CBC’s David Cochrane took a break from his parental leave Thursday evening to let the world know that On Point is dead as of next June.
Predictably, a bunch of people expressed their great regret but this is far from the end of the world. Cochrane hinted elements of the show will survive.
Frankly, the best thing to do with the show is kill it now and start revamping in January. Put political reporting and longer form interviews back into the weekly evening broadcast. That would go a long way to bring back the news into what too often seems like one gigantic weather forecast with periodic interruptions. Make no mistake. Snodden’s forecasts are great but there is also such a thing as too much.
There’s also lots of room in the “digital strategy” for enhanced local political reporting. That’s what Cochrane mentioned. Well, let’s bloody well get on with it. NTV is adrift. VOCM has been pushing its news and political reporting hard to the point where they have been kicking CBC news-ass more than anyone could have ever dreamed. If the Corp is going to stay competitive, they’ve got to innovate.
Go back to a post last May and you’ll see the point: “There’s room in the marketplace” for revamped political reporting. “Right now, NTV and VOCM don’t have anything to touch it. But they might. And in light of all the cuts at the CBC lately, the crowd at the Ceeb need to start thinking about how to do more with what the relatively big pile of resources they’ve got.”
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