It looks like cbc chairman Patrick Watson is taking the summer off. Commenting on his decision to step down at the end of June (four months shy of the position’s full term) Watson says: ‘I began to think about it two months ago when I was looking at the schedule in the summer and into the fall. I thought with the season over, wouldn’t it be a good idea to name a new chairman to start up with a new season.’

The veteran journalist/producer denies he may be leaving for a sudden business opportunity or project. Instead, he says he has a couple of book projects underway and ‘a dozen television ideas cooking. It’s a matter of which one to choose.’

Watson pegs three points of accomplishment during his tenure at cbc: shaping the board of directors into an effective body, developing private sector partnerships with the cbc, and implementing a system to deal with journalistic accountability.

‘A major part of the job was to get the board working. There was a period in the not-too-distant history of the cbc when we were told that there was $50 million of (the) budget that can’t be accounted for. That can’t happen today. The minute any accounting system seems to be getting fuzzy, it is brought to the attention of the whole board and it gets fixed.’ Watson defines financial management as it stands now as ‘rigorous and transparent. That is an enormous achievement.’

The cbc’s relations with private sector partners is one of the things Watson ‘started to talk up with urgency,’ citing ‘a number of structural morasses that had to be tidied up and an unfortunate attitude to the private sector’ that had to be overcome.

Watson cites the Showcase specialty channel and Northbridge and Trio direct-tv satellite services as examples of progress in private sector/cbc partnerships. Yet all is not rosy in this department, says Watson, and he warns that the cbc still ‘has to become entrepreneurially hip.’

Watson’s final triumph is a bit of a hornet’s nest: accountability (which includes The Valour and the Horror debate). ‘It became clear to everyone in journalism that there was a growing cynicism in the public about journalism – its motivations, its reliability. At the cbc we said we have to be leaders here in developing a system…that gives access to our shareholders…and allows for redress of journalistic wrongs.’

As to just how the controversial Valour and the Horror fits into the system, Watson sees the cbc board of directors as a microcosm of the country and his job ‘was to work toward public consensus.’ He adds the whole issue will ‘provide an interesting chapter in my book.’

Watson says it feels good to be heading back into his old territory of writing and producing, with a broadcast landscape he defines as headed for ‘the democratization of production television’ due to technological advances.

Anthony Manera, president of the cbc, will take on the chair’s responsibilities until a successor is found.