Category: CBC

Familiar faces, voices to leave in CBC cost-cutting
CBC English Services has sent 158 redundancy notices to its Canadian Media Guild employees outside Quebec and Moncton as of Thursday in a cutback program that will see the broadcaster lose several of its best known faces and voices.
CMG represents a range of technicians, producers, librarians, journalists and other employees at CBC and Radio-Canada across the country ó except in Quebec and Moncton.
The total number of potential layoffs across the country was reduced by 73 employees taking voluntary retirement.
Among those to take retirement packages are some of CBC’s most experienced reporters, including Brian Stewart, of The National, Steve Finkelman, a municipal affairs reporter in Edmonton, and John McGrath, who covers Queen’s Park in Toronto.
Also taking a retirement package is Jeff Collins, host of Calgary afternoon radio program, The Home Stretch. In Charlottetown, the staff of Compass received redundancy notices, including former on-air personaility Claire Nantes. Don Newman, host of CBC News: Politics, and Jim Nunn, host of CBC News: Nova Scotia at Six,had previously announced they would be retiring.
Stewart, 67, said he had been thinking of retiring for a few years.
“My reasons are simple ó I’ve been working as a reporter without a break for 45 years this month which is a hell of a long haul,” he said
“I started six months after Kennedy was shot in Dallas and four months after the Beatles hit North America, so it’s probably time for a change. I’ve also wanted more time to devote to writing and to some non-profit activities I’m interested in.”
According to the CMG, about 100 contract employees have not had their positions renewed and a further 19 job vacancies will not be filled. The union says 350 jobs will eventually be cut from the CBC’s service outside Quebec through a combination of layoffs, vacancies, retirements and contracts not renewed.
The full impact of the cuts, however, won’t be known until September. That’s because employees who received notices that their jobs will be eliminated have an opportunity to move into positions held by people with less seniority.
There may also be further changes because of the CBC news renewal process geared to creating 24-hour coverage on radio, TV and online.
Viewers and listeners will begin to see changes on their CBC schedules as soon as next weekend when CBC News: Sunday, the morning TV program with Evan Solomon and Carole MacNeil, is cancelled. The last show airs May 31.
The regional Living shows have been cut across the country, and radio schedules are being juggled to accommodate all the changes at the public broadcaster.
According to CMG, the number of jobs to go, including contract jobs, redundancy notices and voluntary retirements, by city is:
Calgary,18.
Charlottetown, 6.
Corner Brook, NL, 3.
Edmonton, 16.
Fredericton, 3.
Gander, NL, 2.
Grand Falls, NL, 2.
Halifax, 12.
Ottawa, 9.
Rankin Inlet, 1.
Regina, 3.
Saint John, NB, 2.
Saskatoon, 2.
St. John’s, 6.
Sudbury, Ont., 8.
Sydney, N.S., 3.
Thunder Bay, Ont., 5.
Toronto, 155.
Vancouver, 45.
Whitehorse, 3.
Windsor, Ont., 13.
Winnipeg, 9.
Yellowknife, 8
A CBC spokesman refused to confirm the figures.
Listeners to small radio stations such as Windsor, Sudbury and Thunder Bay in Ontario are likely to hear the difference. The Windsor French-language service is to end. And those stations have seen deep cuts to their news and current affairs departments.
“As a northerner Iím offended that we always seem to come out on the losing end of things,” said CMG Sudbury representative Michael Robert.
Local citizens have organized Save the CBC protests in Sudbury and Thunder Bay in the past two months.
The Maritimes initially faced as many as 30 layoffs, but the number of redundancy notices issued was actually 12. Andrew Cochran, the CBC’s top executive in the Maritimes, said efforts have been made to cut as few positions as possible.
“For the last two months, we’ve been going through this difficult exercise. We offered a voluntary retirement incentive program and some people chose to leave because of that,” he told CBC News.
“We were able to find some vacancies where the work can be handled in a different way so we don’t have to fill those vacancies. We were also successful in having some positions returned to the region.”
A spending freeze resulted in some savings that went back into regional stations, Cochran said.
“It’s hard to give rock solid assurance to anybody about their media outlet in these times. That caveat aside, I think what we’ve seen through this process is a reaffirmation of the value and importance of CBC’s connection in communities throughout the country where we are,” he said.
