So what does taking a sledgehammer to a watermelon look like?

Today the CBC announced the details of some of its cuts. Here’s a little breakdown of what they’ll look like;

9% Reduction in staff.

That breaks down to: 475 this year, 150 in 2013/2014, 25 in 2014/2015. 650 jobs in total.

As of March, 2011, the CBC employees 7.285 full-time staff, 456 temporary full-time staff and 979 contractees. If we assume those cuts from the full-time positions (where they’ll likely be), that means 9%. If it includes the removal of temporary position, it means just over 8%, while if you include the contractee positions, it’s 7%.

In the first year alone, the CBC could see its workforce reduced by as much as 6.5%.

Government transfers will decline by 3%.

This amounts to $115 million. This is even as inflation and increasing operating costs (to the tune of about $200 million) make running the CBC more expensive.

Now, if we were to look at an actual reduction of funds from the CBC (i.e. reduction in government funding, plus inflation, plus increasing rent costs) that would amount to an increase in expenditures of $551,863,800. That means roughly a 30% in reduction of total available capital.

Programming budget will decline 8%

The estimated reduction for programming expenditures will be $43 million (over 3 years, I assume.) This will mostly go towards television.