EDITORIAL – A grumpy listener’s take on the state of CBC Daybreak Kamloops

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

AS USUAL, I started my day by listening to CBC Daybreak Kamloops. I used to love this show but, lately, it’s been a bit of a disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people who thinks government funding for our national broadcaster should be eliminated. CBC Radio still produces great content, especially on weekends. (Programs such as Quirks and Quarks, Q, Under the Influence and others continue to entertain and inform, though I miss Randy Backman, This is That and Double Exposure.)

But something’s going on with Daybreak Kamloops. The first hour this morning was typical of the current show. In that hour, not a single local feature was aired. It was all canned content or interviews on non-local issues lined up through the mother corp.

It starts at 6 a.m. with World Report, with a reader presenting a half dozen national and international stories. At 6:30 comes the “local” newscast. Again, a half dozen stories, only two of which, typically, are local. So, in the first hour, 12 news stories, 10 of them having nothing to do with Kamloops. And no local feature programming.

The only local content during those 60 minutes consists of weather reports ad infinitum, and host Doug Herbert and news reader Marcella Bernardo exchanging updates on their veggie gardens. Plus, occasional descriptions of what the weather is doing on Victoria Street outside the studio in the 200-block.

Things pick up, local-story wise, in the second hour and leading up to sign-off at 8:30. Much of it has to do with what the film society is doing, or a program a local school is starting, or an interview with a choir, a potter, or somebody selling cinnamon rolls. (I confess, I’ve moved on with my day by then.)

Shelley Joyce no longer hosts, instead contributing some freelance stuff here and there. In the good old days, things were different. Reporters were out in the community actually collecting real news.

I don’t know whether any of this has to do with budget considerations. I do know CBC Radio nationally has been subject to budget fluctuations since Daybreak Kamloops first came on the air in 2012. (We were promised then that it would be “rooted in the region.”) It suffered a $40 million cut to its programming in 2024-2025.

The opening of a local studio was supposed to be an expansion of Kamloops content and, for much of the time, it has been. I have nothing but respect for Herbert, Bernardo, Joyce and others associated with Daybreak Kamloops. They work with what they’re given.

But maybe Daybreak Kamloops has outlived its mandate. Or maybe it simply needs to be tightened up to a half hour, with the other two hours produced in Toronto. Why spend the money for local journalists to interview political science professors from some university in the U.S.?

Or, maybe I’m just feeling grumpy this morning, but I want the old Daybreak back.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, writes for the Kamloops Chronicle and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and was a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.