Listeners throughout the country will hear their radio noon shows cut to an hour.
Redundancy notices will be served to the CBC-Radio-Canada’s Quebec services next week. About 363 jobs are expected to be affected.
The public broadcaster is aiming to reduce operating expenses by $171 million in this fiscal year.

Layoff notices issued at CBC
Layoff notices were being issued at the CBC on Wednesday.
According to the Canadian Media Guild, contracts for 100 employees will not be renewed, 158 permanent employees will be laid off and 19 vacant jobs will remain unfilled.
In addition, the guild says 73 employees are taking retirement incentives.
“We are losing very experienced people who have devoted years to the CBC and we’re also losing people who were beginning what should have been long and bright careers at the public broadcaster,” Marc Philippe Laurin, president of the Canadian Media Guild’s CBC branch, said in a release.
“Viewers, listeners and web surfers will notice their absence as programming is scaled back or cancelled altogether.”
A spokesman for the CBC said the media guild’s numbers were accurate, but cautioned that the situation is in flux as layoff notices are given out.
He said a final picture may not be clear until later in the summer.
In March, the public broadcaster said that about 393 jobs would have to be cut in its English-language service to make up for an $85-million budget shortfall.
The CBC faces a $171 million shortfall overall.

CBC Radio One, Radio 2 juggle schedules
Schedule changes are coming for CBC Radio One and Radio 2, the public broadcaster announced Thursday.
On Radio One, the local noon programs move to a one-hour format from two hours on June 29 and the afternoon schedule will be filled with repeats and repackaged items.
On Radio 2, classical music will come on earlier in the day, and several other shows have been shifted. These changes are a “tweak” to the schedules designed to smooth the transition from classical to contemporary music and back again, according to Chris Boyce, CBC Radio programming director.
As of June 29, the changes to the Radio One schedule are:
– Local noon programs reduced to an hour.
– From 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., listeners will hear repeats of shows such as Writers and Company, Dispatches, The Next Chapter and Sirius program Rewind, which features selections from the CBC Archives.
– The afternoons will also include a selection of listener stories from DNTO and shows that pull together CBC documentaries from the regions and other programs.
The local noon-hour shows will still have a call-in component and a selection of current affairs programming on local issues, but be shorter, Boyce said.
“We are just looking region-by-region at exactly what those shows are going to be, but they won’t be dissimilar to what people are used to hearing now,” he said. “For us, it’s important that those shows are an opportunity for listeners to reconnect to what’s happening in their communities on that day.”
Boyce acknowledged that CBC has found “significant savings” with cuts in this part of the schedule and repeats of shows.
“Clearly a big part of the [programming cuts] was in the afternoon schedule ó moving the noon shows to one hour and cancelling The Point. All the programming that we’re putting into that afternoon block is stuff that we’re able to put on the air at no additional cost to us,” he said.
The public broadcaster announced in March it was cutting the radio programs Out Front, The Inside Track, In the Key of Charles, The Point and the weekend edition of The Signal.
“It’s not just repeats. We think it’s a very vibrant interesting block of programming,” Boyce said. “We think we’ve made the strongest schedule we can, given our financial situation, but those cuts weighed very heavily on the decisions.”
The weekend schedule on Radio One is also being rejigged as of Sept. 7. Among those changes:
– 16 new episodes of medical program White Coat, Black Art on Saturday.
– The Debaters moves to 1 p.m. Saturday followed by WireTap and DNTO.
– Spark moves to Sunday at 1 p.m. and expands to a full hour.
Some of the changes on Radio One’s weekend schedule will be phased in over the summer.
On Radio 2, classical music begins earlier, with Julie Nesrallah’s five-hour classical program to start at 9 a.m.
Tom Allen’s morning show is an hour shorter, and he will be returning in the afternoons with a new show call Shift. Both shows will feature a mix of jazz, classical and contemporary music.
“Tom is a guy with an incredibly wide range of musical interests ó a guy who’s as comfortable playing classical music as he is singer-songwriter, and we have that opportunity in the afternoon 90 minutes to a do a show that really made the transition from Tempo into Drive.”
Rich Terfry’s afternoon drive-home program has also brought younger listeners to Radio 2, he added, and CBC wants to build on that.
