Pure speculation, but what I've noticed in the time of job cutbacks is that everything continues to work well until certain key people choose to leave or go on vacation. The skeleton staffing only works under the right conditions. Lots of vacations taken in the summer...

I've also noticed that whoever is anchoring on the left side of the screen (e.g. Michelle Dube or Natalie Johnson) now is always holding a clicker in their hand. My guess is that it controls the teleprompter? I know CityTV they use a foot pedal to move the teleprompter (which hides it better) but perhaps things at CTV are so screwed up that they are using a visible hand-controlled device to move it now.
 

A friend of mine who is married to a former TV anchor in Saskatchewan once told me the story of his wife's first night anchoring the late newscast on a holiday weekend. She couldn't figure out how to use the footpedal to control the teleprompter and with no floor director to help her out, she soon became hopelessly lost as she tried to work from her barebones script. By the end of the newscast, she was visibly sweating and on the verge of tears. After the cast mercifully came to an end, she bolted from the studio, jumped into her car and drove away at high speed, simply wanting to get home. She was pulled over by a cop for speeding and after listening to her explanation through a mass of angry tears, he let her off with a warning, saying "you look like you've suffered enough for one day."

For their July 11th noon show they stuck the video of Jon Woodward in the bkg as he spoke, then briefly cut to Jessica at the weather desk (though she caught on quickly and thankfully wasn't picking her nose or doing anything embarassing), then cut back to Jon and Nathan. Yeah, it's a mess over there. They've made Global News' large array of technical gaffes look small by comparison.

...and from a technical POV, one error in Overdrive has a cascading effect on everything that follows.

TomTV wrote:

For their July 11th noon show they stuck the video of Jon Woodward in the bkg as he spoke, then briefly cut to Jessica at the weather desk (though she caught on quickly and thankfully wasn't picking her nose or doing anything embarassing), then cut back to Jon and Nathan. Yeah, it's a mess over there. They've made Global News' large array of technical gaffes look small by comparison.

Even CTV Kitchener had moments like this in their newscasts.

They continue to have endless troubles, and it seems like every day, it's something else that goes off the rails. Earlier this week, there were almost no music cues, like they use when they promote an upcoming story or go to the weather. Everything was silent. 

Then on Thursday, the big problem was in the keys, the graphics that identify who is speaking on screen. On the noon, they I.D.'d Siobhan Morris as Rahim Ladhani for at least 5-10 secs. as an example.

The key trouble continued on the 6, with this rather embarrassing faux pas. (Unless the suspect in that pic had a very long neck that I couldn't see!)



In another part of the newscast, they were promoting an upcoming story on a disease and children. This is what viewers saw:



I'm not putting these up to poke fun at them. But whatever is going on is getting to be chronic and ridiculous. Not to mention repetitive. 

If they're breaking in a new system, it's obviously not working very well. It's embarrassing for what is supposed to be the #1 newscast in the #1 market in Canada. They need to fix this if they want to be taken seriously. 

Toronto is a small market now.

I'm not harping on this to make fun of CTV News, but the technical output of their product is beyond understanding. 

It started right off the top of their noon news on Tuesday, when they threw to Natalie Johnson for a lead story about yet more construction woes for Toronto commuters. For some reason, they keyed her incorrectly as "Beth MacDonell," another of their reporters. 



She dutifully gave her intro and then stood there. And stood there. And stood there. It was more than 20 secs. which is a very long time to be hung out to dry on live television, as her pre-recorded story failed to run. Finally, you could actually see her getting a message from the control room through her IFB, telling her to ad lib something. She nodded repeatedly at the voice viewers couldn't hear, bravely tried, but most of the story was lost as she attempted to explain it all from memory with no script. 

But I loved the dog wandering by in the background staring at her. She then mercifully threw back to the newsroom. 



About 23 minutes into the show they returned to Johnson, whose story finally aired. But having your lead come on 23 minutes in is not great. 

A few minutes later, they threw to another live hit, this time from John Musselman, who told viewers we were about to see some video they shot at U. of T., where there had been an attack on a student. We never got to see it, but briefly glimpsed a description of the suspect - which Musselman never referred to as they came back to him on camera. He finished his live hit quickly and it was back to the anchors. 



