CBC Facing 800 Layoffs
CBC executives updated staff this morning about the state of CBC finances, announcing 800 layoffs.
“I wish I could be standing here in better circumstances,” CBC President Hubert Lacroix said, but “these are tough times for the public broadcaster.” He said, “we need $171 million to balance our budget, which will mean 800 positions.”
The plan is to raise about $125 million through the sale of assets he said. It’s based on the assumption that the government will allow the CBC to keep the proceeds of those sales. But even with those sales, balancing the books “still results in 800 positions,” Lacroix said.
Lacroix also said that the most senior managers would see a minimum 20 per cent reduction in take home pay, through bonus cutbacks, and the corporate level will face a five per cent cut across the board.
The layoffs would start over the summer months, and finish by the beginning of September.
Richard Strusberg, Vice-President of English Services, said “We’re going to have to cut as many as 400 people,” in English Services. He said he wants to maintain Radio One’s and Radio Two’s share without introducing advertising on radio. He also doesn’t want to lose the gains made in English Television or online. Another 363 cuts will come on the French side, and 70 corporate service positions.
But English television will feel the cuts slightly more than English radio, however “the beef of the schedule remains largely intact,” he said. “About 20 per cent” of the cuts will fall on the regions Stursberg added. The rest will come from the network.
Canadian Media Guild’s president Lise Lareau blamed the layoffs on the federal government. “At a time when Ottawa is supposed to be providing stimulus to the Canadian economy and ensuring that people maintain employment, cutting 800 jobs is the wrong approach to take.”
Tomorrow all of the managers will meet with the areas that are effected, “but it will be impossible to say exactly who will go and who will stay,” Stursberg said because of the uncertainty about the voluntary retirement package and how many people might take them.
Another town hall for English services will be held tomorrow at 2 p.m.
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Is anyone listening on the phone? French and English are both speaking at the same time so you can’t understand anything. And for me at least, the IO presentation didn’t load onto Media Player. Way to go CBC!!
Thanks so much for posting the transcripts here.
[...] Inside the CBC blog is providing a running commentary from the presentation by CBC President Hubert Lacroix to CBC staff about the state of the organisation’s [...]
Thanks for the updates. Windows Media Player does not recognize the file type and when I try to dial in I get English and French.
Just spoke with the help desk for conference call in English. The representative says that there is a problem on the CBC’s feed and the conference call folks are getting it in both languages on the English numbers.
Deleted media player and reloaded it still can watcht feed. You would think with the interest that there would not be these issues. Too bad they don’t use Quicktime.
Use the access numbers that were in the email not on the web.
… and we wonder why these guys can’t run a network?
Garbled French/angla: how representative of de public broadcaster problèmes to communicate to its own employees! Hehe…
Of course, they did not consider streamlining the redundant administration structure to save dough. Sigh…
Glad the TV is getting a good portion of the chops. This medium makes people go Alzheimer. Glad too that the regions have been mostly spared, in appearance anyhow.
[...] CBC To Cut 800 Jobs It was already announced that the CBC was going to try and make up some of its shortfall by cutting jobs and salaries rather than adding U.S. shows or commercials. But the official news still isn’t pretty. [...]
CBC cuts from core broadcasting services, BIG SURPRISE. TV and radio bear the brunt yet again. ITs a broadcasting company with less and less to broadcast but boy we have some really pretty toys now.
Whats the Return on Investment on the new Traffic, Programming and Sales system, archiving system. There is nothing to archive. How many HR folks do we need. Wait lots to sit in on all the layoffs.
I didn’t find the explanation of the executive bonuses convincing enough.
The crazies are running the asylum and were all in for trouble now. What’s next……… we get our news from Fox Broadcasting.
To The Moderator of Inside The CBC
how many positions in manitoba are Affacted?
Sean, about 80 positions will be lost in the regions, the rest are at the network. However there is no breakdown available by province, that may come tomorrow.
[...] Corporation President and CEO Hubert Larcoix announced the expected grim news this morning: CBC will have to cut $171 million from its budget to balance the books in [...]
thanks paul not looking foward to see who get axed.
btw paul is tod maffin still aroundor will be axed
Tod’s moved on. Check out his blog, he’s up to a bunch of stuff.
396 english radio
336 french radio
70 corprate layoffs
[...] where about one journalist in six in Canada has lost their job, that number just got a lot worse. CBC/Radio-Canada announced 800 job cuts today (about half split between the two sides to maintain political correctness) as part of an effort to [...]
Radio Canada International?
Could we just slash that please?
