Yeah, I know. But this one has charts.
Crusty curmudgeon complains about R2
Editor, publisher, factual entertainer.
Published November 14, 2008 8:22 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?
4 Comments
meh @ malachi
I can agree there should be far less classical on Radio 2 without heaping false praise on what it’s become.
If you thought classical-dominated programming was “elitist”, there’s nothing more elitist than “hipness,” which is quickly becoming the main programming aim on both Radios One and Two.
Anyone can listen to classical, but by definition not everyone can be hip. Suck on that, elitists.
And, if only you knew! If only you knew how scared, conservative and rootless music producers have become. They hire people to program music, but then won’t let them do anything. And showing any kind of “knowledge” in your script is now taboo. Knowledge doesn’t matter anymore. Sounding cool matters.
They cut down classical’s mafia-like grip on programming. Thank God. But there’s also a Trojan Horse / sleight of hand /shell game element to the programming changes:
while people were making noise about classical numbers, negatively or otherwise, anything challenging, interesting or remotely off-model also got cut in the process. Whoops.
It takes time to build an audience.
Me, for instance.
I'm so pleased now that they got rid of that damn fiddle music in the AM & PM drive slots. I listen every day and it's great!
Radio 2 was NEVER supposed to be your classical music jukebox. Get over it.
In order to acknowledge failure or take any action, CBC management would have to admit making a mistake, and we all know from experience that would never, ever happen.
Thanks, Ouimet, for featuring my blog here. I’ll have to start reading yours more often.
Curmudgeon? Yes. Cantankerous? Perhaps. Outraged? Certainly. Tenacious? Most definitely. But crusty? No, not at all!
Do you suppose that CBC management is performing the kind of analysis that I have featured on my blog? If so, are they willing to share it with the general public? And does their analysis reach the same conclusion that I have reached; namely, that the recent experiment with the CBC Radio Two format has been a dismal, abject failure? Will they recognize this and take the honourable action of offering their resignations to atone for their failure? I think not.
James Wooten