Second day of trying to be open-minded and give the "new 2" a chance. Driving back to Ottawa from Toronto, I tune into Julie Nesrallah's new program, "Tempo", at 11:45 AM. I listen to Ms. Nesrallah's show until I begin to lose reception of CBC Radio's Toronto station somewhere east of Toronto.
A second day of listening to Ms. Nesrallah's show confirms my first impression from yesterday - this is excellent programming, and precisely the type of program CBC Radio Two should be offering to it's listeners, not only during the 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM time slot but throughout the day and evening.
When I lose reception of 94.1 FM I turn to Sirius satellite radio, "Symphony Hall".
Sometime after 3:00 PM, and still driving to Ottawa, I search for the CBC Radio Two station from Kingston. I used to have all of the CBC Radio Two stations stored on my car radio, so that I could switch from Ottawa to Kingston, then from Kingston to Toronto while driving from Ottawa to Toronto. But it's been so long since I've listened to CBC Radio Two that I've forgotten the frequency for Kingston's Radio Two station. I scan the frequencies, searching for Radio Two, then realize the problem - when CBC Radio Two sounds like any other commercial station on the radio, how do you find it by scanning the dial? Wait until the hourly news, then scramble for five minutes to find the station? Continue to scan until you hit one of those annoying promos for CBC Radio Two's new programs? I give up in frustration and return to Sirius.
Closer to Ottawa I tune in to the Ottawa CBC Radio Two station, 103.3. FM and listen to Mr. Terfry's new show. It's not intolerable, but I hear Lyle Lovett, followed by a barely-recognizable cover of Murray McLauchlin's "Down by the Henry Moore", performed by Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. Is this the long-awaited Canadian content that the CBC has been promising? U.S. performers and covers of Canadian hits from the '70s?
But then Mr. Terfry also plays Hawksley Workman - and I admit I've never heard of Mr. Workman, until now, and I enjoy Mr. Workman's performance. Then, a song by Amos Lee (I was distracted by driving, I may have misheard the name) followed by a bit of eclectic wierdness, which I believe was "Banjo Girl".
All in all, Mr. Terfry's show fills a need - a need for eclectic, out-of-the-ordinary music - that I previously filled by listening to university radio stations. I may listen again from time to time, but I still hold a grudge against the CBC for cancelling so many fine programs and for destroying my - yes, my - CBC. As I have previously stated in other blog entries, as well as letters to CBC management, I would have supported the creation of a CBC Radio 3 to feature programs such as Mr. Terfry's. But I do not support the destruction of CBC Radio Two, to replace it with an inferior offering.
Showing posts with label CBC/Radio-Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CBC/Radio-Canada. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
CBC executives nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads
On the eve of the launch of CBC Radio Two's new programming, one wonders what must be going through the minds of the CBC Radio Two executives that are responsible for these changes. Are they going to sleep tonight, secure in the knowledge that the programming changes that they are inflicting upon their once-loyal audience are best for the CBC, for their listening audience and for the Canadian taxpayer? Do they believe that the storm of protest that has resulted from the announcement of the new programming is just a small speed bump on the road to greater relevance of the CBC and a greater share of the listening audience? Do they dream of even greater glories for CBC Radio Two, with even more alarming changes in store for their unsuspecting audience, to be announced perhaps in six months time? Or are they beginning to question whether the choices they have made are correct, and are they beginning to worry that they will have to justify the radical changes they have made to the CBC programming, and the subsequent decline in market share that may ensue?
Well, I have no inside knowledge of what is going through the minds of the executives of CBC Radio Two - your guess is as good as mine. Interestingly enough, however, the CBC is advertising for a Research Analyst who will "analyze and report general audience data for internal and external clients using BBM and comScore audience ratings databases" and "analyze and interpret the data, and verify its statistical validity and communicate research findings by means of written reports in both French and English". This is a temporary position, until May 2009.
Now, it could be that this is just business as usual for the CBC. Alternatively, it could be that the CBC is feeling some pressure from the Minister of Heritage to justify its recent decisions and is intent on compiling data to prove that it has indeed increased its market share, as a result of the new programming.
No matter whether this is simply business as usual or a new initiative of the CBC, don't you think that, as shareholders in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, we should be able to see for ourselves the results of this analysis? CBC, will you not put these reports on your web site for all to see, and to prove to us that your new programming is resulting in increased market share for the CBC?
Well, I have no inside knowledge of what is going through the minds of the executives of CBC Radio Two - your guess is as good as mine. Interestingly enough, however, the CBC is advertising for a Research Analyst who will "analyze and report general audience data for internal and external clients using BBM and comScore audience ratings databases" and "analyze and interpret the data, and verify its statistical validity and communicate research findings by means of written reports in both French and English". This is a temporary position, until May 2009.
Now, it could be that this is just business as usual for the CBC. Alternatively, it could be that the CBC is feeling some pressure from the Minister of Heritage to justify its recent decisions and is intent on compiling data to prove that it has indeed increased its market share, as a result of the new programming.
No matter whether this is simply business as usual or a new initiative of the CBC, don't you think that, as shareholders in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, we should be able to see for ourselves the results of this analysis? CBC, will you not put these reports on your web site for all to see, and to prove to us that your new programming is resulting in increased market share for the CBC?
Monday, May 5, 2008
My summary of the CHPC meeting with CBC execs held May 1 2008
Mr. Hubert Lacroix, President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, Mr. Richard Stursberg, Executive Vice-President, English Services and Mr. Sylvain Lafrance, Executive Vide-President, French Services, appeared before the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on May 1 2008.
I was not able to attend the meeting but instead watched the video of the meeting on the Parliament video site here.
I’ve attempted to summarize those portions of the meeting relevant to the changes in the CBC Radio Two programming that have taken place over the past year and those changes that have been announced for September. I have based this summary on the notes that I took while watching the video since I do not have access to a transcript of the meeting; consequently, any errors or omissions are mine alone. If you know where a transcript of the proceedings can be found, please let me know.
During his opening remarks, Mr. Schellenberger reminded the committee members that questions that overstepped the bounds of the committee’s mandate according to the Broadcasting Act, or that threatened the CBC’s operational independence, were out of order and would not be considered.
I find it interesting that Mr. Schellenberger felt it necessary to make this remark. The Broadcasting Act clearly states:
40. The Corporation is ultimately accountable, through the Minister, to Parliament for the conduct of its affairs.
So, if Members of Parliament are not allowed to question CBC Executives concerning decisions that are relevant to “the conduct of its affairs”, then who is? Who is to oversee the CBC, if not the elected representatives of the taxpayers, namely, the Members of Parliament?
Fortunately, the Members of Parliament ignored the instruction of the Chairman and proceeded to ask questions concerning recent operational decisions of the CBC.
Mr. Hubert Lacroix then made an opening statement, during which he commented on the Committee’s recent report and the proposed MOU between the government (I assume) and the Corporation. Mr. Lacroix also stated that during the four months that he has held the position of CEO he has met with employees and “stakeholders that work in broadcasting” across the country. It is interesting, however, that at no point in his opening remarks did Mr. Lacroix state that he had met with Radio Two listeners to attempt to understand their concerns, even though there have been protests concerning the Radio Two programming changes taking place for the past year, and certainly within the last month. Are the CBC listeners not important to the conduct of the Corporation?
Mr. Lacroix also stated that in the four months since he has become CEO the CBC has focused on three priorities: its people, its programs and its push to move forward with its strategic initiatives. Once again, conspicuous by its absence is any mention of serving the needs of listeners. Where are the CBC Radio listeners in Mr. Lacroix’s priorities? Clearly not among the top three.
Mr. Lacroix also alluded to the recent protests by the CBC Radio Two listeners on April 11, stating that not all listeners are satisfied with change. However, Mr. Lacroix stated, CBC management will not shy away from making hard changes. What does this mean, precisely? Even if the majority of CBC Radio Two listeners are not in favour of the programming changes, CBC Radio executives are determined to push their changes through? Where will it end? Until there are no listeners left?
During the questions from the committee members that followed, Mr. Bill Siksay, Member of Parliament for Burnaby-Douglas, questioned the CBC executives about the recent changes that have been made to classical programming on Radio Two. Mr. Siksay reminded the executives that in many rural areas there are no alternatives to CBC Radio as very few commercial radio stations feature classical music. Mr. Siksay asked the CBC executives why listeners were being abandoned, especially in Vancouver, where listeners have been loyal to Radio Two?
Mr. Lacroix replied that the recent changes to the Radio Two programming are intended to make Radio Two the greatest showcase of Canadian music in the country and to expose listeners to other genres. Mr. Lacroix also reiterated the point that classical music will remain the most important genre on CBC Radio Two. Furthermore, Mr. Lacroix stated, in September the CBC will begin a streaming audio service on the internet to “stream classical music 24/7”.
This seems to be the crux of the CBC’s argument. (I find it interesting that the CBC executives have not felt the need to promote this viewpoint with Canadians prior to making the programming changes, but instead believe it’s acceptable to make the changes first, then explain their rationale. But this is another topic for discussion later.) Their argument, as I understand it, goes like this: the CBC is Canada’s public broadcaster. Therefore, it is the CBC’s mandate to promote Canadian artists, from every musical genre and every ethnic group represented in Canada. If this means that CBC Radio Two becomes a hodge-podge of music, everything from country music to jazz to pop to classical, so be it. It’s all in the name of cultural diversity! So what if no one actually listens to it!
The problem with this, of course, is that there is no focus on the listener. What does the listener want to hear? There is no focus on the quality of the music. Is it of sufficient quality to be played on Canada’s national broadcasting service? There is no focus on educating the listener. Is the music being featured on Radio Two accepted as being one of the great performances that deserves to be heard?
What if this approach to content was taken by, for example, the National Gallery of Canada? Suppose the National Gallery decided to focus primarily on Canadian artists, rather than considering the merits of the art? Would Canada be better served by being exposed to more Canadian art, albeit at the expense of other works of art from other countries, including the great masterpieces from Europe from previous centuries? Would this not be considered a somewhat provincial attitude?
What if this approach to content was taken by public libraries? What if public libraries in Canada decided to feature Canadian writers, at the expense of other authors from other countries. Would Canadians be better served by having access to more Canadian authors, even if best-sellers from other countries or the classic literature from other countries and other eras was not available, or was still available but not as widely?
Mr. Ed Fast, Member of Parliament from Abbotsford, pointed out that four of the finalists from the “Canadian Idol” competition had backgrounds in classical and choral music. Mr Fast also expressed concern that, as CBC scales back on classical music, fewer Canadians would develop an appreciation for classical music. Mr. Fast asked the CBC executives how they would measure the impact of their decision to reduce classical music on CBC Radio Two.
Mr. Lacroix reiterated his statement that Radio Two would become a showcase for Canadian talent in other genres and that “classical is not going away” on Radio Two, merely sharing the airwaves to better reflect other genres.
