MONTREAL – Sylvain Lafrance, Executive Vice-President of French Services for CBC/Radio-Canada, will be leaving the public broadcaster this fall after more than 33 years.
"I believe I’ve now achieved the key objectives I had set for myself as executive VP of Radio-Canada", he said in a statement on Thursday. "TV, Radio and Web integration is now a done deal. We’ve begun to build a lively presence on digital platforms. Our efforts to diversify our revenue streams have produced stellar results. And, last but not least, our programming now strikes what I feel is an optimal balance between our need to be distinctive and our obligation to be a unifying force.”
After joining Radio-Canada in 1978 as a reporter, Lafrance rose through the ranks and was eventually promoted to vice-president of Radio de Radio-Canada in 1998. In 2005, he was named EVP of French Services, where he oversaw the integration of Radio-Canada’s TV, radio and web platforms, turned Radio-Canada into a dominant brand on the French-language digital media landscape, and consolidated all of the organization’s commercial revenue functions into a single unit, thereby strengthening Radio-Canada’s business model.
Lafrance will be leaving CBC/Radio-Canada in October following the Corp’s 75th-anniversary, and the search to recruit a successor is now underway.
"Sylvain has had an outstanding career, marked by an all-out commitment to democracy, public service and culture – particularly French-language culture," said president and CEO Hubert T. Lacroix. "He leaves behind an impressive legacy, as well as a public broadcaster that’s more distinctive, more present and more popular with audiences than ever before. I’d like to thank him for agreeing to stay on until October so that we can ensure a smooth transition."
