Effective immediately, CBC News will be re-organized into two main areas: Programming and Newsgathering. Both divisions will be headed by CBC Radio’s senior two executives who will be leaving their roles in radio.
- Programming will be led by Jennifer McGuire, who will become Executive Director of News Programming and Deputy Head of News. In her new role, she will define the mandate, voice and tone of news programs across all platforms—Radio, Television, Newsworld and CBC.ca.
- Todd Spencer will join News as the Executive Director of News Content. Todd’s extensive experience in this role while in CNN’s Asia bureau will bring insights to his team and to News generally.
The new structure, under CBC News publisher John Cruickshank, appears like this:
- Executive Editor of News: Esther Enkin
- News Programming: Jennifer McGuire
- Strategy and Innovation: Heaton Dyer
- News Content: Todd Spencer
- Finance: Iain McIntosh
- Don Knox will be “senior director”
* Read the CBC’s backgrounder on these changes [internal link only] on iO, the new CBC intranet.
REACTION FROM STAFF
These were among the questions posed by CBC staff at the announcement:
“What changes will occur to local news?”
Cruickshank: “We’ll see a level of coordination through the country through the newsrooms and the new universal desk, coordinating with the assignment desks, so there’s a coordination with all newsrooms across the country. Jennifer will bring programming expertise to the newsrooms, supplementing the beginning work we’re doing with the Magid [U.S. news consultants] folks.”
“What kind of resources are you putting into reporting?”
Cruickshank: “Over time,we really want to focus on folks that are audience-facing — people who are on-camera and on-mic who are actually engaged directly with the audience. That’s got to be an evolutionary thing, but it simply has to happen. The first steps have to do with communications and coordination, though.”
“I thought I heard the words ‘investment in local tv news.’ What does that mean for the poor souls putting on hour-long shows with six or seven people?”
Cruickshank: “We’ve seen investment in local news, staffing in Vancouver, training, and an enormous amount of research. We’re going to continue to try to engineer our operations so we get more feet on the street. This is going to take time. It’s not going to happen overnight. For most folks, tomorrow is not going to be a different day. This is going to be evolutionary.”
CBC’S QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
The CBC published a list of prepared Q&As on its intranet earlier today. This content comes from CBC Communications (you can tell, since the phrase “extend and leverage the brand” exists in it 
)
What is changing in News?
We are creating structures that will allow for faster and more complete sharing of intelligence across platforms and across the country. This will permit us to get breaking news on all our platforms faster than the competition and will enhance our ability to break news more often.Are there going to be budget cuts?
Our overall News budget will remain the same. We continually review our budgets against priorities. As a result, resources will shift to meet those priorities.What is Esther Enkin’s role? How does it differ from Jennifer’s new role?
As Executive Editor of News, Esther’s focus will be on journalistic policy and standards.Are there any changes to Current Affairs?
Jennifer McGuire will be responsible for Television Current Affairs programming. Linda Groen continues to be responsible for Radio Current Affairs and Radio Current Affairs will report into Radio.What changes are going to be made to The National?
We are looking at how we can extend and leverage the very powerful National brand.What’s the status of Magid?
The Magid consultants will continue to be involved in research, training and strategies to support our evolving breaking news strategy.
So, do you work at CBC News or for a current affairs show? How does this announcement affect you?
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God help us. That snarky expression of Radio folks in the sixties - "Television is just Radio with pictures" - is finally true.
And the Interweb is just Radio with pictures and text.
That’s some good reporting here in these last three posts, Tod.
Fascinating.
Good work.
Real information here, despite the more than irritating manner in which these two men express themselves with a kind of "speak" that borders too close to flim-flam, whether intended or not.
I have to wonder if they interpret their words the same way as the listener perceives them.
First rate questions by Enright, something you’re not so bad at yourself, Tod.
Apart from the self-serving parts.
Can start by making The National and proper hour long news programme, commercial free.
As an outsider, this will be interesting for me to watch. I really appreciate CBC news and I think the integration between radio, television and Web is very strong. It seems to flow well (I’m near Vancouver, BC) and have adequate resources. I like that CBC provides me what I need to know in an hour and doesn’t generally sensationalize.
I’m a bit concerned to read they continue to work with a consultant firm from the United States. Don’t assume everything down here is better, believe me - it’s NOT, especially on the TV side of things. Radio continues to have its audience shrink and age, also a concern.
Integration is good.
Enthusiasm for content on new platforms is good.
I cheer on the huge effort to make CBC TV more relevant in this country (something a long time coming).
I just want to caution our new leaders about language.
Because how you speak about something lets us know so much about what priority you give it.
From my seat in the crowd I heard the constant use of the term "audience-facing employees".
Please stop using it.
Not only is it jargon for host or reporter (presenter), it is a visual term.
I get the sense in all of this that radio is now being defined by what it is NOT.
Not TV.
Not the web.
And doing so well in ratings that is NOT a problem to be fixed.
That’s great.
But as management continues its push to rebuild a TV audience (and build ad revenue with it), and reign supreme over new media platforms (yahoo!), please don’t forget that radio IS it’s own intimate and unique medium.
People listen while making their kids pancakes on a Sunday Morning, while they are tucking themselves into bed at night, while they drive the kilometers of this huge country, or doing whatever they do while existing in their world. It’s used in a different way than TV and the web. Great radio programming is like music. It touches the soul, engages the mind, and taps into emotions.
Radio IS sound.
And sound IS good.
And dear leaders, they don’t have to be FACING us to hear it.
Onwards and upwards,
Theresa Lalonde
CBC Vancouver
The biggest shocker here is Allan is being nice to Tod.
All it took was a switcheroo in management .
There was a management change?
When Tod does something well I think it deserves acknowledgment. His "exit" and other interviews are usually very good. Not as confrontational as I would like, but good enough.
I have criticism too, but, as we’ve come learn, that’s not allowed.
I am seriously suspect at any initiative from the CBC Brass. Everytime they do something, the CBC suffers. The latest idiotic move is to abolish the CBC on AM frequencies and moving long established AM programing to the FM band. The excuse, weel AM does not penetrate buildings. FM also does not penetrate the same distance as AM. The AM band is a solid performer allowing folks the chance to listen thousands of miles away in the middle of the forest. FM can not do that. News gathering from a central source for both TV and Radio is foolish. IN the first place the audiences are not the same, secondly radio news must be written differently.
Kick the centralist tinkering executives out of the programming picture and let the locals do their thing. Executives should be only playing with spreadsheets on their computers, period.
I am not impressed with this new approach.
I was chatting with retired CTV senior executive at a little cocktail get-together this weekend. He told me that in the early 90s Magid came to Agincourt to give them a pitch. And then Magid was shown the door, "We didn’t need eyewitless news" the executive said.
Look at CTV. Good ratings on the main net, and they haven’t changed their look in 18 years.
And Theresa, while you love radio, look at the demographics.
If the younger generation only wants satellite delivered music and gets their news from the web, it is highly unlikely that they will move to current affairs radio as they grow older. Your "yahoo" shows that unfortunately you are out of touch with the under 30s. So if you want them to listen you have to find a way to reach them with stories that relevant to their lives (and unfortunately there is no indication that management knows how to do that and even if people in radio came up with a good way of doing that management would listen)
Making radio programming decisions based on age demographics is a pointless strategy. Why change a successful service to accommodate listeners who aren’t likely to ever tune in? If radio is to die a natural death as it’s audience dwindles and technology changes, so be it. But don’t re-program today’s radio to appeal to an audience it will never have, then call it a failure.