Mr. Fast then asked whether the same goal could not have been achieved by establishing another FM channel, leaving Radio Two as a mostly classical channel. Mr. Fast asked whether other options were considered and what consultation took place before these changes were implemented.
Mr. Stursberg stated that studies and consultations took place over the three previous years and that these consultations were the “most far-reaching” in the history of the CBC. Mr. Stursberg also reiterated the point that access to classical music would continue on Radio Two and that a new classical channel would be featured on the internet. Mr. Stursberg also pointed out that 30,000 pieces of music are released in Canada each year, yet only 240 pieces are played on radio. Mr. Stursberg stated that there is a “vast commercial landscape that is not heard” and that the shift in strategy on Radio Two was not meant to denigrate classical music, but instead intended to expose Canadians to music that they have had little access to in the past.
Well, this is all very interesting. If studies and consultations had taken place in the three years prior to the programming changes being implemented, don’t you think your or I (as loyal Radio Two listeners) would have heard about it? Don’t you think there would have been discussions on the CBC web site, on CBC Radio Two itself, in newspaper articles, in town hall meetings, on phone-in shows (on “Cross-country Check-up” perhaps) ? Instead, the changes to the CBC Radio Two programming that were introduced on March 19, 2007, were sprung upon an unsuspecting listening audience with little or no warning. This constitutes the “most far-reaching” consultation in the history of the CBC? What does the CBC do when it want to surprise someone?
As for the statement that there are 30,000 pieces of music released each year yet only 240 get commercial airplay, well, perhaps there is a good reason that only 240 get commercial airplay (if indeed these statistics are true, I have no way of knowing). Could it be that only 240 deserve to be heard? Is Radio Two to become a dumping ground for Canadian content that no one else wants?
Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia, Member of Parliament for Lac-Saint-Louis, stated that he has noticed the change in mix on Radio Two and that if one is looking for classical music, it is getting to the point that “Radio Two is not the place to go” as it is becoming “hit and miss – lounge music, then jazz”. Mr Scarpaleggia also suggest that if the music mix becomes too broad, then in major markets it will get to the point that listeners will disengage from Radio Two and CBC Radio Two’s audience share will fall. Those who want to hear pop music will go to commercial radio. Mr. Scarpaleggia wondered: what will happen if the CBC executives appear before this committee in the future, after CBC Radio’s market share has fallen to one percent (from the current three percent)?
Mr. Lacroix replied that CBC Radio is attempting to replicate the depth and analysis currently devoted to classical music in other genres and that classical music will remain in the 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM timeslot. CBC Radio Two listeners will still know where to go to hear classical music. Mr. Lacroix stated that he would be disappointed if Radio Two listeners moved to other channels and did not “open up to other genres”.
Mr. Scarpaleggia replied that the CBC Radio Two listener may not be able to listen to CBC Radio Two during the 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM timeslot and may want to hear classical in his or her car, or on the kitchen radio. In that case, will the CBC Radio Two listener be lost forever? (The answer to that question is yes, of course the listener will be lost forever. But I realize it was a rhetorical question.) Mr. Scarpaleggia asked if the CBC would create another radio station, if it had sufficient funding.
Mr. Stursberg stated that the CBC could not afford to build another FM radio network. Mr. Stursberg also stated that, as a result of market research, it was becoming clearer that the CBC Radio Two audience was becoming older. It was also clear that the prevailing view that the audience would “grow into Radio Two” was not taking place. Radio listeners in their 40s and 50s were not moving to Radio Two. Therefore, Mr. Stursberg stated, Radio Two would have to be repositioned and, by doing so, would serve the Canadian music industry better. Mr. Stursberg also stated, surprisingly, that he was “not too worried about losing the audience”.
Mr. Michal Chong, Member of Parliament for Wellington-Halton Hills, made several points concerning Radio Two. Mr. Chong compared CBC Radio Two’s decision to revamp its programming to Coca-Cola’s decision to introduce “New Coke” in 1985, stating that the CBC was alienating its core audience. Mr. Chong asked why, if the CBC was interested in showcasing new artists, they were putting new artists on FM radio instead of on the internet. Mr. Chong pointed out that FM listeners tend to be an older demographic, whereas younger listeners tend to listen on-line more often. Mr. Chong also suggested that if the CBC wanted to showcase diversity, a third FM band would be required as is commonly the case with public broadcasters in Europe.
Mr. Siksay then asked whether the CBC executives had any market share data available to judge the success of their programming changes. Clearly, the subject of the discussion had been the changes to CBC Radio Two, yet Mr. Stursberg persisted in trumpeting the audience share of CBC Radio One and CBC Television before finally stating, with an apparent straight face, that no erosion had been seen in the Radio Two audience, and none was expected!
Mr. Siksay asked whether audience erosion had not occurred in Vancouver and Mr. Stursberg replied that it had not. Mr. Stursberg also stated that the CBC would not have a clear sense of the CBC’s market share “until the beginning of next year”, after the new programming had been launched in September.
Mr. Siksay then asked: when did the changes to the CBC Radio Two programming begin? Mr. Stursberg, showing himself to be a master of the understatement, replied that some “small changes” had been made in the past year.
Mr. Siksay then asked whether the CBC did not survey its audience to determine the reaction to these changes and Mr. Stursberg replied that the CBC does not survey its audience, relying instead on the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement. Mr. Stursberg reiterated the point that the CBC has not seen any erosion in market share.
I find Mr. Stursberg’s remarks preposterous. Of course the CBC executives have access to market share data and of course they can assess the impact of the changes in the programming on CBC Radio Two’s market share! They have a full year’s worth of data to assess, from the 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM timeslot, when “Music for Awhile” and “In Performance” were replaced by the crapulent “Tonic” and even the more crapulent “Canada Live”. Unfortunately, members of the public do not have access to this data. While it is true that the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (BBM) provides access to its "Top Line Radio Reports" here, the fact is that this data covers the time period from 5:00 AM to 1:00 AM Monday to Sunday as one single value - hardly granular enough for a member of the public to determine if, for example, CBC Radio Two has lost listeners in the 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM timeslot during weekdays. One would expect that if the effects on audience share of the move away from classical music would have been felt, it would be in this timeslot. And, the fact is, the BBM have compiled a full years' worth of data for the CBD to analyze - and the CBC, as a subscriber to their service, receives data that is much more specific than available to the general public. If the changes in CBC Radio Two’s evening schedule, first launched on March 19 2007, were such a smashing success, as the CBC executives would have us believe, doesn’t it make sense that the CBC executives would be willing to highlight this success? Or perhaps this experiment has not been so successful after all, and the CBC executives are unwilling to admit this?
After further questioning the meeting was adjourned, and Mr. Schellenberger thanked the witnesses for appearing before the committee.
I find all of this quite astonishing. After a year of programming changes we finally hear, in a public forum, CBC Radio management’s rationale for the changes that have been taking place on Radio Two. If you were the executive of a large corporation planning to implement an unprecedented change in your product, wouldn’t you prepare your customers carefully for such a change? Wouldn’t you advertise this change well in advance, preparing your customer for the change so that, when it did happen, the customer would be prepared for it and perhaps even be looking forward to it? And, before making such a change in your product, wouldn’t you survey your customer base to make sure that your customers were receptive to such changes?
Nothing of the sort has happened in this case. Instead, CBC Radio has attempted to force these programming changes down the throat of their audience and, what is worse, appear to be completely oblivious to the impact that it has had on their audience. They are not willing to change their course and it appears that there is no government body that is willing or able to make them change their course.
What is the Canadian taxpayer to do when a Crown corporation begins to run amok?
I was not able to attend the meeting but instead watched the video of the meeting on the Parliament video site here.
I’ve attempted to summarize those portions of the meeting relevant to the changes in the CBC Radio Two programming that have taken place over the past year and those changes that have been announced for September. I have based this summary on the notes that I took while watching the video since I do not have access to a transcript of the meeting; consequently, any errors or omissions are mine alone. If you know where a transcript of the proceedings can be found, please let me know.
During his opening remarks, Mr. Schellenberger reminded the committee members that questions that overstepped the bounds of the committee’s mandate according to the Broadcasting Act, or that threatened the CBC’s operational independence, were out of order and would not be considered.
I find it interesting that Mr. Schellenberger felt it necessary to make this remark. The Broadcasting Act clearly states:
40. The Corporation is ultimately accountable, through the Minister, to Parliament for the conduct of its affairs.
So, if Members of Parliament are not allowed to question CBC Executives concerning decisions that are relevant to “the conduct of its affairs”, then who is? Who is to oversee the CBC, if not the elected representatives of the taxpayers, namely, the Members of Parliament?
Fortunately, the Members of Parliament ignored the instruction of the Chairman and proceeded to ask questions concerning recent operational decisions of the CBC.
Mr. Hubert Lacroix then made an opening statement, during which he commented on the Committee’s recent report and the proposed MOU between the government (I assume) and the Corporation. Mr. Lacroix also stated that during the four months that he has held the position of CEO he has met with employees and “stakeholders that work in broadcasting” across the country. It is interesting, however, that at no point in his opening remarks did Mr. Lacroix state that he had met with Radio Two listeners to attempt to understand their concerns, even though there have been protests concerning the Radio Two programming changes taking place for the past year, and certainly within the last month. Are the CBC listeners not important to the conduct of the Corporation?
Mr. Lacroix also stated that in the four months since he has become CEO the CBC has focused on three priorities: its people, its programs and its push to move forward with its strategic initiatives. Once again, conspicuous by its absence is any mention of serving the needs of listeners. Where are the CBC Radio listeners in Mr. Lacroix’s priorities? Clearly not among the top three.
Mr. Lacroix also alluded to the recent protests by the CBC Radio Two listeners on April 11, stating that not all listeners are satisfied with change. However, Mr. Lacroix stated, CBC management will not shy away from making hard changes. What does this mean, precisely? Even if the majority of CBC Radio Two listeners are not in favour of the programming changes, CBC Radio executives are determined to push their changes through? Where will it end? Until there are no listeners left?
During the questions from the committee members that followed, Mr. Bill Siksay, Member of Parliament for Burnaby-Douglas, questioned the CBC executives about the recent changes that have been made to classical programming on Radio Two. Mr. Siksay reminded the executives that in many rural areas there are no alternatives to CBC Radio as very few commercial radio stations feature classical music. Mr. Siksay asked the CBC executives why listeners were being abandoned, especially in Vancouver, where listeners have been loyal to Radio Two?
Mr. Lacroix replied that the recent changes to the Radio Two programming are intended to make Radio Two the greatest showcase of Canadian music in the country and to expose listeners to other genres. Mr. Lacroix also reiterated the point that classical music will remain the most important genre on CBC Radio Two. Furthermore, Mr. Lacroix stated, in September the CBC will begin a streaming audio service on the internet to “stream classical music 24/7”.
