10 Comments to “An Answer to One of my Protests”

1. Chris Posted: Apr 3rd, 2008 at 11:53 pm

   1 I’m pleased to see the first fed­eral MP, NDP Cul­ture Critic Bill Sik­say pub­licly crit­i­cize the destruc­tion of our national orches­tra and the dis­in­te­gra­tion of Radio 2 into a mediocre adult con­tem­po­rary sta­tion. I wish the other MP’s would speak up as well. I’ve e-mailed Hedy Fry, my Lib­eral MP and the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture. I think we should also write to Sen­a­tor Larry Camp­bell as well as I think he has the weight to get the atten­tion of the brass. He is from Van­cou­ver and we Van­cou­verites are really get­ting the brunt of the ham­mer blow here with the orches­tra based here, Disc Drive being tor­pe­doed and the lack of alter­nate clas­si­cal sta­tions etc.

2. isabella mori Posted: Apr 6th, 2008 at 8:06 pm

   2 when i first arrived in canada in the early 80s, i couldn’t believe how lit­tle clas­si­cal music was played here on the radio. now i wish we were back to those times. a lit­tle while ago, i came across an arti­cle enti­tiled, “how to avoid the emer­gence of another leonardo davinci.” looks like we’re also work­ing hard on mak­ing sure we won’t have another glenn gould or oscar peter­son. yes, oscar peter­son, too — because with­out chopin and liszt and bach, he wouldn’t have got­ten to where he did in jazz. the sad story, of course, is that CBC doesn’t get it that mar­ket­ing for the masses has gone the way of the dodo bird quite a while ago and that by alien­at­ing their ded­i­cated niche audi­ence, they’ll prob­a­bly use ALL audience.

3. David Drucker Posted: Apr 6th, 2008 at 9:01 pm

   3 Author Comment You are absolutely right, Isabella. This idea of ditch­ing the audi­ence that they have in search of a new one has all the logic (and pos­si­bil­ity of suc­cess) of Coca Cola’s ‘New Coke’. I won­der if, like the soft drink com­pany, they’ll see how wrong they are in time?

