Is the CBC Museum closing?
There’s been quite a bit of speculation about the future of the CBC Museum, located in the atrium of the CBC HQ in Toronto. Some of the loose talk came out in the form of comments on pseudonymous CBC blogger Ouimet’s amusing Unsubstantiated Rumour Day, including this bit:
The closing of the CBC Museum actually took place May 31st. They’ve been doing inventory for the last month so we haven’t seen anything change. All the items are to be packed up and shipped to a basement in Ottawa, never to seen again.
The unsubstantiated rumours I can concoct pertain to what they are going to do with the space. Maybe they’ll put a big flower pot in the middle of the empty room and leave it like that for a few years, like the empty restaurant downstairs. I suspect they’ll move ST43/65 (which does the The Hour) down into that space.
In an attempt at substantiation, I contacted CBC Communications about the issue, and received this response from Jay Walsh:
The Museum is still open. In the short term the exhibit space will remain in its current location. Over time our plan is to reshape how we tell the story of CBC’s history. We’ll be developing this as part of our plans for revitalizing the public spaces in Toronto’s Broadcasting Centre.
The entire ground floor of the Canadian Broadcasting Centre is slated for a major overhaul – employees can read more about that on this intranet link. Here’s a snippet, listed under “Exciting plans for the ground floor”:
…we are working on a plan to bring local Radio, TV and On-Line programming to the ground floor, in a way that would allow them to integrate their operations, and at the same time maximize opportunities for public contact and impact….The concept is an “internal street” from the Front Street doors to the Atrium, with glass “garage doors” leading to studios on either side, and a full-height mezzanine floor work area above.
No word on what shows will be taped in those studios, of course, but you may recall that “glass garage doors” are what George was used to at CityTV. A similar redevelopment project is underway in Vancouver, with a similar emphasis on ground-floor interaction with the public. In any case, with all this reconstruction it stands to reason that changes may be coming for the CBC Museum.
Personally, I’ve always thought the TBC could do a better job of letting the public interact with the corporation, but from time to time it does a wonderful job – see photos of last week’s Kidsummer event for an example.
So, how does your CBC location to present itself to the public? What would you like to see? Thoughts on the Museum? Spill!
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“On-ling programming to the ground floor” …. Huh… what? So they are going to have a bunch of nerds typing on computers behind the “glass garage door”? Not very exciting if you ask me.
CBC.ca is currently on the 2nd floor, they are moving us to the 9th floor later. We haven’t heard of any plans that includes us in the Ground Floor.
What would be cool, however, is to have some sort of display or dashboard, that showed some cool real time stats about the Website… Maybe a ticker that displays what people are searching for (a la Google). Or a map showing where the site visitors are coming from.
We have the data, just not a cool way to display it.
Great idea. Too bad local radio programming already was on the ground floor with windows.
Maybe not, maybe they’re planning to build the world’s least secure data centre.
Blake: we plan to showcase streaming and hopefully site stats on large display monitors in the new space.
The Museum staff have been terminated. The custodians have been let go. Much of the material – donated by past employees – may end up on eBay. The new Museum and CBC persona will be sculpted by new people who don’t know who Knowlton Nash is. This is not bad – a new fresh face is important to – but at the expense of our priceless istory and collection of Artifacts?
Once again, the company practices death by stealth. None of the people actually involved with the Museum are under any illusions about what is happening: the meusum is being closed, the plan for the artifacts is non existant, despite Jay Walsh’s reply.
I challenge Jay and Stursburg – both involved in these discussions – to make public their plans for the artifacts which represnt much of the heratige of the CBC. Once the Custodians leave, others may see them as simply an impediment to redeveloping the real estate, and they will find their way onto E-Bay
I will be very sad to see the Museum go without something similar to take its place. During my only trip (to date) to Toronto, the opportunity to physically experience CBC history was a highlight. I’ll mourn its passing.
If the claim of pending death for CBC Museum is for real, I will count myself among the Disappointed. I liked the brief visit I made to the place during my latest trip to Toronto. It was something I’d hoped to revisit for a couple of years by then, and it was worth the time.
I do wish that it would be expanded, rather than shut down.
Re: “…Over time our plan is to reshape how we tell the story of CBC’s history.” There’s a fine line to cross in revisionist history. As a child of the 70s, I urge the CBC to stick to its strength in preserving history rather than competing with other local attractions.
I love Jay Walsh’s non-denial denial. It’s classic cbc management-speak.