This morning before heading into the CBC to record my tech columns, I turned on my TV and PVR and searched for Fortune Hunters — a new CBC series I wanted to tape.
I did a title search, put a tracker on it, I even found out how to restrict the listing of all shows to only those that start with the letter F.
No dice. Fortune Hunters was not on the schedule, according to digital TV guides across the country.
That’s because the show’s official name (and, thus, how it’s filed in the guides) is CBC News: Fortune Hunters.
In our strange CBC world, Fortune Hunters starts with a C.
Nearly a dozen of our shows have the “CBC News: ” prefix. Personally, I think it’s goofy. I’m sure it seems great around the meeting room table when branding is on the agenda, but nobody in their right mind is going to say “Did you watch Peter Mansbridge on CBC News: The National last night?” And yet that’s how it’s listed and, in most on-air promos, spoken.
It’s not the only peculiarity we run into with digital cable boxes.
- Many shows, like the fifth estate, rarely have the episode details in the listings, opting for a general description of the show. Take the Rick Mercer Report. Each week, pressing your box’s INFO button will tell you that, this week and every week, the show is about how “the comedian takes to the streets, getting Canadian opinions on current affairs.” (In fact, it’s not even accurate. Rick doesn’t do that that often any more.) Would it kill us to put an episode description in?
. - And for some reason, CBC’s high-definition channel (at least on Shaw) doesn’t indicate when an actual program is broadcast in HD. According to the digital cable box, the premiere of The Border was not broadcast in high-def when, in fact, it was.
I suspect we’re losing viewers because people don’t bother to watch what the episode is about, or can’t find the show on a digital cable search.
And that CBC News: Sucks.
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CBC Television used to maintain an HDTV website. It hasn’t been updated in months (www.cbc.ca/HDTV). It used to list the HDTV shows for the coming week. Also CBC’s communications and propaganda outfit has been e-mailing employees non stop about all the exciting shows we’re supposed to watch (like we don’t get enough CBC at work!). But none of the e-mails or new websites for the prime-time entertainment shows indicate which if any of the shows are broadcast in high-definition. CTV by contrast has very clear listings and makes a point of reminding everyone when it brodcasts shows in HDTV.
I’ve noticed the same thing with my CBC Podcasts. They all sort to “C” so I can never find them right away.
I couldn’t agree more. I work at the Ceeb for many of the CBC: News programs. Can’t we just drop the padding? I understand it’s about branding at all, but really, is it working? Isn’t doesn’t seem to make any sense.
i’m away from my pvr right now (it’s a mythtv box) but tod, part of your problem could be your source of data. iirc, the rick mercer details from http://www.schedulesdirect.org/ were great for the new episodes–they listed who was on and one or two of the skits/spoofs. i’ve had problems finding shows on the lens, for example, but a search by episode name has always found them.
For sure this is something that needs fixing. But given that most of this stuff has probably been shuffled on to the plate of the severely under-resourced New Media team, it’s not really a surprise that it’s a mess. A lot of detail-oriented stuff like this that comes with new technology simply never seems to show up on CBC’s radar.
There actually are people in Communications responsible for sending data to the program guides, and it was a decision by news to brand that way.
I’m glad you’re drawing attention to this Tod. I’m not sure how much feedback they get and I’ve always believed this is critical to how people choose which programs they want to watch. As an EPG veteran though, I would add that only geeks like us ever use the search function… which is more a comment on the usability of these things.
In full disclosure, I did the original spec on this three years ago and handed over to Communications.
One of the problems I have with the CBC listings on my Cogeco HD PVR is that shows that are repeats are not coded into the system. I have a series recording set for all my CBC shows, like RMR and 22, and it ends up recording it every single time it’s on air, even though I told it to record the first runs only…
*sigh*
I’ve actually noticed this a lot on my Rogers PVR as well. Back in the day, when I worked at Citytv, they were really bad at getting descriptions into the TV books..they were forever missing the deadline and so generics ran.
Now that everybody uses online guides, surely the deadline has to be closer to broadcast? It’s basic retail promo - not the place to scrimp and overlook.
Is this honestly a sentence on the “Official Blog” of Canada’s national broadcaster?
“And that CBC News: Sucks.”
Can someone explain the grammar there? This isn’t a radio script.
Connie:
I’m pretty sure if you read the top part of his post (about how too much CBC content starts with “CBC News: “), you’ll get the joke.
I don’t know. I think if more people got the joke, the CBC would probably be a more vibrant place.
A friend pointed out this blog posting because I was complaining about the exact same thing a few days ago.
I read about Fortune Hunters in a newspaper and thought it sounded interesting. So I went to the PVR and started looking for it to add to the recordings. But it was not to be found. Many CBC News listings, but no Fortune Hunter. After a few minutes, I started looking at the Info for each show around the time it was supposed to be broadcast and then realized that many shows were named “CBC News: whatever”. What a stupid system! How are regular TV watchers like me supposed to find specific shows in the listings this way?
I suspect that this poor naming convention would also hurt the CBC with viewers that are looking for news. For example, if I’m paging through the listings and see “CBC News” and it turns out to be Dragon’s Den or Fortune Hunters, I’m going to be disappointed that it is not an actual news program like the National.
My two cents.
MythTV allows you to search by keyword, so part of your problem is you don’t have the right PVR.
As for "the fifth estate," I also find the generic guide information a small pain, however to work around it I set my PVR to record it once a week.
Connie got it right: “And that CBC News: Sucks.” Especially CBC Radio. Terrible. Repetitive. Myopic. Repetitive. Stupid. Repetitive. OverPadded. Repetitive. Inane. Repetitive. Biased. Repetitive. Restrictive. Repetitive. Parochial. Repetitive. Unchanging. Repetitive. Shallow. Repetitive.
No joke. Just listen for awhile. Ugh!