CBC plans to add social media elements into its web site, according to a memo to staff sent this morning by CBC TV executive Richard Stursberg.
“We want to move to a [web] 2.0 environment,” he wrote, “Providing our audiences with the ability to
- comment on items
- rate them
- link to them from their blog or website
- subscribe to specific types of content
- search for specific video content
- submit user-generated content.”
What else should we be doing? Let me know in the comments.
No word yet if CBC will redesign its logo to this:
televisionCBC 2.0 beta 
Stursberg also struck back at critics who say CBC TV is under siege. “We still have work to do, but we are by no means “beleaguered”, as some of the country’s television columnists — many of whom work, ultimately, for companies that have a commercial interest in our success or failure — would have people believe.”
Stursberg noted that CBC Televisions primetime share for the regular season to date is 7.3%. Our share for the ’05-’06 regular season was 7.3%. In ’04-’05 it was 6.7%; in ’03-’04 it was 7.3%; and in ’02-’03 it was 6.9%.
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Heh. Nice point in that last paragraph.
Okay. I an delurking to say this is what I LOVE about the CBC… the forward-thinkingness just blows me away. This, my friends, is the future of news.
THANK YOU!
Thanks for poking your head out, Andrea. Please keep unlurking!
As a Canadian living in the United States I would LOVE to see access to a CBC Newsworld web stream. The ‘other’ Canadian national news outlet has done this and I would be willing to pay for access to Newsworld if the price were reasonable.
Thanks for asking, Tod!
Happy to jump in. I’ve come up with 19 things I believe CBC can do to improve its online offerings… It is a little long so I’m not going to paste it here.
Full text: http://ketcheson.net/2007/01/30/cbc
Cheers.
This sounds interesting for sure. More interaction with CBC is a good thing. I cant get enough of Newsworld and RDI
[...] CBC hints at social media plans for its web site • CBC.ca web site • Inside the CBC Way to go CBC. I’ll try to blog my suggestions tonight. (tags: web2.0 cbc) [...]
Detractors don’t know what they’re talking about. From what I’ve seen, the CBC is leaps and bounds ahead of CTV and Global. I think that their respective ultra-private/corporate natures that have hitherto given them an edge is turning into a huge hinderance now. Welcome to the internet: the Gutenberg of the new millenium!
I wish I could download CBC radio shows to listen to when I want to. Not a podcast, not part of the show, but the whole show.
I’ve noticed that some shows do this (Sometimes Y for example) but most do not. I can’t understand why since Radio-Canada does this for a lot of their radio programs. Is it a technology thing, a staff thing, a copyright thing?
PS really like this site!
I REALLY like Ian Ketcheson’s suggestion about REALLY opening up the CBC Archives. I know that there are copyright issues but there is so much wonderful history available that would be a wonderful resource for students of Canadian history and the history of radio and TV broadcasting. The CBC Archives site is a treasurer now but think what it COULD be if more content were available.
It’s sad that much web 2.0 ’stuff’ was already in place at zed.cbc.ca four or five years ago.. why abandon it in the first place ?
The only drawback I see is that people can already do these things
comment on items
rate them
link to them from their blog or website
subscribe to specific types of content
search for specific video content
submit user-generated content.”
On a number of other websites - they can even rath, link to, comment on and subscribe to CBC content on various other websites (like del.icio.us and Digg). You can even ’subscribe’ to various types of content and get that content from anywhere (whether it is on the CBC, CTV, PBS or Al Jazeera) so, what is the incentive for people to use the CBC site to do it? I’m not sure at this point what it should be, but the CBC I think needs something new and different and/or needs to do it better than the others in order for people to opt in.
Elsewhere in the same staff memo, Mr. Stursberg makes a reference to CBC’s decision to embrace “the principles of civic journalism.” Previous memos had instead used the term “citizen journalism,” which is quite a different thing, i.e., using video, such as cellphone footage, brought to the CBC by non-journalists. Civic journalism is a different phenomenon entirely, and one could only wish the Corp would embrace it instead: less emphasis on conflict, negativity, and gotcha kinds of stories, in favour of a community-building approach to news, much like the changes proposed by the vaunted News Study, which seems to have just quietly gone away. Sir, get your civic and citizen straight, please, but then also encourage the institution of both new forms in CBC news.
Sorry that should be they can even ‘rank’ not ‘rath’
Ha. Everyone I know at CBC Van — people who’ve worked on innovative web platforms like R3 and Zed — who’s volunteered to be in a working group for this project has been turned down in favour of peopling the groups with CBC oldsters. This endeavour is sure to be another rousing CBC success story.
