Wednesday, August 17, 2005

CBC Strike = cultural suicide or national debt redemption?

After following the disengagement from Gaza news I find that I need a tonic and a shower. My tonic of choice is following the news of the CBC lockout. I find a kind of perverse pleasure to wallow in it. John Doyle supplied the comic relief in his Globe and Mail column yesterday (do the google thingy for it) calling the lockout commercial suicide if it continues much longer.
Worse, for CBC-TV, the ground has already shifted in the production of popular and critically acclaimed Canadian-made comedy and drama. CTV has the hits, not CBC. Corner Gas and this summer's Robson Arms are the key Canadian productions of the last few years. CBC is lagging behind in offering quality Canadian productions. In late September and early October, CBC expected to air such audience-grabbing shows as Trudeau II and Waking Up Wally (the Walter Gretzky movie) but those productions can hardly be promoted when CBC is doing minimal broadcasting in August.

Imagine the national cultural suicide of not watching Waking Up Wally or Trudeau II! I am truly overwhelmed by the angst of it all!

8 comments:

james said...

The only thing I watch on the CBC lately is the Doctor Who reruns. Can't wait for the Christmas episode this winter!

Can't we keep the CBC if to only rebroadcast BBC fare?

K. Shoshana said...

James - there are alternatives - Internet television is slowing coming into being, then there are the DVD Series box sets, PBS and Space. The future without CBC is full of possibilities that are only limited by our imagination.

Anonymous said...

Can I get all that for my family on 32.8 cents a day? That will buy one and a half DVD sets a year. I'd rather have good CBC - which includes Dr Who and excludes much else that has been done in the last decade.

Alan
GX40

K. Shoshana said...

Here's the difference between you and me Alan - you want the CBC and are prepared to fund it through your taxes which is all well and good but the only way you get your way requires that I am FORCED to contribute.

If my hard earned dollars must be pilftered by the government I would rather see my 32.8 cents a day used to contribute to something that has value e.g, expanding apprenticeship training programs for inner city youth rather than lining the pockets of the deluded who think that Waking Up Wally is high moment of Canadian movie culture.

K. Shoshana said...

One more thing Alan, that 32.8 cents a day figure means that in the course of one year (and not 1 and a half years) I can buy at least 4 box sets of DVD's. I can't vouch for where you shop but second-hand gaming stores also carry DVD's at extremely reasonable prices -

Anonymous said...

I actually have no DVD player but noted the price of the DVD I would buy if I had one, Captain Scarlet Complete Set, and budgetted accordingly.

I do not disagree with the content being crap but as this is a management issue at the CBC and most everything else privately available on readio or TV is crap, I do recall fondly the days of 20 years ago when CBC radio was fantastic and the TV was not based on reruns. That was good value to me as long as I trapped people like you in a hell of not your making so the decision was easy. No one promised my libertarian interests would not entail your entrapment.

Alan

Anonymous said...

Your short-take on the CBC lockout is indicative of your possible "lack of culture"; other news, that something non-European-decents know little about. To most people, culture is a type of food, or a shit-com, like cCorner Gas, which by the way, only serves to give me gas. To each his own. I do not prefer all of the CBC programing to anything else on TV, but then I have a life and I choose to watch only that which interests me. CBC is a communicator for this geographically split country. It is as old an institution as the dog sled, which you also probably know little about. You try get a message from your residence to Tuktoyaktuk and see how far you get. CBC is better known for news casting, documentary coverage and yes, hockey! And yes, it is an extention of CBC Radio. Why not? There is more to life than consumer value, Mr. American television soap-opera, reality-show, talk-show-host, game-show expert. :)

Luke 10:14-05

Get off the pipeline of mainstream feed and find the esoteric, boy!

K. Shoshana said...

"CBC is a communicator for this geographically split country. It is as old an institution as the dog sled, which you also probably know little about. You try get a message from your residence to Tuktoyaktuk and see how far you get. CBC is better known for news casting, documentary coverage and yes, hockey!"

IF the CBC is a cummunincator for this geographically split country -I have news for you - look at the numbers and you will see that as a communicator it has failed to communicate with even half the population of this country on any kind of regular basis. Hate to bust your brain but the dogsled is a much older institution than the CBC.

If I were to have my alleged "lack of culture" way the CBC would be paid for using the direct contributions of those who want to watch the drivel it provides- be it the substandard news coverage or documentaries so boring that brain death would be a relief. Let's not even talk about the high culture value of Waking up Wally.

I don't support CBC nor have you suggested even a valid reason why I should be compelled to pay for a government funded broadcaster.

Furthermore, why is the CBC in direct competition with commerical broadcasters in this country? With the advent of cable, satellite and the internet, the CBC as a government funded institution is obsolete and nothing more than a another steady leeching off the backs of taxpayers of this country. The private sector seems to be thriving, and I would bet that if Hockey in Canada was no longer carried on the CBC a private broadcaster would step up to the plate.

Oh, and for the record, not only do I know about dog sleds but I know how to run a trapline and I can still execute a pretty decent arabesque - and I didn't learn any of these skills from a CBC documentary or newscast either. So go crawl back to whatever government subsidized hole you crawled out and take your snide racism with you.