TORONTO – Calling it "a closely guarded secret plan," Friends of Canadian Broadcasting says the CBC wants to relocate The National from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weeknights.
According to the watchdog group, “(t)his would reduce the reach and influence of Canada’s most important news program and compromise the CBC’s mandate,” reads a press release.
FCB says the Corp “may fill the 10 o’clock slot “with entertainment programming, possibly of non-Canadian origin,” adds the release.
"Funding cuts may have left the CBC struggling to make ends meet, but only someone who does not understand or care about the CBC’s public broadcasting mandate would come up with this plan," said FCB’s spokesperson Ian Morrison.
In a letter to CBC President Hubert Lacroix, the group added:
“We are distressed to learn that the management of your English Services is planning to move The National to 11 p.m., while reducing its scope and length, and to replace it in the 10 p.m. slot with entertainment programming – possibly of non-Canadian origin.
“As you may know, the available audience at 11 p.m. is 35% smaller than the 10 p.m. audience, and broadcasting The National on Newsworld gathers only a quarter of its total audience.”
Moving the show up an hour would be “perceived as a deliberate act to reduce the reach and influence of Canada’s most important news program, and would compromise CBC’s mandate to inform and enlighten Canadians,” reads the letter, which urges the board to reject the plan.
We’re not sure how deeply the CBC board gets into the actual programming of the content, nor of the Corp’s actual intent to move The National or not so we have asked the CBC for comment and have yet to hear back. Stay tuned to Cartt.ca for more.
