CBC to cut 657 jobs

[TVViewer]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/cbc-to...ghts-1.2605504

Funding shortfalls and revenue losses have forced CBC/Radio-Canada to cut $130 million from its budget this year, a move that will eliminate 657 jobs over the next two years and take the network out of competing for the rights to broadcast professional sports, the public broadcaster says.


"Very tough and controversial choices needed to be made and were made," CBC president and CEO Hubert T. Lacroix said at a townhall meeting with staff Thursday.


Lacroix said CBC could no longer compete against private broadcasters that have specialty sports channels and multiple media platforms.

The result will mean "substantially reducing" the size of the sports department and covering fewer sporting events, including amateur sports. And the CBC will only consider broadcasting events that allow the network to break even, he said.


But the CBC will still compete for sporting events of national significance, like the Olympics.



Among the cuts, English Services will slash $82 million from its budget and eliminate 334 full-time jobs.


Lacroix said the broadcaster looked for solutions to shield Canadian programming in prime time and its commitment to the regions and digital from cuts.


"We were not able to protect these priorities as much as we would have liked to. And Canadians will now notice," he said.


In news, the network will cut $13.3 million from its budget, resulting in 115 job losses.


Radio will also reduce some of its live music performances and some local musical performance shows will be cancelled or consolidated into regional shows.


Losing the rights to broadcast Hockey Night in Canada to Rogers was a significant loss, but only one of the factors leading to Thursday’s announced changes.


CBC has been coping with a loss of $115 million in federal government funding over three years that was announced in the 2012 federal budget.


Meanwhile, a softening of the advertising market and CBC’s poor performance in attracting the important 25-54 age demographic to its prime-time TV schedule represented a $47-million hit to the network’s revenue.


Projected advertising sales for Radio 2 and Espace Musique have also fallen short, resulting in a $13-million loss.


As well, fixed-cost increases of $42 million and a $30-million funding freeze from the federal government added pressures to the broadcaster’s budget.


Among the changes:

• Television will have one less original series, to be replaced with a Best of the World series.
• High cost reality series, like shows like Battle of the Blades, will be replaced with lower costing shows.
• George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, which is ending its 10-year run, will not be replaced. Instead, existing dramas will fill the time slot.
• Cancellation of late night news in the North.
• Service expansion into the London market shelved.

[TVViewer]

According to a CBC employee on Twitter "Some local news programs will be replaced with regional, network or syndicated ones. We don't know precisely what that mean".

One of those changes includes regional weekend news for Alberta. Saskatchewan already has all their news regional, and the Maritimes already has regional late night and weekend news. Looks like CBC News will continue to a non-competitor in the ratings.

I hope when they say they are sticking with The Olympics they are talking about the one they already paid for, and don't plan to lose money on future 2 week sporting events that happen once every 2 years at the benefit of the morally corrupt IOC.

[SportsFan]

Looks like CBC News will continue to a non-competitor in the ratings.

At least you've found a silver lining for yourself in hundreds of people losing their jobs.

I hope when they say they are sticking with The Olympics they are talking about the one they already paid for, and don't plan to lose money on future 2 week sporting events that happen once every 2 years at the benefit of the morally corrupt IOC.

An unsubstantiated, unfunny criticism of the CBC. You sound like the guys at Sun News.

[TVViewer]

[QUOTE=SportsFan;65772]

At least you've found a silver lining for yourself in hundreds of people losing their jobs.

This reminds me of a few years ago when for some people, a silver lining for thousands of people losing their jobs was their cable bill not increasing.

There is no silver lining in this for me. Just an observation that these type of CBC decisions are only going to make their situation worse. Their local news strategy was already unrealistic and now they are making things even worse by replacing local news with regional newscasts. That's not a silver lining, I don't think it's a good thing we have CBC stations across the country producing local news nobody is watching because CBC doesn't consider news a priority. I don't think it's a good how CBC treats the small news audience they have and the taxpayers who fund their news operations, and I don't think it's a good thing they are eliminating newscasts in markets where they have no competitors and are the only source for local news. Even the person responsible for CBC's current local news schedule is now saying CBC should get out of local news entirely and focus on news the private broadcasters are ignoring, yet what does CBC do? Eliminate a newscast in a market the private broadcasters don't serve.

An unsubstantiated, unfunny criticism of the CBC. You sound like the guys at Sun News.

You think only SUN News feels CBC bidding for an unprofitable Olympics is a bad idea? I somehow doubt i'm the only one who doesn't think it's great Canadian taxpayers are lining the pockets of the IOC for a 2 week sporting event every 2 years that CBC can't even make money on (and possibly loses money on)

[SportsFan]

Which newscasts are being eliminated besides the Alberta ones you mentioned?

Lacroix mused about a new funding model, "imagine if in Canada the BDU’s decided to give us three or four or five per cent of whatever bottom line number, and they committed to that over years, maybe that could be something.”

[SportsFan]

This reminds me of a few years ago when for some people, a silver lining for thousands of people losing their jobs was their cable bill not increasing.

Who were the thousands of people that lost their jobs?
My cable bill always keeps going up.

