CBC Manitoba Adds Steinbach Bureau

 

Between CBC Manitoba Radio One and CBC Manitoba Television, CBC has a fairly large presence in the news department. Aside from Brandon, CBC Manitoba has a fairly light presence in covering anything outside the perimeter. The radio unit does make regular attempts to send the team to various parts of the province. And the TV unit does cover stories outside Winnipeg but the capital remains the biggest source of news material.

Brandon has had a news reporter based in the city for many years. They have needed one since their affiliation with CKX television in Brandon ended. That brought the station to an end in 2009 and CBC now had no real coverage for the second largest city in the province. A number of correspondents have worked the Brandon bureau. Their assignment is the city of Brandon and rural issues.

For decades some of the biggest advertisers on CBC Manitoba's evening news was ag related commercials. It is less so now. While CBC Radio One's Winnipeg broadcast is number 1 in the ratings, that is not true of the CBC local TV news in recent decades. It was once the top newscast but changes at the anchor desk and consistency at the other stations saw CBC slip to second and then third.

In today's market of cord cutting, as people sign on for streaming services and the like, the audience for local news goes down or appears to be on the decline. Certainly, how media reaches their audiences has changed greatly. When Bell dropped sports radio, it opened up several podcasts for former broadcasters and new entries in this niche. It is fairly shocking how pretty much all the local stations have dropped their sports reporting.

It certainly isn't written in stone that this is the best approach. Looking south to Fargo, North Dakota, we see WDAY use digital options to create a sports channel offshoot of their ABC slot dedicated to high school and university sports in the state. No media comes close to this coverage in Manitoba and North Dakota has a smaller population.

The overall CBC English and French service receives a lot of federal money. However, compared to other industrialized countries, it is below almost everyone except the U.S. The American have even cut their support more but have left the tax credits in place for people who donate to PBS and NPR.

In the last election the Conservatives said they would end CBC funding while the Liberals said they would increase spending. Since the election, Prime Minister Carney has ordered CBC to look for savings but kept the increase promised in election. All government departments have been asked to make cuts so the CBC is among those departments and Crowns. At the billion mark, there is a lot of money in the system. CBC Radio and Radio Canada, the French service punch above their weight class. They are both popular services and in the case of radio, have no advertising taken away from private broadcasters. CBC North can be regarded as an essential service given the lack of any alternatives.

The CBC English TV, with the goal of trying to serve a wider audience, the network decided to hire 30 more journalists in 22 communities. The Prairies would see the most of any region with nine communities having reporters. For Manitoba, the Steinbach/Hanover community the allocation is to be two reporters. The first one has already been hired. The second one will be soon. This will increase the coverage from 48 to 66 stations and bureaus across the country. It is long overdue.

CBC Manitoba is often accused of perimeter-itis. While it has reporters who know the outside of the city, it is not as often reflected in news. It isn't in their remit if they are reporting on city hall or the legislature. It remains to be seen how the new reporters will be utilized from Brandon to Steinbach. The Brandon reporter in recent years seems to have one digital story a week and regular contributions to the broadcast through the week. 

The CBC Manitoba evening news has a new set. The one old overlooked Portage at Spence. 

Brittany Greenslade took over as full time anchor after a period of rotating anchors when Janet Stewart left to take over the noon radio call in show for a year. While there isn't anything wrong with the new set per se, it really doesn't allow for much interaction between anchor and guest. Compared to APTN down the street, it isn't a very active set. National CBC programs have far more interesting sets for discussions which largely seem absent on CBC Manitoba.

I mention the news desk set because with two bureaus outside Winnipeg, it would be interesting at times if the Brandon or Steinbach correspondent could have a segment where they interact with the anchor. There have been occasions when correspondents have interacted in analysis segments. The Kives/Kavanaugh explainers were always interesting. Most of the interactions are now between weather anchor and new anchor. No stations carry sports reporters anymore. It is disappointing because nothing gets reported in Manitoba on high school and university sports. It isn't what happens south of the border. Nor does it happen in Britain. The BBC is full of sports coverage. That will be a discussion for another day.

The most important thing from the posting outside of Winnipeg will be new perspectives from those areas. And so it will go with all of the new bureaus. Will it magically make CBC television news number 1 in the markets it serves? No. There still needs to be a review of what CBC offers Canada. The future for CBC would appear to lie in streaming and they have moved local broadcasts to that format but so far it doesn't seem to coordinated enough to extend this service world-wide like BritBox or Acorn does with British programming.

I expect we will see more reporting from the bureaus across Canada in the fall as they are fully staffed. Given how many parts of the country have lost newspapers and radio stations, it may be the first full time reporter for those communities.