Kirstine Stewart was formally appointed as the new executive vice-president for CBC English Services today.

Stewart had been filling the role on an interim basis since the former vice-president, Richard Stursberg, was dismissed in August.

A few minutes after the announcement Stewart sent this note to staff:

January 10, 2011 – When I was little, I had a tickle trunk. It was red, just like the one on TV. In the morning I watched Casey and Finnegan and Mr. Dressup discover new things everyday, dressing up in what they found in their tickle trunk.

The CBC has for 74 years been that place where Canadians, of all ages, are taken on journeys, of all kinds, to so many different and interesting places.

My particular journey has taken me from watching Mr. Dressup, to working at the place that brought those magical stories into my home. And now today I have the privilege of leading an organization that holds such an important place in the hearts and minds of people across this country.
[Read more →]

By: Paul Mcgrath
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The Age of Persuasion, a fascinating radio program about the black art of marketing, is finally available as a podcast.

The show, which uses tons of TV and Radio clips from ad campaigns has been struggling to get the legal rights sorted out to podcast for, well, it seems like forever.

The host of the show, Terry O’Reilly, personally made the announcement on the show’s blog, a few days ago.

Since the launch the podcast has been in the number 1 spot on iTunes’ top podcast list.

The show is also beefing up its web site. This season they’re adding lots of visual material to accompany the shows. Last weekend’s post was about green marketing, and with lots of images and YouTube videos, it’s a really fascinating entry.

The show is also celebrating it’s recent launch in the Chicago market. Under a distribution deal with PRI it was picked up by WBEZ in Chicago, the third largest radio market in the U.S.

If you haven’t heard the show before, you need to check it out, in my opinion its one of the best shows CBC Radio has to offer, you can find out more here.

By: Paul Mcgrath
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Hi guys, sincere apologies for not having posted in a while.

I’ve been knee deep in the development of the new CBC initiative called Live Right Now.

It’s a massive initiative, straight across the country, and unfortunately it’s been consuming all my time and more.

The idea for Live Right Now is that we, we as a country I mean, can take hold of this epidemic of obesity and poor health in this country by taking a few small steps ourselves. If we then inspire a few friends with our changes, we can spark a movement.

The idea strikes at the core of the problem in this country. We are not necessarily overweight or obese because we don’t care. We care, it’s just that often we don’t know what to do, or we’ve stopped knowing how to do it, or frankly we have no-one to do it with. Taking a few small steps can open a door to learning more, knowing more, and getting back on the right path.

It’s a huge issue, in Canada estimates are that 2/3 of the country are either overweight or obese. Obesity alone affects one in four Canadians.

Think that it isn’t a critical issue? I think I heard that the obesity epidemic will cost the health care system $90 billion dollars. Personally obesity will shave years off your life. Dr. Arya Sharma, an obesity doctor, was saying on the Current on Monday that he doesn’t really see many older obese patients at his clinic. Because they don’t live that long.

Scary stuff.

Anyway, I’ve been working my butt off getting the site for the Live Right Now initiative ready, so, if you’re inclined take a peek, and maybe you’ll find something there to inspire others to change.

By: Paul Mcgrath
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If this isn’t the best thing in the whole world, I don’t know what is.

It’s a Peter Mansbridge snow globe. There’s also a George snow globe, a HNIC snow globe, and a Being Erica snow globe, but none are as phenomenal as the Peter Mansbrige snow globe.

If you want one, come by my desk later this afternoon with a dollar, and I’ll sell you one. All proceeds go to charity.

And you thought you were done your Christmas shopping.

By: Paul Mcgrath
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The new CBC Ombudsman, Kirk Lapointe, has set up a blog, a Twitter account, and an RSS (really something something) feed as he ushers in a new era of social media transparency to his office.

Now don’t get me wrong, my inner nerd is happier than a kid on Christmas about all this social media stuff. It just seems a bit, uhm… contrived.

I hope his office has the staying power to really keep up with it.

Beyond that I really think Lapointe has made a effort to set up the channels in order to be open and transparent here; and that’s truly commendable.