4. Barbara Posted: Apr 15th, 2008 at 7:42 am

   4 By shock­ing coin­ci­dence I received the iden­ti­cal email. This is my response to it. My ID is Music4Life. Apolo­gies for length. Rusk: Thank you for your email about upcom­ing changes to the week­day sched­ule of CBC Radio 2. We’re enthu­si­as­tic about the changes being planned. M4L: Your enthu­si­asm about the pro­posed changes leads me to believe that I have not made myself clear about the impor­tance of restor­ing CBC 2. I apol­o­gize for my lack of clar­ity. Let me try again. Rusk: It’s good news for all Cana­dian per­form­ers and all Cana­dian listeners. M4L: No, actu­ally. It was the work of just a few min­utes to come up with over sev­enty extra­or­di­nary Cana­dian musi­cians, com­posers, ensem­bles and music fes­ti­vals, all with inter­na­tional careers and rep­u­ta­tions. World-class, you might say: Glenn Gould, Jon Vick­ers, Mau­reen For­rester, Lois Mar­shall, Ben Hep­p­ner, Elmer Isler, Alexan­der Brott, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Richard Marge­son, Michael Schade, Measha Brueg­ger­gos­man, Rus­sell Braun, John Kimura Parker, James Parker, Angela Cheng, Jan­ina Fialkowska , Healey Willan, Giles Bryant, Boris Brott, Luc Beause­jour, Karina Gau­vin, Suzy Leblanc, Isabelle Bayrak­dar­ian, James Camp­bell, André Laplante, Richard Ray­mond, Angela Hewitt, James Ehnes, Denise Djo­kic, Shauna Rol­ston, Mario Bernardi, Ofra Harnoy, Tracy Dahl, Berna­dine Blaha, Corey Cerovsek, Guy Few, Alain Trudel, Den­nis Brott, Anton Kuerti, Tafel­musik, Cor Leone, Elec­tra Women’s Choir, Fes­ti­val of the Sound, Orford String Quar­tet, St. John String Quar­tet, Sco­tia Fes­ti­val of Music, Cana­dian Children’s Cho­rus, Indian River Fes­ti­val, Win­nipeg New Music Fes­ti­val, Eckhardt-Grammate Com­pe­ti­tion, Raffi Armen­ian, Cristos Hatzis, Alex­ina Louie, R. Mur­ray Schafer, Srul Irv­ing Glick, Jacques Hetu, Van­cou­ver Cham­ber Choir, Nexus, John Grew, Music Royale, Oscar Morawetz, John Weinzweig, Box­wood Music Fes­ti­val, Ottawa Cham­ber Music Fes­ti­val, Les Voix Humaines, Gryphon Trio, Harry Somers, Susan Platt, Ben­jamin But­ter­field, Mur­ray Adaskin, the Lafayette String Quar­tet, Stew­art Goodyear, Yan­nick Nezet-Seguin, Joshua Bell… We know their names and enjoy their music only because of CBC Radio 2, when it was at its best. I won­der if you rec­og­nize all the names on this list, Chris Blake or Ray Rusk. If you don’t, I am very sorry to say that CBC man­age­ment has decided that you will not eas­ily be able to find them on your radio in the future. Too bad. It’s your birthright, and it is being stolen from you. Rusk: How­ever, we know some peo­ple have mis­con­cep­tions of why we are mak­ing these changes and how the new sched­ule will look. The ques­tion fac­ing CBC is whether we use Radio 2 to reflect excel­lence in all Cana­dian music and musi­cians or just a part of the indus­try; and whether we serve a broad spec­trum of Cana­dian lis­ten­ers or just of a por­tion of the audience. M4L: The broad spec­trum of Cana­dian lis­ten­ers is admirably served by all the com­mer­cial radio sta­tions, whose adver­tis­ers know that their mes­sages will be heard by a broad-spectrum audi­ence. The CBC’s man­date is to reflect the best of Canada to Cana­di­ans, and CBC 2 has, in the past, done that job admirably and cheaply. Rusk: Allow us to pro­vide you with a lit­tle back­ground to the proposals. First, we rec­og­nize the qual­ity and pub­lic value of “seri­ous” music. M4L: I would dis­pute the depth of your recog­ni­tion of qual­ity, but let that go. Rusk: Clas­si­cal music will remain the most broadly rep­re­sented form on Radio 2 while we expand the spec­trum to include other forms of music for adult Cana­dian lis­ten­ers. Rusk: Clas­si­cal music will remain the most broadly rep­re­sented form on Radio 2 while we expand the spec­trum to include other forms of music for adult Cana­dian listeners. M4L: With respect, would you just lis­ten to your­self? The argu­ment you are mak­ing is that CBC man­age­ment has cho­sen to alien­ate the audi­ence you have in order to serve an audi­ence you don’t have, a phan­tom audi­ence appar­ently that does not exist in suf­fi­cient num­bers to make an impact on com­mer­i­cal radio. Would it not be wiser, more pru­dent, to serve this audi­ence on web-based radio, and count ears for a year or two, to assure your­self of a new improved audi­ence that will replace the one you no longer want? This is a seri­ous ques­tion and I would like a seri­ous answer. Rusk: Next, it may inter­est you to know that Cana­dian per­form­ers of all stripes release about 30,000 pieces of music every year. Less than 1 per cent of those receive reg­u­lar air­play on com­mer­cial radio sta­tions. The rich diver­sity of Cana­dian music and musi­cians is clearly not being heard on Cana­dian air­waves. Music gen­res for which Canada is famous through­out the world cur­rently have lit­tle expo­sure on CBC Radio’s music network. M4L: Indeed. Those musi­cians and that