[TVViewer]

[QUOTE=SportsFan;65774]

Which newscasts are being eliminated besides the Alberta ones you mentioned?

It's mentioned in the CBC article in the first post

Lacroix mused about a new funding model, "imagine if in Canada the BDU’s decided to give us three or four or five per cent of whatever bottom line number, and they committed to that over years, maybe that could be something.”

You honestly think that's what CBC needs? More money from people who don't want it? CBC already gets all that taxpayer funding even though not everyone wants to pay for it, additional funding from BDU's would allow CBC to continue to run inefficient operations and reward their idiotic business decisions and programming strategies. It also wouldn't be fair to CBC's competitors.

If the CBC wants another revenue stream then it should only happen if funding the CBC optional for Canadians. Turn the CBC into a subscription service (and the CBC can decide how much the subscription will cost) and make it so only the people who pay for the CBC can actually watch it, let them charge people on any platform they want from BDU's to online, allow international subscriptions for those who are interested, and allow them to accept viewer donations like PBS. If people want the CBC as much as CBC supporters claim then this shouldn't be a problem. If nobody chooses to subscribe to it then we will know this is not something Canada wants. It would put an end to all this whining from Conservatives about how they are funding the CBC and its perceived Liberal bias or whatever other problems they have with it. It would put an end to criticism from people like me who don't think CBC should be buying The Olympics or don't agree with their commitment to news.

[TVViewer]

Who were the thousands of people that lost their jobs?
.

The jobs were unexpectedly saved by Shaw and Bell.

[SportsFan]

Please stop beating this dead horse. They didn't get FFC or VFS and the sky didn't fall. No one wants to discuss it anymore.

[SportsFan]

CBC already gets all that taxpayer funding even though not everyone wants to pay for it, additional funding from BDU's would allow CBC to continue ...

This was his idea for a new funding model as an alternative to advertising and direct government funding.

I disagree with it, in principle, but it would be much less prone to being cut on the whims of the government.

[TVViewer]

[QUOTE=SportsFan;65782]

Please stop beating this dead horse.

You bringing up people losing their jobs just reminded me of how you were in favor of thousands of people losing their jobs just a few years ago.

They didn't get FFC or VFS and the sky didn't fall.

The sky didn't fall due to an unexpected event that was not a possibility at the time. Had Shaw and Bell not purchased CTV and Global, thousands of people would have lost their jobs if they didn't find a way to get carriage fees, which you were against.

The advertising only model for local television is still broken and people are still losing their jobs because of the broken model. Bell and Shaw did save the vast majority of jobs, and yes it’s nice that these stations are owned by companies that can sustain the losses of local stations, but that will never be as good as local television stations actually turning a profit, and the additional revenue from carriage fees is something that would have made a major difference in the profitability of local television. These are for-profit businesses so the fact that Shaw and Bell have ensured stations like CTV Yorkton, CTV Prince Albert, Global Montreal, Global Lethbridge, Global Okanagan, and CTV Northern Ontario even exist is impressive, but they will never have the staffing and resources that they would have if we had the Value for Signal model in Canada.

One of the stations where people lost their jobs last week was Global Lethbridge. 4 stations serve the Lethbridge market, CBC and Citytv serve it with re-broadcasters of their Calgary stations, CTV serves it with a 5 day a week 30 minute newscast anchored from the CTV Calgary studios. Only Global Lethbridge produces 1 hour and 30 minutes of local news each weekday and 1 hour of local news each Saturday and Sunday anchored from Lethbridge with reporters in Lethbridge, weather specialists in Lethbridge, and sports anchors in Lethbridge. Yet under the current model for local television, serving the Lethbridge community with local news loses money and puts Global at a financial disadvantage over their competitors. If we had value for signal, there would actually be a financial incentive to serve these markets with local news. In Lethbridge for example Global would be able to charge a much higher carriage fee than CTV, CBC, and Citytv, as Global Lethbridge news provides far more value to viewers than the Calgary news offered by CBC, Citytv, and CTV. They would actually be rewarded for producing the only news in Lethbridge as opposed to being punished financially. Now, although Global Lethbridge will still exist, and they will still serve Lethbridge viewers better than CTV, CBC, and Citytv, hard working people have lost their jobs as news will be produced under a new production model which requires less people, which they say is a pilot model they may use at other small and/or struggling markets.

Which brings up another problem with the CBC. Even with the layoffs at Global Lethbridge, the station will continue produce local evening and late night newscasts anchored from Lethbridge with reporters in Lethbridge 7 days a week. CBC doesn't do that. Most of the small markets CBC serves exclusively only get a 5 day a week evening newscast. It's mostly large markets that get local CBC late night and weekend news, but that's still significantly less than what CTV and Global produce in large markets. The result is CBC undeserving viewers in both large and small markets. Is that really what a public broadcaster should be doing? Competing against CTV and Global in large markets with far less effort and then contributing even less effort in the markets where they have no competition? Is it a good thing that private for-profit broadcasters are doing a better job at serving small money losing markets than the public broadcaster?

No one wants to discuss it anymore.

Then don't discuss it.