look back at the cbc's long and colourful [note the canadian spelling] history: it was founded for canadians by canadians and never once [at least publicly] made an effort to conform to the dubious standards set by the american stalwarts of the television industry. the cbc never once stubled in its quest to provide genuinely canadian content. it never once sacrificed its own existence for the allmighty neilsen rating. but now, in the midst of a recession, when television programming is being increasingly geared toward profit, the canadian broadcasting corporation looks to the allmighty buck [though it's only worth about 65 cents] for inspiration it knows is not there, and we find our cbc diluted into a shallow, murky version of its former self, a version that programs hypocriticisms like "smartask!", which make canadians think not about the things that matter, but about the things that obviously don't. in an era of streamlining, as we continue to 'trim the fat' off our crown corporations, the cbc itself is becoming a hypocriticism [again, a shadow of the government that threatens its very existence], a "network" whose goals and objectives revolve around the loonie rather than canadians. if the cbc continues on its present track, it will only end up in one place: on the cutting room floor.
when we think of the cbc we think of the people's programs: some politician's ingenious idea that canadians could be successful owners of a public broadcaster. now, years after that politicians demise, i look back at the slow demise of the thing he created: the cbc...
the cbc has always been THE definitive canadian broadcaster. it's strange, isn't it, how the americans have "networks" and yet we canucks cling to that handle of yester-year: "broadcaster". Owned by us and [like the governments who control it] never quite doing what we want it to, the cbc's nerdy flavor has defined it for decades. from foster hewitt's "he shoots, he scores!" to todays programming, the cbc's roots in entertaining canadians has never been lost. sadly, this too may come to pass as shows like smartask! add an americanized flavour to OUR cbc. its true, trash sells, but we canadians have always prided ourselves on being smarter than the average north american, and succumbing to americanized tastes and trends hardly fills the description of a public broadcaster. as we complain about the "brain drain" and [Lord?] Black of Crossharbour's depatriotism, we cannot stand by and watch as our only hope at entertainment soverignty, the cbc, crumbles into an underfunded appendage of american "networks". we love our broadcaster and let's keep it the way it was meant to be: Canadian.
