When Richard Stursberg headed up English services at the CBC from 2004 to 2010, he didn’t just fan the flames
of controversy, he doused them with gasoline. It was under his watch that Canada’s public broadcaster locked out its employees, cut 400 jobs, amalgamated English-language services, added Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune to its TV schedule, and made Peter Mansbridge stand up to deliver the news. He was also the man behind some of the corporation’s biggest ratings successes. Love him or hate him, he’s made an indelible impression on one of the country’s most important institutions. Stursberg describes his attempt to transform the broadcaster in The Tower of Babble: Sins, Secrets, and Successes Inside the CBC (Douglas & McIntyre, $32.95 cl., April).
