CBC Lockout

Subject: CBC Lockout
From: Charmion
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 05:21 PM

How are the other Canadian 'catters taking the CBC lockout?

I, for one, am thoroughly sick of wall-to-wall light classics on the radio; last Sunday I heard the 1812 Overture no less than three times! I want a real, detailed news broadcast, and I miss "As It Happens".

And I don't much like what I read about it in the papers ...

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: bobad
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 05:33 PM

I am mostly listening to NPR at 89.5, it's the U.S. equivalent of CBC, had been listening to it more and more lately anyway, getting tired of a lot of CBC programming which has been deteriorating with the budget cuts IMO.

Also where I live, about an hour east of Ottawa, I can access Montreal CBC which is not on strike.

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: number 6
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 06:50 PM

I'm missing the regular nitely Jazz program at 10:00.

sIx

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Cluin
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 08:10 PM

You mean there were actually people in charge at the CBC?

That's news.

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From:
Date: 03 Sep 05 - 07:05 PM

There's good internet radio. I often pickup BBC Scotland. In particular, Archie Fisher's or Mairi MacInnes' programs

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Mooh
Date: 04 Sep 05 - 10:58 AM

Sucks. I could program it better from my meagre collection of music.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Willie-O
Date: 04 Sep 05 - 11:11 AM

I'm getting pretty tired of "all the reruns, some of the time"--and in the wrong timeslots.

Geez, I'm glad I'm not trying to flog a new CD or book...there's no help at all from the "mother corp" when they would usually be lining up the interviews. I heard McLelland & Stewart cut back publishing runs by 30%.

And the way the Radio One and Radio Two programming is combined...the overall effect is a snoooooooze. (If you're not a Radio Two listener to start with.)

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: GUEST,quigs
Date: 04 Sep 05 - 07:18 PM

Frankly the apathy is worrying me. We've got more than our share of neo con creeps like Stephen Harper just itching to cut CBC entirely and welcome US netwoks and advertising with open arms. It's already suffered from cuts in an all to cynical attempt to destroy its support in Canada. q

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Owlkat
Date: 04 Sep 05 - 09:53 PM

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.

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Sep 05 - 09:59 PM

The sooner that Crap Broadcasting Company becomes private the better. I don't miss it at all

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Charmion
Date: 05 Sep 05 - 08:28 AM

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 ..."

What horseshit.

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Mooh
Date: 05 Sep 05 - 01:33 PM

I mostly agree with Charmion.

I love the CBC and the very idea of public broadcasting. I like that it's a specialty, that it's national, that it has things other stations don't, the variety, and the feel. It has its ups and downs to be sure, but then again, so do I.

Compared to the banal repetitive mind-numbing drivel on TV (like, why are there dozens of stations on cable and nothing I want to watch?) it's a thing of wonder and awe. Besides, unlike TV, I can enjoy it while doing housework, repairs in the shop, or resting between other things.

I might add that CBC radio likely kept my mother alive a few years ago when she was incarcerated in the hospital and nursing home for a few months, and allowed her to return home. It kept her mind awake and thinking, kept her informed and entertained, 24 hours of the clock.

God bless and keep the CBC.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Metchosin
Date: 05 Sep 05 - 02:02 PM

Amen to that Mooh. It is the thread that binds us as a nation. I want my CBC!

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Mooh
Date: 05 Sep 05 - 02:40 PM

It seems to me there's a very strong sense of deja vu about this thread. Mooh.

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Owlkat
Date: 05 Sep 05 - 08:35 PM

Well, it's a relief to know that I'm not the only one who really misses CBC. I wrote a letter to management to tell them what CBC means to me, and that they should just get a grip, look for common ground, and settle. Maybe others could do the same. It wasn't quite the rant I wrote. Sorry 'bout dat. I'm working on the last English paper for my last course in my last semester to get my BA, and grumpiness does sometimes rule.
Sigh.
Back to Hayden White and Henry Kelsey. Grrrrrrrr.
Cheers,
Marti.

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Sep 05 - 09:38 PM

Used to listen and/or watch CBC a lot years ago, but I couldn't identify any CBC personalities or regular programs now. The English language TV service died years ago as far as western Canada is concerned although it may still have some validity back east.

NPR TV (we get both Detroit and Spokane locally), BBC internet radio and BBC-TV news have taken its place in my house. Also a few internet U. S. and European stations.
In Alberta we have listener-supported CKUA (AM-FM-Internet) for public radio, which does a fair job.
These fill our needs.

Subject: RE: CBC Lockout
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 05 Sep 05 - 10:09 PM

When the public radio stations in the Washington, DC area quit broadcasting music (especially classical music), I discovered the wonderful world of web-radio, and became a big fan of Vermont Public Radio. One of my favorite shows was actually a simulcast of the CBC show "Disk Drive," which I fell in love with. I grew up on free form radio, and the show, which mixes classical, folk, jazz, and a lot of other stuff all together hosted by Jurgen Gothe caught my love and attention. Now with the CBC lockout, fresh programs of Disk Drive aren't available on CBC-2, though I'm fortunate that a batch of stored taped programs from the past are being repeated each day on CBC-1--and since there are multiple opportunities to hear CBC-1 on webcast (the only CBC-2 station you can receive via web is Toronto), I can hear the show during more of my workday. I miss the fresh programming, and the CBC news, but at least the opportunity to catch up on vintage Jurgen Gothe is a consolation prize for me.

--Charlie Baum