More details on the CBC cuts

Most of the gory details of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation cuts came today in meetings with English and French employees across the country.

Tod Maffin has the basic details here for CBC and for Radio-Canada.

Notable:

• * 80 job cuts in the newsroom. The actual number of layoffs will be lower after voluntary retirements.
• * Radio One’s The Current, the flagship morning show, will be cut 10%.
• * Radio One regional noon shows cut from 2 hours to one.
• * On Radios One and 2, Outfront, The Point, Inside Track cut, among others. (Some US public radio stations air episodes of Outfront.)
• * Regional “Living” programs canceled on TV
• * Investigative programs Marketplace and Fifth Estate see budget cuts
• * The Border, Being Erica, Little Mosque on the Prairie will have fewer episodes (The Border is getting some airings in the US. Is Mosque? Not sure.)
• * Regional radio cuts aren’t evenly spread. Production centers where the cost per listener is highest get deepest cuts: Sudbury, ON for instance.
• * There was talk of finding synergies between Radios 2 and 3: some sharing of programs? Perhaps the return of the old Saturday run of Radio 3 on Radio 2? The weekend edition of The Signal is cut.
• On the Premiere Chaine, the French regional noon shows will go away, replaced by a national show.
• * Windsor ON’s morning show on the Premiere Chaine will be canceled, replaced by the Toronto morning show.

There is some good news today: Maffin reports Ottawa will continue its expected funding of CBC this year, including the annual supplement of $60 million for programming. The cuts would be worse without this.

Will there be a stink about CBC not getting any bailout money, now that commercial networks Global and CTV have gone crying to the government for money? We’ll see. CBC got hammered for supposedly making the ask, but that was before Global and CTV started begging.

And, after you sell $125 million in assets to make up this year’s deficit, what do you do about next year’s deficit, if there is one? Uh oh.