After quite a while, I tuned into the evening program of Radio 2. After about forty minutes of growing listening frustration, I gave up; I will no longer listen to Radio 2 after 6pm.
I hardly listen to CBC Radio 2 anymore. The increasing mix of styles I find annoying. I do not mind musical diversity. But I liked better the old programs where they followed a theme and I could prepare myself for the type of music to come: world music, jazz, contemporary, opera, instrumental. I now prefer the silence to most of the mix the network has to offer. (I have just turned 50 and now am dropping out, after listening primarily to Radio 2 for almost 35 years.
Arts Report and Two New Hours were two of the most informative programs on CBC Radio Two. I'm certainly sorry to see them go, and I hope that you consider replacing them with an equivalent type of programming.
The News format is little changed: the same newscast is repeated on the hour from 6H00 to noon. Then, the PM newscast is repeated on the hour until 18H00. Have a NEW newscast each hour, please!
Especially after 6 p.m. the CBC is now very largely a dead zone for those who prefer classical music. Katie Malloch's 'Tonic' is particularly distasteful. And the decisions to remove the arts report and shorten the news were highly questionable.
The sweeping changes made in March were a dreadful, audience-destroying mistake. Like so many other petitioners, I have virtually stopped listening to CBC in the evenings. A cornerstone of the community is gone.
Did the ratings for CBC Two's former adequate and appropriate programming of jazz, world music and contemporary music justify these changes? We use to listen to CBC Two virtually all day every day. Now our evenings are spent listening to NPR and my CDs. I haven't yet met anyone who likes the changes.
The changes to Radio 2 (and to Radio 1) are self defeating. Increasingly I turn CBC on from habit and within minutes I turn it off again. The abbreviated news on Radio 2 is totally unacceptable.
I was dismayed by these changes to Radio Two, especially as they were made without public consultation. Our household used to listen much more regularly to Radio Two than we do now.
The new programming reflects badly on CBC management. The absence of public service announcements of local events also represents a critical loss to the arts community.
CBC2 has become an entertainment channel. Please return it to the arts, news analysis and ideas channel we all valued before the changes. Once I was proud that our public broadcaster was of a higher calibre than NPR. Sadly, that is no longer the case.
I have been a CBC FM classical music listener for at least 13 years. In my office the CBC is on all day. Since the current programming changes, I find myself constantly turning the station off when the music is interrupted with frequent, inane and repetative commercials for other CBC programming. You are losing listeners faster than you realise.
CBC Radio Two is no longer a station I can identify with! The old Radio Two had grown to be a part of me and I feel something's distinctly missing now from my life. I've switched to listening to France Musique online, a move that recognizes France as a country that doesn't downgrade its support for the arts in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator!
If CBC had tried to find a way to alienate their traditional classical music audience, they could not have succeeded better that these recent changes. What were they thinking?
Thank goodness I found this petition - I have been listening to Radio 2 less and less since March. The loss of Danielle Charbonneau and Andrew Craig in the evening plus David Wisdom (his was a show with music and quirkiness to be found nowhere else) means my radio goes off at 6pm. Also the Arts Report, Joe Cummings - I give the names of the announcers because it was their enthusiasm and knowledge that made the programs come alive, taught me something new most days and kept me in touch with my country. The programming that has replaced it I can often find on many other stations. I am fairly eclectic in my listening with a bias for classical primarily I will admit but the new programming is so eclectic that it lacks any kind of cohesion. I am most pleased to be able to join my protest with others who are disturbed and outraged by this dumbing down of what used to be an oasis on the radio waves.
I never listen to CBC Radio 2 after 6 p.m. now and deplore the evening programmes. There is so little classical music on the radio and I am forever turning off the programmes after noon. The CBC should stop trying to please everyone!
Not mentioned in the petition is Patti Schmidt's Brave New Waves, which was perhaps the most unique music show in the country. With Two New Hours gone as well, will new and experimental music in less than popular genres get any airtime in Canada? On local campus radio there may yet be hope. This has been a step backward for Canadian Arts and Culture. Kudos to the CBC however for the new show Fusion. I also enjoy the increased emphasis on broadcasting live performances.
I am very disapointed with the changes .Many seniors and others are ignored ,they don't have e mail and you did not make any way for their input.I used to listen to CBC2 all day and evening. Now I never listen after 6:00 PM.I don't like jazz, and if I did I could find it else whereI enjoy Shelly Somes,Bill Richardson.Ugan Goth,Studio sparks and I liked hearing a full news report at noon.
The changes in Radio 2 programming- the loss of comprehensive news and the especially grievous switch from classical to jazz in the early evening hours- have sent this life-long listener into ether exile. Please, let it be a short one!
I am absolutely appalled at the changes. we no longer listen to the C.B.C. after 6:00 p.m. The announcements during the day are very annoying. I have been listening to the C.B.C. for 60yrs. It angers and saddens me that the loyal audience was ignored and misread.the evening programming is an unmitigated disaster.
The new programing doesn't serve anybody. Listeners for classical music and Jazz are turned off by the hybrid programing; other listeners will be turned off for the same reasons. They wouldn't tolarate classical
The recent changes to Radio 1 and 2 are so bad that I occasionally find myself turning to the god awful crap on commercial radio. Q drives me crazy. It has no depth and leaves me with an empty feeling.
I think that, as Canada's national broadcaster, the CBC needs to offerr the programming in the arts that is so underrepresented on the airwaves, which are so pop-oriented.
I used to like the longer News at 7 am with a summary of local news, after listening to music before that time. Now I switch to Radio 1 for 15 minutes or so.
I miss the morning news broadcasts with their more in-depth format and, more particularly, my post-6:00pm programming. The radio in our household goes on around 7:00 am and remains on - or used to - until 8:00pm.
I miss the extra hour for Tom Allan, plus the Arts Report, news and evening classical music programs. SATO and Organ Thursday (from years ago) were a treat for me. I miss them.
CBC Radio 2, once a national treasure, has plummeted to the level of a national disaster since the new scheduling. Please restore pre-March 07 progamming, drop that ridiculous slogan and the commercial-like
With the cutback in news, and the change in evening programming on Radio 2, I find I'm not listening to it at all. I miss the music, but I do like more regular newcasts.
