Staff Q&A
June, 2006
TVO
How are we supporting kids?
Our focus for kids is now on content that supports learning outside the classroom for children and their parents. All our in-house content will be curriculum-linked and developed with educators. This means a focus on early childhood education, and specifically on literacy and numeracy development for preschoolers. For school-aged kids it means focusing on an often neglected demographic, keeping them interested and engaged in learning with fun, educational content, and equipping them with the tools to use educational media in a positive way in their lives.
.
For the fall, TVOKids will introduce continuous programming throughout the daytime, representing a weekly increase of 13 hours, and tvokids.com will enrich its learning content for children with more webcasts, more interactive opportunities and more challenging activities and games.
What are we doing for parents?
We will undertake regular research to inform parents about the best media to use in bringing educational content to kids, about the appropriate learning outcomes one should expect from interacting with our content, and about how to measure those outcomes. Parents are a child’s first teachers, and the central decision-makers about all aspects of life, including access to media. This fall we will introduce a new dedicated online community for parents, offering access to research on the latest thinking and practices in educational media, downloadable tools and a rich selection of interactive opportunities for learning. We will also create an environment for parents to share their ideas and views with us and with each other.
What does citizenship mean?
All TVO content for adults, whatever the genre, will be anchored in citizenship and public engagement. Citizenship refers to the range of economic, political, environmental, social, and cultural issues that define who we are and how we live, as citizens, at the dawn of the 21st century.
Ontario is changing and our new focus gives us an Opportunity to support citizenship in a way nobody else is. In Toronto alone more than 100 languages are spoken and 49 per cent of the population was born outside of Canada. Our content will reflect the diverse reality of Ontario, and help decode the many issues related to how citizens function in society. It will help engage people to be active, involved and informed citizens, to encourage dialogue around issues of citizenship and to promote understanding of and engagement in the complex world we live in.
Why are we creating a new current affairs show?
All our prime time content, whatever the genre, will be anchored in citizenship and public engagement. Citizenship refers to the range of economic, political, environmental, social, and cultural issues that define who we are and how we live, as citizens, at the dawn of the 21st century.
By helping to contextualize the many issues related to how we as citizens function in society, globally and here in Ontario, we can play a unique role in the media landscape. We have the opportunity to engage Ontarians to be active, involved and informed, to encourage dialogue around issues of citizenship and to promote understanding of and engagement in the complex world we live in.
When it comes to the issues, Ontarians have often told us they want more analysis, more debate, and more voices and viewpoints. We are developing a new current-affairs program, set to launch this fall, The Agenda with Steve Paikin. The new show will build on Studio 2’s strength in current affairs and offer a longer, single-issue format for more in depth analysis. It will allow for more voices – guests and panelists will change and will be brought in according to the topic, to allow for the broadest range of opinions. It will also involve more user-generated content and audience participation as well as distribution on several platforms.
TVO has built a legacy of excellent current affairs programming over the last 15 years. The Agenda with Steve Paikin will take the things that we do best, like debate and analysis, and do more of them. Rather than a magazine style show, the format will be issue driven and allow the time concentrate on the “why, rather than the “what”. The show’s approach will be substantive, serious and authoritative.
We believe this new program will have wide appeal to Ontario’s diverse urban population (in Toronto alone more than 100 languages are spoken and 49 per cent of the population was born outside of Canada) and to people across the province, and will allow for a substantial reduction in production costs.
What about Person2Person?
This Strategic Agenda is all about building on our strengths, and Person 2 Person with Paula Todd presents a powerful opportunity for us to explore issues around citizenship through the stories of individuals. Paula will continue to build this brand with us as a weekly series, with a more focused mandate that looks at the cultural, political, and socio-economic challenges faced by citizens in a changing society.
What is happening to More to Life?
We now have a clear content strategy, aligned with Ministry of Education priorities that we will roll out in the next 15 months. Our focus is on content that supports learning outside the classroom for children and their parents, and prime-time content that fosters citizenship by engaging people as active participants in the public issues defining our society.
For the fall, TVOKids will introduce continuous programming throughout the day time. Informed by an understanding of how, when and where our audiences want to consume our content, and the need to extend our children’s block, we have decided that More to Life will not return on TVO next season. The staff who have worked on More to Life will be reassigned to focus on a number of the new content development activities in our Strategic Agenda.
