Twitter has been alight with an outpouring of lament in response to the CBC’s announcement yesterday that a total of 657 jobs will be eliminated due to a $130 million funding cut initiated by the Harper conservative government. Cuts will primarily affect recorded concerts, 12 regional music producers, hosts, engineers, and Radio 2’s “In Tune” will be eliminated.
“In Tune” is a classical music program hosted by Katherine Duncan, who is a classically-trained musician, singer. It is the CBC’s only weekly national classical music news show.
Besides the termination of three network jobs, CBC Radio One will see no programs affected by the cuts.
In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Marc-Philippe Laurin, president of the Canadian Media Guild, who represents nearly 5,000 CBC employees, said the cuts showed the network was at a “crossroads.”
“We’ve been ringing the bell for years,” Laurin confessed. “It’s a systematic dismantling of the public broadcaster and the services it supplies to the real stakeholders, which is the Canadian public.”
Speaking on CBC’s The Current, VP of English Services Heather Conway admits she didn’t know how dire things were when she took the job last October.
On a personal note, I hope the CBC can use this crisis as an opportunity to remind people that without adequate public funding, the CBC’s days are numbered. One can hardly imagine ourselves without them.
Our thoughts go out to all those affected by these ruthless and misguided cuts.
Michael Vincent
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