All day today, as I sat in my cubicle at the mothership, I overheard people congratulating their colleagues.

If you work in TV in Canada, or even know people who do, you know what that means.

The Gemini nominations have been announced.

The ceeb picked up a ton of nominations this year, 151 in total, topping last year’s count of 142 nominations.

Surprisingly, given the public reaction to the new format, The National was amongst the top nominated shows with a total of nine nods, the rest of the list includes a number of perennial fan favourites and a couple of docs and mini-series. They are:
The Summit (9);
Guns (9);
Love, Hate and Propaganda (8);
the fifth estate (7);
Keep Your Head Up, Kid (7);
Being Erica (6);
The Tudors (6);
Republic of Doyle (5).

CTV show led the pack in terms of total nominations for individual shows. Their Olympic coverage picked up 13 nods, while the cop drama Flashpoint, garnered 15 nominations. Flashpoint will face off against a couple CBC shows in the best drama category, rookie nominee Republic of Doyle and veteran The Tudors.

The corporate website also said the “CBC swept five categories—guaranteeing wins in best local newscast, small market; best host or interviewer in a news info program or series; best news anchor; best performance by an actress in a featured supporting role in a dramatic program or mini-series; and best news information series.”

Vote For Your All-Time Favourite Canadian TV Show
If you’re feeling left out from this year’s crop of nominations, this year you can still participate in picking your all-time favourite TV show. Starting on September 15, nerdy couch potatoes will be able to vote from a list of 25 shortlisted programs for their all-time favourite pick. You will be able to vote on this site, or on Twitter and Facebook.

Why do I have the feeling that the Beachcombers are going to win this?

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	Awards	Posted at 11:30 pm (31 Aug 2010)

This note is an internal memo from Jennifer McGuire, the General Manager and Editor in Chief of CBC News. Someone (thanks to you!) copied it into the comments on this blog. While I can’t vouch for the accuracy, I can say that usually these notes are verbatim. Without further ado:

From talking to some of you over the past few days, I know that you are wondering how the senior management changes will affect CBC News — the news renewal process, our budgets, the renewal of our journalistic policy book, and how we do our journalism and programming daily.

The short answer is, nothing changes.

It’s important to remember that we’re on a course that we set for ourselves to better serve Canadians. There is still a lot of work to do, but we are already seeing great success. We have had some hallmark moments this year. Here are just a few examples:

On The National, we broke powerful stories about CSIS and about the RCMP mutiny. And who could forget Bob McKeown of the fifth estate chasing down Graham James? Peter Mansbridge landed definitive interviews with newsmakers such as Helena Guergis and British Prime Minister David Cameron. On Radio, The House did an outstanding job with its Quebec special, which resonated across the country. The Charest interview was picked up by all of the major English daily newspapers and much of the French media in Quebec. These are just a couple of examples of journalism that had impact. There are many more.

And we are gearing up for an impressive fall. The investigative unit is delighted to welcome Diana Swain. It is pursuing several stories, and its work will be a high priority in the months ahead.

This will be the second season for the new local news formats and late night newscasts. It will be a great chance to build on our success in these areas. Local programs have seen strong ratings growth, and ensuring that they are able to deliver more original and enterprise journalism will solidify the gains. To support this, we have launched a local investigative initiative out of Winnipeg.

In the fall, we will continue the development of local radio news. We have new research that gives us insight into the radio news programs, and how Canadians use them and feel about them. As you know, local radio is an incredible strength for CBC Radio and CBC News. It is important to invest in the continued success of these newscasts. I will be sharing more details about this work soon.

Fall will also be critical for the renewal of our digital platforms. We plan to launch changes to breaking news online in October, and a more extensive change to CBCNews.ca in January. You can get a glimpse of some of the new territory by checking out some of the impressive work done during the G20: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/g20/index.html

We continue to commit to innovation and have started a push to develop new programming initiatives. We have a series in the works on volunteering. The Marketplace team is working on a project about hospitals and healthcare that will be featured on The National. We will continue to explore new program ideas in current affairs. Make the Minister Work will get a run as a series. The fall will also see CBC News Network going more often to the stories that matter to Canadians, just as it did when Mark Kelley traveled to the Gulf of Mexico to cover the oil leak or when Heather Hiscox was in Vancouver for the Olympics.

