My new position at the CBC
Monday, June 13th, 2011It’s been about two and a half months since I joined CBC Radio 3 as the Executive Producer and meant to write a few words about it for a while. I’m now slowly settling in at the Canadian institution that is the CBC and it’s taking longer than expected: working for a large organization is an unfamiliar territory for me, in the past I’ve always worked for small to mid-sized companies. And even though Last.fm was part of the huge CBS family for the last two years I worked there I always felt that I was working for a start-up in East London.
When I had my interviews I was repeatedly reminded that the Radio 3 team was a unique group within the CBC and often acted independently from the rest of the corporation. To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure I’d believed this as it’s one of those things you say to someone you would like to hire. However, once I met the team I realized that they hadn’t oversold: the Radio 3 team very much feels like a start-up within the CBC so I instantly felt comfortable with the environment I joined.
The fact that I’m working part-time and therefore can continue to work on my other projects (such as the transmission events) made me quickly realize that I joined the right organization.
The projects that I’m working on at Radio 3 are exactly the way I like them: challenging, unique and based around digital music. I’m mainly focused on a secret digital music project but am also helping to run the CBC Radio 3 station overall – wherever I can add value. The guys are already doing such a great job and the last thing I want to do it to jump into areas that are working well and then mess them up…
Working for a Public Broadcaster in the digital space made me think a lot about what the CBC’s role should be within digital music. I feel that a trusted voice like the CBC has a lot to add in a space that’s constantly growing but I’m keen to do something that’s different and not imitate existing ideas. I want to add value to the digital music ecosystem and Public Broadcasters with their unique funding model can do this differently than organizations that are relying on income from advertisers and/or subscribers. More on that later, as dig in deeper to the world of the CBC.
