The CBC unveiled a new logo this afternoon to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the national broadcaster.

CBC President and CEO, Hubert Lacroix said he wanted to provide “a space where Canadians can have a voice,” as part of the celebrations. “We want Canadians to talk to us,” he said.

He said the 75th celebrations would start on August 22 2011 and run for 75 days to November.

^{An the image of the CBC’s logos as they’ve evolved over the last 75 years.}

As part of the celebrations, employees are being asked to share their stories of why they choose to work  for CBC-Radio Canada. Employees that submit their stories will have a chance to win a t-shirt.

CBC News Toronto’s election coverage marked a couple innovative milestones last Monday.

They inaugurated an application that allows a host to control on screen graphics themselves, instead of having the control room do it. And they marked the first use of the immersive graphics at the CBC.

The first innovation allows the host to control the graphics presentation via an iPad in real-time.

“We were the first station in North America to the app on air,” Allan Giacomelli, a senior character generator at the Toronto Production Centre, said. “Usually the control room controls the graphics, now the anchor can control them.”

“It allows the host to tell the story they way they want,” Giacomelli said from his development lab.

As you can see in the video above, they also rolled out immersive graphics, which allows graphic elements to be layered onto a set.

“The next step is to integrate more technology into the newscasts,” Giacomelli said, “we have a lot of innovative ideas that we are planning to try for the next federal election.”

Here’s his take on an analogue zoom camera, as he says:

Back in the day broadcast cameras didn’t necessarily have fancy zoom lenses, so if operators wanted to get in close they’d have to physically switch lenses, or use one of these bad boys. This is part of the Broadcast in Analogue series.

As part of the Gemini Awards 25th anniversary celebration, the Gemini folks have asked TV critics to send in suggestions of their all-time favourite television shows. Of the 25 most popular submissions, 17 shows were broadcast by the CBC.

The list reads like a romp through the highlights of CBC television: Anne of Green Gables, The Beachcombers, Wayne & Shuster, Mr. Dressup, Da Vinci’s Inquest, North of 60, The Nature of Things, The Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes and a bunch more.

Without putting too fine a point on it, it says a lot about legacy and potential of Canadian produced broadcasting. So there.

The full list is here.

Voting on the all-time favourite ends on Sept 30th.

And there are thousands of people just like you.

That’s the message coming from the CBC over the last few days as the corporation ramps up an effort to lobby the CRTC to force satellite companies carry more local signals into local markets.

It’s an odd situation, but under current CRTC regulations satellite providers can decide that they’ll only carry one signal from a broadcaster for each time zone.

Which means that if you happen to live in Edmonton, and you have Bell feeding your dish, you will only get the local Calgary CBC feed. Because that’s all Bell currently carries.

Now if you’re a big fan of the Oilers, sitting down on Saturday nights and having to endure another Calgary game is probably enough to make you want to lose your nuggets. The same situation happens in Charlottetown, Windsor and Regina.

But that’s not all.

What about news? Most of these markets have local news teams dedicated to covering local stories. For instance, Edmonton is about go into an election. There’s a bunch of big, local news stories that demand coverage, which local viewers can’t get from their dish CBC TV channel.

“To me, it’s an important point for democracy,” Judy Piercey, the regional managing director of English radio and TV in Edmonton said. “There are lot of important issues coming up as the city grows,” she said, “when we get into our election coverage… people who don’t get us, won’t get it.”

Piercey said that although there were alternatives to CBC News, both on TV and online, she said loyal CBC viewers are constantly frustrated with being denied the local CBC signal.

She said when she sent a note to her staff on the issue, “people in the office were cheering, because everyone out there has answered the phone from viewers who were complaining.”

Silencing the local signals also hampers the CBC’s efforts to strengthen it’s local news coverage, which is a key plank of the CBC’s renewed mandate to serve local markets that was announced last year.

Since then, CBC has been redoubling its efforts to provide local news coverage, but again, if you are a satellite subscriber with a carrier that doesn’t carry the signal and you live in Edmonton, Fredericton, Saint John, Charlottetown, Windsor or Regina, or almost all of the towns and smaller cities in Quebec outside of Montreal, you won’t get a single frame of it.

In Alberta Bell only carries the Calgary feed. In Quebec Shaw only carries the Montreal feed – for the entire province.

Piercey said in a note to staff “that satellite TV subscribers account for around one-third of viewers across Canada, the current CRTC regulations have left many CBC stations out in the cold across the country.” She added that on Sept 8th the CBC will file a brief with the CRTC to complain about the issue. For more on that go here.

Sorry Oilers fans, but this one’s not the CBC’s fault. If you really want to fix the situation, I suggest you head over to the CRTC web site and leave a comment with them. To do that find the gray button labeled “2010-488″ on this page and write your comment.

