CBC Lockout

[mirror]

As the CBC lockout enters its second full day I am beginning to realize how much I am missing the CBC, primarily the radio, as I don't watch much TV.

I guess I have not listened to corporate radio for some time now, and I forget that is totally saturated with commercials. How awful that is!

I hope this lockout gets resolved soon as I can't take much more of the corporate garbage parading as news out there.

[mirror]

Program director Slawko Klymkiw leaves CBC TV

Apparently this is not releated to the lockout.

[Argus]

The CBC is on strike?

Gee.

Who knew?

[mirror]

Has the CBC banned the use of the word terrorist like the BBC has?

Does the CBC use the Bush term "extremist violence" instead of terrorist now?

[Shady]

The CBC is on strike?

Exactly. I had no idea either. As long as their back to work for the beginning of hockey season.

[shoop]

Exactly.  I had no idea either.  As long as their back to work for the beginning of hockey season.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's the beautiful part. Management has vowed to broadcast HNIC strike or no stike. So who cares when they settle?

[Cartman]

I am not receiving my daily CBC on-line news. :angry: They are not on strike, they are locked out. A strange trend.

[kimmy]

I knew there was a labor problem, but it has no effect on me personally. As I've said before, CBC TV does a pathetic job of presenting news in Alberta. Their entertainment programming is beyond wretched (although they used to have fine programming for children and young teens, and might still.)

I would of course rather pierce my eardrums with a power-drill than listen to CBC Radio-2, and I've never listened to CBC Radio-1 because AM radio is for peasants.

-k

[Guest eureka]

If your CBC Radio -2 is the same as here, it is my station of choice. Radio - 1 for Quirks and Quarks.

[Toro]

When I lived in Canada, every morning I'd put on Newsworld as I got ready for my day. I brought a Bell ExpressVu system down here, and whenever I put on Newsworld, I find it boring. How disappointing.

I always liked CBC radio too. The equivalent of PBS for radio here in America is NPR. It is a fabulous station, and blows CBC radio out of the water.

[PocketRocket]

As the CBC lockout enters its second full day I am beginning to realize how much I am missing the CBC, primarily the radio

I have to agree with this.

The radio in my van stays tuned to CBC, so whenever I'm in transit, that's what I'm listening to.

Although I have to say there was some interesting international stuff being broadcast last night.

But I still miss "As It Happens" and a few other programs.

[Riverwind]

I've never listened to CBC Radio-1 because AM radio is for peasants.

CBC Radio 1 is the only CBC service worth listening to. You can listen to it on the Internet (when there is no strike) if you have a big problem with jurassic broadcast mediums.

[SirSpanky]

I'll say this much. My grandma is pissed that she can't watch coronation street right now, and they were covering the world track games pretty well.

Even as leftist as their news coverage is, I still miss it. I find its still the best TV news in Canada. Its good to get the opposing sides to stories too.

[Guest eureka]

I agree with you about NPR. Unfortunately, quality in broadcasting leads to diminished audience.

[Toro]

I agree with you about NPR. Unfortunately, quality in broadcasting leads to diminished audience.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As mush as I am not on the Left, I love NPR because its insightful and thought-provoking. And as much am on the Right, I can't stand the cacaphony of the right-wing media as it seems to be all just bromides.

[mirror]

Is there a way to get NPR in Vancouver?

[Riverwind]

Is there a way to get NPR in Vancouver

Streaming audio from their website.

[Cameron]

I think I know what NPR is, but I forget...please inlighten me...

[mirror]

National Public Radio. It is based in the US but because so many of Canad's major urban areas are so close to the US border a lot of Canadians listen to NPR as well as Americans. There are no ads and it is supported by foundations and indivudal supporters I believe.

[mirror]

NPR

Its great features is that it is free of corporate advertising and that it takes a news story and deals with it in depth unlike the garbage you see on Global, etc.

[Cameron]

Anybody watch FRONTLINE on PBS. I like that program. They seem to give a balance (as best you can) report on stories. I also find the presentation appealing, not full of sarcasm like some news casts or reports...

[August1991]

I generally listen to CBC-1 while driving and sometimes while waking up. When I get irritated, I switch to Radio-Canada which is unaffected by this lock-out.