“It’s a show that I think has brought new listeners to Radio 2, and part of the problem was that people were joining the show at 5.30, when they were leaving work, and at 6 p.m. we were completely shifting musical genres and going to jazz on Tonic. This is an opportunity to keep Ö people listening into the evening.”
Other changes on Radio 2:
– Terfry’s afternoon Drive program is longer, running from 3.30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
– Canada Live is shorter and starts at 8 p.m.
– Jazz program Tonic moves to 9 pm.
– The Signal will be shorter and Laurie Brown to host it seven days a week.
The cuts to Canada Live reflect CBC’s need to save money by recording less live music, Boyce said.
“We had to make a significant reduction to the amount of live music that we recorded, and this was definitely a reflection of that. We still record hundreds of concerts every year, which is more live music than anyone in this country records.”
Weekend changes on Radio 2 include:
– Classical music starts earlier at 10 a.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. on Sunday.
– The end of Jurgen Gothe’s Farrago.
– A new program This is My Music, in which some of the classical music community’s brightest stars will showcase their favourite musical selections.
– Radio One programs Saturday Night Blues, A Propos and Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap are added to the Radio 2 schedule.
“What we’re really doing is tweaking the schedule,” Boyce said. “We had the big changes to Radio 2.”

Ron James comedy, skating reality show set for CBC-TV schedule
New shows featuring comedian Ron James as well as figure skaters and hockey players taking part in a reality competition will join returning programs like Being Erica and Rick Mercer Report on CBC-TV’s new schedule.
The public broadcaster announced new additions to its upcoming fall-winter 2009 programming lineup in a statement issued Tuesday.
For the fall, James is set to offer up his observational comedy in The Ron James Show, while Battle of the Blades will see teams of Canadian figure skaters and hockey stars matched to compete each week in an elimination-style challenge.
Also debuting in the fall will be Super Speller, a competition show for young Canadians hosted by CBC personality Evan Solomon.
Two new shows will premiere during the winter: 18 to Life, a domestic comedy about a couple who marry at 18, and The Republic of Doyle, a one-hour, St. John’s-set dramatic comedy about a dysfunctional father-son private investigator team.
Along with Being Erica and Mercer Report, returning to the schedule are The Border, Little Mosque on the Prairie, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Tudors, Dragons’ Den, Heartland, Coronation Street and The Hour.
In March, CBC announced it would produce fewer episodes of some of its prime-time shows, such as 22 Minutes, Little Mosque and Being Erica, due to overall programming cuts.
Wild Roses cancelled
Wild Roses, the Calgary-based drama about two families duelling over oil, has been cancelled, CBC spokesman Jeff Keay confirmed. Rumours of the show’s demise had spread of late, with a group of fans banding together on Facebook to sing its praises in an attempt to save it.
The cancellation of Wild Roses follows that of two-year-old sitcom Sophie and long-running runway chronicle Fashion File, announced in March. Daytime lifestyle chat show Steven & Chris was placed on indefinite hiatus.
There are also no current plans for another instalment of the reality series The Week the Women Went, “but that’s really more a function of the fact that we have some resource issues,” Keay said, citing “funding reductions” that will also scuttle new editions of occasional, one-off programs such as Test The Nation.
“We’ll have more announcements later this summer,” he said, adding that there are currently no changes planned for the summer schedule.

Billy Bob Thornton’s band cancels Canadian tour
TORONTO ñ Billy Bob Thornton’s band has canceled the rest of its Canadian tour after the actor compared the country’s fans to mashed potatoes with no gravy in a testy interview that caused a sensation online.
The Boxmasters opened for Willie Nelson on Thursday in Toronto, where they reportedly were booed and met with catcalls of “Here comes the gravy.”
A note posted on Nelson’s Web site Friday said the Boxmasters were canceling the rest of their Canadian dates “due to one band member and several of the crew having the flu.”
The cancellation came two days after Thornton made world headlines with a belligerent appearance on CBC radio’s “Q.”
The actor apparently didn’t like that host Jian Ghomeshi started the interview with references to Thornton’s Hollywood career.
Thornton refused to answer many of Ghomeshi’s questions directly, mumbling: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He later said Ghomeshi’s producers had been told ahead of time not to talk about his film career.
Thornton also had some unkind words for Canadian crowds.