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

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.

That’s right a Flyman Stagehand.

Wondering what that is?

According to the CBC job posting a flyman stagehand is someone who will “set up, install, hang and sling scenic and technical elements. Also, you will have to operate the motorized rigging control panel to meet production needs.”

I’m okay with slinging scenics but that motorized rigging control panel sounds a bit finicky.

The opening match of the tournament drew 269,000 total streams, that’s about a third the size of the television audience of 900,000.

That ratio is much higher than online numbers for the Stanley Cup. For instance the final game between Pittsburgh and Montreal drew 130,000 views online, yet the television audience was 4.2 million.

PM: I want to start with morale in the news department. There’s always a certain amount of stress in news, but is it different this time?

Carmel Smyth: If you were to ask me what the big issues are from the people I speak with, they’re workload, news renewal, and the perpetual threat of layoffs.

What happened in news renewal is that so many peoples’ job situations changed all at the same time. People were always moving around in the news department, but this time there’s more people affected than before, all at the same time, and as a result there’s more unhappiness.

It is true that news is under considerable stress. They’ve probably had more changes this years than they’ve had in the last ten.

At the same time the CBC has the best relationship with management that we’ve had in years. Years ago management would manage, and that’s it. Now we’ve agreed to review the complaints that come out of the fourth floor, and they’ve said ‘okay let’s try and work on things.’

They’re reviewing now, how the hub operates… the renewal process is evolving as we speak, people are still being moving around, things are still changing.

There are lots of problems yes. but on the good side there are attempts being made that wouldn’t have happened a few years ago… that’s partly as a result of Hubert [Lacroix].

Grievances are down in the building because there’s a lot of pressure to try and solve them. In the last two years they’ve also made dozens of temporary staff permanent. So there’s lots of examples of how we can work together.

PM: To go back to the News department, and the morale there, is it time for the union to take a harder line?
Carmel Smyth: It’s something we’ve discussed. We’ve taken a harder line in the past. But during this period we’ve decided that we should try and work together.

Maybe it won’t work out down the line, but I think in the short term we’ve made some gains that we wouldn’t have made otherwise.

And I don’t think there’s much appetite for a strike.

Positive things are happening, yes, I know there’s unrest, particularly on the fourth floor. But at the same time, the changes haven’t even been a year, it’s still in a state of flux. We’re a long way from were a more serious labour actions is needed.

PM: So you’re going to give the process more time?
Carmel Smyth: Yes. I think there’s proof that they’re trying. The CBC doesn’t really have to keep meeting with us to try and work on this things. But they are.

We’ll see how far this goes. It’s not like they’re making empty promises.

They’re meeting with us and trying to resolve these things. Now I know things seem slow, but from a union perspective, it’s much, much quicker than they’ve been in the past.

And the other thing is that the union can’t stop decisions about programming. We can work with them to lessen the impact, but they can make the decision about merging departments and units, it’s their prerogative.

The phenomenon has been attributed to higher ratings for several large television events, most recently the Oscars.

The media research company, Nielsen, says about 10 per cent of TV viewers also go online during these events. Most of that traffic ends up at Facebook, Yahoo or Google sites.

Of those three big sites, people stayed the longest on Yahoo. The viewers that visited that site while watching the Super Bowl spend over an hour there on average. That’s a very long time on a single web site. To compare, visitors to Facebook averaged almost 20 minutes, with most other sites getting traffic for a few minutes.

There’s more info on the Nielsen blog, here.

When the show launched in October the Lang and O’Leary Exchange ran half an hour between 4:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern, not an great TV time slot. Now, starting March 1st the show will run a full hour between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. The new prime-time spot for Lang and O’Leary means Mark Kelley’s show Connect, will lose an hour, chopping its original two hour slot in half.

Additionally Lang will also provide a business update at 4:30 during Carole MacNeil’s show, which was also given an extra half hour. Lang seems to have made a positive impression at the CBC since she joined the corporation, she frequently appears on The National and has hosted the flagship news program several times since she came over from BNN last fall.

Jennifer McGuire, general manager and editor-in-chief of CBC News didn’t say what prompted the change, but did say in a press release that “Viewer feedback to the new CBC News Network has been extremely positive.”

Now before you dismiss the quote from McGuire as spin, I should tell you that I spoke with CBC spokesperson Jeff Keay to find out where McGuire was coming from. Keay said that despite the the reaction online, the CBC got “extremely positive” feedback from a bunch of focus group testing after the relaunch.

For me, the highlight of the show was K’naan performing his hit song from Troubadour, ‘Waving Flag’.

