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September 12, 2022 7:19 pm  #1


How is CTV controlling costs???

CTV Toronto's Michelle Dube was off to London on Friday for reporting of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. 
On the Saturday, Omar Sachedina flies to London for reporting and anchoring of the same event. 

Why send Dube?  CTV has a London bureau with staff...  Daniele Hamamdjian is their correspondent...

Seems kinda costly...  double airfares...  double hotel costs... I mean I don't expect that they would be staying at a Motel 6 or Holiday Inn Express...  ground transportation....  crews...

CBC used to get knocked for this kind of thing on a regular basis back in the day...  National  Producer, Crew/Camera, Local Crew/Camera, and The Journal Producer, Crew/Camera all at the same event or story...


 

 

September 12, 2022 7:54 pm  #2


Re: How is CTV controlling costs???

CP 24 has Nick Dixon reporting from the UK and his reports have also been on CTV.  I am sure all of the networks have blown their news budgets out the window with COVID, the coverage of the Queens death, the ongoing reporting with the war in Ukraine, Robb Elementary shooting, tour with the Pope etc.  They have all had a lot of live and long on location broadcasts so far this year with anchors and crews reporting on site.

 

September 12, 2022 8:06 pm  #3


Re: How is CTV controlling costs???

I would think for every on air person they send to London, there’s at least 2-3 others with them (camera ops, chase producers, maybe an engineer, etc). Then there’s the locals they have to hire for technical resources (Sat trucks?), and the venues they are renting out to report from. I could imagine the exorbitant fees being charged for the Buckingham Palace media spots this week.

 

September 12, 2022 11:16 pm  #4


Re: How is CTV controlling costs???

CTV has damage control to do, sending a Canadian face to London and a female one at that will, executives probably hope, temporarily keep viewers from channel surfing looking for Lisa LaFlamme and other familiar faces.

They can't not send a whole broadcast team over, it's a matter of status and being seen alongside the other countries companies.

Around January CTV will make up the expense by cutting more staff, and/or bumping up service fees.

Last edited by betaylored (September 12, 2022 11:18 pm)

 

September 12, 2022 11:40 pm  #5


Re: How is CTV controlling costs???

Joy Malbon, John Vennavally-Rao and Genevieve Beauchemin are also in the UK reporting for CTV.  So the network has at least six reporters on the ground.  
 
Much of the coverage and any live services on the CTV and CBC news networks have been commercial free.  CP24's coverage has not been quite as extensive but they are covering all of the live events.   I have noticed that both CTV, CBC and CP24  are doing a lot of interviews on the street with the public.  Some good live breaks today from Edinburgh talking to people lined up along the Royal Mile.  

 

September 12, 2022 11:57 pm  #6


Re: How is CTV controlling costs???

ED1 wrote:

I would think for every on air person they send to London, there’s at least 2-3 others with them (camera ops, chase producers, maybe an engineer, etc). Then there’s the locals they have to hire for technical resources (Sat trucks?), and the venues they are renting out to report from. I could imagine the exorbitant fees being charged for the Buckingham Palace media spots this week.

I totally get the number of behind the camera people that are required to mount coverage of an event of this scale.   But for practical, cost and security reasons, media have to rely on the Pool feeds.

I'm just questioning if it is necessary for CTV TO to have half of the local anchor team on location, and for CP24 to have a presence at the same news event as well when their National team is also fronting the CTV coverage.
 
It just seems like over duplication of efforts and resources, accompanied by the associated costs. Especially when in the aftermath of their recent business decision turned PR disaster, they were citing "changing viewer habits".
Maybe CTV is just trying to "save face" by putting a lot of their other faces on this.

Or, has Rogers' score of Lisa LaFlamme as a special correspondent caused panic in the executive suite at 299 Queen E, and the trenches up in Agincourt?  (It has already been mentioned in another thread that viewership for CTV National is already in decline since Lisa's "departure" from CTV.)

I have no knowledge of how large of a team Rogers/CITY has in  London, but they have hit the ground running. No doubt it is in large part to Lisa's experience and contacts in the UK.




 

     Thread Starter
 

September 13, 2022 8:41 am  #7


Re: How is CTV controlling costs???

CTV did something similar last year with the tornado in Barrie.  CP24, CTV National News, CTV Toronto, CTV Barrie and CTV News Channel all had reporters in the field reporting from Barrie.  Now many of the stories and reports were traded between all of the above, but it was surprising that there was also so much different material on all of the channels. CP24 did an excellent job reporting on the tornado and have one or two of their meteorologists actually live in Barrie.