As technology has evolved at a breakneck pace, broadcasters have had to consider how to remake and distribute their newscasts. It’s not an easy task — the news is always on and it’s challenging to recreate something in the midst of constantly producing it. But when the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s (CBC) main anchor and chief correspondent, Peter Mansbridge, retired in 2017 after 30 years leading the service’s nightly broadcasts, the public broadcaster was forced to take on the challenge.
“We had built up our equity in him over 30 years,” Michael Gruzuk, head of CBC News Studios, told moderator Michael Depp, NewsCheckMedia’s chief content officer, during the keynote session of TVNewsCheck’s NewsTECHForum in New York on Tuesday. “When he left his post [on CBC evening newscast The National], we had an opportunity to take that and to look to see where our rising journalists were. We looked to do more on-the-ground immersive journalism, more cinematic journalism, more pointed political journalism while creating more conversation amidst more accountability.”
In light of that, CBC made an abrupt shift from having just one anchor on CBC’s nightly newscast, The National, to having a panel of four. That move was quickly and roundly rejected by the audience, Gruzuk said: “The core audience did not take kindly to it.”
Five years later, The National is again led by one person — Chief Correspondent Adrienne Arsenault — but the program’s format remains changed. Instead of reading the news from a desk each night, Arsenault can often