No Layoffs at the CBC – For Now
In a plainspoken message to employees yesterday, CBC President Hubert Lacroix, announced that there would be no layoffs at the CBC if there’s “any way to avoid it.”
“Where others are contemplating and predicting layoffs, we are looking to put in place and push forward with solutions that won’t involve cutting jobs,” Lacroix said yesterday in a email to employees.
Lacroix said CBC employees are the foundation of the corporation “and we don’t want to chip away at that foundation.” This comes in the wake of layoffs announced at Canwest this week, with CTV predicting similar measures.
Nevertheless cost-cutting measures are being put in place immediately:
- All new-hires will have to be reviewed at the vice-presidential level;
- Significant reductions in travel, hospitality and entertainment expenses;
- Additional reductions in overtime.
Lacroix also appealed directly to employees to help. “You know the details of your particular operations best. Look around; think hard about what it is you do. If you have an idea as to how your unit or department could cut costs over the coming year, pass that idea on to your director. “
So, do you have any ideas on how to cut costs at the CBC? Post a comment below with your thoughts.
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Famous last words. When it comes to layoffs the front line staff bear the brunt of them.
Management dodges the bullet, will still have their lavish travels budgets, expense accounts and parking spots where they work all paid by the CBC.
Cuts are coming and don’t be suprised if we get locked out agian.
Careful has the mandarins try to spin this bad news is down the road.
The CBC should make major cuts to National. They should operate as the privates do. Material should be used from each of the areas covered by local news crews across the country to make up the national news hour. They should not have duplication and they should not have national reporters and shooters.
I have been in remote markets where people are paid OT just to do a story for the nat that is already being done by local staff, or national staff including producers travel in to do a story that is already being covered locally.
I understand the quailty issue but I see it as a waste.
Also, why do we have an assignment desk and a crew desk? Every other station I lnow of has one assignment desk. Now in Toronto they have the crew desk, then local crew desk (to manage 4 or 5 shooters) and an assignment desk. They don’t even communicate well with each other.
[...] But this year it’s all happening against the backdrop of announced layoffs, hiring freezes, suspenions of internship programs and warnings that things will only get worse in newsrooms across the country. In Canada, first it was the news that Canwest would eliminate 560 jobs across the country. Then it was CTV’s turn. So far the CBC has announced there will be no layoffs — at least for now. [...]
How about not printing hundreds of thousands of flyers and magnets to hand out to just staff? How about managers not flying around all over the country all the time? How about the BOD not having meetings all over the country? And, as others have said – stop duplicating everything so there’s so much overtime…
@Anon
“I have been in remote markets where people are paid OT just to do a story for the nat that is already being done by local staff, or national staff including producers travel in to do a story that is already being covered locally.
I understand the quailty issue but I see it as a waste.”
^
I’m one of those journalists in remote markets. If I want the world to be aware of something going on in my community – which happens from time to time, the North can be a very interesting place – it’s not a matter of just sending a story over to National. You do a totally different piece. And National editors are very specific about what they want (and rightly so). So you end up with over worked journalists who DON’T get paid over time (National doesn’t realize, local can’t afford it) resenting their employer.
Fire Magid. RIGHT NOW!
We have better trainers in house, if we were allowed
to use them.
There are also people (managers) who “commute” to Toronto at the CBC’s expense. If you want the job then move.
I was waiting for the elevator today and noticed a full colour legal size poster printed on heavy bond poster stock that was an ad for “Take a manager to lunch …. with podcasts”. We all get email every time these podcasts go up. Do we really need to print full colour posters?
Radio 2 should be privatized.
Since it’s now aiming at the same audience that many commercial stations aim at, it should be run commercially.
We should hold off the massive renovations and real estate ventures. Commercial real estate is the next crash.
Stop moving people around. Moving desks and edit suites is fun, but a it’s also a huge waste of money.
We should cancel the high-budget shows that nobody watches.
We should stop wasting money on advertising the high-budget shows that nobody watches.
If we’re going to keep the money-pit programs in the prime time schedule, we should stop moving them around. People need to have time to develop a relationship with their TV programs.
We stop dropping four colour, card stock flyers on every employees desk.
We should produce more in-house productions so that we own the copyright and can profit of repurposing. Despite what the flyers say, it’s hard to believe we’re a “content company” these days. Most of our shows are made by outside production companies. (With the obvious exception of news, for now.) In the short-term this saves a little money, but we lose in the long-run.
We should stop paying large sums of money for show ideas from other international broadcasters. This building is full of creative people (for now), surely we can come up with some of our own.
Buy only tested and proven software so that we don’t spend a fortune tweeking and tweeking it until we decide it doesn’t work. Again, this costs in the short-term, but saves in the long-run.
Turn the heat down and lower the air conditioning. Turn the lights out at night.
CBC Execs should not have their own PR people.
Please examine some of the expenses in the sales and marketing group. Tickets that go out to staff families. Jr Clients that are not in decision making roles, wined and dined. hockey tickets given out to all. Salaries that average from the 90-120K Well beyond industry average for a conventional station that is in decline. Even if CBC’s numbers are up the medium of conventional television is in decline. The head of sales in an article in Marketing Magazine concluded that PVR’s will actually benefit advertisers? Get real. Go non commercial. Cut the sales team out. Focus on Canadian content and stop competing with Dancing with Stars. Smart intelligent content is what you need. Build more balance in news. To make money get someone who understands this new market. Free advice as you consider layoffs
Cost for Standard CBC Laptop running all applications needed for Work $1553.12
Cost for “cool” Mac Powerbook, also running all applications needed for work $3197.74.
Will we now be buying Hummers for mobile division? They are kinda “cool” too.
Monk: You have no idea how capable and decently priced a normal MacBook is these days, do you? Especially loaded up with open source-ware.
I expect that some of the technical experts on the payroll will likely be able to school me on weaknesses in my argument while still supporting the spirit of it…
I wonder if anyone over at CTV is still glad they got the hockey anthem, instead of saving around 50 of those jobs?
Dwight: I do respectfully support the spirit of your comment. I am not Anti-Mac. I even have one. They are capable.
As for decently priced. See above, twice the price priced to CBC requirements.
Unfortunately a lot of mission-critical applications only run on Windows so justifying the additional expense for a Mac just seems like buying a Thoroughbred just to cripple it.
This is a comment on a potential cost-savings, not an O/S comment
. We don’t NEED them.
But IT doesn’t support them, so think of the TCO savings!
There’s a simple solution to saving money at the CBC – remove some of the layers of upper management!! I think my boss has 4 or 5 bosses….what do all these managers do?? Oh yeah – NOTHING!! Oh right – they do read emails, sit in meetings and waste taxpayers money on lunches. Give me a break!!