CBC/Radio Canada - Public Broadcaster Troubles Continue

The CBC is open to selling any and all of its real estate as it plans to move away from owning bricks and mortar, while its main union argues the public broadcaster is in danger of making “irreversible” cuts under financial duress.

The Canadian Media Guild (CMG) is raising an alarm after Fred Mattocks, the CBC’s general manager of media operations and technology, told a staff at a town hall on Tuesday, “If you are in a CBC-owned building, you can be sure that we’re looking at selling it and leasing back space, or selling it and moving.”

That includes CBC-owned buildings in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal, Mr. Mattocks said.

The CBC says it is only sticking to the five-year strategy it announced in 2014, which included unloading half of its real estate “footprint” – or some two-million square feet of space. Whether the CBC owns or leases the remaining half is yet to be decided. But as the public broadcaster looks to reinvent itself as a digitally focused broadcaster and deals with massive cutbacks, it is committed to downsizing to fit its needs.

But the plan is already in motion. The CBC has sold nine buildings so far in cities such as Halifax and Windsor, Ont., shedding about 400,000 square feet, or 10 per cent, of the corporation’s space. It still owns 17 others. Each building that was sold was replaced with a smaller, leased space.