I miss it bitterly. We are too far from the border (or too inexpert with antennae) to pick up NPR, and even if we did it would be yet more American media, like we don't get enough already. We unplugged our television cable a year ago, so I don't have BBC television to fill the gap, and again, even if we did it would just be British media. I already know as much about Tony Blair as I can stand; I want to know about construction blockages on the Queensway, and what weather to expect.
For the first time in many years, I'm trying to find a commercial radio station that is more than a device for selling advertising and popular music. So far, all is blank. Ottawa has only one "all-news" station, CFRA on the AM band, and it plays mostly syndicated stuff supplied from the U.S. Worse, it seems to be mostly call-in crap -- Lowell Green fomenting alarm and despond; Dr. Laura abusing people, and psychic healers who "treat" callers' ailments by thought waves through the telephone. "Now I'm entering your spinal system; hmmm -- what have we here -- an old shoulder injury. Do you sometimes get tingling in the fingers of your right hand?" Like, who doesn't?
I must admit I kinda like Randy Bachman, if only because he knows more about Canadian popular music than practically anybody the CBC has ever heard of, but that wall-to-wall Tschaikovsky on Radio 2 has got to go! It would be easier to take if they would just put on a CD and let it play to the end, then put on another CD; then the listener would at least get the program planned by the original artist and producer. The current arrangment is more like orchestral porridge than a radio broadcast; or wallpaper for the ears, often interrupted just at an interesting passage in the music by the brodcaster's self-serving announcement, "We regret that regular programming is unavailable at this time. The interruption is due to a labour dispute between the CBC and one of its unions ..."