Television

CBC replaces Peter Mansbridge with four anchors, including three with ties to Vancouver

by Charlie Smith on August 1st, 2017 at 11:20 AM
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      Peter Mansbridge's long goodbye has finally ended with the Crown-owned broadcaster replacing him with four, count 'em, four new anchors.

      Three of them—Ian Hanomansing, Adrienne Arsenault, and Andrew Chang—have worked in Vancouver, which might make upcoming editions of The National a little less Ontario-centric.

      The fourth, Rosemary Barton, has most recently been host of Power & Politics. 

      Hanomansing has the most experience as an anchor as the host of a network current affairs show and previously as a coanchor of the Vancouver CBC newscast. He has a law degree and moved to Vancouver in the late 1980s to work as a reporter in the local newsroom.

      Arsenault has also been based in the Vancouver CBC TV newsroom in the past. She eventually became a senior correspondent and has distinguished herself with her coverage of ISIS, the Ebola crisis in Africa, and an election in Zimbabwe, among other issues. She'll remain based in Toronto.

      Chang moved to Vancouver in 2014 to host the local CBC TV news and he'll anchor the national news from here, too. He previously hosted CBC News Montreal and spent 10 years working in Quebec.

      Barton, a former parliamentary reporter, replaced Evan Solomon as the host of Power & Politics in 2015. Previously a legislative reporter at Quebec's National Assembly, she has a degree in French literature and is fluently bilingual in Canada's two official languages. She'll host the national news from Ottawa.

      Last year, the Globe and Mail reported that the National's ratings "have remained flat, at an average of about one million viewers", trailing CTV's national newscast by a large margin.

      Under CBC's new approach, each of the anchors will take turns reporting from the field.

      "I didn't want four different versions of the same person," Jennifer McGuire, editor in chief for CBC News, says on the CBC website. "The four that we've chosen are quite different and they bring different skills to the program."

      Four hosts addresses one of McGuire's major challenges: how do you bring a sense of renewal without risking the credibility of the brand.

      In the past, CBC has invested big sums in making stars out of certain broadcasters—such as Jian Ghomeshi, Solomon, Rex Murphy, and Amanda Lang—who subsequently became the source of controversy over their off-air activities.

      Ghomeshi was charged and later acquitted of sexual assault. Solomon was fired after negotiating art deals with guests on his program. Murphy took speaking fees from the petroleum sector. And Lang got involved in CBC's coverage of a Royal Bank controversy while dating one of the bank's directors.

      By appointing four anchors, McGuire can easily dump any one of them should they find themselves the subject of unflattering stories in other media outlets. And the show will still go on.

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