CBC to amalgamate English-language operations
Last Updated: Thursday, November 22, 2007 | 12:29 PM ET
CBC News
The CBC announced on Thursday plans to integrate its English-language services under one executive, its current English television vice-president, Richard Stursberg.
The public broadcaster's board of directors have approved a proposal by CBC president Robert Rabinovitch to integrate the English-language side of the CBC.
Stursberg will assume the newly created role of executive vice-president, English services.
Each of CBC's media streams — online, television and radio — will continue to move forward on their specific paths and "there is no plan whatsoever for any reduction in staff," Stursberg told CBCNews.ca Arts.
"What this is about is actually finding ways of taking the content … and making sure that it is more broadly available across all platforms as they develop."
The decision is part of an overall CBC integration plan, he said.
"As media evolves … one wants to make sure that you can adapt and move forward so you can meet the public on whatever platform they want to be on."
The goal is to find more opportunities for the media lines "to work more closely together," he said, pointing to the current integrated news operation in Vancouver as a model.
"The real trick for media companies over the course of the next little while is to say 'How do we retain the great strengths of the services that we have, but position ourselves so that we can respond effectively as public tastes change?' "
The move — described as a corporate organizational change — comes after CBC Radio vice-president Jane Chalmers announced in early November her intention to retire at the end of the year.
Chalmers' deputy, current CBC Radio programming head Jennifer McGuire, has been promoted to the new post of executive director of CBC Radio.
McGuire, CBC-TV programming head Kirstine Layfield and CBC News publisher John Cruickshank will all now report to Stursberg.
The decision follows a similar organizational amalgamation of CBC's French-language services under Sylvain Lafrance — formerly head of French radio — in 2005 after his French television counterpart, Daniel Gourd, stepped down.
At the time, Rabinovitch had said "we have no plans to make similar structural changes to our English services."
Montreal lawyer Hubert Lacroix is set to succeed Rabinovitch as the president of the CBC and Radio-Canada, its French-language service, on Jan. 1.
