CBC Radio 2 is the only station that people who understand and appreciate western classical music can rely on. In fact, there is already too much non classical music on the station.You are the only station that satisfies true music afficianados and I beg you not to change toward the dumbing down the station's classcial content. If you do, I would jave no further use for the radio at all.
Stop the commercialization of CBC by the introduction of ever increasing advertising and the gradual reduction of the regular classical programming. If we want yet another station that has the various other kinds of music we will turn to commercial stations which cater to this type of music.
Classical music is a must for Canadians.The current format is absymal as it repeats what other local AM stations offer. Please let us have uninterrupted quality culture and Classical music.
I like freestyle.. I agree with the mainstream music they played. They should have sifted thru more canadian bands that are aimed at different amalagamtions of genres. And less to what we hear on regular (boring) radio. but im pissed that cameron and marsha are off the air. They were great journalists to waht they had to report. I`ll miss them and the dave brubeck intro forever.
What happened to DNTO concert hour? I'm 52 years old and I rely on this show to keep me in touch - very much!
What's even worse is taking away Sound Advice! I can't believe it - my Sunday evenings are ruined! This has been a family tradition for my and my kids for YEARS! It's a family game to guess what rating he's going to give each piece. Please, bring him back to Radio !!
Those hosts are terrible, they name-drop bands that are totally irrelevant and try to act so hip, it's depressing. They are trying to market towards a generation that knows they are being targeted, and it's insulting. Please cancel the show, bring back something good and not hip like sad goat or come up with a new idea. Also PLEASE consider the cancellation of DNTO: the worst of CBC, with THE worst host. These programs have nothing to do with Canada, please stop providing us with irritating mindless filler.
I'm starting to believe that the issue is not the programs, but the CBC Programmers.
CBC TV canned some of its best shows last year (This is Wonderland, Da Vinci's Inquest and The Tournament to name a few) and now, not for the first time, these I-have-to-justify-my-posi tion-by-tinkering radio programmers are at it again by turning CBC radio programming into something that that the private broadcasters have been doing all along (and paid for by ads, not our taxes).
Why, oh why, is there this need to make ratings the top priority at the CBC, instead of an informed listenership? Are they confusing elitism with educating the public?
When will these CBC beaurocrats learn that by turning the CBC into mainstream radio, the CBC becomes utterly unnecessary - and they are all out of a job.
Now, what SHALL we do with all those tax dollars, after the CBC ceases to exist?
I support this petition. Freestyle continues to be 2 hours of inane trivia & uninteresting pop music, as if there is no other music that listeners would enjoy? Their feeble attempt to expand the music flavour is insulting. I'm so glad that Kelly Ryan abandoned this sinking ship and takes her irresponsible commentary with her. Now we just have to out wait the demise of the entire show. Hopefully, the otherwise likeable Gian Gomeschi will also never be allowed to perpetuate that sickening repetition of Top 40 anything. He really needs to expand his musical knowledge beyond Pop Rock.
I'm so greatful someone has put for this petition. I listen to CBC all day and run a clinic for treating music related injuries. Myself and my clients have always appreciated the diversity and wonderful programming that CBC used to put forth. On CBC I've heard recordings of several clients and of recording that I myself have been part of. It has always made me so proud to know that CBC has always been a symbol of Canadian culture. I can listen to pop music on ANY other station and there has ever only been one station that I could count on to provide me some real culture in my day. I must admit that in the last month I have put on CD's in the day more than listen to CBC because it makes me crazy which my clients don't really appreciate:)
There is so much incredible music out there are so many performances that I've never heard. Why are we so insistent to dumb down our society? As I am writing this it is time to shut off CBC as I've reached the limit of the amount of very uninteresting pop music I can handle in a day.
I'm not sure why CBC doesn't realize how many listeners it will lose in their futile efforts to gain.
I support this petition because Freestyle is an abomination. The hosts are inane and uninteresting. This show assumes that the afternoon listeners are idiots. Why do we have to wait until 6pm for cerebral radio? Please, bring back The Round-up or something similar. Get rid of Freestyle and its hosts.
I am a Canadian musician and university music instructor currently employed in Gainesville, Florida. Previously I have taught at Western and Wilfrid Laurier University. I am shocked to learn of the demise of CBC programming and the possibility of terminating “Two New Hours,” an important component of this vital institution. Art music programming should not be viewed as disposable, an anachronism that is out of touch with today's audience and economy. It is the essence of our cultural identity. A country is viewed by its quality of human life, not just its fiscal assets. Can we really afford to lose sight of a depth dimension? Don't we as Canadians want to rise above everyday existence--do we not in fact already pride ourselves on this as compared to more capitalist countries who are afraid of "the Liberal media" or have I been away too long?
