Via Fagstein comes this interesting bit of news that the CBC is planning to expand its supper hour news programme from an hour to ninety minutes. In addition, the start time will be moved from 6:00pm to 5:00pm.
Despite my previous post in which I ham-fistedly tried to use satire to show why losing the CBC would be a bad thing, I do think that we need more public broadcasting in general and more local news in particular. So I treat this as good news for a couple of reasons:
- Many markets have a news programme that start at 5:00pm. For example, in the Maritimes, ATV’s ‘Live at 5’ leads right into the 6:00pm news. This will give them a competitor.
- This is also something that the CBC can point to, in markets where the privates are reducing service, and show that they are increasing their coverage.
This isn’t supposed to happen until August (according to a friend who works there) so there will be a few things to sort out. For example, when the CBC is cutting 800 jobs, how do you increase news coverage? Will it be 90 minutes of hard news or will the first half hour be more “lifestyle oriented”?
If the answer to the latter question is in the affirmative, does this mean there’ll be a new home for Steven and Chris?
John from Saint John 