This seems to be the crux of the CBC’s argument. (I find it interesting that the CBC executives have not felt the need to promote this viewpoint with Canadians prior to making the programming changes, but instead believe it’s acceptable to make the changes first, then explain their rationale. But this is another topic for discussion later.) Their argument, as I understand it, goes like this: the CBC is Canada’s public broadcaster. Therefore, it is the CBC’s mandate to promote Canadian artists, from every musical genre and every ethnic group represented in Canada. If this means that CBC Radio Two becomes a hodge-podge of music, everything from country music to jazz to pop to classical, so be it. It’s all in the name of cultural diversity! So what if no one actually listens to it!
The problem with this, of course, is that there is no focus on the listener. What does the listener want to hear? There is no focus on the quality of the music. Is it of sufficient quality to be played on Canada’s national broadcasting service? There is no focus on educating the listener. Is the music being featured on Radio Two accepted as being one of the great performances that deserves to be heard?
What if this approach to content was taken by, for example, the National Gallery of Canada? Suppose the National Gallery decided to focus primarily on Canadian artists, rather than considering the merits of the art? Would Canada be better served by being exposed to more Canadian art, albeit at the expense of other works of art from other countries, including the great masterpieces from Europe from previous centuries? Would this not be considered a somewhat provincial attitude?
What if this approach to content was taken by public libraries? What if public libraries in Canada decided to feature Canadian writers, at the expense of other authors from other countries. Would Canadians be better served by having access to more Canadian authors, even if best-sellers from other countries or the classic literature from other countries and other eras was not available, or was still available but not as widely?
Mr. Ed Fast, Member of Parliament from Abbotsford, pointed out that four of the finalists from the “Canadian Idol” competition had backgrounds in classical and choral music. Mr Fast also expressed concern that, as CBC scales back on classical music, fewer Canadians would develop an appreciation for classical music. Mr. Fast asked the CBC executives how they would measure the impact of their decision to reduce classical music on CBC Radio Two.
Mr. Lacroix reiterated his statement that Radio Two would become a showcase for Canadian talent in other genres and that “classical is not going away” on Radio Two, merely sharing the airwaves to better reflect other genres.
Mr. Fast then asked whether the same goal could not have been achieved by establishing another FM channel, leaving Radio Two as a mostly classical channel. Mr. Fast asked whether other options were considered and what consultation took place before these changes were implemented.
Mr. Stursberg stated that studies and consultations took place over the three previous years and that these consultations were the “most far-reaching” in the history of the CBC. Mr. Stursberg also reiterated the point that access to classical music would continue on Radio Two and that a new classical channel would be featured on the internet. Mr. Stursberg also pointed out that 30,000 pieces of music are released in Canada each year, yet only 240 pieces are played on radio. Mr. Stursberg stated that there is a “vast commercial landscape that is not heard” and that the shift in strategy on Radio Two was not meant to denigrate classical music, but instead intended to expose Canadians to music that they have had little access to in the past.
Well, this is all very interesting. If studies and consultations had taken place in the three years prior to the programming changes being implemented, don’t you think your or I (as loyal Radio Two listeners) would have heard about it? Don’t you think there would have been discussions on the CBC web site, on CBC Radio Two itself, in newspaper articles, in town hall meetings, on phone-in shows (on “Cross-country Check-up” perhaps) ? Instead, the changes to the CBC Radio Two programming that were introduced on March 19, 2007, were sprung upon an unsuspecting listening audience with little or no warning. This constitutes the “most far-reaching” consultation in the history of the CBC? What does the CBC do when it want to surprise someone?
As for the statement that there are 30,000 pieces of music released each year yet only 240 get commercial airplay, well, perhaps there is a good reason that only 240 get commercial airplay (if indeed these statistics are true, I have no way of knowing). Could it be that only 240 deserve to be heard? Is Radio Two to become a dumping ground for Canadian content that no one else wants?
Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia, Member of Parliament for Lac-Saint-Louis, stated that he has noticed the change in mix on Radio Two and that if one is looking for classical music, it is getting to the point that “Radio Two is not the place to go” as it is becoming “hit and miss – lounge music, then jazz”. Mr Scarpaleggia also suggest that if the music mix becomes too broad, then in major markets it will get to the point that listeners will disengage from Radio Two and CBC Radio Two’s audience share will fall. Those who want to hear pop music will go to commercial radio. Mr. Scarpaleggia wondered: what will happen if the CBC executives appear before this committee in the future, after CBC Radio’s market share has fallen to one percent (from the current three percent)?
Mr. Lacroix replied that CBC Radio is attempting to replicate the depth and analysis currently devoted to classical music in other genres and that classical music will remain in the 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM timeslot. CBC Radio Two listeners will still know where to go to hear classical music. Mr. Lacroix stated that he would be disappointed if Radio Two listeners moved to other channels and did not “open up to other genres”.
Mr. Scarpaleggia replied that the CBC Radio Two listener may not be able to listen to CBC Radio Two during the 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM timeslot and may want to hear classical in his or her car, or on the kitchen radio. In that case, will the CBC Radio Two listener be lost forever? (The answer to that question is yes, of course the listener will be lost forever. But I realize it was a rhetorical question.) Mr. Scarpaleggia asked if the CBC would create another radio station, if it had sufficient funding.
Mr. Stursberg stated that the CBC could not afford to build another FM radio network. Mr. Stursberg also stated that, as a result of market research, it was becoming clearer that the CBC Radio Two audience was becoming older. It was also clear that the prevailing view that the audience would “grow into Radio Two” was not taking place. Radio listeners in their 40s and 50s were not moving to Radio Two. Therefore, Mr. Stursberg stated, Radio Two would have to be repositioned and, by doing so, would serve the Canadian music industry better. Mr. Stursberg also stated, surprisingly, that he was “not too worried about losing the audience”.
Mr. Michal Chong, Member of Parliament for Wellington-Halton Hills, made several points concerning Radio Two. Mr. Chong compared CBC Radio Two’s decision to revamp its programming to Coca-Cola’s decision to introduce “New Coke” in 1985, stating that the CBC was alienating its core audience. Mr. Chong asked why, if the CBC was interested in showcasing new artists, they were putting new artists on FM radio instead of on the internet. Mr. Chong pointed out that FM listeners tend to be an older demographic, whereas younger listeners tend to listen on-line more often. Mr. Chong also suggested that if the CBC wanted to showcase diversity, a third FM band would be required as is commonly the case with public broadcasters in Europe.
Mr. Siksay then asked whether the CBC executives had any market share data available to judge the success of their programming changes. Clearly, the subject of the discussion had been the changes to CBC Radio Two, yet Mr. Stursberg persisted in trumpeting the audience share of CBC Radio One and CBC Television before finally stating, with an apparent straight face, that no erosion had been seen in the Radio Two audience, and none was expected!
Mr. Siksay asked whether audience erosion had not occurred in Vancouver and Mr. Stursberg replied that it had not. Mr. Stursberg also stated that the CBC would not have a clear sense of the CBC’s market share “until the beginning of next year”, after the new programming had been launched in September.
Mr. Siksay then asked: when did the changes to the CBC Radio Two programming begin? Mr. Stursberg, showing himself to be a master of the understatement, replied that some “small changes” had been made in the past year.
Mr. Siksay then asked whether the CBC did not survey its audience to determine the reaction to these changes and Mr. Stursberg replied that the CBC does not survey its audience, relying instead on the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement. Mr. Stursberg reiterated the point that the CBC has not seen any erosion in market share.
I find Mr. Stursberg’s remarks preposterous. Of course the CBC executives have access to market share data and of course they can assess the impact of the changes in the programming on CBC Radio Two’s market share! They have a full year’s worth of data to assess, from the 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM timeslot, when “Music for Awhile” and “In Performance” were replaced by the crapulent “Tonic” and even the more crapulent “Canada Live”. Unfortunately, members of the public do not have access to this data. While it is true that the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (BBM) provides access to its "Top Line Radio Reports" here, the fact is that this data covers the time period from 5:00 AM to 1:00 AM Monday to Sunday as one single value - hardly granular enough for a member of the public to determine if, for example, CBC Radio Two has lost listeners in the 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM timeslot during weekdays. One would expect that if the effects on audience share of the move away from classical music would have been felt, it would be in this timeslot. And, the fact is, the BBM have compiled a full years' worth of data for the CBD to analyze - and the CBC, as a subscriber to their service, receives data that is much more specific than available to the general public. If the changes in CBC Radio Two’s evening schedule, first launched on March 19 2007, were such a smashing success, as the CBC executives would have us believe, doesn’t it make sense that the CBC executives would be willing to highlight this success? Or perhaps this experiment has not been so successful after all, and the CBC executives are unwilling to admit this?
After further questioning the meeting was adjourned, and Mr. Schellenberger thanked the witnesses for appearing before the committee.
I find all of this quite astonishing. After a year of programming changes we finally hear, in a public forum, CBC Radio management’s rationale for the changes that have been taking place on Radio Two. If you were the executive of a large corporation planning to implement an unprecedented change in your product, wouldn’t you prepare your customers carefully for such a change? Wouldn’t you advertise this change well in advance, preparing your customer for the change so that, when it did happen, the customer would be prepared for it and perhaps even be looking forward to it? And, before making such a change in your product, wouldn’t you survey your customer base to make sure that your customers were receptive to such changes?
Nothing of the sort has happened in this case. Instead, CBC Radio has attempted to force these programming changes down the throat of their audience and, what is worse, appear to be completely oblivious to the impact that it has had on their audience. They are not willing to change their course and it appears that there is no government body that is willing or able to make them change their course.
What is the Canadian taxpayer to do when a Crown corporation begins to run amok?
Friday, May 2, 2008
Interview with Mark Steinmetz and Chris Boyce on "Inside the CBC"
There is a very revealing interview with Mr. Chris Boyce, CBC Radio’s Director of Programming, and Mr. Mark Steinmetz, CBC Radio’s Director of Music, on the “Inside the CBC” web site. You can find the transcript for the interview on the Inside the CBC web site here.
I have copied the full text of the interview below, for fear that it will some day be removed from the “Inside the CBC” web site.
Note that the interview was apparently added to the “Inside the CBC” web site on April 30, and that comments to this interview will be closed on May 6. So make your comments while you can!
Maffin: There’s been lots of chat these days on the blog, and in the media, and inside the CBC around the changes to CBC Radio Two, specifically the reduction of classical music being played, the addition of a streaming classical music station online and closing the closing the CBC Radio orchestra. It’s been very contentious, and I’ve got a couple people with me from the CBC who will hopefully shed some light and maybe explain some of this. One is Mark Steinmetz. Hi Mark.
Steinmetz: Hi.
Maffin: Briefly, what do you do?
Steinmetz: I’m the Director of Radio Music.
Maffin: And what’s your background?
Steinmetz: I’ve been at CBC for over fifteen years. Was a producer, did disc shows, recorded concerts, recorded cd’s, and went to music school, and that’s it.
