Bedtimer? I knew what that program was for.
What do CBC insiders derogate the programs as?
..."Meanwhile, this new schedule sheds light on the
evening shows installed on CBC Radio 2 in April 2007:
dinner jazz show Tonic, concert spotlight Canada Live,
ambient bedtimer The Signal, and noctural mood-ring
Nightwatch. But none of them are hosted by names
widely known for anything but broadcasting — unlike
two of the newer attention-baiting hires."
Scrolling Eye
http://www.eyeweekly.com/blog/post/36570
CBC Radio 2's news
* by: Marc Weisblott * calendar
* August 19, 2008 6:47 PM Eye Weekly (Toronto)
* comments: (0)
Protests to preserve classical music in drive-time dayparts on CBC Radio 2
were officially rendered unsuccessful today, with the announcement of the
national network’s new lineup effective the 2nd of September. Stand On
Guard
For CBC got in their last digs before the formal launch, posting a
hysterical
letter from a woman who claimed she moved to Canada and became a Canadian
citizen because CBC weren’t so preoccupied with programming “very
listenable
material.” Who knew public radio was capable of cultivating its own
equivalent
to Susan Sarandon.
However, instead of threatening to move to a neighbouring country if she
doesn’t get her political way, our version laments that we will soon
become
that high-culture-deprived country.
How much of the event held this afternoon deep inside the CBC’s Toronto
Broadcast Centre was designed to appease the sorts who huddled together on
Front Street on a cold and rainy Friday afternoon in mid-April to start
raising a ruckus over the proposed Radio 2 changes? Not much at all, on
the
surface, even if plenty of effort was expended to explain how things are
only
going to get better.
The adjustments to the main FM feed will be accompanied by the launch of
four
online music streams — one of which will be exclusively classical, natch.
And,
introduced to those crossing a literal smokescreen into a cavernous
television
studio draped with retro renderings of the number “2” were several new
on-air
talents, including midday classical host Julie Nesrallah, a youthfully
40-ish
mezzo-soprano from Ottawa, recruited to bring the vitality to classical
programming that protesters believe it doesn’t require.
Nesrallah instantly seems like the kind of media figure that once would’ve
been hired by Moses Znaimer, in contrast to the superintendent and
schoolmarm
types once entrusted with microphones at the CBC. But the lineup of
Znaimer’s
op****tunistically labeled “The Nation’s Classical Station,” heard locally
at
96.3 FM, currently employs no parallel. This might be radio but, under the
cir***stances, appearance is everything.
Freshly perpetuated by CBC Radio 2 is their belief in being all things to
all
people. The question is, do prospective listeners buy the notion that they
are
one of those “all people”? Force-feeding Western European culture to
Canadian
farmers via radio airwaves seemed an archaic enough idea when CBC started
producing original FM content in 1964 — 45 years is an awfully long time
to
leave popular music genres to the free market to decide what to do with.
A need to update the mandate of Radio 2 reflects the fact that, in its
effort
to make money, commercial radio generally gave up trying to capture the
public
imagination through spinning music.
That there is an overwhelming amount of wide-appeal music with zero chance
of
getting widespread airplay is no surprise — things started fragmenting in
that
direction decades ago — although the evisceration of the record industry
gave
validation to a new era.
So, then why adopt mainstream broadcast industry doublespeak in trying to
explain what Radio 2 will do?
Chris Boyce, programming director for CBC Radio, trotted out the iPod
analogy
for the first time since… well, since the “We Play What We Want” slogan
for
born-in-Canada post-boomer variety hits format JACK-FM was paradoxically
explained to skeptical American listeners in 2005. No need to bother with
the
hassle of figuring out how to use an MP3 player when ours is stocked with
greatest hits of Huey Lewis and the News, etc.
“You shouldn’t have to settle for anything less than that on the radio,”
said
Boyce.
Breaking boundaries! Crossing genres! Yes, but whomever are we doing that
for?
Maybe it can all be blamed on Paul Simon’s 1986 album Graceland, opening
yuppie ears to the notion that there was a world of rhythms previously
kept
behind global barriers, while they were all caught up in listening to Paul
Simon. From that point forward, the enlightened liberals among us would
learn
to party in all languages: Celtic! Klezmer! Polka! Samba! Zouk!
CBC Radio 2 is promising nothing of the sort, really. Rather, it’s being
sold
as the more sedate middle-aged interpretation of that world-beating
perspective. Yes, the message involves plenty of inclusiveness — live
homegrown acts offering songs between speeches at the launch hopped from
guitarist Alex Cuba to classical Gryphon Trio, folkie Basia Bulat to R&B
belter Divine Brown — but this rebel sell also teeters awfully close to
the
“no hard rock and no rap” positioning widely adopted by adult-contem****ary
stations across North America in the early-’90s.
The primary argument made by graying classical purists — that children
like
they once were are being systematically deprived of the enlightenment that
comes with broadcasting symphonic sounds before and after the schoolday —
is
no less ludicrous. But at least it rationalizes the continued existence of
a
certain serendipity that the 21st century has otherwise rendered obsolete.
Meanwhile, this new schedule sheds light on the evening shows installed on
CBC
Radio 2 in April 2007: dinner jazz show Tonic, concert spotlight Canada
Live,
ambient bedtimer The Signal, and noctural mood-ring Nightwatch. But none
of
them are hosted by names widely known for anything but broadcasting —
unlike
two of the newer attention-baiting hires.
Molly Johnson purringly elucidated her history with the CBC: growing up
across
the street from the Mr. Dressup puppeteer, dropping by Peter Gzowski’s
Morningside to explain bohemia to him, and later — while her music career
was
in cor****ate flux — getting called in for voiceover jobs, even though she
was
deemed “too ***y for s****ts.” Today, she made clear that her role on the
new
Radio 2 is that of establishment wacky chick, kind of like when Eartha
Kitt
resurfaced 20 years after playing Catwoman to become a gay disco icon.
Mercifully, it seems Johnson has upmarket ambitions associated with jazzy
weekend morning radio. The old men who control cor****ate Canada will love
it.
And while the Radio 2 Morning show will continue to be hosted by Tom Allen
—
****fting gears from classical to the much-dreaded potpourri — the new
afternoon Drive presenter is Rich Terfry, ca****ng in on the image
cultivated
as avant-rapper Buck 65 with a promised three-quarters CanCon program
focusing
on the words and music of singer-songwriters.
An east coast hipster who claims to hate hip-hop while rapping longingly
about
the 1950s? They couldn’t make this stuff up at the Canadian Broadcasting
Cor****ation, which is why they had to hire it. S****ting a thrift-store
wardrobe that made him look like he was trying too hard to seem younger
than
his 36 years, Terfry applied his scat style to explain his program’s
agenda,
closing with a quote attributed to a 1973 Mott The Hoople song, “Drivin’
Sister” — something or another about having been “too much on the clutch.”
Yet, the public unveiling of CBC Radio 2 could have been presented as a
funeral for FM radio, and no one would have left feeling any different.
Guess
that means the wake will commence broadcast two weeks hence.
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