July 29, 2010 at 7:20 am
The CBC Gets Dragged Into the Census Debate

The Liberals have released a fake census questionnaire intended to mock the Conservative government.

The fake census, called the “Voluntary Conservative Census Form,” intends to paint Conservatives as narrow-minded louts for scrapping the mandatory census.

It asks such questions as “Are there any rooms in your house where you keep books? If so, why?”

It also includes a question specifically about the CBC: “How many CBC shows do you watch? Do you feel bad about this? How much money do you think the government should waste on the CBC?”

The Globe has more on this here.

July 27, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Radio 3 Hits 100,000 Songs

Radio 3 recently hit a really big milestone. The 100,000th track was uploaded to the site.

“Having 100,000 Canadian songs uploaded to the site is a huge milestone for CBC Radio 3 and a testament to the depth and quality of the Canadian music community,” says Steve Pratt, director, CBC Radio 3 and digital music.

The 100,000th song was a track called Cold Cold Blues by InLimbo, a four-piece alt/indie band from Niagara Falls, Ontario.

July 23, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Billboard Wars


CTV billboards directly across the street from the CBC building

Anybody that works at the CBC mothership in downtown Toronto can’t help but notice that CTV has a huge row of billboards touting it’s shows directly across from the building.

The billboard always reminds of the billboards that Fox News put up directly across from the CNN building in Atlanta, which often openly mocked CNN and invited its employees to jump ship.

I always wondered (maybe naively) if the CTV billboards were the same tactic, or just a coincidence.

Have you seen CTV billboards around any other CBC buildings across the country?

July 22, 2010 at 6:33 pm
The CBC Jobs Feed

One of the ongoing issues with the CBC Jobs Board, which lists current openings at the CBC, is that there is no feed.

Spark producer Dan Misener decided to do something about that. So he created his own.

As Dan says on his blog “This feed is completely unofficial, and comes with no guarantees.”

You can find the feed here. You can also follow @cbcjobs on Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing.

Thanks Dan.

July 21, 2010 at 10:02 pm
G20 Story Becomes the Most Commented Story of All Time

A story about the G20 summit, protests and arrests last June has become the most commented story of all time on the CBC’s website.

The story is now closed for commenting, but in the weeks after it was published it received a whopping 3,244 comments.

July 21, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Mike Finnerty Returns to Daybreak

After a long and rocky search for a host to replace Mike Finnerty as host of CBC Montreal’s morning show Daybreak, the CBC has found the perfect candidate.

Mike Finnerty.

Finnerty had hosted the show before he left for a job in London last summer.

After he left Nancy Wood stepped behind the mike, but the CBC let her go after a few months. The decision caused a bit of uproar in the local media in Montreal and disappointment among regular listeners.

I mean it wasn’t Conan vs Leno by any means, but people thought that Wood should have been given more time.

Now Finnerty has decided to return to Montreal and take up the hosting job again. He’s signed on until 2014.

Yesterday the CBC’s Steve Rukavina asked Finnerty about the controversy. “Here’s what I would say. It’s really not my place to say anything about what the CBC did and how the CBC acted,” Finnerty said, adding, “I completely understand that there was a lot of upset and I followed it from afar, and in many ways it broke my heart. Because I love that show. I love Daybreak. It was really hard to see the program coming under such trouble and listeners being upset.”

Now a corner has been turned, and whatever you thought of the last period, and whether you were a big fan of Nancy’s or not, now things are moving in another direction.

“I think we can rekindle the magic that we had,” Finnerty said.

The whole interview is available here.

July 20, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Listener’s Letter Goes Against the Grain

Kory Teneycke’s testy interview with Kathleen Petty on her show, The House, last June, grabbed the attention of at least one listener.

Not one to beat around the bush, and having no paper in his shop, he wrote his letter on a plank of wood and dropped it off at the our Fredericton station. Here’s the text of the letter.

While working in the shop this morning listening to Kathleen interview Cory [sic] [Teneycke] of [VP, Development at Quebecor] at 9:35 am I was appalled at how rude, inconsiderate and unprofessional this gentleman was to Kathleen presenting her interview.

He constantly cut her off while she was talking and blatantly bullied her while she asked exceptionally good questions in regards to the news show he is promoting.

Because of Cory’s mannerisms I will not be subscribing to the news show he is involved with.

I only wonder if the company is as unprofessional as Cory.

Hats off to Kathleen for not backing off in the interview. She is one cool woman!

Signed:

Mike Stewart,
Fredericton
June 19, 2010
9:43 a.m.

PS: I have no paper in the shop, the twit that tweets people doesn’t work weekends, the secretary knows how to run the fax machine (I don’t) so this is my form of communication.