As the first post on the site says:

The CBC belongs to the people of Canada. As the public broadcaster, the CBC plays a unique role in Canadian journalism. At the CBC information is a public service. The Ombudsman is here to ensure CBC upholds its standards and practices to provide you with information programming of the highest quality.

We recognize your right to accuracy, fairness and integrity in CBC’s journalism. And we recognize your right to hold CBC accountable for the quality of its information programming.

What do you think of the new ombudsman site?

By: Paul Mcgrath
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Watch until the 1:00 mark.

Too funny.

By: Paul Mcgrath
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If you’re like me and you’re way behind on your Christmas shopping, you may be interested in these vintage CBC buttons for that special loved one in your life.

The description on the Etsy posting says it all:

I believe The Tragically Hip said it best, and I paraphrase from memory…”I was raised on TV, with nothing to live or die for, no religion too…”

The CBC.
It’s a Canadian Thing eh!

All that for only $6.25 USD.

You’re welcome.

By: Paul Mcgrath
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Kirstine Stewart, executive vice-president, English services, is hosting the CBC’s second quarter update this afternoon.

The presentation will be from 12:30 to 1:30 at the Glenn Gould studio in Toronto.

Stewart will be joined by Neil McEneaney, executive director, finance and administration management, Jack Tomik, general manager, the revenue group (aka sales and marketing) and Fred Mattocks, general manager, media operations and technology.

They will be providing an overview of their respective areas.

If you’d like to put a question to any of these guys, or to Stewart herself, you can submit it in advance, to Quarterly.Update@cbc.ca. Note that this is an internal employee presentation and questions are meant to be from CBC employees only.

By: Paul Mcgrath
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For the first time, the CBC has responded publicly to Quebecor Media’s campaign against CBC-Radio Canada.

This media slap-fest has been ongoing for a while, and it’s about the dullest fight in town.

Since 2007 Quebecor has been trying to inflict death by a thousand paper cuts on the ceeb.

Its lawyers have been filling hundreds of access to information requests, getting entangled in legal fights, and this week they launched series of thinly-veiled Sun Media stories and editorials.

Although this whole thing started in Quebec, it’s since spilled into English Canada.

This week, Brian Lilley, of Quebecor’s-Sun-Media Parliamentary Bureau, lead the charge.

Early in the week he wrote a story of the CBC’s ‘anti-Americanism’, then followed that followed that with another story about how many trucks are in the CBC fleet, and finished off the whole week with a story on executive salaries.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that the journalism in the stories isn’t solid.

There’s a good deal of important information in the Sun Media stories; the fact that CBC executives paid out $800,000 in bonuses just prior to laying 800 workers, as Lilley uncovered, is alarming, as is some of the other stuff he’s dug up.

But the larger question I ask myself is what’s the motive?

Is this journalism in service of Sun Media’s readers? Or is this journalism in service of Quebecor’s business objectives?

I’ll leave that question for you to decide, in the meantime, here’s what the CBC’s Bill Chambers, the VP of communications, said this week:

We have not always had a perfect record on Access to Information, nor do we now. In the first weeks of being subject to the Act, we received approximately 400 requests from David Statham, Michel Drapeau and their partners, who have publicly acknowledged working for Quebecor Media. The extraordinary circumstances caused by this unprecedented volume has been recognized by both the Office of the Information Commissioner and the courts, including the Federal Court of Appeal in a judgment rendered last week against Mr. Statham.

Chambers went on to say:

As part of our belief in freedom of the press, we affirm fervently Quebecor’s right to pursue information relevant to the public interest, even from within CBC/Radio-Canada. As stewards of a public institution charged with “informing, enlightening and entertaining” Canadians, we will, in the same breath, try to ensure that the public is aware when anyone’s treatment of that information is distorted or misrepresents the truth. The Sun Media series has demonstrated how easy it is to select and twist facts to further a self-interested campaign.

What do you think?

By: Paul Mcgrath
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Several CBC employees recently took part in Movember, a mash up of November and mustache.

