Living Montreal | Fagstein

800. It’s really just a number, an abstract concept that we sort of understand. Most of us don’t even have 800 Facebook friends. Our high schools didn’t have 800 students. It’s hard to imagine that many people losing their jobs.

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.

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.

Fagstein

Tag Archives: Living Montreal

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