An anonymous reader left an interesting critique of the new 90-minute local news cast. Although I can’t say I agree with all of it, I thought it’s worth highlighting to spark a discussion on the new format. What do you think about the new format? Leave a comment below.

I don’t know if you have watched the new 90 minute CBC local newscasts where you live. If it happens to be Toronto, don’t bother. The good folks at CBC local news in Toronto have managed to squeeze 20 minutes of news into their 90 minute package. I sure hope it is better elsewhere in Canada but I fear it can’t be. Let’s face it, a city of 5 million has a lot more stories than a city of 250,000 or even a million.

I tried to be fair. I didn’t review the show during the first week to give the producers, reporters, hosts and writers time to get their act together. I even chose an excellent local news day to tape and parse the program. But I was highly disappointed by the effort.

If filling 90 minutes was the goal, then the local news team delivered. There was no dead air. On the other hand the constant repetition of the same facts and pictures over-and-over again was enough to drive even the most passive viewer to throw a brick at the television.

The newscast is broken up into three shows: 5:00, 5:30, and 6:00. None of the programs have a distinct personality and none of them deliver a comprehensive take on the day’s news. Basically each half-hour is the same as the last. Same stories. Same reporters. Same basic feel.

The five o’clock show had three produced news stories, none of them one of the major local stories of the day and only one produced by the Toronto team. The report out of Ottawa on a possible federal election by Julie Van Dusen was dropped in as a kicker, the last story. It was a dreadful piece that broke all the conventions of television reporting, had few pictures and didn’t really explain the story. So maybe it was good to bury it at 5:28. There were two weather casts, the second one overly long and there were about eight minutes of commercials; excessive no? But what was most bothersome was the way the main stories were treated. Four different reporters standing around on the street telling us radio style, what they found. Sure they dropped in the odd clip and picture, but they did not produce reports. Oh, and there were 10 promos for what was coming up later on the 5:30 and 6:00.

The 5:30 newscast opened with the same story done in exactly the same way as on the 5:00. I would have thought it impossible but the “Breaking News” host fumbled her way through the same script making even more mistakes than her first try.
Once again produced stories were hard to find. There were three in the half hour. This time two were produced locally and one was actually on one of the big stories of the day. The “i-desk” sort of produced another story on Ryerson University orientation using a tiny camera that made it look like a bad internet piece. I don’t know why, but the “i-desk” host then promoted the camera he used. Was the camera a freebie? Since when does CBC plug product in the news?

Once again the show was dominated by eight minutes of commercials and two weather casts. It’s easy to fill 90 minutes when half the time is eaten up by weather and commercials. In this half-hour there were ONLY six promos for stories coming up later on the news.

Okay, I said to myself, the plan is to pack all the good stuff into the six o’clock package. I was prepared for a dynamite production in the time slot with the most available viewers.

It was not to be. The six began exactly the same way as the five and the five-thirty. The “Breaking news” desk host once again fumbled her way through the same facts and pictures as we had seen twice before. In this half-hour there were four produced stories. I am being generous. One was a series of man-in-the-street interviews; the lowest form of what passes for journalism. A second was a repeat of one of the produced stories from the first half-hour.

In this portion of the 90 minutes there were, count ‘em, three weather casts and 7 ½ or 8 more minutes of commercials. In fact the newscast was mostly made up of more repetition of the same facts presented in the same way as the first two half-hours.

On a day in which there was a lot of news CBC local produced 8 stories to fill a 90 minute newscast. By my calculation that’s about 15 minutes or ¼ of the time, in comparison there were about 24 minutes of commercials and about 13 minutes of the same weather over-and-over.

90 minutes of bad smoke and crappy mirrors is not going to cut it with even the most unsophisticated audiences. I don’t blame the producers. I blame CBC management. You can’t add airtime to an already starving show and expect success. Without more money and more staff you are dooming the local news to failure. The news people are doing their best with what they have. It would be either folly or stupidity to expect more. From where I sit, the latter wins.

If the local CBC local news is better where you are, please let us know.

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	CBC Television, News & Journalism