According to Wikipedia Movember is “an annual month-long event involving the growing of mustaches during the month of November… to raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer and depression.”

Ryan Couldrey, a CBC employee who also works as a photographer, captures the hair-raising results in Toronto. Click here to see the individual profile shots.

There were also Movember events in Ottawa and Vancouver.

In Vancouver, participants got the Mayor to officially proclaim the month of November as Movember. They even managed to persuade the mayor to grow his own mustache.

In Ottawa, “Stu Mills was also a participant in the Movember festivities, growing his very own “Stu Manchu” and drawing attention from the likes of singer-songwriter Jim Bryson.” Bod LeDrew a former CBC staffer and contributor, said in the comments, “Stu was the top Movember fundraiser in Ottawa, with more than $11K raised!”

In total Canadians raised $19,890,551 during the Movember fund-hair-raising drive.

Congratulations to all who participated.

By: Paul Mcgrath
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Despite having been cut back to half a season, the CBC comedy series 22 minutes is drawing big audiences this fall.

As Bill Brioux, the Canadian Press television critic, said on his blog, last week’s episode drew 925,000 viewers.

Brioux  says this surprising given that the show is not a promotional priority for the corporation. He says the cast has come to describe the show as “the series between two shows CBC promotes.”

“Being backed into a tight corner seems to have emboldened the cast and writers,” Brioux wrote yesterday. With little promotion coming from the corporation, they’ve taken matters into their own hands.

In October they released a video of 80 year-old Gordon Pinsent reading bits of teen-sensation Justin Bieber’s memoir. That video has 60,000 views.

This week they were quick to react to Danny Williams’ resignation and put together another Pinsent bit. They uploaded this clip in advance of tonight’s show:

The show airs tonight (Tuesday) at 8:30.

By: Paul Mcgrath
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CBC.ca launched a new home page today this is way different from the last design.

The massive image rotator that used to consume the top of the screen is gone replaced by much more news and sports content. The new page packs in more stories, and longer headlines. Shockingly, it’s also aligned in the centre of the page.

With the renewed newsy feel to the page, Radio and Televison programming has been given less prominence.

Check out the new page here. What do you think?

By: Paul Mcgrath
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Today the CBC posted tens of thousands of documents released under the Access to Information Act since 2007 to its corporate website.

The index of all the documents is available here.

Posting the documents online makes them available to the general public, not just the person who made the request. The CBC also committed to updating the site as new documents are released.

CBC President and CEO, Hubert Lacroix said of the announcement ”we’re taking yet another step in our efforts to give Canadians the information they need to understand the way we manage their money.”

By: Paul Mcgrath
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A bunch of CBC employees are taking part in Movember, which according to Wikipedia is “an annual month-long event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November… to raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer and depression.”

Ryan Couldrey, a CBC employee who also works as a photographer, wants to capture the hair-raising results.

He’s organizing a photo shoot for Toronto employees next Tuesday, Nov 30th, from 10am to 3:30pm.

Here’s the flyer for the event.

By: Paul Mcgrath
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Norman Spector, Brian Mulroney’s former chief of staff, says Sun Media is waging a war against the CBC.

In a piece in the Globe’s blog today, Spector says to the long running feud between Quebecor and Radio-Canada in La Belle Province, “now includes Anglo journalists who’ve been drafted in support of Quebecor’s war against Radio-Canada.”

The piece was prompted by an article in the Sun today about the CBC’s efforts to fend off a bunch of access to information requests, some of which were filed by Sun Media.

In case you were uncertain about Sun Media’s stance on the issue, the online article was accompanied by this clever little graphic.

Spector didn’t point out that this war of words with Sun Media has been going on for quite some time now.

In April last year, Sun Media published a series of articles on expenses of senior CBC executives.

Prior to that in February, CBC President Hubert Lacroix got into a tit-for-tat with Greg Weston, a reporter with the Ottawa Sun. At the time Lacroix accused Weston of “horrendously distort[ing] the facts,” saying his reporting of issues were “distortion of facts or are flat-out wrong.”

By: Paul Mcgrath
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