The CBC’s chair and president/CEO are both new to their roles, making Richard Stursberg, recently promoted to EVP of English services, the de facto head of the pubcaster. But is he running his ship effectively?

There are some senior executives in this business whose intelligence you might be inclined to question. I won’t name anyone; I’m sure one or two spring to mind. But I betcha CBC topper Richard Stursberg is not one of them.

Clearly, Stursberg is brighter than most. I’ve watched him talk circles around a pack of reporters out for blood. He proclaimed the moon to be made of Swiss cheese with such conviction — it was obvious, really — that they were left gasping like a catch of walleye flopping around the bilge of a boat.

‘Stursberg is expert at positioning,’ says one industryite — well, several, actually, to paraphrase a bit. ‘Remarkably savvy politician’ and ‘very strategic’ — that kind of thing. The man is smooth.

But does that kind of aptitude translate to running the joint effectively?

I know what you’re thinking. Stursberg is not in fact CBC’s ‘topper’ — he’s EVP of English services. He and Sylvain Lafrance on the Radio-Canada side share the number three position after chairman Tim Casgrain and president and CEO Hubert Lacroix. But both of them happen to be new, and neither has radio or television at the top of their resumes. Given the void above him and the fact that English CBC is far bigger than Radio-Canada, Stursberg is for the time being the de facto head of CBC. Some even refer to him as ‘King Richard,’ although Stursberg himself says he hasn’t heard that one.

Tamsen Tillson looks at Richard Stursberg’s relationship with producers and staff, as well as the CBC’s recent performance, in the Jan. 7 issue of Playback.