Maffin: Chris Boyce is the newly minted Director of Programming. Hi Chris.
Boyce: Hi Tod.
Maffin: You came through the Director of Program Development, and then you had some time at DNTO. Where have you been, briefly, at the CBC?
Boyce: You’re right. Before I got in to management, I was Executive Producer at DNTO and the Content Factory, producing a wide range of content for CBC Radio. And television. Most recently, I was Director of Program Development where I worked developing a wide range of programming, from current affairs, to cultural programming, to music. I just started officially a few weeks ago as Director of Programming.
Maffin: Just by way of disclosure, you used to be my boss when I worked at DNTO. I believe I still owe you five bucks.
Boyce: You were an exemplary employee.
Maffin: That’s so not true.
THE OVERALL ENVIRONMENT
Maffin: Before we get to the topics at hand and the controversial aspects, I want to ask a couple of questions on the overall environment. Maybe Chris, you might be best to answer this. How has the way that we listen to radio changed in the last five to ten years? Are we listening more or less? Do we listen in different places than we used to?
Boyce: If you look at the overall radio environment in Canada, people are listening to slightly less over-the-air radio. Where it’s most predominant is in the under thirty-five demographic. Thirty-five plus people have lost about an hour of listening a week, still in the twenty hour a week range. The drop off is most noticed when you’re under thirty-five, and incredibly noticeable in the under eighteen demographic.
Maffin: It’s sort of an obvious answer, I suppose, but I guess those people are turning to podcasts and satellite radio. Where are we losing them to?
Boyce: That’s the million dollar question, Tod. I think it’s safe to say that people are finding any number of places, whether it be satellite radio or podcast. Everybody now seems to own an iPod and essentially programs their own music, so in the digital sphere, it’s not just other programmed radio services. It’s people essentially creating their own programming as the technology has enabled them to essentially replicate the experience of listening to a radio station but programming it themselves.
Maffin: I have to say, since podcasting came online a couple years ago, I listen to almost no radio live off the radio now. I subscribe to CBC podcast, NPR, ABC and stuff like that every day. It really changed my listening anyway.
Steinmetz: There’s another fact that we just found out. It’s between, I think, sixteen and twenty-five percent of listeners of traditional radio are actually listening off of their computers, so they’re not even listening to radios, like radio units. They’re listening through their computers. That’s across North America, so that’s interesting, as well.
CHANGES TO CBC RADIO 2
Maffin: I want to get to that as well, when we talk about changes to the classical music, because I know that one of the things we’re going to be adding is an online radio station. But let’s start more widely with the changes to Radio Two overall. I was looking through the blog comments, and of course, we’ve had plenty. There was a fellow named Alan Shearn, of course, you never really who’s name it really is, so a person who calls himself Alan Shearn reminded people in there, there’s an old saying that says if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. CBC’s certainly changing. I don’t know whether we’re fixing, maybe we are. Does that mean Radio Two is broken?
Steinmetz: No. Radio Two, it’s a quality service. I think there are two things that we’ve realized over the past few years. One is that we’re not adhering to the overall mandate. That is that the Radio Two public space reflects the broad range of music making in this country. We don’t feel that we’re living up to our mandate, and the second reason is we described as a sustainable audience. We’ve got a relatively good audience, but fifty percent of the audience is over sixty-five. We appreciate that audience. We want to keep that audience, but the fact of the matter is the thirty-five to sixty year olds are not coming in behind them. Our audience, over the last twenty years, has grown twenty times faster than the Canadian population. Everyone thinks that the boomers are coming and they’re going to discover classical music, but the truth is that thirty-five to sixty group are not coming to our service. Over the last bunch of years, we’ve been asking ourselves why that is. And there’s many reasons for that, but those are the two reasons. We need a sustainable audience. We need to find an adult audience that will come to us and replenish us and keep us going in to the future.
Boyce: Tod, we have a great classical music service, but the reality of music in Canada today is there’s a whole list of genres of music that people listen to and that are made across Canada. Roots, world, folk, blues, jazz, contemporary music. There’s singer song writers, there’s a ton of incredible music being made in Canada today that just isn’t heard on Canadian airwaves. It’s our responsibility as Canada’s broadcaster to bring that music to Canadians wherever they live, across Canada. For us, that’s what this is about. It’s about bringing Canadian music to Canadians and it’s not really something that anyone else is doing in Canada right now.
Maffin: I wonder if we sometimes end up accidentally shooting ourselves in the foot though. Sometimes we’ll give examples of artists that would be played. I remember when Freestyle was about to launch here in Vancouver. Somebody, somewhere at the CBC mentioned, probably in passing, that among the many Canadian artists they’ll be playing we’ll see some lighter fare. There occasionally be Madonna. Of course the media reported, CBC Radio goes pop radio. I kind of fear we may have done the same thing by mentioning Celine Deon and Joni Mitchell as examples, so let’s set the record straight. When people tune in to the new CBC Radio Two in the fall, what will they hear? Will it be an easy listening station?
Steinmetz: No, it won’t be an easy listening station. It’ll be a station that brings quality music across genres to Canadians. We’ll not be focusing in on the top ten hits of this country, the commercial stations do so at presenting to Canadians. There are thousands of pieces of music across genres, including classical music, made in this country that are not heard. Quality music, across genres. We will be reflecting that music. You’re right about you mention one or two artists, and I think the two artists that were mentioned in passing long ago were Serena Ryder and Joni Michell, and all the sudden that’s what CBC Radio Two’s going to become. I don’t know where Celine Deon came from, but anyway. The fact of the matter is, will there be Joni Mitchell on the service? Yes, there will be some Joni Mitchell on the service, but it’s not going to be exclusively a service that is going to play music just like Joni Mitchell. I guess that’s the key. Whenever you bring up an artists name, then that’s what happens. Anyway, quality music across genres.
Boyce: The bottom line, Tod, is tens of thousands of cuts of music are made every year in Canada. A few hundred of them ever get heard with any regularity on commercial radio, so there is a really deep catalog of great Canadian music that nobody gets to hear. We’re going to put that on the radio.
Steinmetz: That’s right, and the number is often cited as thirty thousand and acknowledged that there are thousands that aren’t very good. And we will avoid those not very good ones, but there are thousands that are excellent and quality recordings that are heard nowhere else, and we will reflect those recordings.
Boyce: And we’re excited because it’s a radio service that doesn’t exist anywhere else in Canada right now.
Maffin: As an aside, I actually have a list of music I think is really bad. Can I just email that to you and maybe we can make some sort of arrangement?
Steinmetz: Sure.
Boyce: A “do not play” list.
Steinmetz: I get lots of those lists, Tod.
Maffin: It kind of raises in a way, I wonder how diligent we would have to be to ensure that we don’t compete in a way. There’s a commenter on the blog, named Dave, who wrote on April first. This is his comment, the new CBC Radio Two will be more like pop stations than it was before, and I think you’ve addressed that, but he goes on to say, it may not occupy exactly the same terrain as a pop station, but it certainly may appeal more to pop listeners, which I think might be true. Therefore, regardless of whether we attempt to compete with the pop stations, we kind of are in a way competing with them, so will we be paying close attention to make sure we don’t match those, or is that not really in our radar?
Boyce: We know what the service is that we want to make. We know what the music is that we think Canadians want to hear, that they aren’t hearing now. We’re going to put it on the air. If that’s something that’s appealing to people who are presently listening to another radio station, that’s great, but for us, this is about what it is to be a public broadcaster in Canada in the year two thousand and eight.
Maffin: To be fair, the numbers on Radio Two are not that great. I think, just over three percent of Canadians, who listen to the radio, tune in to Radio Two.
Steinmetz: That’s right.
Maffin: So how do we defend against charges that these changes are just an attempt to get higher ratings? And are higher ratings that bad?
Boyce: We’re a public broadcaster. Our job is to serve the citizens of Canada. If the citizens of Canada aren’t consuming our service, I don’t think we’re doing a very good job as a public broadcaster. That’s very different though, than going out exclusively to get the largest audience possible, by putting whatever we think will go on the air to attract that audience. For me, attracting Canadians is important, because they are our constituencies. They are our clients. They are the people who we serve. How many of them are listening is only one of a whole bunch of measures that you use to measure success.
Maffin: Was money, at all, a criteria here? How does this change Radio’s Two budget? Does it save us money, or cost us money?
Steinmetz: Neither.
Boyce: We’ll be spending about the same on the service after the change as we were before. What we spend it on, that’s where the change will be.
Steinmetz: I was just going to say that one of the things that will remain the same is that we’re going to bring quality presentation to the schedule. What separates us from the commercial stations, first of all, is we’re commercial-free and that’s obvious, but the second thing is there will still be the contextualization of music across the schedule. There will still be that in-depth look at music, so regardless of genre, the quality of presentation is still something that’s really important to us.
Maffin: Since you brought up the commercial-free point, is it your position to guarantee that Radio One and Radio Two will remain commercial-free? When we’re starting to see a little bit of slippery slope with the podcasts, which are now sponsored, are there any plans, or research, or anything going in to considering adding that to the terrestrial service?
Boyce: We have no plans whatsoever to add any commercial sponsorship to our over-the-air service.
REDUCTION OF CLASSICAL MUSIC
Maffin: Okay, let’s move on to, more specifically, the classical changes, which of course, have gotten most of the attention around this. I presume we’ve done polling on music tastes among Canadians. Do fewer people in Canada like listening to classical music? Is that part of this decision?
Steinmetz: Fewer than what?
Maffin: Fewer than in the past?
Steinmetz: No, it’s basically been between four and six percent of Canadians listen to classical music at some point in the year.
Maffin: So the preference hasn’t changed? It’s not like people are listening to it less as a whole, as a genre? Fair to say?
Steinmetz: No, I think it remains stable. In fact, I know in the digital space the consumption of classical music is actually quite high. The changes are not about classical music. Classical music is doing very well. It continues to do well. Our changes don’t mean the death of classical music in this country. And in fact, as I was saying, on the digital space there’s a great demand for it.
Boyce: These changes are about everything else that we want and need to be doing, rather than anything to do with whether people are listening or not listening to classical music. The reality, Tod, is that as an over-the-air service we have one music channel, and it’s what is the range of music that we need to put on that channel. The beauty, as Mark says, of the digital space is that we have way more flexibility in targeting music to niche audiences. Come September, if you’re in to classical you will be able to listen to a classical web radio station. Same for jazz, singer song writer or contemporary Canadian compositions. Part of this is the reality, all of those music genres exist on Radio Two, we just have the ability in the digital sphere to target to people’s interests a little better.
Steinmetz: Yeah, you heard it here first actually, Tod, because we haven’t announced it yet, but we do want to add a fourth station, a contemporary classical music, all one hundred percent Canadian composed art music digital streamed. We intend to launch that as a fourth one. We’re saving that announcement for a couple of weeks from now, but there, you heard it here first.
