If there were any sour grapes back in March when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government forced the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to cut 800 jobs, they certainly weren’t showing on Wednesday, Oct. 21, when CBC announced changes to their news lineup. In fact, they appear to be taking it in stride.

 

CBC undergoes a makeover from its old broadcast model to a social media model.

It has been nearly seven months since the colossal job-cutting spree, a reality enforced by Heritage Minister James Moore after he refused to give them a “bail-out” for their financial woes.
     With a new lineup of shows, a new look and feel to existing staples like The National and even some new faces, the CBC appeared to be sending the message that they can remain current, relevant and financially viable, even as the methods Canadians use to consume the news continue to evolve.
      The flashy media blitz event held at the CBC headquarters in downtown Toronto brought in journalists and stakeholders from across the city hoping to catch a glimpse of what one of Canada’s oldest institutions believes is the future of the news industry.
     If you ask the CBC’s executive vice-president of English services Richard Stursberg, the future is when you want it and how you want it. Stursberg said today’s latest technology paired with the recession pushed CBC to “completely rebuild [their] internal work processes,” resulting in what he described as “the most sweeping reorganization and re-launch in CBC’s history.”
    “The old model was a broadcast model,” Stursberg told Excalibur. “The new model is the social media model.”
      It’s a risk, but it appears as though CBC has done their homework when it comes to the new age of media consumption.
    An unscientific survey of 55 York University   students conducted by Excalibur seems to confirm that what the CBC is banking on is true. The survey shows that 61 percent of the students surveyed turn primarily to online sources for their news.
    Still, it appears as though the demise of the six o’clock news is not as imminent among this generation as perhaps once thought, with 24 percent of respondents claiming television as their main source of news. In fact, 54 percent of respondents said they watch televised news broadcasts three or more times a week.
  Back in March, Moore suggested that the financial difficulties were a result of an outdated business model, and the CBC could operate on the existing funds it already had. The CBC has clearly taken Moore’s advice to heart, but that doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods just yet.
   One of the biggest potential areas of difficulty with the new model is pleasing advertisers while continuing to bring in the same revenue as before. It’s something that Stursberg admits is relatively
uncharted territory.
    “The strategy now is if you don’t know where things are going, then the best thing that you can do is to place your bets everywhere,” he said.
And that’s exactly what they’ve done. The CBC will be including ad space in more places than just traditional commercials on TV or banners online. A pre-roll commercial prior to their podcasts is just one example of where the CBC hopes to cash in with advertisers and a younger viewing audience.
    Peter Mansbridge, a fixture behind the news desk for the past 20 years, said that is the constant challenge: keeping the content and the technology up to speed with the new generation of Canadian news watchers.
    An example of a step the CBC has taken in this direction is providing the option to customize the order in which you watch the stories on the online edition of The National.
One of the biggest lineup changes is shuffling former CBC News: Sunday Night anchor to a new show in Ottawa. Power & Politics with Evan Solomon will replace Don Newman’s Politics. The new two-hour show  will try to tap into how the players, events and issues at Parliament Hill actually affect the average Canadian.
     “For 25 years there was no political choice in what kind of coffee you buy. Now Michael Ignatieff drinks a cappuccino and it’s front page news because he’s an elitist,” Solomon joked.
Solomon said he thinks that university-aged people are “profoundly interested in politics [ . . . ] but, just like [his] show’s mandate, they don’t believe that all politics happen at question period.”
     In fact, in the Excalibur survey, 42 percent of respondents said they would rate their level of political activism at a six or higher on a scale of one to 10. When asked the same question about Canadian party politics, just 32 percent rated themselves a six or higher.
    CBC Newsworld will be renamed CBC NN (News Network), and, as the CBC’s Harry Forestell – who will take on a new role as a breaking news reporter – told Excalibur, the new CBC NN won’t shy away from covering breaking news, even if details are scarce.
   “Fundamentally, what we’re trying to let viewers know is this is the story at this moment, here’s what we know about it, quite honestly, here’s what we don’t know about it and here’s the route we’re going to take to try to get you the details,” he said.
   “The goal here is to expand the CBC’s reach, to find a way to reach [a younger viewer] who doesn’t sit down every night to watch the news.” Nancy Wilson, CBC News: Today weekend anchor, echoed Forestell’s sentiment.
   “All polish all the time can be quite alienating,” she said, describing how the new CBC will get information on air faster than they have done before, even if it means sometimes sacrificing aesthetics.
   The new changes went into effect on Oct. 26, and further improvements will continue to be announced over the next few weeks.

 

What CBC news personalities are saying about:

 

 THE BROADCAST NEWS MODEL

 

“At the end of the day you get this neatly packaged three-and-a-half or two-and-a-half minute piece that lays out the whole story with no rough edges. That’s not the way the news happens. Anyone who has been in the business knows it’s hit and miss.”

 

- CBC’s Harry Forestell

 

CHANGING MEDIA

“People are becoming way more sophisticated at accessing information themselves. There has been a sort of democratization of information gathering [ . . . ] There is an expectation that you want your information and you want it now, because you can get it.”

- CBC’s Nancy Wilson

 

REPLACING DON NEWMAN

 

 

“I have nothing but the greatest respect for Don, and as you know I’m stepping into big, big shoes, but [my show] is a different show.”

- CBC’s Evan Solomon