MONTREAL – Talk about a bungled communications job.
CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO Hubert Lacroix apologized to Canadians today regarding last week’s poorly-worded announcement about the Corp’s decision to rebrand French language service Radio Canada by incorporating the word “Ici” across all its platforms – a move which, after meeting with widespread criticism from government and the public, has caused the Corp to change its plans and put “Radio-Canada” back in its marketing.
“Our intention was never to distance ourselves from Radio-Canada and everything it represents. However, Radio-Canada has heard the message loud and clear that the public has been sending us over the past few days. We recognize people’s powerful connection to everything that Radio-Canada stands for,” Lacroix said in a statement.
When first announced June 5, Radio-Canada announced it would feature more prominently the word “ici,” which means “here” in French, as a common identifier across all of its various platforms. The word “ici” has always been closely linked to Radio-Canada’s history, which has used the tagline “Ici Radio-Canada” since its radio service first went to air in 1936.
The June 5 announcement would have seen Radio-Canada Première rebranded as Ici Première or Espace Musique as ICI Musique. Instead of creating a unifying effect, however, the emphasis on the word “ici” (and apparent omission of “Radio Canada”) created the impression that CBC was dropping the Radio-Canada name entirely, which then caused a public outcry in both traditional and social media.
In today’s announcement, Lacroix said that Télévision de Radio-Canada would now be renamed ICI Radio-Canada Télé, the Première Chaîne radio network as ICI Radio-Canada Première, and the Radio-Canada website as ICI Radio-Canada.ca.
Radio-Canada will continue to rollout the rebranding over the coming months to ensure that the public broadcaster has what it describes as “a consistent,forward-looking identifier to designate Radio-Canada’s full range of initiatives in an ever-expanding and diversifying media environment.”
Radio-Canada has also come under fire for the $400,000 it paid to external consultants, as well as committing the in-house resources of “dozens of employees,” to the rebranding initiative – which, it now turns out, is neither here nor there.