Maffin: What does “art music” mean?
Steinmetz: Good question. I guess it is composers in this country who come from the classical music tradition. It’s not electronica. It’s not contemporary new popular music. It used to be [called] serious [music].
Maffin: Will it dive in to the area that perhaps, Brave New Waves used to cover, which was further on that edge?
Steinmetz: We feel that Radio Three does a lot of that similar kind of programming. There was a show we had on the air ago called Two New Hours, and it’s that kind of contemporary music we’re talking about. We haven’t designed the playlist. We haven’t designed what it’s going to be, but it will be that genre, sort of twentieth century, twenty-first century Canadian composed music.
Maffin: Mark, how does that process work, you mentioned designing playlists and things?
Steinmetz: We’ll be putting a group of producers together to come up with what it would sound like. We create intentions of where we want to go. We set criteria. Then producers get together and they, through program development, come up with what the musical framework and what the musical world and tone is going to be. That kind of work still has to be done.
Maffin: Did I read right that we’re calling them Radio Four, Radio Five and Radio Six?
Steinmetz: Nope.
Maffin: Okay.
Boyce: At this point, we’re still figuring out how they’ll all be branded. To be honest, for the online stations we’re still figuring out exactly what the playlists will look like, and what the range of music is. At this point, we know we’re doing them. We know the broad areas that we’re going in to, but we haven’t finished the developmental work on exactly what they’ll be, Tod.
Maffin: So how many stations?
Steinmetz: We’re looking at four. Generally, one will be a jazz station, one will be a classical music station…I should call them streams actually. I think that’s a better word. One of them will be this contemporary music one that I was talking about. And then one will be feature singer song writers’ songs across genre.
Maffin: Will there be commercials on those streams?
Boyce: There certainly won’t be commercials, per se. There may be a short, ten second sponsorship message, like a podcast, but certainly no commercials.
Maffin: Are these hosted stations? Will we actually hear someone introducing and chatting, or is it essentially like Radio Three has a station on the internet, but it’s primarily just music, music, music, back-to-back, with some pre-taped host?
Boyce: It’ll be mostly a music-focused service.
Maffin: So no live hosts:?
Boyce: Again, that’s some of the details we’re working on, but the expectation is the focus is on the music.
Steinmetz: Yeah, and you’ll know it’s CBC Radio Two.
DISBANDING OF THE CBC RADIO ORCHESTRA
Maffin: Let’s talk about the orchestra briefly. The only question I really have here is why close it?
Steinmetz: Why close it? Because we had to make choices. We had to make a choice about where we wanted to direct the money that we have. We thought about it for a long time and we feel that by reallocating the money to other music productions across this country, including classical music, including [orchestral] commissions…It was a very tough choice, but we felt that was a better use of the money overall.
Boyce: It’s interesting, Tod, the CBC Radio Orchestra was created seventy years ago at a time when there were no other orchestras in Canada creating Canadian classical music. Seventy years later, there are essentially, over forty orchestras across the country. The situation that led to the creation of the orchestra is very different than the situation we find ourselves in today. As Mark said, this is about getting the most bang for the buck. It’s about the most efficient use of resources, and it’s a very, very difficult decision to make. Nobody wants to see the orchestra go, but that’s the reality that we work within.
Maffin: How much money in real dollar terms was it consuming?
Steinmetz: Can’t go there. I think in media it’s between five hundred thousand and a million dollars.
Maffin: And do you dispute the figures the media have come up with?
Steinmetz: No, I don’t, but budgets change year to year. What I can tell you though, ten years ago the Radio Orchestra did more than it did today. As years go by, it’s hard to sustain, and to keep cutting back the season, keep cutting back the concerts became not an option.
Maffin: Just to play devil’s advocate and be fair, the decision to cut back concerts and you mentioned slowly reducing, that’s not something that just happens by osmosis. There’s a decision at the CBC to reduce the level.
Steinmetz: Yeah, that’s right. We made a decision.
Boyce: But it’s not a cost cutting move, Tod. It’s about using the limited resources we have in the way that will create the most impact across the country. That’s the bottom line.
Maffin: Okay, and that makes sense. The details on that I’d love to get a little more sense of. Does this mean we’re going to become a grant giving organization, or we’ll just record more concerts, or are we going to commission specific pieces? Where will that money, specifically [Sound Cuts Out].
Steinmetz: We’re not going to be a grant giving organization, but we are going to be upping what we call the commissions budget here for orchestral commissions. That’s for sure to make up for the decision that we made about the orchestra. Then we’re going to be reallocating to music productions, recording concerts, more concerts than we had before. That’s the goal.
SUMMARY
Maffin: Anything that I’ve missed in this quick interview that you want to add?
Boyce: I’m just really excited about what we’re launching in September. For the first time there is going to be a truly Canadian music service that reflects the music that’s being made across Canada to Canadians. To be honest, Tod, I’m really excited. I think it’s an amazing opportunity for Canadians to get something that they’ve never had access to before. I can’t understate the impact I think this is going to have for Canadian musicians and for Canadian audiences.
Maffin: Fantastic. How can people continue to add their thoughts in to this dialogue?
Boyce: If people are looking for more information about what we’re doing, there’s information on the Radio Two website, CBC dot C-A slash Radio Two. There’s a little section that you can look at, which talks about the new Radio Two, what we’re doing, what our plans are. We’ll be updating that as we head towards the launch in September.
Maffin: There’s always, of course, commenting on the CBC blog at Inside the CBC dot com, and CBC dot C-A slash contact is a web form there where people can send their opinions in to the CBC, and those emails do get read. We actually have a department. I don’t know how many people it is, a dozen I think, or more, who read those responses, collate them, put them in front of senior managers, as well, so those messages do get through.
Steinmetz: Oh yeah. We see them all.
Maffin: Just a quick housekeeping note. Some people may wonder why Jennifer McGuire is not on this call. Jennifer, of course, was quoted in the media for a lot of these things. That’s because at the time, she was largely responsible for communicating this. She has now moved on to another role inside CBC News. Mark Steinmetz, Director of Music for CBC Radio. Chris Boyce, Director of Programming. Thank you so much for your time today.
Steinmetz: Welcome.
Boyce: Thanks, Tod.
I find it interesting that Mr. Steinmetz and Mr. Boyce are only now beginning to explain the rationale for the changes that have been taking place at CBC Radio Two for the past year. I applaud their attempt to explain their thinking in this interview with Mr. Maffin, even if it is only on the “inside the CBC” web site, which I suspect very few CBC Radio listeners know about.
The changes that are being made to the CBC Radio Two programming are unprecedented in the history of CBC Radio. And, to be quite frank, the execution of these changes has been a fiasco equally unprecedented in the history of any corporation, either public or private. The only new product introduction that I can think of that rivals CBC Radio’s botched attempt to change their offering to consumers is Coca-Cola’s attempt to introduce “New Coke” in the late ‘80s. Fortunately, Coca-Cola realized their blunder and reintroduced “Coke Classic” in an attempt to placate an outraged clientele. Will CBC Radio management eventually realize their mistakes and reintroduce “Radio Two Classic”. No, they won’t, because they are not dependent on their consumers for funding. Public funding means they have the luxury of toying with the programming until they drive their audience away, to Classical 96.3 FM in Toronto or to Sirius or XM satellite radio in those Canadian cities that have no commercial classical stations that are alternatives to CBC Radio Two.
There are many excellent points made by those who have left comments to this article. David’s comment that “It is rarely a good business decision to alienate customers you already have - what if the ones you think you will get don’t actually switch to your side? Then you’ve lost them all.” is especially relevant. Why is this so obvious to CBC Radio listeners, but lost on CBC Radio executives? Is it because some of the CBC Radio listeners actually work in competitive industries and understand what it takes to attract and retain customers, and how difficult it is to attract new customers? Because they have some real-world experience in running a business that must offer a product or service that their customers want, otherwise they will go out of business?
There are many points in this interview that I could comment on. However, I will only repeat a point that I made in a letter to Ms. Jennifer McGuire on June 7, 2007, and that is still relevant to the present discussion:
“I agree that the mandate of CBC Radio should be to deliver programming that is meaningful to Canadians. What, however, is programming that is "meaningful to Canadians"? Should it attempt to reflect every region, every ethnic group, every musical genre that may be performed in Canada? If you attempt this then it is my opinion that the result will be a musical melange that will be of interest to only a very few. The programming will become so fragmented and unpredictable that you will lose your audience to stations where the programming is more consistent. If you succeed in broadening the scope of the programming, only to reduce the size of your audience, have you truly succeeded in making CBC Radio more relevant to Canadians?”
I have copied the full text of the interview below, for fear that it will some day be removed from the “Inside the CBC” web site.
Note that the interview was apparently added to the “Inside the CBC” web site on April 30, and that comments to this interview will be closed on May 6. So make your comments while you can!
Maffin: There’s been lots of chat these days on the blog, and in the media, and inside the CBC around the changes to CBC Radio Two, specifically the reduction of classical music being played, the addition of a streaming classical music station online and closing the closing the CBC Radio orchestra. It’s been very contentious, and I’ve got a couple people with me from the CBC who will hopefully shed some light and maybe explain some of this. One is Mark Steinmetz. Hi Mark.
Steinmetz: Hi.
Maffin: Briefly, what do you do?
Steinmetz: I’m the Director of Radio Music.
Maffin: And what’s your background?
Steinmetz: I’ve been at CBC for over fifteen years. Was a producer, did disc shows, recorded concerts, recorded cd’s, and went to music school, and that’s it.
Maffin: Chris Boyce is the newly minted Director of Programming. Hi Chris.
Boyce: Hi Tod.
Maffin: You came through the Director of Program Development, and then you had some time at DNTO. Where have you been, briefly, at the CBC?
Boyce: You’re right. Before I got in to management, I was Executive Producer at DNTO and the Content Factory, producing a wide range of content for CBC Radio. And television. Most recently, I was Director of Program Development where I worked developing a wide range of programming, from current affairs, to cultural programming, to music. I just started officially a few weeks ago as Director of Programming.
Maffin: Just by way of disclosure, you used to be my boss when I worked at DNTO. I believe I still owe you five bucks.
Boyce: You were an exemplary employee.
Maffin: That’s so not true.
THE OVERALL ENVIRONMENT
Maffin: Before we get to the topics at hand and the controversial aspects, I want to ask a couple of questions on the overall environment. Maybe Chris, you might be best to answer this. How has the way that we listen to radio changed in the last five to ten years? Are we listening more or less? Do we listen in different places than we used to?
Boyce: If you look at the overall radio environment in Canada, people are listening to slightly less over-the-air radio. Where it’s most predominant is in the under thirty-five demographic. Thirty-five plus people have lost about an hour of listening a week, still in the twenty hour a week range. The drop off is most noticed when you’re under thirty-five, and incredibly noticeable in the under eighteen demographic.