Do we get a vote on who goes? There are a couple of clowns on the National who would have my vote …
Get real guys, things are tough all over. Why should the CBC be exempt?
anyone from IT being layed off?
what’s with this person who keeps quoting parts of the blog??
“396 english radio
336 french radio
70 corprate layoffs”
Those numbers are not really true.
It is 396 for english services which includes tv, radio and web.
Similarly 363 for french services.
Radio is actually get the least percentage staff cut. Most of the staff cuts are on in network television on both sides.
Next Week on CBC , Ideas, Evelyn Fox Keller a scientist and philosopher argues that the “idea of genes” has outlived its usefulness. She explains why we need a new biology in her book The Century of the Gene.
If you enjoy this type of programming and want it to continue, look up your Member of Parliament (link below) and tell them that the $1.1 Billion the CBC is receiving is not enough and that they should have given the banks only $34.9 Billion and the other 100 million shortfall (due to lack of advertising) to our national broadcasting corporation. Else stay tuned for a new season of “Do you Think you can Dance?”
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCode.aspx?Language=E
No wonder funds slashed. If anyone listened to the trash of Monsoon whatever and the bloody hell dialogue, they would say, CUT!
Could The CBC be headed for a uncertain future?could Radio Canada Internal add more imigration crap and further cut North america’s throat at the same time? I for one have a way the CBC can save money:First,reinstate RCI’s mandate to tell international listeners all about The people and Life in Canada and not put too much emphasis on imigration issues.Second,get rid of the growling and squealing heard on transmitters at Sackville and once and for all put more shows on to North America since RCI cut us listeners off calling this area a”Spillover” zone.How wicked can The CBC Be? At least if i want to hear CBC i can listen online.
CBC Market Place is one sided. They did a show on my company recently and said only what they wanted to.
We spend about $500,000. annually on advertising with CBC, with plans to up it substantially. We asked not to portray us so negatively, but be fair and tell both sides. They refused. We stated we would stop advertising all together unless they reported accurately. We were told “go ahead cancel your advertising”
So…we did.
So employees of CBC, this is how much they care about you. Tell one sided reporting, refuse to be fair and your jobs are being cut as a result of inaccuracies of Market Place.
I would be happy to talk to your union reps. CBC is not the only game in town. You can tell its the government.
Again to the ones that are about to lose their jobs, I feel bad for you, but,…I wanted to spend enough money that would have saved maybe a few of your positions. Also, a few of my staff have been layed off as well, so they will be collecting benefits courtesy of us tax payers as well
I think that if we want to have ANY CBC/Radio Canada presence in the rest of the world – the parts that don’t speak either English or French, and there’s lots of places on Earth still thinking that way – we’d better hold onto RCI.
Anon. re Marketplace: Thank you for writing the very best justification for a public broadcaster imaginable. I’m sure your company would be delighted to live in a world where you can tell the press, “Don’t say anything bad about us, or we’ll hurt your revenues” – and have the media roll over out of fear for the bottom line. You’ve precisely spelled out the value of CBC and shows like Marketplace, one of the last places where you can’t buy your own coverage, or lack thereof.
RCI, the (usually) external SEPARATE shortwave service is invaluable overseas. We really need to expand it, in terms of overseas relays, hours on air, length of programs and presence in the minds of listeners (this means telling them in print, on TV, on local radio, that RCI is there at what times and frequencies)
Cutting off Chinese is a huge mistake as was the cancellation of broadcast Portuguese and Spanish. You can’t use local radio reliably to broadcast RCI. Political considerations come into play.
RCI is one of our better ambassadors overseas.
“Anon. re Marketplace: Thank you for writing the very best justification for a public broadcaster imaginable. I’m sure your company would be delighted to live in a world where you can tell the press, “Don’t say anything bad about us, or we’ll hurt your revenues” – and have the media roll over out of fear for the bottom line. You’ve precisely spelled out the value of CBC and shows like Marketplace, one of the last places where you can’t buy your own coverage, or lack thereof.”
Hopefully Marketplace was more accurate in it’s research and presentation about Anon’s company than the young lady who represented them at RS’s presentation was. If that was an indication of the level of investigative diligence they conduct before broadcasting their point of view then I can see his point.
This is such a sad situation. None of the private networks offer the services that the CBC provides, especially CBC radio and all the news. The other outlets don’t even come close.
This is not a surprise. The Harper government doesn’t want an educated population. The cuts to the CBC are one of the most visible manifestations of this.
How sad.
Good luck to the CBC and all the hardworking individuals who are about to be let go.