October 18, 2017 Jonathan Spence CBC/RC Branch President Dear Jonathan, Re: Changes to World This Hour/Hourlies Radio News Thank
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October 18, 2017 Jonathan Spence CBC/RC Branch President Dear Jonathan, Re: Changes to World This Hour/Hourlies Radio News Thank you for your letter and a subsequent meeting concerning changes to TWTH and the Radio Hourlies. We want to address some of the questions you have raised and provide responses to your specific questions that we trust will be both helpful and informative. You asked why we made the decision. Modern newsrooms are in a continual state of evolution -- they have to be. In terms of radio, we wanted to: 1. Position The World At Six as the centre of depth & context for Radio News. 2. Streamline the multiple program asks on our reporters. 3. Driving more original journalism. 4. Improve the quality and consistency of our Hourly newscasts where they already exist on terrestrial radio. 5. Position the Hourly newscast as the front-of-line national newscast for a new generation of audio consumers, for example on voice-activated speakers. 6. Streamline the production of three simultaneous afternoon national newscasts in order to enhance resource for The Hourlies and The World At Six You asked how do you 'improve' the hourlies and why go with a news headline service. This is not a headline news service. We will improve the hourlies through deliberate program development, better production values, a clear mandate, consistency, additional staffing, by setting expectations around content, voice, and pace, and emphasizing their importance within the News Service. You asked about resourcing, deployment in light of investment from the government. The program development around the new hourly newscast will determine how many people are needed to produce a quality hourly newscast; it's also important to note that no one has lost their job with this change. Within news, the government money went to two areas for investment. 1) Local 2) International. This led to the establishment of the Moscow bureau. …/2 You asked what options we considered in making the decision. This decision was part of the overall strategy for CBC News. You asked about consultation before the decision was made. This was a strategic decision made at senior levels of management and included consultation with the leaders of News, Radio and Regions. Strategy and programming decisions of this nature are sensitive and are the purview of management. You asked us to respond on the impact of this change to national radio news. We will be doing more original journalism and by doing so we will improve the quality of both The World This Hour and World at Six. CBC News will be better positioned grow our audio content consumption, for example on smart speakers. You asked about where stories from regions will play if not on The World at Six. These stories will continue to find a home on The World at Six, as well as World Report, as you know, our highest rated network news broadcast. Please know we have no plans to pay less attention to domestic stories from across Canada. We will now favour stories that are original or enterprise, or have original or enterprise “takes” on the news of the day, but have no intention to diminish our commitment to domestic news. You asked about why we are moving into the smart speaker space. We are responding to clear audience demand. Google, Apple and Amazon are making voice- activated speakers and we want to be on all of them. This is a distribution play, no different than building an app for a phone. We began running our hourly newscasts on these devices for American audience in early 2017. We want to be prepared for their adoption by Canadians. An estimated 60.5 million Americans are expected to use one of these devices at least once a month this year. This adoption rate is even faster than the pace at which smartphone ownership grew. Other public broadcasters, including the BBC, the ABC and NPR, are investing significant money in these platforms. You asked us to respond on how the decision was communicated to all staff. We fully acknowledge the rollout of this change was not smooth. We had planned for direct conversations with people to allow them time to process this change. Unfortunately, within a day of our first conversation with staff most directly affected, the change was leaked to outside media and we were forced to roll out the communication early. You asked how local shows are given additional resources. Local shows already use syndicated content and we will add to the syndication team to help supplement the afternoon content offer. Conversations on what’s required by local shows are well underway. There are other supports including CBC Music providing first play live original recordings of Canadian content. These shows continue to have a cultural mandate as well. …/3 You asked how local can remain local if they use syndicated product. Local afternoon shows are working with their Managing Editors and Program Managers on action plans for their programs, using the new national afternoon show mandates as a guide. There have been two group meetings with Program Development to date about the changes to the World This Hour and Hourlies: one for afternoon show representatives from smaller stations and one with staff from the three-hour afternoon shows in larger centres. Additional pan-regional videoconferences are planned between now and November 6 for brainstorming other potential solutions and sharing of approaches. Teams in each region will work with their leadership to make a plan that fits their needs and circumstances. At the same time, Local Services and News are at the table to ensure a Syndication offer that will serve local show needs. You asked that employees be part of a conversation on how we evolve. From the outset, we have involved people from across the organization in the development of this new strategy, which is informing all of the decisions. As we move forward in the program development process, everyone will be driving this process. You asked for communication around changes at CBC News. As with any change of this scope, management will monitor and adjust as necessary. This stage of the redevelopment is being driven by our teams and they will be very involved in the process and whatever adjustments may come out of those conversations. Regards, Jennifer McGuire General Manager and Editor in Chief CBC News Heather Conway Executive Vice President, English Services Susan Marjetti Executive Director, Radio and Audio .