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.

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.

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.