The other day I played my students an excerpt from a vintage CBC concert broadcast on "Two New Hours." They were amazed by the music, but more amazed that Canada had composers, orchestras, and its own broadcasting corporation. They also believed that art music can only be found on movie soundtracks. But the majority of Americans have a distorted perception of the arts in Canada, especially the ‘Canadian Music Scene.’ What would they think of us destroying our art music tradition to join the ranks of consumers? Without the CBC, Canadian culture will be viewed as nothing more than the beer drinking characters the McKenzie Brothers satirized on the "Great White North" and we will only be remembered for Anne Murray's single "Snowbird."
Ask yourself what is meant by the last phrase of our national anthem, "We stand on guard for Thee." What are we guarding? Our borders from enemies? Our autonomy from Britain? Wasn’t part of the mission of the CBC to guard Canadians from being assimilat
In one sense, I'm happy about the dumbing down of CBC- I have discovered real adult radio- NPR BBC 3,4 and 7.
But for all those people like my 80 year old father who fought for CBC over the decades, and who can not see well enough to retreat to a computer for grown up fare, I hope this petition serves some purpose. But I doubt it. The hilarious part, is that the demographic CBC is trying to reach doesn't listen to radio. And anyone with brains, sure doesn't listen to CBC.
The nature of my daily schedule means that I am usually in my car in the afternoon. I have always listened to Radio One at that time. Now that Freestyle is on the air, I no longer tune in. The show is the worst change that CBC has initiated in its so-called "revamping". The hosts are inane and irritating. I hate the approach used for introducing guests. It's so sophmoric. I've moved over to radio Canada, which is still interestingly eclectic and urbane. How long will that last?
This show is part of what's been wrong with the CBC since the strike: Dumb; on purpose. Somehow the CBC thinks it should be dumb to appeal to a broader audience that they assume to be dumb. Stop it. Public radio is supposted to set an example. Leave it to MTV to pander.
Freestyle is an abomination. The hosts are inane and forgettable. This show panders to the masses and assumes that the afternoon listenership are idiots. Why do we have to wait until 6pm for cerebral radio? The radio dial is rife with trite, uninteresting drivel. If we want to be bored to tears we have many choices - the contrary is not true. CBC, please be different.
Freestyle is an abomination. The hosts are inane and forgettable. This show panders to the masses and assumes that the afternoon listenership are idiots. Why do we have to wait until 6pm for cerebral radio? The radio dial is rife with trite, uninteresting drivel. If we want to be bored to tears we have many choices - the contrary is not true. CBC, please be different.
Whenever I have friends or family visiting me in Canada, I have always tuned in to CBC with pride. CBC manages to be informative and interesting, without being dull or flashy. My friends were always envious that we canadians had a radio station that actually stimulated minds and captivated people's attention. I always felt that CBC is the voice of Canadians. We should not allow this public radio station to become "one of the rest". If we do, we sell a part of our identity as a nation.
simply because the national playlist was interesting even though most of the song choices for it were lame and pissed me off.however it was one of the few things on the cbc that didn't suck.
I support this petition.I can not believe the drival on freestyle. It is so borning and mundane that it gets turned off within five minutes. I give up, nor more cbc on my car radio.
I support this petition. Thirty-three years ago, the CBC captured the pride I felt in my new Canadian citizenship. Prostituted by the monoculture vision of its masters, the re-invented CBC reflects only the dumbed-down culture it insists it is its mission to serve. As a result we have ceased remembering what we were and imagining what we might become. A serious musical culture illumines in both direction. The CBC prefers darkness.
The CBC has been around in my life almost since my birth. I am a few days away from beeing a mother and I don't want to be telling my children "In my days, the CBC was less commercial and was a real alternative to other radios." Programs like freestyle, the national playlist, and the promogirl sketches are lacking in content and are brigning down this radio to common and boring commercial radio. Lets continue to have new challenging, intelligent and original programming! And please bring back "Sad Goat" in the afternoons!
Freestyle is a disaster! Promo Girl annoying in the extreme!
Bring back the full Ontario Today programme to Toronto listeners.
Please widen your appeal by catering to a young, intelligent,inquisitive audience. Do you not dumb down CBC programming in a futile attempt to attract those whose tastes are served by commercial stations.
I support this petition. i used to listen to CBC to be informed and to gain new ideas. That was when I was a teenager. Now that I am an adult I am disapointed with the lack of care and effort that goes into many of the different stories that are being presented on programs like Freestyle. I seem to able to find every single "story" on one quick search on google. Give me some credit!
I support this petition. In the past CBC has been a great source for music and content. But on Freestyle it seems like the hosts are thinking "Oh my God, I have my own radio show and darnit I'm going to play every 80's song I can...." It's frustrating - as I try to listen to the new programming I am silently lamenting the absence of earlier hosts - Gzowski, Gabareau, Richardson, Black, Enright (full time) and Finkleman. I'm in my mid 30's and would think they want to connect with me but they were doing a better job with that 5-10 yrs ago.......
I support this petition.Yes, it seems CBC is pandering to the lowest common denominator and is forgetting what sets it apart. There is plenty of silly stuff on private radio. I say bring the level of the listener up.I find myself turning CBC radio off quite frequently, something I rarely did in the past.