Much of our archival broadcast content effectively address our content strategy of fostering citizenship and public engagement, and we are planning to explore opportunities make that content available to an online audience.
What is happening to Vox?
During our Strategic Review process, we have gained a greater understanding of how, when and where our audiences want to access our content. The reality is that the teen target audience for Vox is watching les and less traditional television and increasingly accessing media in other ways. As such, Vox will not return to our broadcast schedule next season.
What will happen to British Mysteries and dramas?
We now have a focused content strategy and a clear definition of educational content that is aligned with the priorities of the Ministry of Education. To help the government meet it’s education goals, our focus is now on content that supports learning outside the classroom for children and their parents, and content that fosters citizenship by engaging people as active participants in the public issues defining our society.
All TVO content for adults, whatever the genre, will be anchored in citizenship and public engagement. As we develop our new schedule over the next 15 months, we will evaluate all content, including our acquisitions, to make sure it aligns with our definition of educational content. Films, documentaries and series are powerful educational vehicles that can provide opportunities to serve TVO’s citizenship direction. Those programs that do not support the Ministry of Education’s expectation that our content align with its priorities for education will be phased out over the next 15 months.
What will happen to Big Ideas?
All TVO content for adults, whatever the genre, will be anchored in citizenship and public engagement. Big Ideas, including Ontario’s best Lecturer Contest will continue as part of our schedule, but will move out of the mid-afternoon slot to a different time.
What will happen to documentaries?
We now have a focused content strategy and a clear definition of educational content that is aligned with the priorities of the Ministry of Education. For adults, our focus is now on content that fosters citizenship by engaging people as active participants in the public issues defining our society. Documentaries, whether they be science and technology documentaries, provocative POV docs, or arts documentaries, will continue to be important in meeting our strategic goals.
What will happen to SNAM?
All TVO content for adults, whatever the genre, will be anchored in citizenship and public engagement. We believe that film is a powerful way to teach us about our world and to help contextualize the many issues related to how we as citizens function in society. While we will continue to present Saturday Night at the Movies, the look and feel of the program may change and the films we select will reflect our new content strategy.
What will happen to Diplomatic Immunity?
Our new current affairs show, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, will cover the type of international issues found in Diplomatic Immunity, but in a different way. When it comes to the issues, Ontarians have often told us they want more analysis, more debate, and more voices and viewpoints. With a single-issue format, our new show will deliver in-depth discussion on issues that define our society. It will introduce user-generated content, and give Ontarians a real voice through monthly public forums, all delivered on multiple platforms.
BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODEL
Will there be layoffs?
Our base government funding has not increased in many years and our earned revenues have not grown sufficiently to cover increases in our operating costs. These financial realities would not allow us to make the investment that is necessary to build a relevant and sustainable digital organization without significant layoffs. We have worked very hard to avoid this scenario we have arrived at an alternate solution with the Ontario government. The plan will give us two years to build a modest and efficient digital facility and provide the staff training and development that will be necessary during this Transition to Digital. Provided we are successful in aggressively reducing costs and growing net revenues during the two-year period, layoffs are avoidable.
We will reduce our labour costs where possible through attrition management and move forward now with the retirement program agreed to with the unions. Those who are eligible will receive personalized information packages next week.
What revenue streams are we looking at?
Building a sustainable business model for the organization will involve creating new revenue streams. We are confident that the shifts in our content and distribution activities will open up new opportunities in revenue generation. In an effort to build a sustainable business model for the organization, we will explore the full range of possibilities. Among the opportunities we will assess are subscriber fees for enhanced content, Video on Demand and content distribution on new platforms. We will establish an incubator capability to develop and test new ideas and technologies for digital, multi-platform content distribution. This will permit us to foster organizational learning and to develop new revenue opportunities.
How will these changes affect Membership support?
Like every public broadcaster, we are assessing how to build a business model that will ensure our future sustainability. We will continue to count on the support of our Members, we are confident that our new content strategy will have a significant appeal to our Membership base, and we are excited about bringing our new directions to life. Building a sustainable business model will also involve creating new revenue streams. We are confident that the shifts in our content and distribution activities will open up new opportunities in revenue generation.
TFO
How will the TFO transition work?
