Between 600 and 1,200 Job Cuts
Sun Media is saying Heritage Minister James Moore expects between 600 to 1,200 people across the country will lose their jobs at the CBC.
The minister said the public broadcaster should return to its mandate of showing Canadian content in a multitude of platforms instead of being a “taxpayer-supported competitor to private broadcasters… stop chasing revenues and eyeballs.”
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I don’t even work for Mother Corp. anymore, and I think I’m going to throw up.
With all due respect to the Minister, going public and quoting unsubstantiated numbers like this, is nothing short of irresponsible.
Mr. Moore should resign after he apologizes.
Dear Pumpkins,
You heard it here first. About 4 months ago I said that there would be cuts at the Corp AND that private broadcasters would be loathe to see their competitor (the CBC) get taxpayer dollars when they are hurting beyond belief.
The big picture here is that the whole world economy is restructuring, and the CBC will have to find its way by some serious rethinking about what it does and how it does it. That means more than ‘deck chair shuffling on the titanic’. This is an opportunity for the Corporation to make real change to better serve Canadians. Since executives at the CBC never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity (as was once said about Yassir Arafat) they have failed miserably to produce quality Canadian drama (CTV has grabbed this m.o. years ago and the corp in the dust) why not stick to news on one tv channel (Newsworld) — radio can keep going — and keep building the internet content. Establish news bureaus in smaller locales — and cover the news. Next, get some balls back into the journalism. Reportage is weak, predictable, boring, conservative, edgeless, drab — need I go on.
This is an opportunity Pumpkins. Grab it.
Looking at CTV’s last week of television, they have precisely 2 Canadian comedy/drama series anywhere near prime-time – Corner Gas (which has been cancelled IIRC) and Flashpoint – neither of which are higher-quality than their CBC equivalents. By comparison, CTV currently has 9 US series on the go in the same window. There’s no way that you can possibly say CTV are doing Canadian drama justice, at least not with a straight face.
For the self-identified conservatives out there: more and more this is becoming a question not so much of survival, as deciding what you want the world to look like when the recession is over. The choices that are currently being made will result in a culturally poorer country.
Whether or not you perceive a bias in the CBC’s news coverage, whether or not you disagree with funding support for independent producers, you have to realise that with the current set of choices being made, the vast majority of media available for your consumption a few years from now will not be Canadian. You may not care that much, but if you do value your national identity, if you believe that Canada has a distinctive culture that’s worth preserving – which is about as conservative an ideal as I can think of – you’re going to need to look past your glee at a bunch of liberals and arty types getting shafted and start asking hard questions of the government about what they actually value.
The more bizarre comment from Moore:
“I think the CBC has the capacity to do things within the envelope of the financial capacity that they have” that “would not have any impact on the public broadcaster in any way,” Moore said.
Sounds like December 1990 all over again except this time with little warning.
The regions will take a beating, little or no cuts to Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal.Sure they’ll be a few buy outs but the big centres but they will see little change. Management and APS will once again dodge the bullet, front line staff will be eviscerated.
Can’t wait to see what the clowns in the real estate division will come up with.
Turn a few floors into the Toronto Broadcasting Centre into a penitentiary.
The B-4 level will transform itself for storage for pathogens,
PCB’s and nuclear waste. Get another “trade school” in so they take advantage of students and charge them exorbitant fees.
Start building into the atrium so we can have a building in a building.
If the prediction in the Sun media article come true the real victims will be the Canadian public. Already under served by the private broadcasters there will be no distinctive television, radio and web for Canadians, just repackaged US infotainment.
A lot of APS members are front-line staff too.
I can’t reconcile Minister Moore’s “layoffs are nearly certain and 600-1200 people across the country (are expected) to lose their jobs” with “trim some fat without sacrificing local programming”.
Those things are mutually exclusive.
And there is no way to cut ANY budget or sell assets without having some effect.
Can someone explain this to me? CBC Communications? Conservatives? Anyone?
No APS staff were locked out in 2005 and some of them performed CMG work.
Our Heritage Minister is in error. Severe error.
Moore actually denied he said 1200 and later said he was quoting reports in the media in the 600-800 range. That number was originallt floated by Ian Morrison at Friends of the CBC. (With friends like that … WOW)
As far as real estate goes, I have to admit that the first time I saw the atrium, my first thought was, “Only CBC would build a giant building with a hole in the middle in the heart of downtown Toronto.” It never seemed to me to be a wise use of available space.
Call me crazy but I’m just saying …
As much as it pains me to see good friends of mine at the CBC potentially on the line to have their jobs axed, I have to agree in part to what the minister said. We’re talking about the only national broadcaster in Canada receiving tax-payer dollars to bring you the same crap, out of the US, that corporations like Canwest and CTVglobemedia have to pay for out of their own pockets.
Yes, I know that the CRTC mandates how much Canadian content is mandatory for every broadcaster in Canada, but really one would think that the corporation that receives taxpayer money should be required to provide relevant Canadian content to a greater extent then the private broadcasters.
CTV and Global are managing to survive without taxpayer dollars; I wonder how the CBC would do if all of a sudden their funding from the feds dried up… I bet you would see a lot of people scrambling to come up with some good ideas in order to save their jobs and to keep the corp floating; or you’ll see ‘er dry up like a leaf under a magnifying glass on a sunny summer day.
Either way, there are going to be a number of resumes floating about, in search for those ‘marvelous’ entry level positions. Fact of the matter is, this is all the cost of doing business in the Canadian media industry
Hi Tony,
Go up to the Metro Reference Library. Atrium buildings actually do not cost much more than a basic tower, has benifits for HVAC design and if the Atria is over 33m (going by memory) simplifies some Fire requirements.
In fact, IIRC correctly from that time (early 80′s) you used to get various credits from the OMB by providing such interiou public spaces (such as higher density and height allowances).
Sorry it’s been a long long time, but we had a couple of lectures on the TBC when it was under construction.
I knew there had to be logic in the design. Thanks for explaining the hole in the donut.
We in Radio 2′s traditional (former) audience are in a quandry here. The much loathed September changes were explicitly made to chase viewer numbers. So far, from news reports, it appears that the tradiitional viewers have been alienated and few new ones attracted. (CBC refuses to release the detailed BBM figures.) So, at least in the case of Radio 2, we’d have to say that Moore is right; yet political interference should surely be avoided ,and the government’s refusal to provide adequate funding makes Moore’s comments seem pretty hypocritical.
Those of us are the technical capability are, for the most part, watching foreign services, above all the wonderful BBC 3. It’s programming is superb, but it is sad for us to see artists in other countries receiving the important support that Canadian artists are now denied and to find ourselves knowing more about young artists in Britain or Australia than those in Canada.
We are inclined to say “Who cares?” about the CBC as it has become, yet know that a fine public broadcaster such as the CBC used to be can be the lifeblood of a culture. A dilemma.