The cuts just keep coming at the CBC. The latest wave, announced today, affects local services across the country in both English and French, with 144 and 100 jobs cut, respectively.
J-Source has a copy of the memo outlining the regional breakdown for English services, which says nine jobs will be cut in Quebec.
We don’t know which jobs those will be yet. “Affected people will be informed in the coming weeks,” says communications manager Debbie Hynes.
The cuts relate to changes in the way local programming is managed, including the reduction of evening TV newscasts from 90 to 30 minutes this fall. Local radio programming is not being cut.
On the French side, Louis Lalande give some details about the cuts, including shows on ICI Musique that will be cancelled.
The CBC is going through pretty much the same process as print media. With diminishing income (or financial sources) and a solid attachment to the past, both are facing economic ruin. The solution from both is to try to “shrink to profitability”, which is just not going to work out.
For the CBC, the problems are twofold. On one side, you have never ending budget cuts and demand to balance their budget, and on the other side you have an organization that was (and often still is) structured and operated like the bottom line just doesn’t matter at all.
There has been so much fat and so much waste at the CBC over the decades that it’s hard to believe you ever will reach the bone. The entire organization (on all levels) is stuck in the 70s, where the various governements were shoveling money into the system in part as a national unity play, and that allowed insane amounts of money to be spent building up operations that just aren’t sustainable. The cuts over the last 10-15 years have been always met with screams,, yet almost every time has been proven to be cutting fat and not bone. Yes, I consider shutting down Radio Canada International to be cutting fat – the Internet and other communication tools have rendered the service all but moot.
CBC still has way to much legacy stuff – including incredible expensive real estate holdings, insane amounts of management side staff, fat cat era labor contracts and rules, and champagne tastes in maintaining large fleets of vehicles and whatnot. Yes, the cuts are getting to those things, but it’s still a real issue.
CBC’s biggest issues are one of mandate. The government mandates their work and set their budget. Yet, it’s clear that the mandates in theory and the budgets in reality no longer match and line up. The CBC management continues to try to operate like they are funded to fulfill all of the mandate, and so you have expensive real estate, parts of which sit idle due to lack of staff and lack of local productions. Something has to give.