In newsgathering, we are looking at how we organize breaking news coverage. The Hub will sharpen its focus on this to better serve CBC News Network, radio hourly newscasts and our digital platforms.

All this to say that CBC News is on track and still moving forward. I hope everyone has been enjoying summer. I look forward to a great fall.

Jennifer McGuire
General Manager and Editor in Chief, CBC News

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	Behind the Scenes, Executives	Posted at 12:44 am (13 Aug 2010)

Kirstine Stewart, who has taken over Richard Stursberg’s duties as vice-president on English CBC on an interim basis, sent out this note to staff this morning:

It’s official, there is no such thing as a ‘quiet time’ in our world, no matter if the summer beckons with promises of vacation and time off, the CBC never really takes a holiday.

As you know, last Friday our President, Hubert T. LaCroix, announced a major change in leadership in English Services with the departure of Richard Stursberg.

I am used to writing these notes in times of celebration and in honour of the many achievements of our great team here at CBC. And although this is a different occasion, I think that it is our progress and those great markers of achievement that are important for us all to focus upon during this period of transition.

The CBC is a collection of remarkable people working in collaboration in every region of the country across each of our centres – from the front-line staff putting shows to air, to our managers, our leaders, and our talent. Together, we deliver the best of Canadian programming.

We are all moving ahead as we do our work for the CBC. Despite media speculation regarding the change that has just happened, Hubert made it clear to me that he supports our programming and is a fan of the shows that we make.

We do our best work when our programming on radio, online and on television, created by the CBC and its partners, reflects and engages Canadians. Our relationship with audiences has been deepening as of late with more people tuning into CBC’s multiple platforms to enjoy our great sports coverage, our in-depth first class news analysis, our challenging documentaries and current affairs and our engaging music and entertainment shows. Hubert has reinforced with me that he does not want that momentum to slow down or risk being lost.

We have an opportunity going forward, to build on the legacy of programming developed both in CBC’s past and in its present, the best of both survive and thrive to combine and give Canadians a broadcaster they can truly relate to, and one that they can absolutely rely upon. And it’s time to seize that opportunity, to prove again and again that Canadians want to see and hear their lives and priorities reflected in the programming CBC gives to them.

As we head into our 75th year, and with Canadian private broadcasters calling for reductions in their commitment to Canadian content, we are alone positioned to take up that mantle. And we will succeed by engaging and entertaining people across the country, whether they argue out loud with Anna Maria Tremonti’s latest guests on The Current, or with Peter Mansbridge and The National’s At Issue panel; whether they cheer on the Leafs, Habs or Canucks, or their favourite hockey player battling to figure skate; whether they laugh with Rick as he shows us the funny side of our Canadian lives, get confounded by Pat and Peter on This is That, or triumph with Erica as she battles through her own life in a way people can all relate; whether they discover new favourite bands with Rich Terfry, or get their 24-hour news fix from CBC News Network, and at the end of their day watch their local news report. We are CBC and we are here to remind Canadians why they are special. And we are here to learn from them and now more than ever we have the chance to listen in as well as we broadcast out.

Here’s to a less eventful rest of your summer. I’m honoured to be in a role currently where I get to work with all of you together as we move the CBC forward. I thank Hubert for the opportunity, his direction and his support. And as he has said – ‘full steam ahead’.

Best,

K

Kirstine Stewart

Interim Executive Vice President

English Services

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	Behind the Scenes, Executives, Programming	Posted at 11:22 am (09 Aug 2010)

Since Richard Stursberg, former vice-president of English CBC, left last week there has been a lot of speculation about the circumstances of his exit and what it means for employees, for the CBC, and ultimately for the public.

He sparked a revolution within the corporation. His departure is going to have a huge impact. It’s what everyone was talking about on Friday, and I’m sure it will continue this week.

So what does his departure mean?

Why don’t we sort through a few of digital tea leaves to find out.

First, let’s start at square one. What happened?

Was he pushed or did he jump?

Apparently he was pushed: “The decision was made by Mr. Lacroix,” CBC spokesman Bill Chambers said.