I love that last bit about the twit that tweets and the fax machine, too funny.

July 20, 2010 at 6:09 pm
What Does Canada Mean to You. Part Two.

CBC/Radio-Canada launched an initiative in the lead-up to Canada Day with the idea of “Celebrating Canada” What does that mean to you?”

To date there’s been 182 photos uploaded, and while a bunch of them are, ahem, pretty stereotypically Canadian… you know pics of Mounties, maple leaves, and cottage scenes; some of them are really unique and surprising.

The picture above was submitted by M. Christine Duncan. It was shot last year at Dundurn Castle in Hamilton, Ontario.

July 16, 2010 at 4:10 pm
CRTC Nixes Sun TV News Request for a Must-Carry License

The CRTC has denied a request from Sun TV News for a mandatory license.

The license, if approved, would have forced cable and satellite company to carry the upstart station as part of the basic cable package, and forced consumers to pay the licensing fee.

The fees could have been substantial. CBC News Network earns up to $65 million a year from cable fees. Both CBC News Network and CTV News Channel currently hold the mandatory license, but they are being unwound.

Granting the license would have been an embarrassing about-face for the CRTC. They have previously said they would not grant any more must-carry licenses for news channels.

It would also have cast doubt of the CRTC’s independence given that Sun TV News is being headed up by Kory Teneycke a former high-level Tory operative.

For the CBC, the license decision means that CBC News Network will compete on a level playing field with Sun TV News once the CBC’s license is unwound.

Teneycke discussed the application with Kathleen Petty on her show, The House, in a testy interview last on June.

July 15, 2010 at 10:38 pm
The X and Y’s of the Anchor Chair

When both CTV and Global recently announced new female anchors for their flagship newscasts, some began asking when the CBC would consider a woman for the anchor’s, chair, uh, spot, at The National.

Norman Specter lead the charge in the Globe on yesterday:

How embarrassing it must be for the Corporation — centre of all that is “progressive” and a paragon of diversity — that both Ms. Friesen and CTV’s Lisa LaFlamme have broken through the glass ceiling, while [the CBC is] still stuck in a single-X-chromosome world in the anchor chair

This odd ode lead to the CBC’s Senior Washington correspondent Neil Macdonald to respond in a letter to the editor today. Macdonald wrote:

Norman Spector seems to think the CBC should immediately replace Peter on the grounds of his gender, just because the other two anchors are women (TV’s Last Man Standing – July 14). Perhaps that’s Mr. Spector’s background as a government functionary asserting itself, but speaking as a career reporter, I’m encouraged to see Canadian television news maintain a highly visible meritocracy.

Incidentally, I seem to recall Barbara Frum anchoring The Journal and Pam Wallin co-anchoring CBC’s The National. But I am sure Mr. Spector, as an expert commentator on the Canadian media, had some reason for overlooking their accomplishments.


July 14, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Diana Swain Appointed Senior Investigative Correspondent

The internal CBC site is reporting that Diana Swain has been appointed as the senior investigative correspondent for CBC News.

That means Swain will be leaving her anchoring duties at the supper-hour newscast in Toronto.

Swain has been hosting CBC News Toronto for the last six years.

I’ve loved my time on CBC News Toronto establishing a strong relationship and growing the audience for the last 6 years,” Swain says. “This new opportunity to do high-profile investigative journalism on a national stage will build on that. We have an exceptionally strong investigative team and I’m excited to get started.

Employees can read the full post here.

July 14, 2010 at 1:30 pm
World Cup Draws Record Audiences for CBC


Fans watching the World Cup in Toronto are televised on the giant screen outside of the Broadcast Centre. Photo credit: Tratohecho1a on Flickr

The World Cup drew record audience for the CBC, more than doubling the audience from the tournament in 2006 and reaching 28 million Canadians.

The final alone drew almost 6 million viewers many of them non-traditional CBC viewers.

“The FIFA World Cup has helped CBC reach out and engage with communities who often feel that they’re not represented on the network. This month was different,” Kirstine Stewart, the general manager of CBC Television said.

As Trevor Pilling, executive producer for CBC Sports said, “This is the whole corporation’s event – not just CBC Sports. We’re fortunate to have a property like FIFA because we have the opportunity to talk with viewers, listeners and surfers who are passionate and people who may not be traditional CBC viewers. What we’ve created here is something good to build off of for many years to come.”

The CBC gave away some of its tickets to South African kids during the tournament.

Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC Sports praised the network-wide effort that “resulted in tremendous month all around.”

In particular Moore singled out the news department for their coverage which was a joint operation with the sports department. More said he’d never seen this level of cooperation in his time at the network “this may have been the best example of all the various parts of the CBC coming together to make something as big as it can be,” he said.