Maffin: It’s sort of an obvious answer, I suppose, but I guess those people are turning to podcasts and satellite radio. Where are we losing them to?
Boyce: That’s the million dollar question, Tod. I think it’s safe to say that people are finding any number of places, whether it be satellite radio or podcast. Everybody now seems to own an iPod and essentially programs their own music, so in the digital sphere, it’s not just other programmed radio services. It’s people essentially creating their own programming as the technology has enabled them to essentially replicate the experience of listening to a radio station but programming it themselves.
Maffin: I have to say, since podcasting came online a couple years ago, I listen to almost no radio live off the radio now. I subscribe to CBC podcast, NPR, ABC and stuff like that every day. It really changed my listening anyway.
Steinmetz: There’s another fact that we just found out. It’s between, I think, sixteen and twenty-five percent of listeners of traditional radio are actually listening off of their computers, so they’re not even listening to radios, like radio units. They’re listening through their computers. That’s across North America, so that’s interesting, as well.
CHANGES TO CBC RADIO 2
Maffin: I want to get to that as well, when we talk about changes to the classical music, because I know that one of the things we’re going to be adding is an online radio station. But let’s start more widely with the changes to Radio Two overall. I was looking through the blog comments, and of course, we’ve had plenty. There was a fellow named Alan Shearn, of course, you never really who’s name it really is, so a person who calls himself Alan Shearn reminded people in there, there’s an old saying that says if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. CBC’s certainly changing. I don’t know whether we’re fixing, maybe we are. Does that mean Radio Two is broken?
Steinmetz: No. Radio Two, it’s a quality service. I think there are two things that we’ve realized over the past few years. One is that we’re not adhering to the overall mandate. That is that the Radio Two public space reflects the broad range of music making in this country. We don’t feel that we’re living up to our mandate, and the second reason is we described as a sustainable audience. We’ve got a relatively good audience, but fifty percent of the audience is over sixty-five. We appreciate that audience. We want to keep that audience, but the fact of the matter is the thirty-five to sixty year olds are not coming in behind them. Our audience, over the last twenty years, has grown twenty times faster than the Canadian population. Everyone thinks that the boomers are coming and they’re going to discover classical music, but the truth is that thirty-five to sixty group are not coming to our service. Over the last bunch of years, we’ve been asking ourselves why that is. And there’s many reasons for that, but those are the two reasons. We need a sustainable audience. We need to find an adult audience that will come to us and replenish us and keep us going in to the future.
Boyce: Tod, we have a great classical music service, but the reality of music in Canada today is there’s a whole list of genres of music that people listen to and that are made across Canada. Roots, world, folk, blues, jazz, contemporary music. There’s singer song writers, there’s a ton of incredible music being made in Canada today that just isn’t heard on Canadian airwaves. It’s our responsibility as Canada’s broadcaster to bring that music to Canadians wherever they live, across Canada. For us, that’s what this is about. It’s about bringing Canadian music to Canadians and it’s not really something that anyone else is doing in Canada right now.
Maffin: I wonder if we sometimes end up accidentally shooting ourselves in the foot though. Sometimes we’ll give examples of artists that would be played. I remember when Freestyle was about to launch here in Vancouver. Somebody, somewhere at the CBC mentioned, probably in passing, that among the many Canadian artists they’ll be playing we’ll see some lighter fare. There occasionally be Madonna. Of course the media reported, CBC Radio goes pop radio. I kind of fear we may have done the same thing by mentioning Celine Deon and Joni Mitchell as examples, so let’s set the record straight. When people tune in to the new CBC Radio Two in the fall, what will they hear? Will it be an easy listening station?
Steinmetz: No, it won’t be an easy listening station. It’ll be a station that brings quality music across genres to Canadians. We’ll not be focusing in on the top ten hits of this country, the commercial stations do so at presenting to Canadians. There are thousands of pieces of music across genres, including classical music, made in this country that are not heard. Quality music, across genres. We will be reflecting that music. You’re right about you mention one or two artists, and I think the two artists that were mentioned in passing long ago were Serena Ryder and Joni Michell, and all the sudden that’s what CBC Radio Two’s going to become. I don’t know where Celine Deon came from, but anyway. The fact of the matter is, will there be Joni Mitchell on the service? Yes, there will be some Joni Mitchell on the service, but it’s not going to be exclusively a service that is going to play music just like Joni Mitchell. I guess that’s the key. Whenever you bring up an artists name, then that’s what happens. Anyway, quality music across genres.
Boyce: The bottom line, Tod, is tens of thousands of cuts of music are made every year in Canada. A few hundred of them ever get heard with any regularity on commercial radio, so there is a really deep catalog of great Canadian music that nobody gets to hear. We’re going to put that on the radio.
Steinmetz: That’s right, and the number is often cited as thirty thousand and acknowledged that there are thousands that aren’t very good. And we will avoid those not very good ones, but there are thousands that are excellent and quality recordings that are heard nowhere else, and we will reflect those recordings.
Boyce: And we’re excited because it’s a radio service that doesn’t exist anywhere else in Canada right now.
Maffin: As an aside, I actually have a list of music I think is really bad. Can I just email that to you and maybe we can make some sort of arrangement?
Steinmetz: Sure.
Boyce: A “do not play” list.
Steinmetz: I get lots of those lists, Tod.
Maffin: It kind of raises in a way, I wonder how diligent we would have to be to ensure that we don’t compete in a way. There’s a commenter on the blog, named Dave, who wrote on April first. This is his comment, the new CBC Radio Two will be more like pop stations than it was before, and I think you’ve addressed that, but he goes on to say, it may not occupy exactly the same terrain as a pop station, but it certainly may appeal more to pop listeners, which I think might be true. Therefore, regardless of whether we attempt to compete with the pop stations, we kind of are in a way competing with them, so will we be paying close attention to make sure we don’t match those, or is that not really in our radar?
Boyce: We know what the service is that we want to make. We know what the music is that we think Canadians want to hear, that they aren’t hearing now. We’re going to put it on the air. If that’s something that’s appealing to people who are presently listening to another radio station, that’s great, but for us, this is about what it is to be a public broadcaster in Canada in the year two thousand and eight.
Maffin: To be fair, the numbers on Radio Two are not that great. I think, just over three percent of Canadians, who listen to the radio, tune in to Radio Two.
Steinmetz: That’s right.
Maffin: So how do we defend against charges that these changes are just an attempt to get higher ratings? And are higher ratings that bad?
Boyce: We’re a public broadcaster. Our job is to serve the citizens of Canada. If the citizens of Canada aren’t consuming our service, I don’t think we’re doing a very good job as a public broadcaster. That’s very different though, than going out exclusively to get the largest audience possible, by putting whatever we think will go on the air to attract that audience. For me, attracting Canadians is important, because they are our constituencies. They are our clients. They are the people who we serve. How many of them are listening is only one of a whole bunch of measures that you use to measure success.
Maffin: Was money, at all, a criteria here? How does this change Radio’s Two budget? Does it save us money, or cost us money?
Steinmetz: Neither.
Boyce: We’ll be spending about the same on the service after the change as we were before. What we spend it on, that’s where the change will be.
Steinmetz: I was just going to say that one of the things that will remain the same is that we’re going to bring quality presentation to the schedule. What separates us from the commercial stations, first of all, is we’re commercial-free and that’s obvious, but the second thing is there will still be the contextualization of music across the schedule. There will still be that in-depth look at music, so regardless of genre, the quality of presentation is still something that’s really important to us.
Maffin: Since you brought up the commercial-free point, is it your position to guarantee that Radio One and Radio Two will remain commercial-free? When we’re starting to see a little bit of slippery slope with the podcasts, which are now sponsored, are there any plans, or research, or anything going in to considering adding that to the terrestrial service?
Boyce: We have no plans whatsoever to add any commercial sponsorship to our over-the-air service.
REDUCTION OF CLASSICAL MUSIC
Maffin: Okay, let’s move on to, more specifically, the classical changes, which of course, have gotten most of the attention around this. I presume we’ve done polling on music tastes among Canadians. Do fewer people in Canada like listening to classical music? Is that part of this decision?
Steinmetz: Fewer than what?
Maffin: Fewer than in the past?
Steinmetz: No, it’s basically been between four and six percent of Canadians listen to classical music at some point in the year.
Maffin: So the preference hasn’t changed? It’s not like people are listening to it less as a whole, as a genre? Fair to say?
Steinmetz: No, I think it remains stable. In fact, I know in the digital space the consumption of classical music is actually quite high. The changes are not about classical music. Classical music is doing very well. It continues to do well. Our changes don’t mean the death of classical music in this country. And in fact, as I was saying, on the digital space there’s a great demand for it.
Boyce: These changes are about everything else that we want and need to be doing, rather than anything to do with whether people are listening or not listening to classical music. The reality, Tod, is that as an over-the-air service we have one music channel, and it’s what is the range of music that we need to put on that channel. The beauty, as Mark says, of the digital space is that we have way more flexibility in targeting music to niche audiences. Come September, if you’re in to classical you will be able to listen to a classical web radio station. Same for jazz, singer song writer or contemporary Canadian compositions. Part of this is the reality, all of those music genres exist on Radio Two, we just have the ability in the digital sphere to target to people’s interests a little better.
Steinmetz: Yeah, you heard it here first actually, Tod, because we haven’t announced it yet, but we do want to add a fourth station, a contemporary classical music, all one hundred percent Canadian composed art music digital streamed. We intend to launch that as a fourth one. We’re saving that announcement for a couple of weeks from now, but there, you heard it here first.
Maffin: What does “art music” mean?
Steinmetz: Good question. I guess it is composers in this country who come from the classical music tradition. It’s not electronica. It’s not contemporary new popular music. It used to be [called] serious [music].
Maffin: Will it dive in to the area that perhaps, Brave New Waves used to cover, which was further on that edge?
Steinmetz: We feel that Radio Three does a lot of that similar kind of programming. There was a show we had on the air ago called Two New Hours, and it’s that kind of contemporary music we’re talking about. We haven’t designed the playlist. We haven’t designed what it’s going to be, but it will be that genre, sort of twentieth century, twenty-first century Canadian composed music.
Maffin: Mark, how does that process work, you mentioned designing playlists and things?
Steinmetz: We’ll be putting a group of producers together to come up with what it would sound like. We create intentions of where we want to go. We set criteria. Then producers get together and they, through program development, come up with what the musical framework and what the musical world and tone is going to be. That kind of work still has to be done.
Maffin: Did I read right that we’re calling them Radio Four, Radio Five and Radio Six?
Steinmetz: Nope.
Maffin: Okay.
Boyce: At this point, we’re still figuring out how they’ll all be branded. To be honest, for the online stations we’re still figuring out exactly what the playlists will look like, and what the range of music is. At this point, we know we’re doing them. We know the broad areas that we’re going in to, but we haven’t finished the developmental work on exactly what they’ll be, Tod.
Maffin: So how many stations?