“It’s sad that much web 2.0 ’stuff’ was already in place at zed.cbc.ca four or five years ago.. why abandon it in the first place ?”
Because they just didn’t get it. And unfortunately, they didn’t make an effort to get it, even after Wired magazine wrote a piece on how Al Gore’s fledgling network Current paid them a visit to seek guidance for their project.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,67205,00.html
It was a bone-headed move to say the least, but I’m not shocked. CBC basically doesn’t get anyone under 40, which is why its audience is literally dying off. Hope they get it right this time around.
I agree with Sandip’s comment (above). ZeD was doing most of this stuff way before YouTube/Myspace and many other web 2.0 sites even existed. Now the show - and its dedicated web community of 40,000+ users - have been swept aside, only to usher in a much beleaguered & belated process of management attempting to bring cbc.ca and other CBC micro-sites up to speed with what’s been happening elsewhere on the web…for years.
There’s a strong likelihood that these ’social media’ initiatives will be too few & too late - and I fear that by the time CBC is ready to roll out the changes, the next phase of web developments will have leapfrogged past our dear mothercorp’s earnest attempts to remain relevant.
Nevertheless, the intentions seem good…I just hope the changes happen quickly.
Let me see if I have this straight: If people who work for other media say BAD things about CBC, it’s because they’re biased. If Stursberg (who works for CBC) says GOOD things about CBC, that’s not biased.
That’s the kind of “balanced” approach to news that keeps millions of us watching the CBC’s competitors.
Has CBC Edmonton managed to crack the 10,000 viewer mark yet? Over 100,000 watching CTV and another 100,000 watching Global, but CBC wants to upgrade their website?
They want people to leave comments? Anybody remember what happened to the old CBC forums and why it was eventually removed?
If CBC is truly a public broadcaster and I believe everybody thinks so because it sucks $1 billion out of taxpayers each year it should be placed on a pay for view site. That way we Canadians who do not watch it will have the choice of either paying for it or continuing not to watch it. The government is not in the business to support private corporations. They don’t support CTV or Global and therefore CBC should support itself through subscription fees and advertising. People then have a choice to watch the biased reporting of CBC or not. Choice for Canadians should be the option for all Canadians.
hey… does this mean Claude Galipeau is coming back to CBC.ca?
Doubtful. Claude seems to be doing well back at Alliance Atlantis, where they just launched BlogTV.ca.
>>>Stursberg noted that CBC Televisions primetime share for the regular season to date is 7.3%. Our share for the ’05-’06 regular season was 7.3%. In ’04-’05 it was 6.7%; in ’03-’04 it was 7.3%; and in ’02-’03 it was 6.9%.
Mervin - Yes they do, CTV and Global each get hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from the government. The majority of Canadians support funding for the CBC so get off of it already - besides, they’re not using your money, I asked and Harper said “Oh no…not Mervin’s tax money, that all goes to pay for toilet paper at our European embassies” So relax.
My above message apparently got messed up in transmission, so here goes again:
>>>Stursberg noted that CBC Televisions primetime share for the regular season to date is 7.3%. Our share for the ’05-’06 regular season was 7.3%. In ’04-’05 it was 6.7%; in ’03-’04 it was 7.3%; and in ’02-’03 it was 6.9%.
In short, the CBC’s primetime share numbers have improved over the last couple years, Lockout madness being a temporary monkeywrench in the process.
Observer, it is good to be reminded of this.
This is a great idea. I have to agree with the poster above about CBC being forward thinking. As to the CBC being beleaguered, or failing to understand its under-40 audience, that’s largely bogus: CBC has a huge, though hidden, cachet among the non-mainstream youth crowd. CBC needs to do more stuff like this (web2.0), promote and increase/promote the programming like Brave New Waves/Definitely Not the Opera, keep up with stuff like Ideas, etc…. pair up with the NFB…
The CBC has a dual role: they provide mainstream content and news (the standard, status-quo side of the CBC), and the also provide innovative, pushing-the-envelope programming. They need to keep their more mainstream stuff going, AND focus on their more indie stuff.
HEY, we the creators want to be PAID for looking at this stuff.
As I don’t watch TV, go to movies… (I do BUY the prev. viewed. DVDs. at $7.99 a pop, dvds are cheaper than paperbacks) or make a habit of watching /listening to oversalted (baised) radio/newspapers, enduring it is a chore.
SOME web-sites are offering half the ad revenes. I would like to see the cbc do the same for any creators it links to.
if they run any content other than their own, that is.
pat donovan
CBC hints at social media plans…
CBC plans to add social media elements into its web site such as user generated content, rating articles, and more interactivity! Way to go CBC!…