CBC New Year’s Eve programming returns a year after being cut for financial reasons | Canada Voices

CBC will once again ring in the new year on English-language television and radio this year, as it reinstates a live countdown special cancelled in 2023 because of what it claimed at the time were “financial pressures.”

On Thursday morning, the national public broadcaster announced it will air a program called Canada Live! Countdown 2025 on Dec. 31.

The newly conceived live special will be hosted by The National’s Adrienne Arsenault and Ian Hanomansing, as well as singer Jann Arden and comedian Ali Hassan, and will see reporters check in on community celebrations from coast to coast and count down to the new year in each of the country’s six times zones.

Arsenault and Arden are set to broadcast from Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, while Hanomansing and Hassan will host from the VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver. The Canada Live! special is set to begin at 8 p.m. ET on CBC News Network and CBC Gem – and then be picked up by CBC TV and CBC Radio starting at 9 p.m.

This New Year’s Eve will also see the return of what was once a long-standing tradition on CBC Television: a political sketch-comedy year-end special.

At 8 p.m., the broadcaster has programmed an hour-long 22 Minutes New Year’s Eve Pregame Special that will see the cast of Canada’s longest-running TV comedy series look back at the news of 2024. Veteran cast member Mark Critch has filmed segments with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

For more than 20 years, CBC aired a New Year’s Eve special from sketch-comedy troupe the Royal Canadian Air Farce that would often culminate in Don Ferguson’s Colonel “Teresa” Stacey firing his “chicken cannon” at pictures of the year’s most annoying public figures.

When that was cancelled in 2019, CBC switched to a New Year’s Eve countdown special hosted by comedian Rick Mercer that featured musical performances from across the country; it reported ratings of 1.6 million viewers for its 2021 edition.

On Ici Radio-Canada Télé, the French-language counterpart of CBC Television, a sketch comedy show called Bye Bye that is part of its year-end programming is regularly one of the most watched shows of the year. Last year, it had more than 4.5 million viewers for the fourth year in a row.

Last year’s cancellation of the Mercer CBC countdown special was one of the more visible signs of a budget shortfall at the national public broadcaster that saw outgoing chief executive officer and president Catherine Tait controversially threaten job cuts even as she stood by executive bonuses.

In May, the CBC received an extra $42-million in the federal budget on top of its annual allocation to make up for declining advertising and subscription revenues.

“This investment, together with the steps we have taken since December, means we will be able to stabilize our operations, preserve jobs and continue to invest in programs and services,” Tait said in a statement at the time.

Marie-Philippe Bouchard, recently appointed president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, takes over Tait’s role for a five-year term beginning Jan. 3.