With managers now manning the switches at the CBC, listeners and viewers are getting their fill of programming comprised almost entirely of reruns, BBC World News feeds, and local radio newscasts based on wire stories.
Three days into its lockout of 5,500 unionized employees, the public broadcaster is grappling with how to stay relevant and on top of breaking news stories -- a huge challenge given that all of its producers, technicians, behind-the-scenes support crew, reporters and on-air talent are on the picket line.
Ian Morrison, spokesman for the media watchdog Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, said yesterday he thought management would have put a better foot forward. "Essentially what you're getting is BBC for news on television, wire-service feeds on radio and a blizzard of repeat programming.
"Maybe in a week, they'll improve . . . but, for now, it's pretty damn crude and so unimaginative."
As for people who live in more remote regions of Canada, Mr. Morrison said they're feeling the withdrawal of CBC news acutely. "A woman in the Northwest Territories e-mailed me yesterday and said she's already feeling cut off from the rest of the North, and the rest of the country.
"It's the CBC set up as the Toronto broadcasting corporate model, and there are a lot of people who are very upset."
As in past CBC strikes, the public broadcaster has stopped using its branded news names such as The National, The World at Six, or The World at Eight. Instead, everything is generically called CBC News, a management nod to the inevitably weaker strain of newscast that typically comes during a lockout, particularly one of this magnitude. (A few years ago, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers, which represented technicians, and Canadian Media Guild, which represented the journalists, merged into a single bargaining unit resulting in the 5,000-plus employees now locked out.)
CBC Radio personality Michael Enright, who is host of The Sunday Edition, said yesterday that the broadcaster wasn't living up to its responsibility to listeners during the lockout, particularly by not making it clear enough to audiences that on-air talent is not on air when any repeat program is played.
"I wish they would make it exceedingly clear that the on-air people are not inside the building. I am not working on The Sunday Edition. And if The Sunday Edition appears on Sunday, I would hope they would say that there was a labour disruption or whatever, and that Enright was not in the building. I think it hurts the listeners' perception of what's going on air," he said.
Word was also circulating on the picket line yesterday that some staff were considering starting up podcasts and other Internet-based broadcasts as a kind of alternate CBC during the lockout.
Jason MacDonald, the CBC's official spokesman, defended the non-union employee's efforts yesterday, noting that summer is traditionally a time of reruns and a slackened news pace.
"We put a plan in place that will allow us to continue to provide service on all our platforms -- radio, TV and on-line. It's not the service that Canadians are used to, certainly. But it's being done professionally by the employees and with the resources we have at hand."
But while some media observers might be chafing at the paltry news coverage, others see it as an inevitable turn of events. Chris Waddell, professor at the School of Journalism at Carleton University and a former CBC executive, said this work stoppage is like no other the public broadcaster has experienced -- and hence, the network is charting a new course.
"I was only at CBC for one strike, and that was only our technical people," said Mr. Waddell, who was CBC's parliamentary bureau chief and a senior producer for The National and Sunday Report. "In that case, the editorial people could still put a version of news and current affairs on the air. It wasn't great, but it was something.
"This is the first one where everyone has gone out. If the strike goes on for some time, maybe they'll find a way to put something on the air."
Mr. MacDonald said what's on the airwaves is management's short- to near-term approach.
The CBC lockout went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday after 15 months of negotiations. A key issue is the CBC's desire to be able to hire contract and part-time employees, something the media guild opposes adamantly.
Gayle MacDonald