Funds will go towards a coalition of Canadian NGOs, including Canadian Red Cross Society, Care Canada, Free the Children, Oxfam Canada, Oxfam Quebec, Plan Canada, Save the Children Canada, UNICEF Canada and World Vision Canada.

Over two million people tuned in.

An unprecedented cast of Canadian superstar musicians, athletes and film and television celebrities has been confirmed for the ‘Canada for Haiti’ telethon. The number of stars involved in this broadcast is unbelievable.

The broadcast will feature live performances from The Tragically Hip, Metric and K’naan, with appearances by Céline Dion, Nelly Furtado, Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Simple Plan, David Foster, Chantal Kreviazuk, Raine Maida, Justin Bieber and Measha Brueggergosman.

They will be joined by a cast of film celebrities including: James Cameron, Michael J. Fox, Ryan Reynolds, William Shatner, Rachelle Lefevre, Joshua Jackson, Pamela Anderson, Jason Reitman, Eugene Levy, Norman Jewison, Tom Jackson, Will Arnett and Sandra Oh. In addition some of Canada’s best known television stars will also appear on the one hour commercial free simulcast, including Brent Butt, Hugh Dillon, Mike Holmes, Rick Mercer and Alex Trebek and humanitarian Craig Kielburger. Star athletes that have been confirmed thus far include Steve Nash and Wayne Gretzky.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor-General Michaëlle Jean will also have special messages for Canadians. The show will be jointly hosted by Cheryl Hickey, Ben Mulroney and George Stroumboulopoulos and will be broadcast on Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time on CBC Television, CTV, Global Television, MTV, MuchMusic, and National Geographic Channel.

Canadians can show their support by donating:

Online at CanadaForHaiti.com
Toll-free at 1-877-51-HAITI (42484)
Text AID to 45678 (carrier charges may apply)

Funds will go towards a coalition of Canadian NGOs, including Canadian Red Cross Society, Care Canada, Free the Children, Oxfam Canada, Oxfam Quebec, Plan Canada, Save the Children Canada, UNICEF Canada and World Vision Canada.

Today at noon at the CBC Building in Toronto, Chris Straw, manager of in-house productions and Chris Boyce, the programming director of CBC Radio are holding a seminar on the inner workings of CBC Radio program development.

If you’ve always thought you had a great idea for a radio or TV show this seminar may be for you. The discussion will be held on the ground floor of the atrium near the front street entrance of the CBC building in Toronto. Seating is on a first come, first serve basis.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there are plans to stream the seminar online, however if I find I link I’ll post it here.

In Canada, there may be an exception to that rule.

It seems that in this frosty and mostly frozen land, just about anything that has anything to do with hockey does well in the ratings. The latest show to prove the point is Battle of Blades.

‘Battle’, as it’s being called in the corp, is getting a lot of attention from the media. Last week the Toronto Sun even put the show on the front page of their tabloid. I can’t remember the last time that happened for a CBC show.

The ratings have reflected the media coverage. The opening episode on October 4th drew 1.95 million viewers, which is the highest ratings for a debut episode on the ceeb since Little Mosque on the Prairie. Those numbers were only eclipsed by, you guessed it, hockey. The first game of the season for Hockey Night in Canada drew 2.5 million viewers.

Jon Doyle, the Globe’s TV critic, called the show hokey, wholesome and ‘a gimmick’. Nevertheless, the next week’s broadcast, on thanksgiving Sunday, pulled in 1.56 million viewers. The show, for all it’s hokeyness, appeals to a lot of people. Which to me is curious. Why is it that in Canada anything to do hockey scores with viewers? Are we really such a nation of single-minded hockey-crazed fanatics that we’ll swarm to a show like ‘Battle’ while generally ignoring some of the other excellent dramatic shows produced in this country? It’s an open question, feel free to comment.

On August 31st, BBM, the company that tracks ratings for broadcasters, will switch to a new system called the Portable People Meter (PPM). It will replace the old diary method in most places. Traditionally ratings have been collected by a representative panel of people that recorded what they watched and listened to in a diary. The old system depended on people accurately and meticulously recording their activity.

Now that system will be replaced by a pager-sized device that ratings panelist will wear on their belts. The device is intended to mimic the human ear, meaning it will be able to hear what people are watching or listening to as long as it’s within hearing range. The PPM will pick up an inaudible audio watermark that identifies the broadcaster, and collect and report that data so that it can be compiled into TV and radio ratings.

The new system will also pick up signals in public spaces. “PPM’s can recognize signals from anywhere. In a car, at a restaurant or bar, at the shopping mall” Jennifer Lang, a senior manager with the research department said. This will likely increase audience numbers to certain types of programming that is frequently on in public places, like sports programs or news. It will also likely make the minute by minute numbers much more encompassing than they were under the diary method.