“Canadian audiences seem to be very reserved,” he told Ghomeshi. “We tend to play places where people throw things at each other. Here, they just sort of sit there. And it doesn’t matter what you say to ’em. … It’s mashed potatoes but no gravy.”
Before his Thursday night gig, Thornton tried to clarify those remarks, saying he loved Canada and his “mashed potatoes” comment had been aimed at Ghomeshi.
Media around the world delighted in the story. Entertainment Weekly’s Web site ran the headline, “Billy Bob Thornton: What’s his problem?”

Billy Bob loves Canada, but not so keen on Jian
A day after Billy Bob Thornton said Canadian audiences were like mashed potatoes without gravy, the actor professed his love for the Great White North.
Thornton talked briefly to reporters before going into Toronto’s Massey Hall on Thursday night for a performance with his band, the Boxmasters. The group was opening for Willie Nelson.
“I love Canada, absolutely,” said the 53-year-old actor, clad in a sleek black suit and puffing on a cigarette.
The proclamation was a sharp contrast to comments Thornton made Wednesday when he was an unco-operative guest on CBC’s Q radio program.
During that appearance, the Oscar-winning star of Sling Blade sparred back and forth with host Jian Ghomeshi and found time to insult Canadian crowds.
“Canadian audiences seem to be very reserved,” he told Ghomeshi. “We tend to play places where people throw things at each other. Here, they just sort of sit there. And it doesn’t matter what you say to ’emÖ It’s mashed potatoes but no gravy.”
On Thursday, Thornton was asked why he made the negative comment about Canada.
“I was talking about the guy who was interviewing me,” he said. “I don’t know his name.”
Taped interview gets 600,000 hits
The actor’s belligerent appearance on the show has already become a viral sensation.
More than 600,000 viewers had watched the clip on YouTube by 8 p.m. Thursday, while a CBC spokesperson said the network had received roughly 3,700 blog responses and emails regarding the appearance.
Meanwhile, media around the world delighted in the story.
“If you can’t wait for the next season of Curb Your Enthusiasm to start, this video clip should briefly satisfy your hunger for achingly, all-too-real situation comedy,” wrote a New York Times blogger.
Entertainment Weekly’s website ran the headline, “Billy Bob Thornton: What’s his problem?” and the L.A. Times was similarly damning with its own headline, “Billy Bob Thornton, crazier than Joaquin Phoenix ó is that possible?”
Indeed, Thornton seemed to have at least temporarily swiped Phoenix’s mantle as the most erratic actor-turned-musician.
Phoenix, who abandoned acting to pursue a career in rap music, made headlines when he sulked his way through an interview on Late Show With David Letterman earlier this year. Wearing a heavy beard and dark sunglasses, the uncommunicative Walk the Line star prompted Letterman to crack: “Joaquin, I’m sorry you couldn’t be here tonight.”
Took issue with Ghomeshi’s intro
While Phoenix was aloof in that interview, Thornton managed to be both obtuse and openly antagonistic with Ghomeshi.
Thornton, who was interviewed alongside his Boxmasters bandmates, took issue with Ghomeshi’s introduction, which included references to the star’s career as a Hollywood actor, director and screenwriter.
For much of the interview, Thornton refused to answer any of Ghomeshi’s questions directly, mumbling: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Things came to a head when Ghomeshi mentioned Thornton’s passion for music.
“Would you say that to Tom Petty?” Thornton questioned.
Thornton said Ghomeshi’s producers had been instructed ahead of time not to talk about his film career at all.
When the radio host suggested that Thornton’s past was relevant to provide context for listeners, Thornton fired back: “There’s plenty of context without all that.”
Thornton mainly seemed sensitive to any comment that implied that his band ó which plays what he described as “cosmic cowboy music” ó was not his full-time passion.
When pressed for details on his musical influences, Thornton elliptically provided a non sequitur about a magazine he subscribed to called Famous Monsters of Filmland and a model-building contest he once entered.

New Home for Doctor Who in Canada?
According to the website of the Doctor Who Information Network there’s a new home for Doctor Who in Canada. Reports have been received that cable network SPACE is the new permanent home for the series. The first four series of the new Doctor Who aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC was a co-production partner for at least part of those four seasons. Despite an initial strong commitment to Doctor Who the CBC came into criticism from fans and viewers in recent years for delays in broadcasting new episodes, decreasing promotion and failing to air the annual Christmas specials in 2007 and 2008.
