Profiles in privatization

A little birdie just told me that Media Profile -- the company that won the contract to do CBC's publicity last year -- has just been renewed for two years.

Nothing against principal Patrick Gossage and his team (some of which are ex-CBCers) but I think that contracting out the publicity function has been a failure. Used to be that program units had on site staff publicists assigned to them, people who knew the programs and personnel, were easily and instantly available to scribes such as moi and were available to line-up an interview, quickly answer a query, put out a release, send a tape, whatever.

No longer.

Now I am told that there's a bureaucratic wall between producers and Media Profile, that the former cannot directly contact the latter because hourly billing kicks in. Plus, as I blogged the other day, I am hearing that programming money may have to be diverted to publicity.

All I can tell you is, the volume of news releases from CBC is down -- and so is the coverage of its programming.

My former Star colleague Brian Gorman, who went on to the Ottawa Sun, and is now writing a thesis on Canadian TV, posted this comment elsewhere this morning. It's worth highlighting.

The problem at CBC is that they have a huge communication department that has no desire, or knowledge of how, to communicate -- and it has a manager/staff ratio of about 1/1.8. They're all former public servants who do what public servants do best -- hold meetings and hire consultants. The publicists who were fired were the people responsible for showmanship: They made sure the media knew about programs, had screening tapes or DVDs and arranged interviews with talent. In short, the people who knew how to do something that benefitted the broadcaster, the press and the audience were fired, and the ones who do nothing but absorb funds were kept. Every network has a corps of publicists who promote their product -- from the two dozen or so at CTV down to the staff of two at Vision TV. Only CBC -- our biggest broadcaster, has no publicity department. And what's really disgusting is that the boobs in the CBC communication department recently held a week-long conference at a swank Ontario resort to discuss the problem -- that the "new system" is not working, that their agency, Media Profile, which is used to clients who want their names kept OUT of the news, is completely lost when it comes to promotion, and that the budget is inadequate to promote even a slate of favored shows, let alone a network. That was a total waste of money, when you consider that the answer to the problem is to fire all the people who were studying it.

Frankly, I think that's a little harsh. And perhaps not entirely true, at least according to a CBC spokesperson I just checked with. But there's no denying that promotion is down, while sources insist that costs are up.

Comments

[True North]

Well, all the programming types who lusted after the communications budget for many years now have exactly what they deserve - no publicity.
What a foolish decision.

[20/20]

Sounds like our government is close to achieving what our governments have always seemed to want--CBC INCOMMUNICADO=lots of money for BSManagers to have meetings and lunch.

What do we get? Free Trade that screws us out of 4Billion$ over softwood lumber which we delivered. United States security services losing our information from their unmarked car, on our soil, during a protest at Caledonia which is internal to Canada (reported in TheStar), under a government of STEVE which is
possibly autistic but almost certainly paranoid. Happy Happy Day!

[sanj]

what are the chances E! talk daily on CTV or ET Canada will cover CBC ..they are too busy
promoting their own shows ...

[Alex in TO]

I can't stand PROMO GIRL!

[johnnykap]

Look on the bright side, Mme Z, with the CBC putting out less information, there is less for you to stay on top of. You can use that extra time to focus on other aspects of your blog. It's win-win.

[Todd]

>gasp!

(I think I pulled a muscle . . . .)

[The Power and the Gossage]

That's it, Antonia! You're never getting invited to my fabulous Christmas party again. You're through in this town. I will destroy you. Hahahahahaha

[Ivan Prokopchuk]

Remember the good old days of Dennis O'Neill?
He'd get it to you fast if you were a columnist...And the star right there to talk to you.
I couldn't quite connect with the Galloping Gourmet, but they really tried.
...Got right to Barbara Frum and we really had a great talk. Loved the woman.
Everybody was so accessible.

[Todd]

>gasp!

(I think I pulled a muscle . . . .)