CBC is eliminating local TV newscasts across the country, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. CBC Radio is not affected.
An internal memo says the Toronto-based feed of CBC News Network will replace the supper hour and late-night TV newscasts coast-to-coast. “Except for the North where we want to maintain our television news program in Inuktitut.”
The rationale for the change? “We operate with far fewer staff in the Toronto Broadcast Centre and much stricter newsgathering protocols … the mission is to keep us all safe while delivering on our mandate to serve Canadians with the news and information they need.”
CBC News Montreal’s Sarah Leavitt posted this via Twitter: “I WANT TO REASSURE YOU: We will continue to work, we will continue to provide the news – via radio, our website and social media. We ARE NOT GONE – The local news is more important than ever and we at CBC Montreal will be providing it, just not at 6 and 11 on TV.”
CBC’s supper hour newscasts have almost no audience anyway, so wonder if this could become permanent
Translation: “We’ve been looking for an excuse to get rid of these poorly rated make-work programs for women and visible minorities. Since nobody complained when we pre-empted local Edmonton coverage of the Fort McMurray wildfire evacuation in favour of a hockey game, surely nobody will notice if we don’t cover the current “crisis”.”
I never thought I would jump on the “de-fund” CBC bandwagon, but if this is an example of how they can be relied on to act in a pandemic, then shut the damn thing down. Sell it to Moses Znaimer. He will immediately convert it to “all local” and turn a profit within the first year of operation.
Well done CBC… it’s not like Covid restrictions vary from area to area or city to city.
Just when we need news the most!
Before my time at CBC-TV News (in that redneck backwater called Edmonton), I worked at a private station with a broadcast engineer who came to Canada from Holland and had a way of describing management FUBARS that fits this decision very well (feel free to imagine the accent):
Dumb.
Stoopid.
Dumb.
Rino! Where are you when we need you?
I guess the mother corp has told us to “GFY”
Our national network as long as the nation begins and ends in Toronto. Your tax dollars at work. Pathetic!
“Covid-19 Kills” Nothing like hyping during a crisis with a title like that.
Typical CBC. When you need local news the most … they shut it down!
When I used to be in the business I noticed that if you pick the worst possible thing the CBC could do … and then bet that’s what they would do – you’d win the bet. Sad to see things haven’t changed over the past decades.
nobody watches them anyway – tv is just a duplication of radio – all talk no pictures – whats the problem?