Not forever, just the year.
Aaand how was your oh-eight? Mine was lousy. But the Corpse? The Corpse’s year was pretty much “the same.” It was “the new normal” post-lockout.
The Tories are in power but are not in quite enough power to do what they really want to do to the Corpse, i.e., turn it into one.
Right-wing assholes continue to equate “the CBC” with CBC Television, and they wonder why it’s “worth” more than “a billion dollars” of “taxpayer money.”
They keep getting the facts wrong, but we can chalk that up to right-wing assholes’ Orwellian impulse to redefine terminology or coin new terminology as a talking point (cf. “special rights”).
Even I do not understand what CBC Television is trying to be or do. I don’t see what Global and CTV are doing, either. But culturally, the only thing we can talk about with the Privates is their reliance on rebroadcasting American programming. The discourse around CBC Television is “What the hell does a general-interest TV network mean anymore?” That is actually the same question that should be applied to CTV and Global – but never is.
This year I realized I do not know, at all, what a general-interest network should be doing anymore. I don’t know what CBC Television should be doing. More amateur sports? Fewer episodes of Wheel of Fortune? More CanCon? More from “the regions”? Those are all traditional left-wing-elitist talking points. There’s something to talk about in every point, but they miss the forest for the trees.
The obvious solution is to steal from the British and split up CBC into CBCs 1 through 4. What queers that argument is lack of money. Seriously: That billion dollars runs multiple TV and radio networks and a set of Web sites. There isn’t the money for that kind of cell division.
The idea I’ve been liking more, though I didn’t get a chance to talk about it before shitcanning myself from this blog, is to model CBC along ABC and SBS in Australia. In gross but accurate terms, ABC is the populist public broadcaster and SBS is the elitist public broadcaster. Neither of those descriptions is an oxymoron. The public is actually several publics.
CBC could almost achieve that kind of split today. “Classic” CBC Television becomes the populist channel, Bold the elitist channel. Throw in Documentary and CBC Sports Plus and you’ve got a well-rounded portfolio.
A big difference between us and Oz is the fact that CBC TV still broadcasts over the airwaves while the other channels are diginets. Maybe that is a distinction without a difference anymore.
I’m sorry, but I don’t see any persuasive argument in favour of the way CBC handled the Hockey Night in Canada anthem incident. Nothing on the CBC side seems even basically in the ballpark of factual accuracy. Of course I’ve been plied with double espresso by the other side so obviously I’m biased, but listen, I · have · read · everything about this case. Everything, including original transcripts.
So let me assure you the Corpse blew it. They weren’t exactly lying most of the time, but their arguments were bullshit from stem to stern.
There’s an upside: Now when Ivan Fecan comes begging to the CRTC for looser CanCon regulations or whatever, we can come back with “You wouldn’t be so poor if you hadn’t bought CHUM… and the Olympics… and a hockey song.”
Radio 2 could be doing just fine. We’ll never know, because the intended audience isn’t counted by the ratings system. This same thing happened to jPod.
When you hire a girlygirl to program your network, even with two years’ worth of shows in the pipeline the day she sashays into her office, it should come as no surprise that the resulting programs appeal to – whom? Administrative assistants? Somebody needs to tell Kirstine she isn’t programming for the Life Network anymore.
Being Erica. Sophie. Wild Roses. MVP. The Week the Women Went. Even homosexualists don’t want to watch those. They’re for young, independent, free-spirited, self-reliant women who play second fiddle to no man. And fat girls.
The Border (“a crock” – jDoyle. All right, I suppose straight guys might like it. I’ve certainly evolved my opinion of Graham Abbey from “girls think he’s attractive” to “in person, he’s probably the most stunning man in the country.” That’s my evolution thus far.
You may not believe this, but I never knocked the show for having McGrath write it, or let that fact influence me. Though now that I think of it, Abbey has that generic-handsome look the guy in Charlie Jade had. I don’t buy the stubble, either.
Giant black dude Jim Codrington should be a reason to watch the show but isn’t. Sorry.
I’m saying CBC Television’s fiction lineup leans too heavily toward liberal-feminist/urban/feminized/effete. I’m saying that such is red meat thrown to right-wing-asshole dogs. Trust the homosexualist veganist. I should know.
They aren’t even trying. You can’t find a listing on the Web site for individual titles. The choices are atrocious, particularly for the Thursday CanCon ghetto, which could be showing every single picture that ever ran for two weeks at the Carlton. The British stuff is second-rate on a good day.
I want the BBC iPlayer over here, too. I have a list of bookmarks of BBC blog postings about dozen features, and half a dozen pieces of infrastructure, that the BBC iPlayer has that we don’t. (Example of the latter: An entire photo desk just for iPlayer stills!)
But we don’t have the money.
The net nerds are doing what they can. I’m not going to go out of my way to knock it. The news side is reasonably well handled. I want a lot less Flash, though – ideally none.
Strombo is an original character, smart, charming, aging well, a motormouth. I’m a fan. I’m still a fan. He’s tremendous.
His show, however, is a parody of any number of things, including itself. Even an ABC-style populist CBC Television doesn’t need a celebrity-interview showcase.
There. I said it.
Air Farce finally died of old age. Now whom do I have to blow to get gumtoothed Rick Mercer off the air?