The CBC’s Strategic Direction
CBC President Hubert Lacroix’s recent online Q & A session (here, or here) yielded some interesting insights into CBC’s strategy.
Lacroix said that priority will go to “things that enable us to become a content company, to become the most important creator and distributor of Canadian content across all platforms.”
Those comments align with several comments that both Lacroix and Richard Strursberg have made over the last couple years about producers becoming content creators on multiple platforms instead of being radio or television or online producers. That dedication to content producing was reinforced when cbc.ca was spared any layoffs in last week’s cost cutting.
Now on the face of it, this seems like a smart move. However the view from the trenches is a little different.
Outside of news on cbc.ca most of the online content creation – ie the guys that put content onto multiple platforms – is done by online producers. For the most part these producers are attached to shows. Cutting the production budget of shows, will put pressure on their online budgets, which means less, not more, content on multiple platforms. This will actually move the corporation further from creating and distributing content on multiple platforms effectively.
Take the show Being Erica for instance. This is a show with a innovative online presence. The main character of the show ‘Erica’ is online, in character, and uses the internet to interact with the audience and advance the storyline. As I said before this is an innovative strategy. But cutting back on episodes of the show will put pressure on that strategy and I worry impede the progress CBC has made as multiple-platform broadcaster.
For the CBC, how this tension between strategic direction and actual implementation plays out will have significant impact due to the recent amalgamation of the Canadian Television Fund and the new media fund. In the future all shows seeking Canadian Media Fund money will require significant online components. “Doing something interesting online will be a must-have if you want to get CMF cash,” a comment from Kev on this blog says.
Newslab also an article on the subject here.
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Our online presence is extremely important but the online content comes from radio & TV progrmas. Reduce those services the online services suffers as well.
We need more folks producing programming so that the online team can post it.
The most important thing though apparently it the senior management teams bonuses. Sorry to post it again , really irks me.
Also, don’t forget the CTF/BNMF amalgamation that’s in the works. Assuming that the online component requirement becomes reality and is anything other than a “you have a blog? Here’s some money!” rubber stamp, doing something interesting online will be a must-have if you want to get CMF cash.
[...] In a post that appeared on my RSS reader and now says “No Post Found“, the Inside the CBC blog sheds some light on CBC’s digital strategy: Now on the face [...]
Glad, you are not alone. It’s a fourfold slap in the face and I don’t understand why people supposedly (and by their own delclaration) “exceeding” their requirements in a communication industry can be so overwhelming out-of-touch and bad at branding themselves.
The mere fact it has remained is a prime example that they have not “exceeded”, and may not have even met base competency. Certainly not if their job is to manage people. (I don’t think a uplink really cares, but I might be wrong).
It insults management, who actually HAVE exceeded their requirements every day (I know of quite a few).
It insults non-management who have exceeded any and all expectations day after day, year after year. (In honesty, I include myself in that group and know it to be true).
TIt insults the soon to be ex-CBC’ers who certainly could have used the two mil. to help with their “sorry, all we can afford” buy outs.
So yes, it’s just one of the current issues that miff me. But if you watched M. Lacroix’s (never Hubert again) face and the arrogant outrage he tried to suppress…do you think anybody is going to push the issue now that we are being ruled by fear?
We know we will never get any justification or validation of that issue, so why put your gut in a know?
So yes Glad, I am dissapointed and angry…but it’s just another proof of how powerless and invisible the actual “doers” of this organization are. I’m just too bummed out, burned out and scared to put up much of a fight any more.
The suits have won…did we really expect any better from them?
hey paul a question for you is martinafitzgerald the new host for worldreport
check this link:http://www.cbc.ca/worldreport/
it still has the former host judy maddren
Just to be clear, I put qualifiers around what I said about the CMF because a) I wouldn’t be surprised to see this whole thing rolled back or scaled down given the industry outcry (as it shafts anyone smaller than a broadcaster) and b) it would depend on them not actually rubber-stamping it. Given that the CTF’s expertise lies in broadcasting it could be that the regulations and the oversight will be lax enough that having a twitter feed updated yearly will tick the box.
And I also am much more annoyed by the bonuses thing than anything else. Probably anyone non-management (and a lot of junior- and middle-managers) has been at the sharp end of someone or other chivvying or outright bullying them into “completing” some pointless task or other, while important work goes undone, so said individual can justify their bonus. The idea that this is the part of the corporate culture most worth protecting is pretty crazy, to me, and definitely hard to justify.
“things that enable us to become a content company, to become the most important creator and distributor of Canadian content across all platforms.”
Perhaps the suits will have to look at what the BBC and ARTE are doing with new medias in a world that can no longer afford to carry cultural and linguistic ghettos. They may become more credible then. Until then, they have a heck of mess to clean up, i.e. the one they have created in the first place…
“That dedication to content producing was reinforced when cbc.ca was sparred any layoffs in last week’s cost cutting.”
You narrow-minded little nebbish.
There is more to CBC than cbc.ca as Sylvain LaFrance can tell you with his boots.
SRC did drop all the cultural writers, and you could see by the list beside the story
http://www.radio-canada.
ca/arts-spectacles/PlusArts/2009/03/26/001-radio-canada-programmation.asp
….”À Radio-Canada.ca, la section Arts et spectacles ne publiera plus les
chroniques écrites par Michel Coulombe, Danielle Laurin, François Blain et
Lili Marin. ”
That’s everyone, and the Ukrainian and Chinese services, but you’ve never looked outside of Toronto English, eh senor.
Bill, I’ll leave your pointless insults aside. As I said cbc.ca was sparred any layoffs. I didn’t say radio-canada.ca was spared any layoffs, because it wasn’t. As for the cuts at RCI of Chinese and Ukrainian services I don’t see what that has to do with cbc.ca either.
Dood, itz speld ‘spared’ not ‘sparred.’
Newman – you mean you don’t want to joust? ; )