A shrinking CBC is looking to sell its outsized downtown flagship headquarters in order to cut costs.

But it’s not totally jumping ship — the public broadcaster hopes to stay on as a tenant.

Fred Mattocks, general manager for media operations and technology at CBC English services, said the building has outgrown the broadcaster, whose staff and budget have shrivelled considerably over the years.

In its heyday, the building held about 5,000 staff, Mattocks said. Now, it holds just half that.

Executives have talked for a little while about selling the landmark Front St. headquarters, built for the broadcaster in 1992.

“Should an offer come, we will certainly entertain it,” CEO Hubert Lacroix said in June.

But now the company is getting serious and alerted staff of its intentions to sell the building and remain on as a tenant. CBC has also hired a consultant to help determine if renting would actually be cheaper than owning.

“We’ve got to decide whether selling the building is the right move, and whether this is the right time,” Mattocks said.

CBC has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past two decades, along with other media organizations. Faster, smaller technology has made it easier to do more with less staff.

“Some things that we are now doing with a single person we were doing with several people,” Mattocks said.

But a series of budget cuts has forced the company to lay off employees, too. In April, CBC announced it would slash 657 jobs company-wide to help compensate for a $115-million cut to its federal funding.

The broadcaster has cut regional programming and original scripted shows over the years. CBC also lost the rights to Hockey Night in Canada, which generated about $200 million in advertising revenue.

As part of the 2012 federal cuts, the government called on the CBC to reduce its real estate holdings to cut costs. In response, the CBC pledged to cut 800,000 square feet by 2017, including reducing office space at Radio-Canada headquarters in Montreal.

The CBC did not anticipate having to sell its Toronto headquarters at the time. But that has changed.

“We’re trying to reduce the amount of money that is tied up in infrastructure, and that means buildings, in order to maximize the amount of money we put into programming,” Mattocks said.

The CBC rents out space in its 1.5-million-square-foot building to outside tenants, and as a landlord most expenses fall on its shoulders.

“With any building, it’s like your house, you have to spend money keeping it up,” he said.

Mattocks said it could take six months to a year before the building is ready to even go on the market.

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“We’re moving as fast as we can. Every day that goes by where . . . we’re spending more money that we need on being here is a day we’re not doing our best for Canadians,” he said.

CBC is not the first media organization to entertain the idea of renting space in its own headquarters. In 2000, Torstar Corp. sold the Toronto Star building at 1 Yonge and leased back space for its various operations.

With files from Star staff