On the cusp of leading the Crown corporation in drafting a new five-year strategic plan, CBC president Hubert Lacroix felt the time was right to “bring in new leadership.”

Ok. So when and how did this happen? The Toronto Star says it happened after: “a meeting in Toronto late Thursday between Stursberg and Lacroix.”

“There were lots of debate, but no fisticuffs, I’m afraid,” CBC vice-president of communication Bill Chambers said of the final tête-à-tête.

So after a late Thursday meeting, that’s it.

So what does it mean?

Most Significant Development at the CBC in Years
It’s obviously a big indication of some competing visions. “I can’t think of a more significant development at the CBC in years,” Lise Lareau, President of the Canadian Media Guild, said on her blog on Friday.

In order to figure what his departure means you’ve got to look at his legacy. Lareau says:

Stursberg took the CBC — our public broadcaster — down a very commercial road. It was his way of dealing with tepid funding and unreliable support from the federal government. Programs were judged as successful only by ratings, not by the value they may contain for public discourse or the public record.

She makes a good point there.

The Tightrope
Stursberg was walking a tightrope.

He was getting less assurance from the government, and he had to shore up the dike.

His tried to replace depreciating public money with ad money. But to get ad money, you need eyeballs, and that’s what he was after, and that’s exactly what he delivered.

The Ottawa Sun crunched the numbers, and during his time the TV ratings went up, way up, gaining 52 per cent.

So Stursberg saw a problem – dwindling tax dollars funding the mother corp – and he sought a solution: more ads, and more expensive ads.

Unfortunately for him, and for the CBC, bringing in more ads doesn’t help much when you have to defend the importance of a cultural institution in a committee room on Parliament Hill.

“Richard Stursburg’s departure came about because his vision for the CBC and the traditional mission of public service became increasingly irreconcilable,” Jeffrey Dvorkin, a former CBC Radio executive said on his blog.

That was, in essence, the sword that Stursberg fell on. He was a victim of his own success.

Does this mean the CBC is going to reverse course now that he’s gone? Are we going back to more arts programming and longer stories on The National?

Mr. President, over to you.

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	Behind the Scenes, Executives, Programming	Posted at 10:00 am (09 Aug 2010)

Ever wonder what it feels like to sit through a satellite interview? This is what the guest on TV sees.

I found the photo on Kevin O’Leary’s photo stream. “What it looks like when you are in front of the camera doing live Tv. I have to use a little powder on my head!” O’Leary wrote.

Don’t you just love the glamorous world of television!

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	Behind the Scenes	Posted at 8:48 pm (03 Aug 2010)

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.

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	Behind the Scenes	Posted at 10:02 pm (21 Jul 2010)

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.

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	Behind the Scenes	Posted at 4:34 pm (14 Jul 2010)

^{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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	Behind the Scenes	Posted at 4:42 pm (06 Jul 2010)

A commentator pointed out that The Ryerson Review of Journalism has a fascinating article on the renewal process that changed the face of CBC News. It touches on the Hub, the relaunch of the supper hour newscast, The National and, yes, the issue of Mansbridge standing. Here’s a snippet:

In the months since the October relaunch, The National has in many ways returned to a calmer format. The new set remains, but the stories and nightly lineup have strengthened. The choreography has largely been done away with in favour of the camera focused on Mansbridge standing behind the desk. This can be credited to the show’s leadership under Harrison and Whitten, both of whom Stewart says kept the show functioning during the relaunch. Plus, they have succeeded in breaking away from what Whitten calls the traditional newscast format of intro, item, repeat. The National has been flashy, yes, but it’s also been consistently interesting.

Harrison and Whitten are both sensitive to the impact on the audience, but they also feel the show had to respond to the times if it were to continue. Whitten points to The National’s website and 10-minute downloadable podcast (updated every weekday at 6 p.m. ET before the main broadcast) as examples of the show’s attempts to adapt to the times. “It’s recognizing that, 10 years from now, are people really going to be still sitting waiting for 10 o’clock at night to get the news? And The National is a hugely important brand for CBC, so why have people wait until 10 o’clock at night?” Whitten says. “This was a pretty wide-ranging change in the way we do things. It didn’t really involve the set and whether Peter stood or not. And I think that gets kind of lost in a lot of the hubbub.”

