25 Mar CBC Cuts: digital-info round up
Today the CBC held an internal Town Hall to describe the public broadcasters plans for the future. The big news:
- $171 million shortfall
- $125 million "one time" assets sale
- 800 jobs lost: 400 from each French & English, 70 corporate
- 20% cut for senior managers
- 5% across the board budget cuts
- Conservative Government refused bridge financing
- 17% cut from radio, 83% from TV
- 20% cuts in regions, 80% at network level
Coverage:
AP
Bloomberg
Canwest News Service (Gazette)
National Post
CP
Globe & Mail
G&M video
Ottawa Citizen
CTV.ca
And, here is the CBC’s own story.
Live or near live Blogs:
Inside the CBC
Friends of Canadian Broadcasting
National Post's Ampersand
Unfortunately, live blogging over at the Friends of the CBC hit a snag when the teleconference calls, both French and English language, streams were being fed at the same time. The well-known CBC blogger, “Fake Ouimet,” who also provided readers access to the all important teleconference codes, over at the Tea Makers, was also snagged by this technical mishap. [Updated: See comment below from Fake Ouimet; and for anyone confused by the Ouimet/Fake Ouimet thing; this post from "Fake Ouimet" should clear it up.]
Audio of the CBC town hall Q&A & Transcript of opening remarks:
Midway through the call the audio cleared up. Here is the audio of the Question and Answer section at the town hall for staff:
And, a PDF transcript of the opening remarks.
Commentary:
- New Democrat MP Charlie Angus goes after Minister Moore in the House of Commons (above)
- Friends of Canadian Broadcasting reacts to news of regional cuts
- Mark Kuznicki, a thinker and change advocate in Toronto, writes about the future of journalism: open source
- Former Dion operator, George Young, suggests Harper has "written off" Quebec
- Online journalism professor Alfred Hermida runs down the facts
Other sources to find more:
Twitter Search for the #CBC hashtag
Google Blog Search for CBC cuts
Canadian Media Guild Reaction; union representation most at the CBC
Fake Ouimet details today's English Service town hall with Richard Stursberg, CBC executive VP
[Please note: this post will be updated several times as more news develops from regions and sections at the CBC]
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Open Source Journalism : Remarkk! (March 25th, 2009 at 3:55pm)
[...] a massive transformation. Many inside are feeling the pain, not the least of which are the CBC’s 800 employees about to get the axe. Clay Shirky recently wrote an important piece about “thinking the unthinkable” in [...]
Dude. Alphonse Ouimet did not write the liveblog; I did. Fake Ouimet is me. It is a pseudonym, but everyone has known from day one that I’m Fake Ouimet.