Another benefit is that the new system will also be able to capture internet ratings. So for instance if television or radio content is being consumed online, the PPM will still pick up the signal, as long as it has been preserved in the file. In order for the meter to pick up the signal online producers will have to ensure that they capture their content from a broadcast source, and that they don’t inadvertantly strip out the signal when they compress the files for online distribution. If it’s implemented properly the new system may have some ratings impact for shows with large online audiences like The Hour, and the Hockey Night in Canada streams and certain radio shows with popular podcasts.

Wether these changes will have a large or small impact on show ratings won’t be known until September, but for the first time in Canada, online audiences will be captured in the broadcast ratings and the results should be very interesting.

The CBC introduced its first iPhone application today. The application streams content from Radio One, Radio 2, and CBC Radio 3, and audio from CBC Television.

The free application works on the iPhone or iPod Touch. It will allow users to listen to as many as 19 live streams and a host of on-demand content. “One of the best features is the integration of the iPhone optimized web site within the application, so that you browse cbc.ca while you’re listening to the CBC,” Jonathan Carrigan, who lead the product development, said this afternoon.

Carrigan said the development was extremely smooth, partly because everyone on the project was passionate about it but also because everyone realized the public demand. He said the CBC’s audience relations department has been getting a steady flow of requests for an iPhone app for several months, so he was very pleased to be able to introduce it today, “this truly is in response to popular demand,” he said from Vancouver.

Carrigan said the application focuses on audio content because “the numbers point to audio being a big opportunity.” He also hinted the CBC is currently working on other iPhone applications for the fall, but couldn’t be more specific.

To get the application click on this link (note: clicking the link with open iTunes)

What do you think of the new app?

First let’s look at some background on social networks. The number of people using social networking sites is increasing. A recent study in the U.K. found 80 per cent of that online population visited a social networking site in May. In March, Nielsen published a report that found that two-thirds of the global online population spent time on social networking sites or blogging sites.

But even more dramatic is the increase in the time spent on social networking sites. The Nielsen report said social networking sites now account for 10 per cent of the total time spent online – and it’s growing dramatically. The report says that “time spent on social network and blogging sites is growing more than three times the rate of overall Internet growth.”

Television networks in the United States are trying to capitalize on this trend by using social networks to promote their fall lineup in the summer, often months before their conventional promotional campaigns start. “TV networks are trying to determine whether promoting new shows earlier can bring them bigger audiences come September and October,” an AdAge article from a days ago says.

The U.S. television networks are using sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to post early peeks at upcoming shows. The idea is that this promotional material can build a community of die-hard fans that will translate into larger audiences in the fall. ”What we’re doing now gives us four months to try to get people to sample and come on board,” Joe Earley, a communication executive at Fox said.

Recently the CBC started to try to mimic that strategy with their fall launch communication plans. For instance the CBC created an official Facebook fan page yesterday. The idea behind that page is to do something similar to what NBC is doing with their network page on Facebook: to give the entire network a voice, highlight content, and provide an entry point to the various NBC shows.

Currently the CBC’s social network strategy is ad-hoc. It’s essentially a victim of its own success. CBC shows, and many CBC staffers have been early adopters on Twitter and Facebook, and as a result there are hundreds of different accounts with different agendas.

This doesn’t sit well with Jill Atkinson whose working on the communications strategy on social networks. “There are way too many CBC Twitter accounts,” she said, “the volume of CBC sites *is* massive, and should be culled.” Atkinson said there’s nothing wrong with individual shows having social networking accounts, but they need to reflect the CBC’s priorities, “not just because it’s a cool thing to do,” she said.

While she was digging around the various social networks Atkinson found that the CBC already had both a Facebook and Twitter account. Neither had posted anything. “We had a Facebook page with 400 plus followers, there was zero content on the page,” she wrote in an email “And we said ‘come on,’ what a missed opportunity.”

Atkinson wants to correct that. “The plan is to reflect… our television priorities and to create a community that acts as a conduit to the show’s individual promotional websites,” she wrote.

It’s an area that has lots of potential for community building and communication. Currently the CBC communicates primarily through newsletters, and although they can reach tens of thousands of readers, a newsletter once a week does not compare to a large Twitter account, like say Anderson Cooper’s, which has almost 300,000 followers, blasts out dozens of updates a week, and  allows for back and forth conversations between the viewers and the show.

The trick is to balance the CBC’s adoption and innovation on these networks, without overloading the audience, “In a nutshell the whole point to doing this is to value add for the audience,” Atkinson said on the phone yesterday.

What are your thought on the CBC’s social networking direction? Are there areas we miss, stuff we need to work on, or converselly pull back on?