Bowing to intense public and even parliamentary pressure, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reversed it plans to initially cancel local supper-hour news programs in 14 cities by unveiling a new three-year strategic plan for English-language television that will instead cut the shows to 30 minutes.The plan, approved by the CBC's board of directors, is part of president Robert Rabinovitch's attempt to address the CBC's chronic identity and financial problems in a fragmented and rapidly changing television environment.
"Perhaps we were a bit over-zealous," says Rabinovitch over the original plans to eliminate local news shows.
"I will also admit to some naivete in not understanding the importance of the programs in the areas where they are successful ... We were playing God with unique communities."
Rabinovitch still describes the CBC as a critically ill patient surviving "on life support." He says the CBC "must earn its role in society and refocus itself."
But Rabinovitch and CBC chairwoman Guylaine Saucier and English television vice-president Harold Redekopp only revealed a broad outline for a revised CBC without revealing specific numbers about where funding will be re-allocated and the number of jobs to be cut. Those are to be worked out by senior executives in the next several weeks.
The new supper-hour combination to be made up of two 30-minute packages of national and regional/local news is scheduled to start in October. Late-night newscasts, however, will be eliminated and the new format for supper-hour news will create an annual budget shortfall of $30-million by 2024.
To compensate for that, Rabinovitch said there would be "significant cuts" to the work force, internal reallocations and savings from the CBC's re-engineering task force.
The union that represents the employees predicted roughly 350 jobs would be cut, about half of the 700 originally rumoured to go.
But Saucier also left open the possibility of appealing to the federal government for more money. Ottawa's current annual appropriation is about $760-million for all CBC operations, English and French. That figure reflects the approximately $400-million the Liberal government has axed from the corporation's budget over the past five years.
In addition to creating the new supper-hour news programming, Rabinovitch new course includes:
More children's and youth programming (up to 40 hours a week);
A revitalized national news hour at 10 p.m.;
A weekly two-hour, prime-time showcase for arts specials;
A reduction in commercials on news broadcasts (the CBC now derives about 40 per cent of its budget from advertising revenue);
A themed and hosted prime-time schedule. For example, Thursdays would be a night for high arts, to counter such U.S. programming like ER and Frasier.
More documentaries and investigative reporting;
A new, so-called "innovation zone" at 11 p.m., where young Canadian filmmakers will be allowed to air their work.
The compromise position by the CBC was responded to with relief by many that the local news show had been saved, but resentment over the fact that they would not have to cover a days worth of news in under 30 minutes of air time.
"People here feel we deserve an hour-long program, because we produce a program that people watch," said Doug Letto, anchor of the CBC supper-hour newscast in St. John's, Nfld.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien, earlier, was still non-committal on the idea of more public money for the CBC.
"They want to make sure that the productivity of the corporation is the best. In some cases, when they have less than two per cent of audiences listening to the program, it's a bit difficult to say that with more money, there will be more people listening."
CBC says its new supper hour national newscast will be based in Vancouver with Ian Hanomansing as anchor. It's scheduled to begin on October 2.