Full Steam Ahead: Kirstine Stewart Responds to Stursberg’s Departure
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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Please privatize the CBC. The CBC is a damaging force to Canada; not an asset. Furthermore, Canadians simply don’t care, and don’t want to pay for it. If we did, more than 1% of us would watch this trivial channel.
Shouldn’t that read “Full Steam Sideways”?
Agreed.
Either privatize it and let it loose with the other big dogs or cut it back to pure essential services that don’t compete with private industry.
How typical. In an effort to be inclusive of Canadians outside of Toronto…reference to cheering the Habs and Canucks besides the Leafs…she ignores the Oilers and Flames.
Delbert: No. You don’t – and won’t – speak for all Canadians on this privatization push or the CBC in general.
Didn’t she also say:
“Nobody can ever question the quality of what we do here in Canada, creatively or otherwise.”
In other words, we’re going to do what we like and you are going to continue to pay for it.
Nothing like keeping an objective, open mind and listening to the people. FIRE THEM ALL.
I may be in love with Kirstine Stewart.
I absolutely DO NOT agree with Delbert! I am continuously dismayed by what’s being done to the CBC. The dumbing-down, the cut backs on local programming, the cancellations of excellent shows in favour of “lowest common denominator” fluff… This isn’t the thin edge of the wedge – it’s gone way beyond that. CBC – especially radio – used to be creative, intelligent, original. It felt like a democracy, as people across the country chimed in. Our most recent government has shown a clear agenda for dismantling this once wonderful service, in favour of anti-intellectual twaddle. It breaks my heart.
Kirstine, I hope you really do listen to your audience and start questioning the direction that CBC has been heading in these last few years. Richard Stursberg did not, and instead made monumental changes to CBC programming on both TV and especially on radio that has alienated and driven away many of your longtime audience members. In particular, may I remind you of the debacle of the huge changes your upper management made to CBC Radio 2 back in Sept. 2008 (Now the idiotically named “New 2″, as many insist on calling it).
In the days and weeks following these changes to the programming, hopefully you will recall the hundreds upon hundreds of comments on the Radio 2 blog from loyal listeners who were angry at the changes, most notably to Tom Allen’s morning classical program being revamped into contemporary Canadian pop/rock tripe. I myself was angry over the gutting of Disc Drive hosted by the brilliant Jurgen Gothe, to make way for the tedious Canadian singer/songwriter drivel (mostly tuneless indie rock and rap) that comprised the new Drive show. Like I said, the hundreds of comments that flowed in after these changes were overwhelmingly negative, with more than 90% of them in protest and only a scant few from those that liked the new programming.
More recently we have been witness to huge changes on CBC’s all news channel, formerly CBC Newsworld but now renamed CBC NN, the significance of which has not been lost on those of us who see that you want CBC to be a flashy clone of CNN. Now with lots of flashing, constantly moving graphics, and “Breaking News” reports every few minutes to the beat of inane rock music, CBC news is mostly sizzle with little steak. We also have learned from various watchdogs that CBC’s own news staff, particularly the news director and top journalists on The National fought these changes valiantly, but Richard Stursberg went ahead with his master plan anyway, the better to lure more “eyeballs” to the network.
Look, I understand and appreciate the fact that CBC has seen many budget cuts in recent years from both the Conservative and Liberal governments. Believe me, I wish that full funding would be restored and let you concentrate on creating excellent programming on both television and radio. But the answer is not to generate cheap pap such as reality shows or sophomoric comedies like the dreadful “Sophie”. This type of thinking only compounds the problem, leading to longtime viewers and listeners shaking their heads in disgust, many of us migrating away to PBS TV and radio, and whatever few private classical and jazz music stations we can find to listen to (and there aren’t many!) Clearly, CBC has been increasingly not interested in serving this audience in recent years, forsaking the type of intelligent and arts based programming that we always had previously associated with the public network.
So in closing, Kirstine, I would ask that you and your staff endeavor to get CBC back on track as the great public broadcaster it once was. In particular, please show more trust in your news directors and established journalists, as they truly know best how to produce news programming that matters.
“Our most recent government has shown a clear agenda for dismantling this once wonderful service, in favour of anti-intellectual twaddle.”
you mean the Liberals? Their cutting CBC’s funding was one of their best initiatives! Now if only we can convince Harper to cut more funding as well… Smiling Harper has only sustained the wasteful CBC’s funding.
“Kirstine, I hope you really do listen to your audience “…. but, don’t you see the illogic here? The CBC audience is a tiny minorty of leftwingers. CBC is a gigantic behemoth of money wasting, and it cannot possibly exist, either democratically or financially, by catering to 1% of Canada’s population. Fortunately for taxpayers, the CBC is deep trouble either way.