Stop Public Funding of CBC TV Already

Along with many other Canadians, I have long wondered why the Canadian public subsidizes a commercial TV station. The only justification I could come up with was that the CBC makes possible some good Canadian TV shows. Other stations also sponsor some good TV shows, so it's a slightly dodgy argument, but you might come to believe that there are good Canadian TV shows that would not be made without the existence of the CBC.

Now the CBC has cancelled Intelligence, a brilliant ground-breaking show that is very popular. It kept The Border, a trite silly stupid show that is more popular. It also cancelled MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives, which I can't really argue for except that I am totally engrossed and am personally sorry to lose it. It kept Sophie, which I'm glad about. And it continues to co-sponsor The Tudors (along with networks in Ireland and England, who presumably would have produced the show without the CBC), which is one of the greatest shows ever. And of course CBC produces some other good shows, like The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos and, I suppose, The National, which I hear is good but I don't watch. (I prefer to read my news and when I want to catch something live, I find CTV Newsnet is generally better.)

But the breaking point for me is Intelligence. The cancellation of this brilliant show is so idiotic that it makes me believe that CBC has no mandate to promote excellence in Canadian programming. Therefore, I can think of no reason for tax dollars to pay for CBC TV. The ginormous cash cow Hockey Night In Canada can be bestowed on a private network. We can watch reruns of Frasier and The Simpsons on another channel. Enough already.

The cancellation of good shows by the CBC came ominously close to the decision to merge CBC radio and TV divisions. Does this spell more disaster for Radio One? In the desperate attempt to attract youthful listeners, the CBC has thrown money at initiatives like Radio 4 (publicly-funded commercial radio), thus draining resources from Radio One; and it has done its best to dumb down Radio One, leaving only a few decent shows (The Current, Writers & Company, As It Happens and a few others). With management making such disastrous decisions about TV, I shudder to think what's coming next for my favorite - hell, my only - radio station.

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Love of Radio

I love talk radio, and thought I'd share some of my favorite sites in the hopes that my readers could offer up some more.

CBC Radio One
NPR
Minnesota Public Radio
BBC World Service
American Public Media

I'm not much for music radio, with one exception:
Hober

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CBC

I don't give a damn about CBC TV. I don't know why we subsidize a commercial TV station, what exactly we get out of it, or whether it's worth it. Maybe the commercial part of the network finances good Canadian programming. Maybe the commercial part is the tail that wags the dog and destroys the potential benefits. Who knows. I don't know if I'd miss it if it went away. I certainly wouldn't miss CBC Newsnet and its endless reruns of that stupid antique valuation show.

I care very deeply about CBC Radio though. There is nothing else like CBC Radio One. For much of my life I listened to CBC every moment I could and got much of my understanding of the country and the world from it. I had endless discussions about what was said by Kierans, Lewis and Camp in their weekly panel on Morningside. I rocked with laughter to Jack Farr's The Radio Show, Bob Robertson & Linda Cullen's Double Exposure, Arthur Black's Basic Black. I have tapes of Gzowski that I never tire of listening to. I loved the morning show, the noon hour show, the driving home show, and everything between and after. I loved the summer programming when Ralph Benmergui would guest host and there were great shows like Timelines and This is Art.

I once read that CBC management thought of audience complaints as being like those two old men on the Muppet Show who groused endlessly about nothing. CBC management has obviously never comprehended the deep sense of loss that Canadians have experienced as the CBC continues to dumb down its programming. The live Saturday morning show Go! is offensive and moronic. CBC news just gets worse and worse. The Ontario noon-hour show, which used to be pretty good, was overhauled this year to make it uninteresting; ditto DNTO. The latest insult was CBC management saying that thy wanted to appeal to dentists' offices.

There are still a few outstanding programs: The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti, Eleanor Wachtel's Writers and Company, the summer show with Sean Cullen, a few others. The problem, I think, is seldom with the hosts. The problem is with the producers and managers of shows. For example, Andy Barry is a great morning host - why is he completely absent for the last hour of the show, and only makes token appearances before then? I can vaguely remember when I really liked Shelagh Rogers, but I can't stand the pap crap that she has hosted recently (also, someone needs to tell her to stop chortling incessantly).

The CBC audience is so critical of the slow destruction of CBC quality because there isn't an alternative for us. I don't listen to commercial radio and I don't want to listen to music on the radio. I have radios in every room in my house, but they're mostly silent now. This true of many people I know. There's a hole in my life and I have partly filled it by listening to BBC or NPR on my computer, but it's not Canadian and it's not as good.

I used to write letters to the CBC with complaints, encouragement or suggestions, but I have given up. Could we make this an election issue?

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