The Ontario government has announced its intention to create a separate, stand-alone organization for TFO, with its own Board of Directors, management and budget.
Naturally, there are many unanswered questions at this time in terms of the transition and how it will impact all of TVOntario’s employees. Over the next several months, the management teams of TVOntario and TFO will work together to prepare detailed recommendations. The Board will then return to the Government with its recommendation in the Fall. In the meantime, we will be sure to keep you informed of any formal developments.
TFO Devient une entité autonome
Le gouvernement nous a demandé de préparer un plan et de lui présenter l’automne prochain les recommandations de notre conseil d’administration.
Beaucoup de questions restent sans réponse mais nous nous pencherons sur elles en élaborant le plan de transition. Nous avons hâte de vous faire part des détails dès que nous le pourrons.
Il s’agit d’une évolution naturelle pour TFO et qui revêt une signification particulière alors que TFO célèbre cette année 20 années de service consacré à la communauté franco-ontarienne.
ILC
What is happening with the ILC
We originally embarked on the Strategic Review process looking at the whole of the TVOntario organization. As we moved through the process, we decided that we needed to sequence our work into several phases. This decision was a reflection of the relative urgency of the challenges facing the different parts of our organization. In the case of the ILC, we are working on a plan with respect to the existing fee-for-service contract with the Ministry of Education which we intend to take to the Board of Directors early in the fall.
CEI
L’élaboration d’une stratégie pour l’avenir fait l’objet d’un processus séparé des Orientations stratégiques. Ce n’est pas une fonction relativement importante, mais elle est relativement urgente (nous avons réalisé que nous devions d’abord répondre au besoin de TVO de faire la transition vers le numérique. Nous pouvons maintenant nous concentrer sur un exercice global de planification pour le CEI).
Le contrat actuel de rémunération à l’acte avec le ministère de l’Éducation restera en vigueur jusqu’au mois de mars 2008 et nous élaborons présentement un plan détaillé que nous soumettrons au Conseil cet automne. Ce plan excitant permettra au CEI de réaliser son plein potentiel dans l’univers numérique.
Nous avons hâte de vous faire part des détails dès que nous le pourrons.
June, 2006
TVO
How are we supporting kids?
Our focus for kids is now on content that supports learning outside the classroom for children and their parents. All our in-house content will be curriculum-linked and developed with educators. This means a focus on early childhood education, and specifically on literacy and numeracy development for preschoolers. For school-aged kids it means focusing on an often neglected demographic, keeping them interested and engaged in learning with fun, educational content, and equipping them with the tools to use educational media in a positive way in their lives.
.
For the fall, TVOKids will introduce continuous programming throughout the daytime, representing a weekly increase of 13 hours, and tvokids.com will enrich its learning content for children with more webcasts, more interactive opportunities and more challenging activities and games.
What are we doing for parents?
We will undertake regular research to inform parents about the best media to use in bringing educational content to kids, about the appropriate learning outcomes one should expect from interacting with our content, and about how to measure those outcomes. Parents are a child’s first teachers, and the central decision-makers about all aspects of life, including access to media. This fall we will introduce a new dedicated online community for parents, offering access to research on the latest thinking and practices in educational media, downloadable tools and a rich selection of interactive opportunities for learning. We will also create an environment for parents to share their ideas and views with us and with each other.
What does citizenship mean?
All TVO content for adults, whatever the genre, will be anchored in citizenship and public engagement. Citizenship refers to the range of economic, political, environmental, social, and cultural issues that define who we are and how we live, as citizens, at the dawn of the 21st century.
Ontario is changing and our new focus gives us an Opportunity to support citizenship in a way nobody else is. In Toronto alone more than 100 languages are spoken and 49 per cent of the population was born outside of Canada. Our content will reflect the diverse reality of Ontario, and help decode the many issues related to how citizens function in society. It will help engage people to be active, involved and informed citizens, to encourage dialogue around issues of citizenship and to promote understanding of and engagement in the complex world we live in.
Why are we creating a new current affairs show?
All our prime time content, whatever the genre, will be anchored in citizenship and public engagement. Citizenship refers to the range of economic, political, environmental, social, and cultural issues that define who we are and how we live, as citizens, at the dawn of the 21st century.
