Tom says: “It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.”
About seven years ago, someone in the ivory tower at the CBC made the decision to reduce the supper hour news in New Brunswick to 30 minutes from here — and 30 minutes from Vancouver — as a cost cutting measure.
The decision proved one thing — it was a disaster.
Now, Global News is doing the CBC one better.
Instead of 30 minutes of news done right here in Atlantic Canada — and 30 minutes done in Vancouver… It will be the Global supper hour news for the Maritimes done from Vancouver.
I’m sure the decision (when fully implemented) will go over “like a screen door in a submarine,” or perhaps “a lead balloon” or even say “a skunk at a garden party.”
In doing so, Global has decided to interrupt the lives of as many as two-hundred of it’s employees from coast-to-coast. Now, instead of providing Atlantic Canadians with some level of their own local TV news, it says to CTV, “Hey guys, it’s yours for the picking.”
I know a number of men and women over the next few months will no doubt lose their jobs because the bean counters have decided the service isn’t worth the cost anymore.
Right from the very start seven years ago, the CBC recognized it had made a mistake. Finally sometime over the previous year, it restored the hour long six o’clock news in New Brunswick. That’s for New Brunswick and from New Brunswick.
Does Global suspect that those viewing it’s news in Western Canada would ever buy the line, “And now the news for British Columbia … from Halifax?”
I doubt it.
This concept of paying lip-service from another part of the country didn’t work between 2000 and 2007 for the CBC and it will work even less when Global’s changes are fully implemented come Spring 2008.
I wonder if anyone from Global talked with anyone from the CBC prior to making this poorly thought out decision?
I’m Tom Young.
October 10th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
tom i agree that globals decision to move is a great loss , as i was a fan.
now i will however be tunning them out .
having said that , tom i see a phenoix rising out of the ashes, the time couldn’t be better for eastlink cable to get in on the act. there is an abandoned local audience out there, there are some unemployed reporters ,with exp. , out there. also i’m sure ex advertisers.. could oportunity knock any louder for eastlink.
hello eastlink, are you listening!!!!
October 11th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Tom,
This is very scary because I’m starting to think like you. I thought of the same thing when Global made the announcement that their news would be anchored from “Lotus Land”. I believe that was Robert Rabinovitches “Brain Fart” ideas. Just like you mentioned in you blog, it didn’t work for the CBC, and it isn’t going to work for Global. You only have to look at the full circle made by the CBC. They have changed their format again in Nova Scotia to a totally local format, and I believe they have done the same in New Brunswick. The weather we now watch on CBC is mainly for Nova Scotia. Same with the news. It’s Nova Scotia first, then regional, national & world reports. (I believe it’s the same in New Brunswick.) Nothing personal, but I would much sooner hear news from Yarmouth or Canso as opposed to a human interest story from Campbellton or Bathurst. I think most people in New Brunswick feel the same way. They would much sooner hear human interest stories from Campbellton or Bathurst as opposed to Shelburne or Sherbrooke, NS. I guess Global will have to learn the hard way, as did CBC before them. Now, if we could get CTV to provide local news at 6:00, we be that much further ahead again. Why is it that CTV can give other locations across Canada their own local evening news, yet in the Maritimes, we’ve got to have a regional format? Why? Newfoundland has it’s own CTV affiate with news for Newfoundland, all across the west, Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, lloydminister, Thunder Bay, just to name a few. But, in the Maritimes, we have to settle for a regional CTV feed. Since CBC changed that is the news I watch. You receive more local and more human interest stories from your own province. CTV should do the same.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:06 am
I remember a time when there was actually people working in the radio stations 24/7, but now in Saint John we have a situation that in a crisis could become a catastrophe. I speak of the fact that not one radio station in this city has anyone working the microphone past the supper hour. I remember not all that long ago where the drinking water safety was comprommised due to an equipment failure, and there would have been no way for the public to be notified that they should be drinking their tap water.
I appreciate the fact that you are talking about the fact that producing news for the local market is best done in that market, but again the local media is also not serving the public very well either. It should be a condition of having a broadcasting license that the station be staffed 24/7, and broadcasting live.