The whole article is available here.

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	Behind the Scenes, News & Journalism	Posted at 7:49 am (09 Jun 2010)

The CBC is heading to south for a talent scouting trip.

The Arts and Entertainment and Factual units are looking for pitches for new shows and series, and they’re hitting the road to do it. First stop was Vancouver yesterday, then on to L.A.  ”We are open for business. We are the only people who make Canadian prime-time series and we’re looking for the best of the best,” Kirstine Stewart said to the Toronto Star yesterday.

Heading to Los Angeles to find Canadian talent may seem odd, but to some, like Donald Martin, a Canadian writer working in California, it makes perfect sense.

It makes good creative sense, and makes good business sense, because a lot of the Canadians in Los Angeles are people who are doing very well, in whatever medium that they are in.

Stewart also hinted that the broadcaster might be bit more adventurous with what it looks at:

What is the next step in what people want to see reflected on their public broadcaster? Now that we have had some success in building a basic kind of audience, and a basic relationship with the public, we’re looking for where we can go that might be a little more experimental, or a little more interesting.

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	Behind the Scenes	Posted at 7:53 am (11 May 2010)

A survey of national CBC Radio News reporters has been leaked online.

The survey results paint a dispiriting picture of morale amongst national radio news reporters.

The survey revealed that 90 per cent of the reporters feel that the ‘radio culture’ is much worse than it was a year ago, many of them felt that the storytelling ideals of depth, intelligence, and investigation were disappearing under the news integration process.

The radio news division has for years maintained a strong concept of a unique radio ‘culture’. Ninety per cent of the reporters said this culture is an important factor in the success of the service. But they also said it’s in jeopardy. “Our culture is dying,” one reporter commented.

Most of the comments revolved around the loss of radio craft, the increased workload, and the perception that TV staff don’t understand radio and yet they’re swamping radio positions, especially senior positions.

Now before everyone gets the impression that this survey is indicative of a crisis at CBC News, it’s worth noting that this was a survey of less than 30 national radio reporters.

It doesn’t paint a picture of morale at the CBC in general, or even at CBC News in general. Nevertheless it does point to a problem in some quarters.

“The problem is not the HUB per se. The problem is that radio news has been overwhelmed by TV and no one up there seems to realize it or more importantly, care,” a reporter commented.

The survey was done in the wake of the news integration, in which the assignment desks for radio, online and television were brought together under the same department, called the Hub, to better coordinate and assign the news gathering process.

Cathy Perry, the Executive Producer of CBC News, was instrumental in creating the Hub.

“We’ve all been through a tremendous amount of change. And not all of it has been easy,” she said.

Perry, who worked in radio news for years, also said “radio assignment was the thing we changed the least… We hoped to protect radio in the issues of assignment and craft.”

“We still have radio reporters whose primary responsibly is radio. And TV reporters whose primary responsible is TV, because we want to protect their craft,” she said.

But she admitted that the integration has been hard, “It’s a learning process for everybody,” she said.

That sentiment was echoed last December by Todd Spencer, the Executive Director of News Content in a note to staff. He said the Hub had notched some significant achievements since it launched, but “it’s not perfect.” He wrote that there are no overnight successes in a change of this magnitude.

Perry said that the management team within news is reacting to the survey. She said they had a conference call about it, and they’re trying to make some immediate changes to address the concerns of the radio reporters. She said there are ongoing discussions about other changes.

“We’re talking about how to make the hub work better for everybody.”

We’ve had a bit of revolution, we brought everybody together. it hasn’t been easy, but the hub is only six months old.”

I asked her if these issues are growing pains, or something else. To which she replied it’s hard to tell. “If we’re still having this conversation in 5 years, then we’ll know.”

Perry said that she thought it was unfortunate that the survey ended up online. “I think we just hurt each other here,” by doing that, she said. “We should be able to have these debates and share opinions without having it go out on the internet.”

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	Behind the Scenes, News & Journalism	Posted at 2:39 pm (21 Apr 2010)

^{Vintage Rick Mercer, doing his famous segment ‘Talking to Americans.’}

Ever wonder how Rick Mercer’s crew puts together those ‘Talking to Americans’ videos?