Steinmetz: We’re looking at four. Generally, one will be a jazz station, one will be a classical music station…I should call them streams actually. I think that’s a better word. One of them will be this contemporary music one that I was talking about. And then one will be feature singer song writers’ songs across genre.
Maffin: Will there be commercials on those streams?
Boyce: There certainly won’t be commercials, per se. There may be a short, ten second sponsorship message, like a podcast, but certainly no commercials.
Maffin: Are these hosted stations? Will we actually hear someone introducing and chatting, or is it essentially like Radio Three has a station on the internet, but it’s primarily just music, music, music, back-to-back, with some pre-taped host?
Boyce: It’ll be mostly a music-focused service.
Maffin: So no live hosts:?
Boyce: Again, that’s some of the details we’re working on, but the expectation is the focus is on the music.
Steinmetz: Yeah, and you’ll know it’s CBC Radio Two.
DISBANDING OF THE CBC RADIO ORCHESTRA
Maffin: Let’s talk about the orchestra briefly. The only question I really have here is why close it?
Steinmetz: Why close it? Because we had to make choices. We had to make a choice about where we wanted to direct the money that we have. We thought about it for a long time and we feel that by reallocating the money to other music productions across this country, including classical music, including [orchestral] commissions…It was a very tough choice, but we felt that was a better use of the money overall.
Boyce: It’s interesting, Tod, the CBC Radio Orchestra was created seventy years ago at a time when there were no other orchestras in Canada creating Canadian classical music. Seventy years later, there are essentially, over forty orchestras across the country. The situation that led to the creation of the orchestra is very different than the situation we find ourselves in today. As Mark said, this is about getting the most bang for the buck. It’s about the most efficient use of resources, and it’s a very, very difficult decision to make. Nobody wants to see the orchestra go, but that’s the reality that we work within.
Maffin: How much money in real dollar terms was it consuming?
Steinmetz: Can’t go there. I think in media it’s between five hundred thousand and a million dollars.
Maffin: And do you dispute the figures the media have come up with?
Steinmetz: No, I don’t, but budgets change year to year. What I can tell you though, ten years ago the Radio Orchestra did more than it did today. As years go by, it’s hard to sustain, and to keep cutting back the season, keep cutting back the concerts became not an option.
Maffin: Just to play devil’s advocate and be fair, the decision to cut back concerts and you mentioned slowly reducing, that’s not something that just happens by osmosis. There’s a decision at the CBC to reduce the level.
Steinmetz: Yeah, that’s right. We made a decision.
Boyce: But it’s not a cost cutting move, Tod. It’s about using the limited resources we have in the way that will create the most impact across the country. That’s the bottom line.
Maffin: Okay, and that makes sense. The details on that I’d love to get a little more sense of. Does this mean we’re going to become a grant giving organization, or we’ll just record more concerts, or are we going to commission specific pieces? Where will that money, specifically [Sound Cuts Out].
Steinmetz: We’re not going to be a grant giving organization, but we are going to be upping what we call the commissions budget here for orchestral commissions. That’s for sure to make up for the decision that we made about the orchestra. Then we’re going to be reallocating to music productions, recording concerts, more concerts than we had before. That’s the goal.
SUMMARY
Maffin: Anything that I’ve missed in this quick interview that you want to add?
Boyce: I’m just really excited about what we’re launching in September. For the first time there is going to be a truly Canadian music service that reflects the music that’s being made across Canada to Canadians. To be honest, Tod, I’m really excited. I think it’s an amazing opportunity for Canadians to get something that they’ve never had access to before. I can’t understate the impact I think this is going to have for Canadian musicians and for Canadian audiences.
Maffin: Fantastic. How can people continue to add their thoughts in to this dialogue?
Boyce: If people are looking for more information about what we’re doing, there’s information on the Radio Two website, CBC dot C-A slash Radio Two. There’s a little section that you can look at, which talks about the new Radio Two, what we’re doing, what our plans are. We’ll be updating that as we head towards the launch in September.
Maffin: There’s always, of course, commenting on the CBC blog at Inside the CBC dot com, and CBC dot C-A slash contact is a web form there where people can send their opinions in to the CBC, and those emails do get read. We actually have a department. I don’t know how many people it is, a dozen I think, or more, who read those responses, collate them, put them in front of senior managers, as well, so those messages do get through.
Steinmetz: Oh yeah. We see them all.
Maffin: Just a quick housekeeping note. Some people may wonder why Jennifer McGuire is not on this call. Jennifer, of course, was quoted in the media for a lot of these things. That’s because at the time, she was largely responsible for communicating this. She has now moved on to another role inside CBC News. Mark Steinmetz, Director of Music for CBC Radio. Chris Boyce, Director of Programming. Thank you so much for your time today.
Steinmetz: Welcome.
Boyce: Thanks, Tod.
I find it interesting that Mr. Steinmetz and Mr. Boyce are only now beginning to explain the rationale for the changes that have been taking place at CBC Radio Two for the past year. I applaud their attempt to explain their thinking in this interview with Mr. Maffin, even if it is only on the “inside the CBC” web site, which I suspect very few CBC Radio listeners know about.
The changes that are being made to the CBC Radio Two programming are unprecedented in the history of CBC Radio. And, to be quite frank, the execution of these changes has been a fiasco equally unprecedented in the history of any corporation, either public or private. The only new product introduction that I can think of that rivals CBC Radio’s botched attempt to change their offering to consumers is Coca-Cola’s attempt to introduce “New Coke” in the late ‘80s. Fortunately, Coca-Cola realized their blunder and reintroduced “Coke Classic” in an attempt to placate an outraged clientele. Will CBC Radio management eventually realize their mistakes and reintroduce “Radio Two Classic”. No, they won’t, because they are not dependent on their consumers for funding. Public funding means they have the luxury of toying with the programming until they drive their audience away, to Classical 96.3 FM in Toronto or to Sirius or XM satellite radio in those Canadian cities that have no commercial classical stations that are alternatives to CBC Radio Two.
There are many excellent points made by those who have left comments to this article. David’s comment that “It is rarely a good business decision to alienate customers you already have - what if the ones you think you will get don’t actually switch to your side? Then you’ve lost them all.” is especially relevant. Why is this so obvious to CBC Radio listeners, but lost on CBC Radio executives? Is it because some of the CBC Radio listeners actually work in competitive industries and understand what it takes to attract and retain customers, and how difficult it is to attract new customers? Because they have some real-world experience in running a business that must offer a product or service that their customers want, otherwise they will go out of business?
There are many points in this interview that I could comment on. However, I will only repeat a point that I made in a letter to Ms. Jennifer McGuire on June 7, 2007, and that is still relevant to the present discussion:
“I agree that the mandate of CBC Radio should be to deliver programming that is meaningful to Canadians. What, however, is programming that is "meaningful to Canadians"? Should it attempt to reflect every region, every ethnic group, every musical genre that may be performed in Canada? If you attempt this then it is my opinion that the result will be a musical melange that will be of interest to only a very few. The programming will become so fragmented and unpredictable that you will lose your audience to stations where the programming is more consistent. If you succeed in broadening the scope of the programming, only to reduce the size of your audience, have you truly succeeded in making CBC Radio more relevant to Canadians?”
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
CBC Execs invited to House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage meeting, May 1 2008
Apparently there will be a meeting of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on Thursday, May 1 2008. The meeting will take place as follows:
Thursday, May 1, 2008
3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m
Room 237-C, Centre Block
Ottawa, ON
The topic of the meeting is “Study of plans and priorities of CBC Radio/Canada”. As I do not follow the workings of Parliament on a regular basis, your guess is as good as mine as to what this is all about.
The witnesses scheduled for this meeting are:
Mr. Hubert Lacroix, President and Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Sylvain Lafrance, Executive Vice-President, French Services
Mr. Richard Stursberg, Executive Vice-President, English Services
This would be an opportune time for the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to exercise their mandate and ask these executives: just what the hell do they think they’re doing over there at CBC Radio? Trying to drive it into the ground? Develop radio programs that only the terminally bored would find interesting? Find quicker and more efficient means of wasting taxpayers money? But questions such as this, coming from the heart, would be rude. So more diplomatic questioning should be the order of the day.
So, I suggest that you write to the members of the House Standing Committee with some suggestions of questions that they ask the witnesses. Questions such as:
Q: Could you please tell the committee, Mr. Lacroix, who you believe are the owners of the CBC?
Q: As a follow-up question, Mr. Lacroix, could you please tell the committee how you ensure that your operation of the CBC continues to reflect the wishes of the owners, who happen also to be the taxpayers of Canada?
Q: Could you please tell the committee, Mr. Stursberg, what is your vision for CBC Radio Two? And how do you intend to implement that vision?
Q: As a follow-up question, Mr. Stursberg, could you please tell the committee how you intend to measure the success your implementation of your vision for CBC Radio Two? Is it measured by market share? If so, do you have a target market share for each Canadian city? Could you please tell us what that target market share is, for each Canadian city? If it is not market share, then what do you feel is the appropriate measure of success?
Q: Mr. Stursberg, could you also please tell the committee what steps you have taken in the past year to solicit listener feedback on your proposed programming changes prior to their implementation and, after the implementation of those changes, how you have measured listener satisfaction?
Q: Mr. Stursberg, assuming that you have in fact attempted to solicit listener feedback on the recent programming changes and that the feedback has been positive, could you please tell the committee why you believe so many listeners are outraged over the programming changes, to the extent that they are protesting in the streets?
Q: As a follow-up question, Mr. Stursberg, could you please tell the committee why you do not believe that protests in the street by senior citizens, middle-aged individuals and students does not reflect badly on the current government, and why Canadians should not vote against the Conservative candidates in their ridings in the next election since the evisceration of CBC Radio Two has occurred under the current Conservative minority government? (Of course, this question would be best asked by a member of the New Democratic Party or the Liberal party.)
Well, I could go on like this, but space (and my time, and your time) is limited. So I’ll leave it to all of you to think of other interesting questions that the House Standing Committee can ask the witnesses on May 1, 2008 and to send them to the members, who are:
Bill Siksay, NDP culture critic Siksay.B@parl.gc.ca
Denis Coderre, Liberal Heritage Critic Coderre.D@parl.gc.ca
John Godfrey, Liberal Godfrey.J@parl.gc.ca
Olivia Chow, NDP MP sympathetic to the cause Chow.O@parl.gc.ca
Jim Abbott, Parliamentary Secretary for Heritage Abbott.J@parl.gc.ca
Josee Verner, Minister of Heritage Verner.J@parl.gc.ca
Gary Schellenberger, Chair Schellenberger.G@parl.gc.ca Conservative
Maria Mourani, Vice chair Mourani.M@parl.gc.ca Bloc
Andy Scott Vice Chair Scott.A@parl.gc.ca Liberal
Michael D. Chong Chong.M@parl.gc.ca Conservative
Dean Del Mastro DelMastro.D@parl.gc.ca Conservative
Ed Fast Fast.E@parl.gc.ca Conservative
Hedy Fry Fry.H@parl.gc.ca Liberal
Luc Malo Malo.L@parl.gc.ca Bloc
Francis Scarpaleggia Scarpaleggia.F@parl.gc.ca Liberal
(I shamelessly copied this list from the Stand on Guard for CBC web site. Any errors or omissions are, of course, their fault.)
