about the shooting in West Van was live. Looks more like it was taped as their was no chatting between the host and the anchor.

        Same with the weather don’t think it is done live. The weather anchor probably recorded her bit right after the news earlier in the evening. Again no chat with the anchor so I’m thinking canned.

        Agreed it breathing for Nancy must be hard, it’s a tight show.

        Never knew they liked so much crime on the west coast.

        I like guessing what colour the traffic light will be in the background when they cut back to Nancy.

        Reply
        1. Fagstein Post author

          The video is in Windows Media Video format, which is viewable on Macs only through the extremely buggy Flip4mac Quicktime plugin. So it’s not just you.

          The first reporter was live. You can see the reporter nodding as she listens to the anchor. (If it was taped, they certainly faked it very well.)

          Reply
          1. Horonymous

            Definetly canned the anchor almost stepped on the hello by the journalist in the field. If it was live they would have supered it live and would have had some chat. The listen or noddie technique is used to feign being live.

            This ” were not live” but aren’t going to tell you technique is used frequently.

            Take a look a Global National the show is full of it.

            Even the National at the CBC & CTV sometimes do it. The CBC often will do talkbacks live for the feed to the Atlantic time zone and played back during the later feeds to the rest of the country.

            Much like weather reports packaged in other cities and pretending to be in your city is the way some folks produced news. I have no problem with weather being packaged in different regions but passing it off as being local is something else. Having two weather people being able to package the weather for a slew of stations so they can have resources to do more local stories is a way to save money. Although more often than not no extra money is funnelled back to the local newsrooms.

            A little disclosure on my part I work in TV news.

            I like the practice the AMnets, American networks, mornings show use. They will super a report or guest “Live EDT”.

            Another term we use out in the field is “dog lick”. Why go live? Because we can. Often live shots are done just out side the stations with no location relevance to the story

            Reply
            1. Fagstein Post author

              Not to take away from your conspiracy theory, but the journalist was reporting on events that took place after the 6pm newscast, and doing so in the dark (meaning after 8pm, at least). It could have been faked (heck, the entire newscast could have been taped an hour or two earlier), but I don’t see what possible advantage doing such a thing would give them.

              Reply
              1. Horonymous

                No conspiracy theory just letting some of you folks in on how things are done.

                The no chat between the the anchor and field person is a red flag that says it is probably canned.

                It’s great that the the CBC is trying to expand it’s service as opposed to slashing it.

  2. chriskayTO

    Great news for the Montreal market! Any news on if this might roll out to Toronto as well? I can barely endure the ALL CAPS “REPORTAGE” of CityTV and Global, and 11:30pm on CTV is too late for me.

    Reply
  3. MBR

    I’ve seen Vancouver at 11 before, and whenever there was a live report from someone, it would say “LIVE”. CBC has a lot to gain to look competative against Global in BC, so making sure the viewer knows that they are live when necessary is a must.

    Otherwise, it’s unethical to label something “LIVE” when it isn’t. Hence why you don’t see it on the national newscasts (CTV, CBC, Global – some or all are live on their first airing).

    Reply
  4. Philip

    So Are we still going to see the Hour, which is one of my favourite shows? Will it start later? I am hoping to see the new season, with a lot of great guests coming on? Is everything going to be off kilter?

    I am telling you I am getting pretty confused with all these changes with the radio and television networks lately I was so accustomed to a schedule. (I only have an antenna, so only get the basic channels which are mostly canadian due to the swith to digital TV) At night, with the syndicated stuff, for example has changed. CBC and GhostWhisperer,CJAD Re-Roll, E! being sold….. etc.. I’m getting a bit tired of constantly changing schedules.

    BTW, a bit off-topic can anyone let me know why we can’t get the A Channel here but we did get E! until recently. Some of the shows I used to watch on CTV moved there and we can’t receive it in Montreal, so what’s the use. For example this week, they replaced General Hospital in the 3pm slot with yet another Oprah show, Dr. Oz. Yuk.

    Sorry for complaining. Just needed to vent.

    Reply
    1. Fagstein Post author

      Unless the CBC has even more changes planned, the Hour would still air, just starting at 11:10 instead of 11pm.

      There’s no A in Montreal simply because CTV doesn’t have an A station here, while Canwest branded CJNT as an E! station. The closest A station is in Ottawa, which is a bit far for the rabbit ears. It isn’t available on cable either, but is on satellite.

      Reply
  5. Pingback: CBC 11pm local newscast launches Monday – Fagstein

  6. Pingback: The New CBC Montreal – Fagstein

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *