CBC Radio’s Spark held a contest to come up with the best LOLcat caption for this pic. Here’s the winner. Oh, and if any of this seems a little odd, you might want to bone up on the LOL cat meme.)

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	Spark, lolcats	Posted at 12:37 pm (02 Jun 2008)

CBC Television’s Living Vancouver has lost its host.

Speculation in the local media is the move comes as a way to help her husband, hockey manager Brian Burke, take a job with the Toronto Maple Leafs. (Currently, both live in California; Jennifer commuted to Vancouver each week to do the hosting job.)

But hers isn’t the only job up for grabs. Most of the show’s production staff roles are currently available. Most likely because — even though the show has been successful for a couple of seasons now, the jobs below are not permanent CBC jobs; they’re contract-only.

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	Living In, Personalities, Vancouver	Posted at 11:50 am (02 Jun 2008)

CBC journalists and producers won three awards at the annual Canadian Association of Journalists Awards for Investigative Journalism this past weekend. The CAJ awards are Canada’s only recognition for the best in investigative journalism across the country.

CBC cleaned up in all of the broadcast categories:

• The winner in the Open Television (greater than five minutes) category is: David Ridgen, Mississippi Cold Case, CBC Television;
• The winners in the Open Television (less than five minutes) category are: Ioanna Roumeliotis and Melanie Glanz, Skin Deep, CBC News - The National;
• The winners in the Open Radio News/Current Affairs category are: Maureen Matthews and Dave Redel, Memegwesiwag, CBC Radio.

The winning entries in each of the categories received $1,000.

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	Awards, The National	Posted at 9:50 am (28 May 2008)

Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs saw a major falloff in ratings - half a million viewers - with no Canadian team in the final.

Sure, we all understand that both teams in the playoffs are comprised of Canadian players, but somehow the visceral attraction of fandom doesn’t exist when the jerseys don’t belong to a Canadian team. Most of you reading this have probably heard at least one hockey fan friend exclaim that there are no Canadian teams in the playoff in distress.

The good news is that the numbers are significantly better this time around than the last time the playoffs were all-American, back in 2003. Viewership then was 1.29 million, and ratings for the Saturday game were 2.11 million.

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	Hockey Night in Canada	Posted at 9:48 am (28 May 2008)

If you’ve got a second, you may have fun watching some of these CBC Television promos from 1987 including:

• the frighteningly fast-talker Stu Jeffries plugging Good Rockin’ Tonight (you can tell he’s an expert in music because he holds a guitar)
• the single least inspiring news promo of all time
• a Knowlton Nash opening from Sunday Report.

Note to readers under 30: Yes, we really did wear our hair that way in the 80s. No, not ironically.

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	Retro, The National	Posted at 9:18 am (23 May 2008)

CBC reporter and videographer Steven D’Souza fondly remembers his old town, Richmond Hill, as a cosy place. His community website has published an account of D’Souza’s career.

After leaving Ryerson in 2000 and becoming a sports reporter, he realized that a life in sports meant no social life at all, since most events take place on evenings and weekends. After a short stint doing this at Canadian Press, he interviewed with both TSN and the CBC, and chose the CBC.

Starting off as a producer on CBC’s morning show, D’Souza got to sit in on interviews. He realized that to get in front of the camera, he would need to get out of the Ceeb’s head office in Toronto, so he traveled to Summerside, PEI, for his first reporting gig.

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	CBC News at Six, Ontario, Personalities	Posted at 12:01 pm (22 May 2008)

George Stroumboulopoulos interviewed CBC News anchor Peter Mansbridge a little while ago and you’ll hear:

– How close he came to leaving Canada for a high-paying job for CBS

– How did the conversation with Knowlton Nash play out when Nash offered Mansbridge the anchor chair.

…and more.

Watch the video on The Hour’s recently redesigned web site.

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	Personalities, The National	Posted at 12:57 pm (16 May 2008)

CBC Radio has announced two new music shows for CBC Radio Two.

Debuting May 31, from 5 to 6 p.m., is a new show from Calgary called In Tune. Hosted by classically trained musician Katherine Duncan, the program will focus on trends in classical music. Currently, Duncan is the Calgary host of Canada Live, and before that hosted Symphony Hall for 10 years.

Tom Power, a newcomer to CBC, will host Deep Roots. Based in Newfoundland, Power will offer listeners music in the roots/folk genres with a special emphasis on Canadian musicians. Deep Roots replaces I Hear Music in the 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. timeslot.Robert Harris, who had hosted I Hear Music since September 2000, will now produce documentaries for Radio 2. “Inside the Music is the likely spot for Robert’s new work,” explained CBC Radio’s director of programming, Chris Boyce. “But given his enormous talent, we have no doubt that Robert will be heard throughout the Radio 2 schedule.”

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	CBC Radio 2, Changes to CBC Radio Two, Deep Roots, In Tune	Posted at 11:39 am (16 May 2008)

On this date in 1965, Cross Country Checkup debuted with a debate on a national, publicly funded health care system. Years later, we have the national health care system and a radio program that continues to entertain and provoke. (Although I really do miss the standard two-question opener to each caller from years back: “Cross Country Checkup, where are you calling from? What do you think about ________”)

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	Asides, CBC Radio 1, Cross Country Checkup, Today In CBC History	Posted at 11:08 am (16 May 2008)

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.

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	CBC News at Six, CBC Television, Montreal	Posted at 11:56 am (15 May 2008)

George Stroumboulopoulos has people stopping him to shake his hand in many American states because of The Hour’s popularity due to widespread viewing on YouTube.

The Canadian Press reports that The Hour has been getting millions of hits on YouTube since the show started uploading segments last fall. The Hour is also one of the top video podcasts in Canada on iTunes. Strombo says that the show has a wide appeal since it fills a gap in late-night TV; unlike other late-night shows, it isn’t pure comedy.

Viewers as far afield as New Zealand and Australia are also members of the shows’ Facebook group.

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	Other Internet, Personalities, The Hour with George S.	Posted at 1:54 pm (09 May 2008)

Okay, fine, so there’s no such thing as a Caption Writer at the CBC. I mean, people do write captions, of course, but it’s usually the story producer who develops the captions (”lower thirds” in the parlance).

But then how do you explain this caption, from one of CBC Television’s “Living” programs (not sayin’ which one), and emailed to me by a viewer.

Airport Dude?! Really?! Did someone lose his business card? Couldn’t we at least have said Airport Official or something? 

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	Living In, The Odd File	Posted at 11:56 pm (24 Apr 2008)

The Royal Canadian Air Farce, one of Canada’s longest-running comedy troupes, is wrapping up its weekly television show next season.

The sketch comedy show will produce nine shows in the fall, then end with a New Years Eve special.

It made its CBC Radio debut in December 1973, producing more than 600 radio broadcasts over 24 years. After brief stints on television in the 1980s, Air Farce took up its permanent place on the CBC-TV roster in 1993. It ran on radio and television for four seasons before moving exclusively to TV in 1997. In 2007, the show returned to a live format with Air Farce Live.

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	Royal Canadian Air Farce	Posted at 10:13 am (01 Apr 2008)

A wee bit of photo fun submitted by Kate Dalgleish, pictured here.

If you’ve got a photo or funny mockup you’d like to submit, email insidecbcblog@gmail.com

There’s no money, but a small amount of glory will accrue.

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	Fun Stuff, Personalities, The National	Posted at 6:29 pm (31 Mar 2008)

Casting has begun for a made-for-TV movie (in two-parts, natch) tentatively titled The Don Cherry Story.

The movie’s author? Cherry’s son, Tim.

The script follows the Coach’s Corner star’s early life in hockey’s minor leagues. It ends, oddly abruptly, when Cherry met the CBC’s Ron MacLean nearly 25 years ago.
“We’re trying to find out if Brad Pitt can play the leading role,” Cherry joked.

(Er, at least I think it was a joke.)

Provided the CBC gives it the green light (and really, why wouldn’t it? Sadly, it will likely be one of the most-watched programs of the year), shooting should start within a few months. It is expected to air during next spring’s Stanley Cup playoffs.

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	Hockey Night in Canada, Personalities	Posted at 3:47 pm (28 Mar 2008)