Upcoming special Planet of the Dead will air on SPACE on Saturday June 20th, 2009. It is reported that Series Five will follow in 2010.
Doctor Who premiered on SPACE in March when the channel aired The Next Doctor but it was not known at that time if the the move was permanent or just a one-off.

CBC comedy Sophie cancelled after two seasons
CBC has cancelled Sophie, the half-hour comedy about a single mother starring Natalie Brown.
The series has run two seasons on CBC-TV and was also picked up by U.S. network ABC for its family channel.
Brown plays Sophie, a talent agent who ended up a single mother in the first season after her boyfriend left her for her former best friend.
Created by Montreal studio SphËre MÈdia Plus, the show is an adaptation of the successful francophone series Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin (The Highs and Lows of Sophie Paquin).
Jeff Keay, head of media relations for the English network, said the cancellation was unrelated to the programming and job cuts announced at CBC on Thursday.
The season finale of Sophie aired earlier this week.
CBC made the decision to cancel Sophie more than a month ago, he said. The show is running Monday evenings at 8.30 p.m.
On Thursday, CBC announced there would be fewer episodes of several other primetime shows, including This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Being Erica.

CBC cuts hit news, drama, sports, radio
CBC English Services plans to cut up to 80 positions from its news division and a further 313 from sports, entertainment, current affairs, sales and support across the country as part of its efforts to make up a $171-million shortfall in 2009-10.
Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of CBC’s English Services, announced details of the cutbacks to radio and TV in a speech to employees on Thursday. The details came a day after CBC president and chief executive Hubert Lacroix announced the public broadcaster would have to cut about 800 full-time positions in total at the CBC/Radio-Canada, as well as selling about $125 million in assets.
The cuts to programming at CBC English Services will mean fewer episodes of many prime-time television shows and cuts to entire programs on both Radio One and Radio 2, Stursberg said.
Changes coming to Radio One and 2
Changes on Radio One include:
Cancellations of The Inside Track, Outfront and The Point.
Reduction of regional noon-hour programs to one hour.
Reductions in drama.
Changes on Radio 2 include:
Cancellations of In the Key of Charles and the weekend edition of The Signal.
Reductions in live music production and recordings.
More consolidations with Radio 3.
On CBC-TV, investigative programs such as The Fifth Estate and Marketplace will have reduced budgets, though it’s not yet known whether that will mean fewer episodes.
Canadians can also expect to see more repeats of many prime-time programs, with shorter seasons ordered for ones including:
The Border.
This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
Being Erica.
Little Mosque on the Prairie.
The CBC will also reduce spending on new children’s programming and cancel the Living programs produced in each region.
In CBC Sports, there will be reductions or cutbacks in coverage of:
International figure skating.
CONCACAF Champions League soccer.
World aquatics.
World athletics.
Skiing.
The CBC will also drop its Blue Jays baseball telecasts.
CBC Radio loses 121 jobs
About $14.4 million must come out of radio, leading to a reduction of 121 jobs, including 20 in Toronto.
There will also be job losses in the Ontario cities of Windsor, Thunder Bay and Sudbury, in Quebec City, in the New Brunswick cities of Moncton and Saint John, in Sydney, N.S., and in Corner Brook, Gander and Grand Falls in Newfoundland and Labrador. There will be budget reductions at CBC North.
One-person bureaus in La Ronge, Sask., and Thompson, Man., will be closed.
About 109 positions will come out of television entertainment, including the previously announced cancellations of Fashion File and the placing of Steven & Chris on hiatus. A further three jobs will be cut from CBC-TV Sports.
A total of $7 million must be cut from the news division, including 80 jobs in radio news, current affairs and TV current affairs.
The number of people who lose their jobs could be reduced if a number of employees opt for a retirement package to be announced in April.
Stursberg also said there would be further details released about cuts in news on April 16.
He called the cuts “painful” and said he was worried about the future of news, TV drama and children’s programming. He noted that the cuts in drama would also have an impact on dozens of independent producers and their employees.
“We want to maintain as much as we can and stay on strategy as much as possible as we make these cuts,” Stursberg said.
