LETTER FROM HAROLD REDEKOPP
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March 9, 2004

A Message From the Executive Vice-President of CBC Television

At the meeting of the CBC/Radio-Canada Board of Directors earlier today, and a subsequent meeting of CBC Television Senior Management Team, I laid out my personal career plans for the future, which I had previously discussed with the President. I would now like to share them with you.

I intend to honour my commitment to the President to continue as Executive Vice-President of CBC Television until the end of the calendar year. After that, I intend to retire from CBC/Radio-Canada and launch a new career.

I hope to combine my broadcasting experience with my desire to assist with the spread of a strong civil society in emerging democracies. I passionately believe that mass communications can and should play a role in strengthening economic development, peace and security, and good governance in developing countries, and I will be seeking opportunities to make that vision a reality.

The President is launching a search for my successor, and I will have a role in that process. We are starting now, in order to ensure ample time for an orderly transition.

Let me assure you that I will be working full tilt on my responsibilities with CBC Television until the day I leave. Those of you who know me well would expect nothing less. That means that I will continue to be accountable, with the rest of our team, for the design and launch of next season's schedule. We will be working hard to consolidate the audience gains we're making this season, and offering Canadians distinctive, high-impact programming of the kind that only the national public broadcaster can offer. At the same time, we will have to confront and resolve some difficult financial challenges in the coming year.

It will be "business as usual" on many other fronts, too, from the next Olympics bid to the negotiation of new collective agreements.

I will also continue to push hard to entrench the principles of CBC Television transformation throughout the service. And I will continue to champion such important causes as news integration, content management, cultural diversity and greater understanding and use of the CBC Television brand. I want to see further concrete progress on these initiatives that are so important to our future, and from which there can be no turning back.

For over 30 years, all of my working time and energy has been dedicated to the CBC. I don't expect that to change one bit during my last year here.

Closer to the time of my departure, I will have more to say. For now, I would like to express my deep, personal gratitude to every one of you for your outstanding contribution towards the goal of rebuilding CBC Television as Canada's own national public television service.

Harold Redekopp
Executive Vice-President
CBC Television








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