Friday, April 4, 2008
National Day of Action to protest CBC changes, April 11 2008
A National Day of Action is planned for a number of Canadian cities to protest the recent decisions by CBC Radio management to disband the CBC Radio Orchestra and to reduce classical music programming on CBC Radio Two.
The Facebook site announcing the time and locations for the protests can be found here.
Having spent the past year writing letters to CBC Radio management, members of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Heritage (with very little results, I might add) I am gratified to see Canadians rising up to protest the heavy-handed actions of CBC Radio management.
Let April 11 2008 be known in future years as Canada’s classical music equivalent to France’s Bastille Day, when citizens rose up and overthrew a tyrannical bureaucracy!
The Facebook site announcing the time and locations for the protests can be found here.
Having spent the past year writing letters to CBC Radio management, members of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Heritage (with very little results, I might add) I am gratified to see Canadians rising up to protest the heavy-handed actions of CBC Radio management.
Let April 11 2008 be known in future years as Canada’s classical music equivalent to France’s Bastille Day, when citizens rose up and overthrew a tyrannical bureaucracy!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
A new President and CEO for CBC/Radio-Canada!
This article appeared in the Saturday August 11 edition of the Globe and Mail. I nearly missed it - thanks go to Ingrid and Brian for pointing it out to me.You can read the article on the Globe and Mail web site. The article reads as follows:
'It may be the dog-day season of summer reruns, but these are very interesting times at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
The CBC is trying to fill some of the biggest jobs it has - including the one that now belongs to president and CEO Robert Rabinovitch. He's due to step down later this year after eight controversial years.
The apparent front-runner to succeed him is Sylvain Lafrance, the current vice-president of French services (Radio-Canada).
Simultaneously, another search is under way for a candidate to replace Tony Burman, who left the top news job last month after 35 years with the public broadcaster.
The corporation is actually looking for two people replace Burman. The first, an executive director, would function as a publisher might at newspaper, overseeing all aspects of the operation. The second, an executive editor, would run English-language news and current-affairs programming.
The CBC's spokesman, Jeff Keay, this week had nothing to say about either appointment. The splitting of Burman's former job into two, he said, was "not a huge change." He said he expected a short list of candidates to be formulated over the next several weeks. Both positions apparently will report to Richard Stursberg, executive vice president of CBC Television.
How the two positions created to replace Burman will play out remains unclear. As posted on the CBC website, the executive director's job will embrace all news programming resources and operations. It oversees a staff of more than 1,500 people, and budgets totalling more than $200-million, delivering content to English-language TV, radio and new media.
But the executive placement firm CBC hired to find candidates - Egon Zehnder International - prepared a document for the search team that suggests CBC has put more thought into the future of news than has been revealed. It says, for example, that the new executive director - the document calls the job "publisher" - will include "refining and aggressively executing a multi-staged plan combining organizational, technological, operational and human asset components. Included in this transformation will be a significant shift in decentralizing decision rights across the new system and a reallocation of resources to support these changes."
"What is the plan, and why would someone take a job in which he/she would have to execute someone else's plan?" asks Lise Lareau, president of the Canadian Media Guild, the union that represents thousands of CBC workers.
The Zehnder document also says the publisher "and his/her team will identify opportunities for cost savings and operational efficiencies, ensure that new technology is acquired and implemented to support the efficiency drive."
In the absence of substantial information, there is, of course, speculation. Some observers think Stursberg, who often clashed with Tony Burman over budgets, has split the job in order to exert more control over news and current affairs. Indeed, some feel that Burman's exit was precipitated in part because he did not want to preside over a round of expected budget cuts.
Burman was not universally loved at the CBC by any means, notes Lareau. "But he was seen as a fierce defender of news programming. He was prepared to go to war to preserve its integrity," she said.
In the climate of fear and distrust that has characterized Stursberg's tenure at the CBC, there is also concern among staff about how the Burman search is being conducted.
Both the search for Rabinovitch's successor in Ottawa and the new executive director in Toronto have been outsourced to Egon Zehnder.
The EZ team is being led by Tom Long, a former president of the Ontario Conservative party, a former candidate for leadership of the short-lived Canadian Alliance party, and a friend of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Stursberg will ultimately make the hiring decision, but critics wonder whether a short list assembled by Tom Long might be politically tilted in favour of right-wing views. Even the hint of political interference scares many journalists.
"I think CBC management needs to treat its own news department as a public trust and say so," says Lareau. "It needs to be seen to be ensuring its complete editorial independence. And that means going the extra mile to put a process in place that is beyond reproach. That's what's wrong about Tom Long's involvement in the vetting of potential candidates. Is there a plot? Probably not ... but the CBC - and all news organizations - need to be reminded that the signals they send on these important hiring decisions are very important."
Meanwhile, a happy month out of his long tenure at the CBC, Burman declined to comment this week. Just back from a vacation in Costa Rica, he was in London on unspecified business. "I know very little about how the CBC intends to frame my former job in the future," he said. "And I know nothing about possible job cuts beyond the inevitable speculation and rumour, " he said. "However, my Spanish is coming along well."'
I find it interesting that the decision by Mr. Robert Rabinovitch to not seek another term as the CBC's President and CEO has been downplayed in this article - it barely rates a passing mention in the article. Instead, the focus is on the replacement of the CBC's head of information programming. I would have thought that Mr. Rabinovitch's resignation is a much more significant event, given the influence that I assume Mr. Rabinovitch exerts on the operations of CBC/Radio-Canada.
In my August 2 blog I speculated that Mr. Rabinovitch's re-appointment was a foregone conclusion, given the fact that there appeared to be no mention in the press of his decision not to seek another term as President and CEO. Well, apparently I was wrong! I searched again for mentions in the press or on CBC's web site for an announcement of his resignation.
I found a web site that reproduces an article from the March 10 2006 Globe and Mail article that mentions that Mr. Rabinovitch would not seek another term - but then, nothing after that until Mr. Rabinovitch's announcement on July 25 2007, the article in the Globe and Mail and an article in the Toronto Star. If the President and CEO of any publicly traded corporation had decided to step down it would be a major news event for the nation's newspapers, and yet Mr. Rabinovitch's departure is barely noticed - what is going on here? Is there absolutely no interest in the conduct of the CBC/Radio-Canada among the nation's journalists?
In any case, you now have an opportunity to influence the selection of the next President and CEO of the CBC/Radio-Canada! Write to Egon Zehnder and let them know if you believe your interests are being met by the current management of CBC/Radio-Canada!
Thursday, August 2, 2007
A new President and CEO for CBC/Radio-Canada?
I noticed the above advertisement in the "Careers" section of the July 27th edition of the Globe and Mail. It was also in the July 28 (Saturday) edition.
CBC/Radio-Canada is recruiting a new President and Chief Executive Officer? At first I thought that the CBC Radio Two listener revolt had borne fruit and that Mr. Robert Rabinovitch, finally recognizing that CBC Radio has betrayed its listeners in revamping the Radio Two programming, had tendered his resignation. Mr. Robert Rabinovitch had, I thought, at last behaved honourably and had recognized that although he may not have been directly responsible for these programming changes, as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the corporation he was ultimately accountable for the behaviour of CBC management and had decided to resign as an act of contrition. Bravo, Mr. Rabinovitch!
But then I searched for news of Mr. Rabinovitch's resignation. I checked the National Post and the Globe and Mail. I looked on the CBC web site. I did a Google search. There was no mention of Mr. Rabinovitch's resignation. The only item I could find is the statement that "The Government of Canada is seeking to recruit a new President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada. Please click here to view the selection criteria for the position of President and CEO." on the Board of Directors page of the CBC web site.
I quickly realized that this recruiting campaign must be a mere formality. Mr. Rabinovitch's current term as President and CEO expires in November 2007, since he was reappointed for another three year term in November 2004. I expect that Mr. Rabinovitch is the favoured candidate for another three year term, beginning in November 2007. Thus the low-key recruitment campaign.
Oh, well, I thought, back to the trenches of the CBC Radio Two listener uprising. We former CBC Radio Two listeners will just have to slog on and continue voicing our requests for CBC Radio management to return to the quality programming that CBC Radio Two featured prior to the March 19 2007 programming changes.
But then I had a further thought. If the CBC is in fact soliciting candidates for the President and CEO position, then presumably they should be willing to accept comments on the performance of the current President and CEO, assuming that he is also a candidate for the position? In that case, who is better qualified to comment on the performance of the current President and CEO than the shareholders of the corporation, i.e. the listeners and viewers of CBC Radio and TV? If Mr. Robert Rabinovitch is seeking reappointment to another term as President and CEO, then your opinon and my opinion on his performance in the job must surely carry some weight during the selection process?
So, if you believe Mr. Rabinovitch has excelled during his term of office - if you believe that the relations between management and staff of CBC are improved, if you believe CBC meets your needs as a television viewer or radio listener, if you believe that the quality of programming has improved and you believe that the CBC is responsive to your opinions as a viewer/listener, shareholder in the corporation and taxpayer of Canada, why not write to the recruiter and let them know this?
On the other hand, if you believe that the CBC is not adequately serving the needs and interests of Canadians, that CBC Radio management is not attempting to solicit the opinions of the CBC Radio listening audience in a manner which allows the listening audience to have a meaningful voice in the choice of programming, that CBC Radio management is making programming decisions which do not reflect the needs and interests of Canadians and is doing so based on information that they are unwilling to share with the CBC Radio listening audience and that CBC Radio management is unwilling to let listeners comment on the programming changes that have already been made and is operating CBC Radio in an aura of secrecy that is not acceptable for Canada's public broadcasting system, then you should also write to the recruiter and let them know your opinion. (You may view my opinions on this topic in my letter to the Minister of Heritage, Bev Oda, in my May 17 blog entry.) After all, your opinion as a CBC listner/viewer, taxpayer and shareholder in the corporation should count, shouldn't it?
As noted in the job ad, interested candidates have until August 13 2007 to forward their CV. I assume that the recruiter will also welcome comments from interested parties on potential candidates until this date. The addresses provided in the ad are as follows:
Egon Zehnder International Inc.
BCE Place
181 Bay Street, Suite 3920
Toronto, ON
M5J 2T3
Egon Zehnder International Inc.
1 Place Ville-Marie, Suite 3310
Montreal, PQ
H3B 3N2
Egon Zehnder International Inc.
Petro-Canada West Tower
150-6th Avenue S.W., Suite 3000
Calagary, AB
T2P 3Y7
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