It is not with the special program that the CBC is preparing for New Year’s Day that it will match the success of Bye Bye.
Last year, after announcing staff cuts that she never made, Catherine Tait put an end to Rick Mercer’s traditional end-of-year countdown. With his trademark humor, since 2019 Mercer has hosted a series of specially recorded performances in the country’s six time zones to mark the end of the year.
Mercer had replaced The Royal Canadian Air Farce, a comedy show featuring a group of comedians including Don Ferguson, Roger Abbott, Dave Broadfoot, Barbara Budd and a few others. In their way, they were the equivalent of Rock and Belles Oreilles.
Very special evening!
Air Farce and Rick Mercer never had more than a million and a half viewers, but their shows at least had the merit of marking the transition to a new year in a special way, something that all television stations around the world do brilliantly. This year, the CBC is going back to nature and will present a special evening on New Year’s Eve. Don’t worry, this evening has no chance of revolutionizing CBC viewing.
Titled Canada Live! Countdown 2025, the show will begin at 8 p.m. on CBC News and CBC Gem, then at 9 p.m. on radio and TV. Adrienne Arsenault, presenter of National, will host it in the company of Ian Hanomansing, anchor of Canada Now, the suppertime news. But, oh surprise! one will be at the Harbourfront Center in Toronto and the other at the VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver.
Advice to the new CEO
The two will be accompanied in Toronto by popular singer Jann Arden and in Vancouver by Ali Hassan, the comedian from Laugh Out Loud, emulatesSee you next week. As all this is likely to be very cushy, at 8 p.m., the CBC will present the special 22 minutes New Year’s Eve Pregame, a long version of the weekly show 22 minutes. Mark Critch will feature interviews with Jagmeet Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Given yesterday’s events in the Commons, perhaps the two interviews will have been recorded for nothing…
Here’s my advice to Marie-Philippe Bouchard, who will take office as CEO of CBC/- on January 3, just in time to learn the ratings for these special shows. Why not take the opportunity to ask the management of the English network to look into the reasons for the success of the French network every New Year’s Day?