I like NPR but of course there is no news about Canada. (Does NPR still carry "As It Happens"?) Seattle NPR streaming

There's a good reason for public-financing of radio and TV but the content of the CBC is absurdly biased. I would prefer to see the CBC abolished and its budget portioned out to commercial stations according to audited audience measures.

I've never listened to CBC Radio-1 because AM radio is for peasants.

Speak for yourself you "stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat". In Montreal, CBC Radio-1 is on FM.

[Toro]

August

I never hear it where I live but they do list it on their program schedule

http://www.npr.org/programs/

So some stations must pick it up somewhere.

[mirror]

Canadian Broadcasting Without the Canadians?

The million or so Canadians who watch the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's flagship evening news program, "The National," were treated to something a little different this week.

Skip to next paragraph

Jonathan Hayward/Associated Press

CBC employees are reflected in a window bearing the broadcaster's logo as they picketed in Ottawa on Monday.

Forum: Media, Advertising and Marketing

After the lockout of about 5,300 of its employees, the broadcaster offered a BBC newscast instead of "The National." Light on Canadian content, the BBC World program offered, among other things, an in-depth look at an unusually large number of dolphins frolicking off the coast of Wales.

Since the lockout began Monday, the CBC has replaced all its English-language services, including two radio networks, a television network, cable channels, Web sites and local stations with a mix of reruns, elegiac classical music and sometimes less-than-relevant foreign programming.

"Traditional CBC viewers who don't have access to BBC World on digital will find the BBC news a novelty for - perhaps - a few minutes," wrote John Doyle, the television critic of The Toronto Globe and Mail. "But as soon as the reports about soccer and cricket start, they are bound to be alienated and frustrated. They will probably turn to some other news service to find out what is actually going on in Canada."

While viewers of "The National" may be faintly amused, others are watching more anxiously. Unlike public broadcasting in the United States, the government-owned CBC has many programs that attract significant, sometimes market-leading, audiences. News and sports programming, particularly hockey, on CBC Television are important advertising outlets for many leading companies that are now reassessing where to spend their money.

"Our clients who have CBC News as part of their campaigns are looking for compensation," said Sunni Boot, the president and chief executive of ZenithOptimedia Canada, an ad-buying house with headquarters in Toronto. "While it can have international content, news has to be domestic. Dolphins off the coast of Wales, forget it."

It's about time to bring in an arbitrator to settle this thing. I can't stand corporate radio with their total lack of any substance except their ads.

[August1991]

What's up with the CBC? Is it just me or does nobody seem to have noticed?

As near as I can figure it out from first-hand observation, the CBC’s mandate seems to be this: "We will seek whenever possible to present Canada’s left-wing elitists with a picture of the world not as it is, but as they imagine it to be."

In other words, the CBC designs its programming to reassure Canada’s chattering classes that Americans are indeed imperialistic and war-mongering, that corporations are greedy and evil, that western Canadians are gun-toting reactionaries, and that Conservative party leader Stephen Harper is, in fact, the anti-Christ.

Some, of course, call this sort of programming strategy evidence of "CBC bias" or "socialist propaganda," but to those with the proper ideological viewpoint, it’s called "protecting Canadian culture."

And without that CBC cultural protection, the high-society set would be forced to watch the same crass, mandate-less networks as the great unwashed masses. It’s like asking them to shop at Wal-Mart.

The horror!

And the longer a CBC labour dispute lasts the greater the horror.

Not only would a long dispute deprive CBC fans of Rick Mercer, David Suzuki and Peter Mansbridge, but it would also remind the rest of Canadians of something that has been true for a long time — we don’t need a public broadcaster any more.

Maybe it made sense to have a government-run network back in the days when you needed tinfoil-covered rabbit ears to pick up a grainy image of Wayne and Schuster, but this is the satellite and Internet age.

These days there are all-news channels, all-sports channels, all-arts channels, all-comedy channels, allbusiness channels all available for a reasonable price.

So why should taxpayers pay $1 billion a year for an all-socialist channel?

That’s a questions taxpayers might very well ask if the CBC dispute drags on. This in turn might lead them to demand the CBC be privatized, sold off to the public.

Vancouver Sun columnist

I have argued elsewhere that government should fund TV based on audience size. But I think this guy is right. Almost everybody in Canada who wants to watch TV has access to cable or satellite. Maybe the CBC-TV should stop broadcasting by antennae and base everything on fees.

This lock-out may be the end of the CBC as we know it.