If you don’t know the segment, let me fill you in. Rick Mercer used to have a segment on his show in which he traveled to the States and asked Americans to comment on about absolutely absurd topics, like the fight to save Canada’s capitol building, supposedly an igloo, from global warming.

In one of the most famous bits, Mercer put that question to former former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee. Hilarity ensued.

Today, Steve Brawner, a freelance journalist, revealed what happened behind the scenes that day and offered a glimpse into how the bits were produced.

One day, a Canadian film crew arrived at the door and made a vague request for a quote from the governor congratulating their country about some igloo that had been found there. I assumed it was an important archaeological discovery and, trying to be accommodating, notified the governor, who agreed to make a quick comment on his way out the door. And that’s what happened.

Only it’s not all that happened. It turned out that the nice reporter actually was Rick Mercer, host of “This Hour Has 22 Minutes,” which fills up part of that 22 minutes by ridiculing Americans for their lack of knowledge about Canada, much to the delight of Canadians.

During the bit, Mercer duped one Arkansan at the Capitol into believing that Canada’s capitol building is an igloo that Canadians were trying to rescue from global warming by covering it with a dome. Huckabee later briefly appears on the video to say exactly what he was asked to say: “Hi, I’m Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas wanting to say, ‘Congratulations, Canada, on preserving your national igloo.’” The video implies that Huckabee also fell for the joke even though he said nothing about Parliament or global warming. But audiences then and now believed Mercer’s version of the truth.

The video was a topic of conversation when Huckabee ran for president in 2008 and no doubt will return if he runs again. And why wouldn’t it? A leading presidential candidate looks thoroughly uniformed and gullible, when in reality he mostly has been the victim of dishonest editing.

Of course, whether it’s dishonest or comedic is in the eye of the beholder.

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	Behind the Scenes	Posted at 5:48 pm (15 Apr 2010)

Almost a two weeks after the news first leaked, fans on CBC Montreal morning show, Daybreak, are still upset that Nancy Wood will not be staying with the show.

According to Henry Aubin, at the Gazette, the CBC decided not to renew her hosting contract two weeks ago. She has not been heard on the air since. Aubin added that Wood has since been hospitalized for a few days for stress and anxiety. Renaud talked to a couple CBC insiders in Montreal, and their take was that Wood’s one-year contract wasn’t renewed because the show’s ratings hadn’t gone up since she took the helm in late August.

Given the circumstances the CBC isn’t saying much on the issue. Wood’s photo was apparently removed from the Daybreak homepage, but there has been no further response, nor has a replacement host has been named. The lack of explanation has seemed to have galvanized her fans and local journalists. “As a result of the handling of it, the egg on the Mother Corp’s face is building up in layers,” Matthew Cope, an upset fan wrote on Facebook today.

In addition to the Aubin piece in the Gazette, which was headlined “Bring back Nancy Wood,” another article in the French-language La Presse today said it was unfair to have dropped Wood after so little time. Not surprisingly, a Facebook group has sprung to oppose the decision. They are directing members to write letters to CBC management, and contact the president’s office.

Former Gazette staffer, and blogger Steve Faguy has more on the issue here.

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	Behind the Scenes	Posted at 10:39 pm (09 Mar 2010)

^{Photo credit: Metaviews Flickr photo stream.}

Here are a couple pictures from the reception this morning as Andy Barrie, the long-standing host of CBC Toronto’s Metro Morning, passed the host chair to Matt Galloway. As you can see in the picture above, a lot of people showed up wish Barrie well.

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	Behind the Scenes	Posted at 3:46 pm (01 Mar 2010)

***UPDATE*** the phone system is back to normal again. It was something to do with ‘database corruption.’

If you’re trying to phone the CBC in Toronto, try emailing instead.

Apparently the phone lines in the whole Toronto building are out. This just came into my inbox, “The telephone situation has degraded to a system-wide outage. However, cell phones are working as are power fail lines that have been installed in critical areas. Please be patient as the telecommunications and Telus people try to resolve this issue.”

This explains the busy signal if you’ve been trying to call CBC Toronto.

Anybody got a carrier pigeon?

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	Behind the Scenes	Posted at 5:18 pm (25 Feb 2010)