How did the CBC get mixed up in this?
Rally in Calgary-December 6
"I’m radio. Don’t blame me for everything."
Published December 7, 2008 1:39 am
The Tea Makers
They offered me the office, offered me the shop. They said I'd better take anything they'd got. Do you wanna make tea at the CBC? Do you wanna be, do you really wanna be a cop?
6 Comments
Not only does having such a disproportionate amounnt of programming originate in Toronto give the service a sameness of perspective and tone but it greatly limits the corporation’s access to talent. The Mercer character shown below got his start in tv doing items from Newfoundland for Midday. There are no more farm teams, no territories in which to test new shows. Another consequence is that with diminished relevance outside the GTA the corpse has fewer and fewer defenders.
The same comment can be made about television news in any English market east of Toronto. Is there even a single show, News, Info. or A&E on any of the Radio networks originating from any of the Atlantic provinces? CBC has become, for all intents and purposes, the Toronto Broadcasting Corporation and Canadians increasingly see it as such. Maybe the money is no longer there to fix it, even if there was a will.
As someone who works at CBC Calgary…that is bang on!!!
Well said…
Leave aside the usual anti-central Canada sentimet in Calgary….folks there have some legitimate reasons for their strong anti-CBC feelings….and CBC has only itself to blame.
The smart CBC manager types chopped the local newscast back in the nineties….Remember that? That Calgary ‘cast actually had decent ratings back then…but CBC could care less. the local newscast was off the air for years. That was followed by the ‘brilliant’ idea of doing a provincial supper hour newscast (with editorial based in Edmonton). Imagine how that went over with Calgary viewers. Imagine a screen filled with little bobbing anchor type heads from edmonton and calgary. The show mercifully died a quick death. That was eventually followed by ‘local’ news at 6:30. The lost years of Canada Now when CBC management made it clear. ‘We don’t care about your friggin’ local show..just feed stories to Canada Now and the network and screw the local shows. All this was going on as Calgary was emerging as a big economic force in Canada. Can you blame Calgarians for tuning out of local CBC tv. programming?
CBC Newsworld used to produce part of its daily business news programming from Calgary. No more. It’s all Toronto now.
In fact CBC Newsworld pulled the plug on its five day a week hosted programming from Calgary just this past year. It all comes from Toronto. What else is new. Sadly, Newsworld can boast more programming time from BBC London than Canada’s west! Only in Canada eh?
Top it off with the general poor morale and awful local management at CBC Calgary over the years…and you get the picture. Too bad because there are some fine folks who work there. It’s just that their bosses don’t care…..consequently the viewers moved on years and years ago. However there is still hope. From what I understand CBC Radio still connects with people in Calgary. That proves you give people smart and consistent programming and they will eventually come to you. Unfortunately that hasn’t happened on the t.v. side.
There’s been a taught-and-learned resentment in play ever since the proposal that what became Alberta and Saskatchewan be created as one province was refused. Possibly(probably?) even as far back as Sir John A.’s railroad deals. We’ve all been dealing with the after-effects ever since. Much to our shared annoyance.
Indeed. Free Alberta. Let them go.