By helping to contextualize the many issues related to how we as citizens function in society, globally and here in Ontario, we can play a unique role in the media landscape. We have the opportunity to engage Ontarians to be active, involved and informed, to encourage dialogue around issues of citizenship and to promote understanding of and engagement in the complex world we live in.
When it comes to the issues, Ontarians have often told us they want more analysis, more debate, and more voices and viewpoints. We are developing a new current-affairs program, set to launch this fall, The Agenda with Steve Paikin. The new show will build on Studio 2’s strength in current affairs and offer a longer, single-issue format for more in depth analysis. It will allow for more voices – guests and panelists will change and will be brought in according to the topic, to allow for the broadest range of opinions. It will also involve more user-generated content and audience participation as well as distribution on several platforms.
TVO has built a legacy of excellent current affairs programming over the last 15 years. The Agenda with Steve Paikin will take the things that we do best, like debate and analysis, and do more of them. Rather than a magazine style show, the format will be issue driven and allow the time concentrate on the “why, rather than the “what”. The show’s approach will be substantive, serious and authoritative.
We believe this new program will have wide appeal to Ontario’s diverse urban population (in Toronto alone more than 100 languages are spoken and 49 per cent of the population was born outside of Canada) and to people across the province, and will allow for a substantial reduction in production costs.
What about Person2Person?
This Strategic Agenda is all about building on our strengths, and Person 2 Person with Paula Todd presents a powerful opportunity for us to explore issues around citizenship through the stories of individuals. Paula will continue to build this brand with us as a weekly series, with a more focused mandate that looks at the cultural, political, and socio-economic challenges faced by citizens in a changing society.
What is happening to More to Life?
We now have a clear content strategy, aligned with Ministry of Education priorities that we will roll out in the next 15 months. Our focus is on content that supports learning outside the classroom for children and their parents, and prime-time content that fosters citizenship by engaging people as active participants in the public issues defining our society.
For the fall, TVOKids will introduce continuous programming throughout the day time. Informed by an understanding of how, when and where our audiences want to consume our content, and the need to extend our children’s block, we have decided that More to Life will not return on TVO next season. The staff who have worked on More to Life will be reassigned to focus on a number of the new content development activities in our Strategic Agenda.
Much of our archival broadcast content effectively address our content strategy of fostering citizenship and public engagement, and we are planning to explore opportunities make that content available to an online audience.
What is happening to Vox?
During our Strategic Review process, we have gained a greater understanding of how, when and where our audiences want to access our content. The reality is that the teen target audience for Vox is watching les and less traditional television and increasingly accessing media in other ways. As such, Vox will not return to our broadcast schedule next season.
What will happen to British Mysteries and dramas?
We now have a focused content strategy and a clear definition of educational content that is aligned with the priorities of the Ministry of Education. To help the government meet it’s education goals, our focus is now on content that supports learning outside the classroom for children and their parents, and content that fosters citizenship by engaging people as active participants in the public issues defining our society.
All TVO content for adults, whatever the genre, will be anchored in citizenship and public engagement. As we develop our new schedule over the next 15 months, we will evaluate all content, including our acquisitions, to make sure it aligns with our definition of educational content. Films, documentaries and series are powerful educational vehicles that can provide opportunities to serve TVO’s citizenship direction. Those programs that do not support the Ministry of Education’s expectation that our content align with its priorities for education will be phased out over the next 15 months.
What will happen to Big Ideas?
All TVO content for adults, whatever the genre, will be anchored in citizenship and public engagement. Big Ideas, including Ontario’s best Lecturer Contest will continue as part of our schedule, but will move out of the mid-afternoon slot to a different time.
What will happen to documentaries?
We now have a focused content strategy and a clear definition of educational content that is aligned with the priorities of the Ministry of Education. For adults, our focus is now on content that fosters citizenship by engaging people as active participants in the public issues defining our society. Documentaries, whether they be science and technology documentaries, provocative POV docs, or arts documentaries, will continue to be important in meeting our strategic goals.
What will happen to SNAM?
All TVO content for adults, whatever the genre, will be anchored in citizenship and public engagement. We believe that film is a powerful way to teach us about our world and to help contextualize the many issues related to how we as citizens function in society. While we will continue to present Saturday Night at the Movies, the look and feel of the program may change and the films we select will reflect our new content strategy.