And it wasn't just Tuesday. The weekend show was equally awful. I felt sorry for anchor Rahim Ladhani, whose autocue apparently kept going down, forcing him to try and find his place in the paper copy all newsrooms keep for back-up just in case. It was bad enough when they were into viz as he stammered around. But when it happened on camera, and you could see him shuffling papers and looking for the story in a panic, apologizing to the audience, it was cringeworthy. 

This just keeps happening. If they're trying to break in a new system, it isn't working. And if it's inexperienced crew (which I doubt since it's been more than a month) then someone needs to be talked to. But they can't let this disaster keep on going. 

It's been almost a month since these endless technical snafus began showing up. It has to stop. Not soon. Now. 

ED1 wrote:

Other stations in much smaller markets using automation have been able to make their newscasts look pretty good. What is CTV Toronto’s excuse?

It almost certainly comes down to management failure. 

Maybe they're disengaged because they simply oversee too much. Or maybe they're engaged but in the wrong way - coming down hard on individuals when the issue is clearly structural.

RadioActive wrote:

RadioAaron wrote:

They should really consider temporarily pre-recording as much as possible until they work out what's plaguing them.

Sounds like a good idea on the surface, but one of their big problems has been their pre-recorded material not playing when it's supposed to. Imagine what that might cause if they couldn't get most of a "taped" newscast to play at all. 

Agree. But at least for the noon or the weekend casts, they should record the whole thing. For the 6, stop trying to do a live on-location reporter throwing to tape...for now. It's not ideal, but the end result can't be as bad at what's going out now.

Simplyfy, majorly and temporarily.

Last edited by RadioAaron (August 6, 2024 7:20 pm)

RadioActive wrote:

I'm not harping on this to make fun of CTV News, but the technical output of their product is beyond understanding.  

Here's the train wreck: 



 

Another aspect of this is one I hadn't thought of - CTV H.Q. in Agincourt is where CFRB's newscasts remotely originate from. And while the Wednesday noon on TV was mostly flawless, there was a huge problem with 1010's 1 PM news update. The usual intro stinger came on followed by .. nothing.

The stinger just kept going until it finally ran out, with no announcer being heard. Instead, they went to traffic. But that was interrupted by the actual newscaster, who began speaking over her. I'm guessing it might have been pre-recorded, because sure enough, the woman gave a few headlines - and then threw to the traffic report we just heard! 

But the traffic person was long gone and they weren't about to replay what had just gone out over the air, so listeners then heard the weather stinger. Except that was allowed to play out with no one speaking, until they gave up and went to an adjacency. So not only did we not get any news or a full traffic update, there was no forecast given, either. 

I'm not sure if this was something at the station or over at Agincourt, but what an embarrassing mess! They really need to get their act together over there. Now it's spreading to the radio!

RadioActive wrote:

Another aspect of this is one I hadn't thought of - CTV H.Q. in Agincourt is where CFRB's newscasts remotely originate from. And while the Wednesday noon on TV was mostly flawless, there was a huge problem with 1010's 1 PM news update. The usual intro stinger came on followed by .. nothing.

The stinger just kept going until it finally ran out, with no announcer being heard. Instead, they went to traffic. But that was interrupted by the actual newscaster, who began speaking over her. I'm guessing it might have been pre-recorded, because sure enough, the woman gave a few headlines - and then threw to the traffic report we just heard! 

But the traffic person was long gone and they weren't about to replay what had just gone out over the air, so listeners then heard the weather stinger. Except that was allowed to play out with no one speaking, until they gave up and went to an adjacency. So not only did we not get any news or a full traffic update, there was no forecast given, either. 

I'm not sure if this was something at the station or over at Agincourt, but what an embarrassing mess! They really need to get their act together over there. Now it's spreading to the radio!

I heard that.  It was painful.  The CTV News intro music went on for what seemed like an eternity, then a quick traffic update, then nothing.  So amateur.  How the once mighty has fallen.  The only reason I happened to catch it was because it came in the middle of the Vassy show, which is the only thing I still listen to on NewsJoke 1010.
 

Watched CTV London's news at 11 and 2 of the stories they played was out of sync. One story about a historic barn being torn down and another report about London's decline of air travel from the airport. I thought it was it was the channel that was off sync but no. I wonder if CTV London has the same OverDrive system that CTV Toronto has.