The results speak for themselves.

The final audience number for the final were 5.8 milllion on CBC and Radio-Canada. Although some of that may be juiced from the new audience measurement system, either way it’s still a whopping 105 per cent larger than the audience for the final in 2006.

The third place match was also a big draw, it attracted 1.9 million people on Saturday afternoon.

Overall between June 11th and July 11th, more than 28 million Canadians watched 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa programming on CBC and Radio-Canada. There are more audience numbers, including a breakdown as the tournament progressed after the jump.

The number also showed strong online demand. “We set new records online with our streaming and our event coverage. We surpassed CTV’s concurrent streaming number from the Vancouver Olympics and served up well over 15 million streams over the course of the tournament,” Moore said.

[Read more →]

July 8, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Champions of Change

The CBC recently launched a campaign, called Champions of Change,  to celebrate Canada’s volunteers. It’s an initiative that aims to award Canada’s most outstanding volunteers. It was launched by Connect with Mark Kelley and Outpost magazine.

I chatted with Mark this afternoon about the initiative, and what attracted him to it.

Mark Kelley: I had a strong attraction to this because I grew up in a house of volunteers and both of my parents were lifelong volunteers and I knew no other life.

My mother, despite the fact that she was raising four kids, was always volunteering. She was incredibly active throughout her life. She never took a paying job, once she was married. But she worked every day of her life as a volunteer.

And my father worked as a volunteer literally till the day he died. He died in the place where he had been volunteering for seven years, which was a palliative care centre.

So I have always been inspired both by my parents and the example that they set.

So when I was approached to discuss this idea of volunteers, for me it was a natural fit.

And I’m also a strong proponent of the idea of volunteering. I volunteer as much as I can in my own life because of what my parents have done, and because of the need that I see all around me.

There are so many organizations desperate for volunteers. And I try to combine my volunteering with my children. So I volunteer to coach teams or volunteer for things in their schools so I don’t have to choose between my kids and volunteering. I wrap them up together.

I think that’s what we have to do as volunteers. We don’t have to look at volunteering as some sort of burden or necessity. It’s actually something you can do where you really explore something that you want to do outside of your professional life.

I think our problem is that all too often we look at volunteering as something that takes away my time. But in fact it can be so enriching to be a volunteer on a sideline that you feel very strongly about.

And it can be an hour a week or an hour a month, you just have to have that feeling that at some point, somebody has to step up and get involved.

How are your kids reacting this project?
Mark Kelley: I’ve talked to them about the importance of volunteering. And I had this experience where one day – I get home at 9:45 every night and I’m tucking my oldest son into bed – and I said: ‘how was your day today?’

He said ‘it was great’
I said: ‘what did you do?’
‘We made sandwiches for the homeless. And took them to Dundas Square.’

And I just about feel off the bed.

Because I didn’t encourage him to get involved. I knew nothing about this until he’d gone out and done it. It’s this volunteer project that they’re having in some Toronto schools.

So I thought in terms of life going full circle, and I love how this was being passed down from my parents to my kids.

And what I really want to do, whether it’s with my own family, but obviously, more importantly throughout the country, is to really put the emphasis on volunteers. Because volunteers traditionally are not people who ever seek the spotlight. Typically they’re just people who go out there to help quietly.

And I want to do two things through this project. First, to say thank you, by shinning a little light on them for the work that they do, and ask nothing in return. And secondly, I want to show that volunteers are us. They’re everyday Canadians. They’re not super-heroes. They’re everyday Canadians who have busy lives, but still find time within those busy lives, to go out there and make a difference.

And what I want to is to demystify the notion that they are super-people and inspire people to do more. The question is not why, but why not.

To learn more about the initiative, or to nominate a Champion of Change, visit the website.

July 7, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Mayhem! Absolute Mayhem!

First the G20, then the earthquake, then the baby blackout.

Now absolute mayhem!

Every summer the CBC Kids department holds a Kidsummer event. Staffers that have offices close to the atrium get an earful, but everyone else delights in the mayhem of hundreds of kids descending on the CBC Toronto mothership.

The event continues tomorrow in Toronto from 10am until 2pm.

July 6, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Going, Going, Gone

Brent Bambury. Photo credit goes to andyscamera’s photostream on Flickr.

On June 26th the final episode of Go hit the airwaves. As Brent Bambury wrote on the show’s website, the show had two guiding principles “We didn’t quite know what we were going to do. And… we could do anything we wanted.”

Bambury called the show a “long crazy ride of fun and laughter.” A new show is currently in development to replace Go. It is slated to launch this fall.

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