I'm listening to NPR as well, mostly for saturday and sunday blues, and for Praire Home Companion.
At the same time I really miss it, because the people are so familiar to me that they feel like family. Well, with the exception to Randy "how I met another rock star, or heard someone talking on the street, and was inspired to write another million dollar song that everyone has heard a million times and earned me buckets of cash" Bachman, and Sean "I'm so funny dont you think I'm funny oh I'm so clever oh look I just said something incredibly witty and improvisational and now I'll find a word to rhyme with it and you'll find me even funnier and more brilliant" Cullen.
Yet, I'm disappointed in the responses here, but not surprised to hear people slagging the CBC because it's not what it was. Well, duh. Nothing is. And, since we are pretty much a nation of grumblers, which is pathetic when you consider how incredibly lucky we are to live here, racism and class and economic discrimination, and freaking cold notwithstanding, sometime it helps to stop whining, and open your eyes and consider just what CBC manages to do despite decades of Federal Gov't funding cuts, Conservative attacks, Liberal agendas of shutting down the only even remotely objective window on just what the hell is goin on in Ottawa, and corporate media's hatred of a real source of enlightenment on politics, all the arts, national trends and critical appraisals of Canadian events and people. Yes, it does so bring us all together. It has jump-started more music careers, (including mine) (oh god, vested interest, there goes my believability out the window) publicised more information and example of literary achievement, sponsored more events to make Canadian artists of all kinds, household words, and presented on more and wider topics than any other media source.
You don't know what you've got till it's gone. A Canadian said that, you know? Sure people sneer the CBC. I figure that they've become so numbed by corporate media feeding them sound bites, plastic celebrities, censored music and State approved news flashes, deafening violent and sexist television programming, that listeing to anything with substance is either scary, or too much effort.
I support CBC staff, and their programming, despite the slide in quality, because what it represents is important to me as a thinking individual, with a curious mind and an active imagination, and an awareness that there is so much amazing stuff in the world about which I want to get the straight skinny. I'm sure as hell not going to get that from Global, or Jack FM, or the Vancouver Sun. Yes, I know it's a newspaper. Don't guibble.
Anyway, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
A defiant CBC supporter till the end, a lover of almost all things Canadian (except most corporates and politicians, especially Paul Martin and Steven Harper)(oh yeah, and BC's fascist Premier Campbell) (are you sensing a seperate thread here?, and someone who didn't hear whining from her 4 year old daughter, and doesn't hear it from those who will never be satisfied with they have.
Cheers,
Marti.