Their loss, our gain…

The Bureau of Broadcast Measurement’s spring ratings are out - and ratings are up for the Montreal newscast by 28%; 22% of those are new viewers.

This article speculates that some of those viewers may have jumped ship with Frank Cavallaro, an award-winning Weather Specialist who just joined the CBC earlier this year when the CTV news team did not renew his contract. Cavallero was voted the World’s Top Weather Presenter at the International Weather Festival held in Paris in 2002, and has been forecasting since the late 1980’s.

Incidentally, if you’ve always wanted to be a weather forecaster on the CBC and live in Calgary, that very job just got posted on the CBC jobs site this morning.

As Vancouver continues to move ahead on its myCBC rollout, the new CBC News at Six set has now had a full week of on-air use. Similar in design to the Calgary newsworld set (large space, red and white primary colours), the Vancouver set includes a large weather centre fro which recently moved CBC meteorologist Clare Martin does extended forecasts.

Photos by CBC’s Mike Hennigar.

Today was the first day of the new CBC News at Six hour-long regional newscasts.

But oddly, the B.C. edition kept calling itself Canada Now (the name of the national/regional hybrid show formerly in that time slot). Did Vancouver miss the cancellation memo? Likely not, as Canada Now’s national show originated from Vancouver. Plus, a bumper voiceover said “You’re watching Canada Now. Where B.C. news comes first.”

B.C. bureau chief Liz Hughes explained to me that B.C. decided to stay with Canada Now in Vancouver because, “for the audience, nothing much changed in Vancouver. The show always had an hour of local, national and international news hosted by Ian [Hanomansing] and Gloria [Macarenko].”

As many of you know, CBC is planning some big changes for television news, so the name change will likely roll-out when all of that is ready.

Anywhere, here’s a taste of what day one looked like in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver. (Personally, I think the Calgary graphics kick sweet arse.)

Today (Friday) is the last day for CBC’s supper-hour newscast Canada Now, hosted by Ian Hanomansing and regional hosts. Canada Now was created in 2000.

It will be replaced Monday with a full hour of regionally produced news programming, but only the main CBC TV network. Each show will be locally hosted and produced. Newsworld will launch a new international newscast called Around the World, followed by a half hour of CBC News: Today.

One of CTV’s top regional anchors will move to host CBC News at Six in Winnipeg in January. CTV Winnipeg’s Janet Stewart made the announcement on her program Friday after after word leaked out that she’d be moving.
     CBC regional director John Bertrand says the CBC didn’t poach Stewart as much as it was a case of “mutual interest,” between CBC and Stewart.
     Under Stewart’s anchoring, CTV Winnipeg’s news program ranked first in local news ratings, with Global second and CBC third. [A commenter notes: “CTV has been ahead of CBC in the Winnipeg market for years. Stewart maintained a lead that was already there.”]
     Stewart replaces Krista Erickson, who joined CBC Ottawa last summer.