audi­ence could be served by an FM ser­vice called Radio Three. Was that not the orig­i­nal plan? What hap­pened? This is also a seri­ous ques­tion for which I request a seri­ous answer. Rusk: Since CBC’s man­date charges us to “reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audi­ences, (and) actively con­tribute to the flow and exchange of cul­tural expres­sion” as well as “reflect the mul­ti­cul­tural and mul­tira­cial nature of Canada” the pub­lic broadcaster’s adult music net­work must be a home for these artists and this music. M4L: Look at the names on the list above — Gould, Vick­ers, Cheng, Fialkowska, Glick, Schade, Beause­jour, Armen­ian, Brueg­ger­gos­man, Cerovsek, Nezet-Seguin, But­ter­field, Bayrak­dar­ian, Trudel, Braun, Brott, Weinzweig, Hetu, Gau­vin, Leblanc, Bryant, Hornoy, Djo­kic, Ehnes. Sounds like Canada to me. Rusk: Finally, we also believe there will still be some lis­ten­ers who desire noth­ing but clas­si­cal, or jazz, or adult singer-songwriters. So, this fall, CBC Radio will be launch­ing three 24-hour-a-day web radio ser­vices to serve each niche exclu­sively. Obvi­ously we would rather have a full FM net­work for each genre, but since that is not pos­si­ble, the online solu­tion is another option for Canadians. M4L: This is a non-solution solu­tion, that is, it looks like a solu­tion on the sur­face but it is noth­ing but a drop-dead after­thought. First, CBC 2 lis­ten­ers lis­ten to the radio through real radio speak­ers, not tinny com­puter speak­ers which are scarcely wor­thy of the name. Sec­ond, we move around when we lis­ten, from the kitchen to the office to the car, to the hard­ware store. We also talk to each other from time to time. With all the gee-whiz new media – pod­casts and concerts-on-demand, you seem to fail to get the key point that while lis­ten­ing to the radio can be a splen­did soli­tary expe­ri­ence, it is just as often a won­der­ful shared expe­ri­ence. Two or three peo­ple in a kitchen, or a car, or a cor­ner store can sud­denly stop their con­ver­sa­tion, and lis­ten until the end of a par­tic­u­larly beau­ti­ful piece. After­wards we talk about it. Together. With each other. In the past, we have often fin­ished the exchange by remark­ing on what a gift CBC 2 is, and how proud we are that Canada con­tin­ues to value it. Well, that’s what we used to say. Rusk: Radio 2 is now and will be remain a music net­work for adult Canadians. M4L: This state­ment reminds me of a book talk I attended. The author’s his­tor­i­cal research was about when and how the Roman Catholic Church shifted course, or changed its posi­tion on a vari­ety of issues. The announce­ment of a rever­sal in pol­icy appar­ently always fin­ished with the words “Rome has spo­ken,” and that became the title of the book. The author also dis­cov­ered that announce­ments of rever­sals of posi­tion were always pref­aced by the words “As Rome has always said…” That is, the refusal to acknowl­edge a change in direc­tion is the pref­ace to a change in direc­tion, in this case a shame­ful dumb­ing down. Rusk: Our val­ues of thought­ful­ness in pre­sen­ta­tion and excel­lence in per­for­mance remain intact. M4L: Unfor­tu­nately this state­ment is con­tra­dicted by the lam­en­ta­ble change in CBC 2 pro­gram­ming which has already taken place. CBC 2 is toxic after 6 pm weekdays. Rusk: Our com­mit­ment to offer an alter­na­tive on the dial continues. M4L: We do not seek alter­na­tives. We seek main­stream seri­ous music, such as pre­sented by WQXR in New York, or Antenna 2 in Portugal. Rusk: The kind of lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence will not change; M4L: the lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence has already changed, and not for the better; Rusk: the music high­lights will just come from a broader spectrum. M4L: Broad-spectrums are for antibi­otics, not music. Rusk: We’re pas­sion­ate about Cana­dian music. M4L: Actu­ally, you’re ring­ing the death-knell of the only Cana­dian music that is likely to last, and which gives us stand­ing in the civ­i­lized world. Rusk: Radio 2 will be the only place to truly reflect the incred­i­ble breadth and depth of tal­ent that exists in this country. M4L: Sadly, that is no longer true. Rusk: Again, thank you for writ­ing. We look for­ward to your feed­back when the new shows are intro­duced in the fall. M4L: You are receiv­ing my feed­back now. If you per­sist in this unwar­ranted attack on the Cana­dian clas­si­cal music com­mu­nity, when the “new shows are intro­duced in the fall” my radio and a mil­lion oth­ers will be turned off. You would do well to con­sider that the cur­rent firestorm of protest is a wake-up call to save your job, and to save you from your­selves. In a year or so, it is pre­dictable that the gov­ern­ment will dis­cover that audi­ence num­bers are down, and will cut fund­ing, and we will not be there to defend the CBC. The CBC is engag­ing in risky, self-destructive behav­iour, and it is pre­dictable that it will end badly. Pass it on.

