New show, hosts, format, launches Monday
CBC HAS LONG BEEN home to some giants in Canadian journalism, but when you walk into the broadcaster’s Toronto headquarters now you can’t miss its most recent famous retiree. An enormous, red and black, Peter Mansbridge likeness decorates what is now called Mansbridge Hall, hovering over all who arrive at the Front Street entrance.
It’s a pensive pose struck by the former anchor and chief correspondent of CBC News, a look longtime viewers of The National came to know very well during his 29 years helming the flagship show, where he’s intently watching, hearing, perhaps judging what he’s taking in.
On Monday, Canada will begin to watch, listen and judge his replacements, a quartet of anchors who will now guide Canadians through the news of the day at 10 o’clock each night. Ian Hanomansing (the experienced, unflappable one), Adrienne Arsenault (the rugged veteran foreign correspondent), Rosemary Barton (the political pit-bull), and Andrew Chang (the young, digitally-savvy guy on the coast) are faced with the challenge of making something old, new again. And to be fair, their poster is bigger than Mansbridge’s, in his new hall…
At this particular moment in time, television and TV news finds itself in an unfortunate position among many who like to deride the medium as, at best “legacy” or at worst, “dying.” TV news has been presented in a very similar way for almost its entire existence and a look around the dial now while comparing it to the early days of TV yields some differences (no desks for some, definitely no more smoking, more women and minorities), but a whole lot of similarities to the old days. You can’t spell anachronism without a-n-c-h-o-r.
Viewers of The National will surely be struck by the fact there are four in charge – and from three different locations. Barton is in Ottawa, Chang in Vancouver, and Arsenault and Hanomansing in Toronto. A clear departure from the past, “it’s immediately different,” said Caroline Harvey, executive producer of The National, in an interview with Cartt.ca.
While the new show definitely remains the centre ring around which all else revolves, CBC is hoping the new National is an inflection point for the whole news division where silos are once and for all demolished as the organization serves up news constantly on all platforms – and in ways which the users of each platform are eager to consume.
“We're trying to redefine what the television show should be, what this idea of a destination program needs to be in a continuous news environment,” explained Jennifer McGuire, general manager and editor in chief of CBC News, 
in our interview. “So it's a real reset and embracing of television, but we're positioning The National digitally in a different way. It already has a pretty big social reach, but we'll do more digital media storytelling in the context of the show. It'll have a newsletter, a podcast, and other digital expressions.”
While the focus will continue to be “original and enterprise journalism,” stories will go live when they’re ready – not waiting until 10 p.m. – and tailored to the platform. Stories branded from The National will look different on Facebook, on Snapchat, on Twitter, and so on, than they will appear on TV because most news organizations have now realized that just dropping produced traditional TV segments online, don’t work.
“We're now going sort of inter-platform, creating story teams that can do it all in every way.” – Michael Gruzuk, CBC
“There's no audience for that kind of thing,” said Michael Gruzuk, senior director, CBC News content experience. “We were early to integrate between TV and radio, and move towards a multi-platform deployment in assignment piece… We're now going sort of inter-platform, creating story teams that can do it all in every way.”
While viewers will see the four hosts together at launch, the plan is to have one or more of them in the field, away from the desk (or in this case, the huge lighted table centering the attractive, subdued, new Toronto set) as often as possible. “They'll be deployed, they'll go out in the field and do stories. Adrienne Arsenault is just back from Syria. That will continue to be the idea – that we have the hosts out, doing news, and differing combinations of them guiding the audience through the show,” added McGuire.
Viewers tend to want their TV reporters in the field, in the action, bringing reality to them and telling them why it matters, or should matter. It’s what the best have always done. However, doing it with a bit more of a raw and gritty edge is a hallmark of some of the up-and-coming news outlets such as Vice, where Gruzuk spent a year as director of news and digital.
While CBC will always be held to a higher standard than Vice, and has a Broadcasting Act mandate to appeal to as many Canadians as possible, not just twentysomethings with smartphones, it does want to bring a little of that edgy feel to its news – and The National.
“You'll see some shifts in how we tell stories, and you'll see shifts in some of the conventions of a television show.” – Jennifer McGuire, CBC
“On the visual approach to telling stories that will work on social and on television, we are embracing some of the experiential storytelling that you would see on Vice and others,” said McGuire. “We're looking at how we shoot, and how we feature character, and all of those things. So you'll see some shifts in how we tell stories, and you'll see shifts in some of the conventions of a television show.”
Another adjustment viewers will recognize on The National next week is a shift towards more comprehensive dives into fewer big daily stories over the hour. Essentially, they want to go long when they need to. “The idea is going deeper into stories – around three to five stories a day – and that's a big change,” added Gruzuk. Instead of lining up the news of the day and checking off all the boxes where the anchor would do the intro of a reporter’s piece, The National will aim to do draw far more out of the important ones, the items “where there's more tension, and they're ongoing, and we can bring more journalism to it,” he explained.
That new, more active feel of getting the anchors out of the studios doing their own thing and having more reporters in the field is driven by new technologies, too. Early next year, The National will have a new, more automated two-person control room for example, while producers and reporters will have new portable gear (wi-fi enabled 
cameras, portable teleprompters and switchers) to be able to shoot anywhere – and go live anywhere, if need be. Reporters won’t have to do their final packaging themselves either. It’s their job to gather the story, but the production team’s job to package it for TV, mobile, or digital.
Having Chang and the production team in Vancouver involved also makes the flagship show much more responsive to viewers if there is late-night news. Once The National wraps in Toronto, most of the staff goes home. It’s late, after all. However, Chang will be on the job until 11 p.m. PT, or 2 a.m. ET, so if something happens after hours back east – such as a certain world leader tweeting from his pyjamas – The National sill be on it.
So, the show people out west see at 10 may well be different than the one aired in Toronto. “On most nights, not a lot happens, to tell you the truth,” said Gruzuk. “But it feels, anecdotally I'm sure we could study it, that there has been more in the last 10 years that emerges late at night – and often a major, major story where we need to be positioned, so we’re going to really be able to honour the commitment to people who are watching TV no matter where you are, but especially if you're in the west coast, where for you it's ten o'clock at night and you're actually getting the latest on a major story.”
All this change is neither a cost, or job-cutting story, nor one where The National is trying to chase the now-clichéd “millennial consumer,” all over the place since CBC News already reaches 54% of the age bracket in Canada when you add up all platforms, said McGuire. It’s just a new way for CBC to do news.
“I think what one of our principles going into this was that our investment will be minimal in things that really only have life on television – so everything that we approach now, from the kinds of stories that we do, to how we shoot them, to their length, will be done in a way that will be much more digital friendly,” added John Whitten, executive director, CBC News depth and content.
“We’re very much thinking about what's going to work on digital and how do we get that material out early and at different times. It is a different approach to it… but really the idea is that where we're investing heavily and where we're pushing people is around content that's going to work in all areas.
“It's a tough thing to do, because the audiences are very different, and the needs are very different, but the program is still hugely important to us, that time is still hugely important to us. Broadcasting is important to us.”
Photos during this week's dress rehearsals are by Greg O'Brien, and courtesy CBC. Click to enlarge.
