Keeping Compass Alive

Compass PinOne of the fringe benefits of being leader of the small ineffective cabal working to keep the name Compass in use to describe the CBC Prince Edward Island supper hour television newscast (the show that infidels insist on calling Canada Now) is that I have been able to cultivate agents inside the CBC operation. One such person was kind enough to anonymously drop off the Compass pin pictured here. I wear it proudly.

Comments

Save Compass's picture
Save Compass on July 13, 2005 - 11:33 Permalink

I was speaking to a “high-ranking CBC official” yesterday, and asked about the forthcoming one hour supper-time news show being piloted starting September 12th in St. John’s Nfld. I inquired about the possibility of Charlottetown going to one hour as well. This person told me that decisions such as this would be made in each local market by weighing a number of factors, including local audience demand and the possibility of generating sustainable ad revenue.

Perhaps it is time to revive the Save Compass committee!

Nils's picture
Nils on July 13, 2005 - 14:59 Permalink

Isn’t it technically “the Compass”? As in “Boomer was sayin’ on the Compass last noight that there’s some more rain comin’ ..”

Kevin O's picture
Kevin O on July 13, 2005 - 17:57 Permalink

A few weeks ago an insider suggested to me that Compass (no “the” je pense Nils) was indeed going back to an hour program in the fall (though I agreed to not hold him or her personally responsible if it didn’t) and we chatted about the return of the name Compass which I don’t think is off the table but that was less certian.

CBC President Rabinovitch (sp?) simply never understood that Compass was more about what was going on in front of the TV than what came out of it. Our local CBC professionals, far from being afraid of that, seemed to understand it intimately and nurtured it.

Statistics: I met Mr. Rabinovitch at a reception for advertisers. At that time he asked me where I would cut to save Compass. I suggested
the Toronto supper-hour prgm. His retort was that they had managed to double their numbers and it was now doing fine. I pointed out that their new numbers were finally equal to Compass but paled since they were established in a market of 5 million whereas Compass achieved the same thing in a market of about 175,000 (when NB and NS are counted with PEI).

I later learned that he cursed my name all day long to his driver.