He emphasized that radio morning and afternoon drive shows have been spared and radio remains ad-free. On television, the CBC will keep 80 per cent Canadian content in prime time and increase it during the day, with shows such as Martha Stewart and The Simpsons expected to be cancelled.
Cuts needed despite high ratings
He said the CBC tried to make cuts that would maintain the strong position it has now with high ratings in radio and television.
“The irony is, we are in financial difficulty when we’re doing better than we’ve ever done before,” he said. More than 20 million Canadians tune in to CBC Radio, CBC-TV and CBC.ca every week, he said.
Stursberg said he didn’t know whether further cuts would be necessary, perhaps a year from now.
Ad revenue by all conventional broadcasters has been falling and private broadcasters, like the CBC, have experienced a steep decline in revenue.
“It depends in very large measure on what happens to earnings. If ad markets recover, we will be in much better shape,” Stursberg said.
“We can’t really see where the bottom is. No one has any sense of when the economy is going to come back.”
At a speech in Montreal on Thursday, Lacroix warned there would be deeper cuts if the CBC is unable to sell assets.
He announced on Wednesday that the CBC was hoping to sell $125 million in assets ó but those sales must be approved by the federal government.
Lacroix criticized the Conservatives for leaving the CBC in limbo over its budgetary allocation for 2009-10, saying the government has not yet let the CBC know whether it approved the special $60 million for programming it has received since 2001. The CBC’s new fiscal year begins in five days.
In an interview with CBC News on Thursday, Heritage Minister James Moore said the CBC will be receiving its full allocation, including the $60 million for programming.
But he said the bridge loans for which Lacroix had asked as a way of carrying CBC over the recession would not “be in the interest of the CBC.”
“If the CBC is in a position where there’s not a return of ad revenue and then there are increasing demands on the CBC in order to fulfill its mandate and on top of that they’re in a position where they have to now repay a loan, you’ll see a real cannibalization of the CBC services across the country and that’s not in the best interest of the broadcaster or taxpayers,” Moore said.
Supper hour newscasts cut in Quebec
Lacroix said no part of Radio-Canada will be untouched by the cuts.
Among the large cuts on the French side are the elimination of noon hour news shows in Quebec City, Ottawa, Moncton and Sherbrooke and reduction of the supper hour newscasts in those markets to half an hour from an hour.
The programs Vous Ítes Ici and Macadam tribus have also been cancelled.
Lacroix also announced Radio Canada International will eliminate its Ukrainian and Cantonese services.
Marc-Philippe Laurin, president of the Canadian Media Guild’s CBC branch, said employees face a hard six months.
“It’s sad that we’ve come to expect layoffs as a way of life at CBC,” he said in memo to CMG members, saying these decisions “cut to the very heart of what we do and who we are.”
“It is also very disappointing that the Conservative government has let this happen at a time when our members and the public broadcaster are doing better than ever in every market across the country in providing valuable and informative programming to Canadians,” he added.

CBC plans to cut 800 jobs
Even after selling off assets valued at $125 million, the CBC will have to eliminate 800 jobs from the start of summer through September to make its target of $171 million in budget cutbacks, the national broadcasterís president Hubert Lacroix told employees at a town hall meeting in Montreal this morning.
ìThese are tough times for the public broadcaster,î Lacroix said. ìThe changes are significant and it will take time to talk them through.
ìWe need $171 million to balance our budget, which will mean 800 positions.î
Assuming the federal government approves the sales of assets and allows the CBC to keep the proceeds, balancing the budget ìstill results in (the loss of) 800 positions,î Lacroix said.
In addition, senior managersí take-home pay will be cut by 20 per cent, through reduced bonuses, and corporate salaries will be rolled back by 5 per cent.
At least half the job cuts will be made in English-language departments, said Richard Stursberg, vice-president of English services. Twenty per cent of them will be borne by regional services, and the remainder by the network, he added.
Television will feel the cuts more acutely than radio, which will continue broadcasting without commercials, Stursberg said.
But ìthe beef of the (television) schedule remains largely intact.î
CBC management has offered a voluntary retirement package and, until the results are known, the number of layoffs and the areas most affected remain unclear.
Another town hall meeting for CBC English services is scheduled for tomorrow at 2 p.m.