Let’s go back to talking about CBCR3.
I’m gonna quote Kate Taylor of the Globe first, from an online Q&A: “I have never understood where CBC Radio got a mandate to run a classical music service; it just seems such a narrow band of programming to me – I just don’t think they know how to go about it, and don’t always have the right talent or the right mentality.”
Essentially I was asking who gave CBC a mandate to run an all-indie-rock music service as a claimed alternative to its existing services.
I’ll put it to you another way: I don’t see who gave CBC permission to run an all-rock-snob service. Because that’s what indie rock and indie rockers are. Please do in fact read The Rock Snob’s Dictionary. I have. (And Film and Food.) I used to be a rock snob. I’m not anymore.
I only brought up dance music as an alternative to the alternative because it is something I more or less understand. You could have your own preferred genres. There’s also the fact that CBC Radio 2 has those four new online streams to placate granddads who want all Mahler or all Lightfoot all the time. By my count that’s five precedents for CBC-run online radio stations.
Of course we don’t have the money for any more of them. That doesn’t mean they aren’t a good idea. The existing stations would be preserved, so irate R3 snobs’ shabby, scrawny little duchy could remain untouched. (No, you drop dead!) I just want something more.
Or we could be really radical and cut R3’s rock-snob programming in half and give over the other half to something else.
This could go quite wrong. The BBC blew it, according to squibs I’ve read in Private Eye, with services like the Asian Network, 1Xtra, 6 Music, BBC 7, and 5 Live Sports Extra. They were mostly complaining about ratings, though.
In the meantime, while it doesn’t have a CanCon mandate or anything else the Corpse would be saddled with, I say again that Tiësto’s Club Lifé is a nice solid middle-class dance podcast you could listen to.