What will happen to Diplomatic Immunity?
Our new current affairs show, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, will cover the type of international issues found in Diplomatic Immunity, but in a different way. When it comes to the issues, Ontarians have often told us they want more analysis, more debate, and more voices and viewpoints. With a single-issue format, our new show will deliver in-depth discussion on issues that define our society. It will introduce user-generated content, and give Ontarians a real voice through monthly public forums, all delivered on multiple platforms.
BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODEL
Will there be layoffs?
Our base government funding has not increased in many years and our earned revenues have not grown sufficiently to cover increases in our operating costs. These financial realities would not allow us to make the investment that is necessary to build a relevant and sustainable digital organization without significant layoffs. We have worked very hard to avoid this scenario we have arrived at an alternate solution with the Ontario government. The plan will give us two years to build a modest and efficient digital facility and provide the staff training and development that will be necessary during this Transition to Digital. Provided we are successful in aggressively reducing costs and growing net revenues during the two-year period, layoffs are avoidable.
We will reduce our labour costs where possible through attrition management and move forward now with the retirement program agreed to with the unions. Those who are eligible will receive personalized information packages next week.
What revenue streams are we looking at?
Building a sustainable business model for the organization will involve creating new revenue streams. We are confident that the shifts in our content and distribution activities will open up new opportunities in revenue generation. In an effort to build a sustainable business model for the organization, we will explore the full range of possibilities. Among the opportunities we will assess are subscriber fees for enhanced content, Video on Demand and content distribution on new platforms. We will establish an incubator capability to develop and test new ideas and technologies for digital, multi-platform content distribution. This will permit us to foster organizational learning and to develop new revenue opportunities.
How will these changes affect Membership support?
Like every public broadcaster, we are assessing how to build a business model that will ensure our future sustainability. We will continue to count on the support of our Members, we are confident that our new content strategy will have a significant appeal to our Membership base, and we are excited about bringing our new directions to life. Building a sustainable business model will also involve creating new revenue streams. We are confident that the shifts in our content and distribution activities will open up new opportunities in revenue generation.
TFO
How will the TFO transition work?
The Ontario government has announced its intention to create a separate, stand-alone organization for TFO, with its own Board of Directors, management and budget.
Naturally, there are many unanswered questions at this time in terms of the transition and how it will impact all of TVOntario’s employees. Over the next several months, the management teams of TVOntario and TFO will work together to prepare detailed recommendations. The Board will then return to the Government with its recommendation in the Fall. In the meantime, we will be sure to keep you informed of any formal developments.
TFO Devient une entité autonome
Le gouvernement nous a demandé de préparer un plan et de lui présenter l’automne prochain les recommandations de notre conseil d’administration.
Beaucoup de questions restent sans réponse mais nous nous pencherons sur elles en élaborant le plan de transition. Nous avons hâte de vous faire part des détails dès que nous le pourrons.
Il s’agit d’une évolution naturelle pour TFO et qui revêt une signification particulière alors que TFO célèbre cette année 20 années de service consacré à la communauté franco-ontarienne.
ILC
What is happening with the ILC
We originally embarked on the Strategic Review process looking at the whole of the TVOntario organization. As we moved through the process, we decided that we needed to sequence our work into several phases. This decision was a reflection of the relative urgency of the challenges facing the different parts of our organization. In the case of the ILC, we are working on a plan with respect to the existing fee-for-service contract with the Ministry of Education which we intend to take to the Board of Directors early in the fall.
CEI
L’élaboration d’une stratégie pour l’avenir fait l’objet d’un processus séparé des Orientations stratégiques. Ce n’est pas une fonction relativement importante, mais elle est relativement urgente (nous avons réalisé que nous devions d’abord répondre au besoin de TVO de faire la transition vers le numérique. Nous pouvons maintenant nous concentrer sur un exercice global de planification pour le CEI).
Le contrat actuel de rémunération à l’acte avec le ministère de l’Éducation restera en vigueur jusqu’au mois de mars 2008 et nous élaborons présentement un plan détaillé que nous soumettrons au Conseil cet automne. Ce plan excitant permettra au CEI de réaliser son plein potentiel dans l’univers numérique.
Nous avons hâte de vous faire part des détails dès que nous le pourrons.