5. David Drucker Posted: Apr 15th, 2008 at 8:17 am

   5 Author Comment That’s spec­tac­u­lar, Bar­bara, and I couldn’t have put it bet­ter. I wish there were a way for such a good response to CBC’s cheer­ful and Orwellian let­ter. I par­tic­u­larly like the fact that you point out, at the end, that these peo­ple are appar­ently, cheer­lead­ing for the changes that will result in the loss of Radio 2 and their jobs. They should pass on such infor­ma­tion internally. Like you, if these changes do go through, I will turn off my radios in the house and car, prob­a­bly for good. I will rely on my music col­lec­tion and the Inter­net for recorded Clas­si­cal music, prob­a­bly keep an iPod in the car for pod­casts and music I’ve already got­ten there, and look toward a day when these tech­nolo­gies are good and per­va­sive enough that ter­res­trial radio is indeed irrel­e­vant, but that won’t be for as long as a decade, I think). I will also mourn the loss of a medium that could have served to pro­mote the Cana­dian artists you men­tion (and oth­ers not yet dis­cov­ered or even born).

6. Cindy Stephenson Posted: Apr 16th, 2008 at 8:41 pm

   6 Hi David, It’s a small world. I linked to you while read­ing Rebecca’s live blog of Third Tues­day, and dis­cov­ered your blog. I was sit­ting in the row of seats behind you. What I find inter­est­ing is that I was also one of those protest­ing the CBC cuts — although in Vic­to­ria as that is where I live. Re the cuts — your com­ments and those of Bar­bara are spot on. What both­ers me more than any­thing is that there has been no pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on this. Hubert Lacroix does not appear to be account­able to any­one. That’s nuts! The Face­book group has helped to mobi­lize peo­ple. Is there any­thing more we can do through social media? I’d be inter­ested in your thoughts and sug­ges­tions. Thanks. And if I’m able to make it over to the next Third Tues­day, I’ll tap you on the shoul­der! Cindy

7. David Drucker Posted: Apr 16th, 2008 at 9:55 pm

   7 Author Comment Hi Cindy, I remem­ber meet­ing you last night before we took our seats. I’ll look for­ward to see­ing you again next month. As for what we can do, so far, as you know, there have been email writ­ing cam­paigns, and twice I’ve pick­eted the CBC’s Van­cou­ver office (the last time at the same time oth­ers were sup­pos­edly doing it around the coun­try). Here in Van­cou­ver the pick­eters are more pas­sion­ate about stop­ping the dis­band­ing of the CBC Radio Orches­tra, but even though that’s upset­ting to me as well, it won’t quite have the neg­a­tive impact that remov­ing Clas­si­cal Music pro­gram­ming from the air­waves will have for me (and, I sus­pect, thou­sands more, at least). Not sure what else we can do — some have sug­gested enlist­ing the aid of promi­nent per­form­ers. I don’t know if this will help. I’d like to get some promi­nent politi­cians on board as well. The story on 60 Min­utes last week­end about how Clas­si­cal Music per­for­mance is trans­form­ing the coun­try (by cre­at­ing orches­tras where poor chil­dren can par­tic­i­pate from an early age) drove home to me the impor­tance of the pres­ence of great music in pub­lic cul­ture, but dri­ving that point home to a Harperite Con­ser­v­a­tive MP strikes me as a dif­fi­cult road to hoe. Per­haps you can think of some­thing as well.

8. Stephen Rees Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 7:25 pm

   8 I think you should keep on about this. We all should. This deci­sion is obvi­ously about even­tu­ally turn­ing the CBC into just another com­mer­cial broadcaster. There are alter­na­tives — just not on the radio. And in recent months as Radio 2 has become infested with stuff that really belongs on Radio 3 (inter­net only and very lim­ited indeed) I find myself lis­ten­ing to all sorts of other sources. The radio gets switched off and I use last.fm, or stream­tuner — and, of course, NPR. And since they are not lis­ten­ing to us there will come a time when I am not lis­ten­ing to them.

9. David Drucker Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

   9 Author Comment It’s hard to keep push­ing when you reach a brick wall. There’s not been any indi­ca­tion from the CBC of any­thing but acknowl­edg­ment that the deci­sion was ‘hard’ (par­tic­u­larly to dis­band the orches­tra). I don’t believe a word of their bureau­cratic babble. As for turn­ing to the Inter­net, I’ve grimly accepted that this will be the way that I have to go this fall. It does not include the car (will plug in the iPod there and lis­ten to pod­casts plus my library if I want music). As for home, we have a very good setup, all in all, except for the bed­room. I’ve been look­ing into installing an Air­port Express Router, a device to which I can stream audio from any com­puter in the house (includ­ing the one in my office). I can take the audio out of the router into our clock radio, so that at the time the alarm goes off, the source is no longer the FM tuner but the AUX (from the Inter­net). This all should work, but there’s no telling what the audio qual­ity will be and frankly, it all feels a bit like a Rube Gold­berg con­trap­tion of sorts. In the mean­time, I get up every day at 6 AM on week­days, mainly to hear Tom Allen. No mat­ter what I end up doing, I’ll lose his enhance­ment to my morn­ing. With the end of his pro­gram a few months away, he’s been tak­ing more chances (what does he have to lose?) and the other morn­ing I even heard him make fun of the way that other clas­si­cal announc­ers do their job (with their grave, pompous, and bor­ing inton­ing of piece titles and composer’s names). For my money, he’s the best at what he does in the English-speaking world. I plan to write a post describ­ing why I think he’s such a unique trea­sure on the air­waves, and just what a loss he’ll be to the country.

10. pingback: Posted: Jun 2nd, 2008 at 10:21 pm

    10 Nancy Zimmerman: a canadian money coach (not a financial planner!) » Blog Archive » Personal Praxis: cbc and my money with a splash of web 2.0 […] But here’s a pur­pose it does serve for me. I some­times look to main­stream media to be the expert, sort through it all, and pro­vide the most wor­thy con­tent. CBC still does that (although that is changing). […]