I support this petition. 'Popular' programming doesn't need or deserve tax-support. Offices are quite happy to pay for productivity-enhancing programming, I'm not. The so-called improvements to the daytime schedule have made me a US NPR listener, once Andy Barry and the Current are over.
"Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem in my opinion to characterize our age."
Did Einstein ever work at the CBC?
I started listening to CBC radio back in the late 70's as a teen. Became thoroughly addicted through the Gzowski years--and completely fell off the listening track once I found myself busy with 2 small kids. When I finally returned a few years ago I started to sense a scary change in the programming. I could hear the old 'desperate for young listener's' bandwagon rolling into CBC radio boardrooms and feared the worst.
I guess I was right.
About the only thing I tune in for now would be the old standbys: Quirks and Quarks, Ideas, MetroMorning (Toronto)--though even there I now routinely switch over to NPR on my morning commute. Maybe CBC execs should take a look at the success of NPR and take a look in their programming rear-view mirror to find what they're missing from the current mess.
P.S.: As soon as I hear one word from 'Promo Girl' I switch off or click to another station. If I ever meet her in person, I'm hoping my lawyer will be allowed to include the petitioners here on the jury duty list.
I ahve listened to CBC for 20+ years. I don't even have it preset in my car anymore. Seems they lost track of exactly who their core audience is in some attempt to appeal to those who don't care.
I support this petition. There's hope for CBC Radio which still has some interesting and informative programs - unlike CBC TV which has become a painfully boring irrelevance. Unfortunately CBC Radio has become infested with mediocrity which I don't believe is even commercially viable. As for Promo Girl - they should bring back stoning.
I do not support this petition. The cancellation of the national playlist disappointed me greatly. This program was one of the few interesting programs on all radio. The rest of the lineup on cbc radio one(besides the current) is dreadfully boring and uninformative. The program provided intelligent discussion and debate as well as a great deal of Canadian content. The program introduced me and in turn my friends to a large amount of Canadian, non-mainstream music, such as arcade fire, stars, fiest, jean leloup, and many others. I beleive this petition is extremely misguided. Increased listeners and popularity does not mean commercialization. This is the people's network, when people listen to it, it should be encouraging, not a reason to start a petition against it.
I support this petition. I loathe "the national playlist" and "freestyle". The "roundup" with Tetsero was always a breath of fresh air in the afternoon and a delight to listen to. Bring back the "Sad Goat" with Tetsero Shigamatsu and replace the national playlist with comedy like "Madly off in all directions" everyday instead of just Friday. Bring back "Outfront" in the morning as I miss listening to this and I don't listen in the evenings.
I support this petition.
I was delighted to discover this petition on the web + to read the comments posted as they prove that me and my small circle of friends and relatives are not alone in our despair over the arrival on CBC Radio One of programs such as the "national playlist" and disgust at the replacement of the wonderful "round-up" with something as vacuous and mind-numbing as "freestyle". A couple of weeks ago, when I accidently tuned into CBCR1 between 2-4pm (disrupting my new routine of ensuring the dial is tuned elsewhere during this timeslot) I became so irate after a couple of minutes of listening to "freestyle" that I fired off a lengthy letter of complaint to the CBC website. It's comforting to discover now that mine wasn't a lone voice in the wilderness!
Please bring back the intelligent, informative and interesting programming that once dominated CBCR1(and can still be found in "the current", "ideas" and even "sounds like canada")!!!
We need CBC Radio to provide an alternative that is in the public interest. In my opinion, programming that is focused more on attracting an audience than on the quality of it's content is not in the public interest.
I support this petition. The whole point of being a public broadcaster is to NOT resemble commercial media, and that, not being commercial, you are free to NOT bend to the lowest common denominator. Where did the content go???
I support this petition. I LOVE CBC radio. I love Anna Maria, Eleanor Wachtel, Stuart MacLean, Sean Cullen (please bring him back), Brent Bambury, Bob McDonald, Stuart McLean, Jonathan Goldstein and Don McKellar... They're great, their shows are great. I even like Enright, he's found his niche. The cutesy fawning nicey-nice light programming, and those shows know who they are, are always awful, but Freestyle is a new low and it's so low. I am sorry, the hosts do seem nice and I'm sure the producers are lovely too but the show is absolutely dreadful. I always turn it on hoping it will be different and always turn it off in disgust. Please dump this show and do not replace it with the regular 2-4pm mind numbing fluff.
I support this petition. The current programming rationale, if one can call it that, is deeply flawed. If CBC is trying to compete with the likes of Canwest Global -- what? You're going to put them under and buy them out? Get real. Who you should be competing with is BBC and Radio Prague, etc. Grab some dignity, folks.
I support this petition. CBC 1 has always been my favourite radio station and I have found nothing like it anywhere else in the world. Not in Germany and not in the States. It is a unique and independent way to express what is truly Canadian…
I support this petition. I have yet to understand why WireTap continues- it is beyond childish. While I deem it the worst, it is not alone in a programming list of inanity. Get rid of Promo Girl, DNTO, and bring in some permanent hosts for local shows in Ottawa. Once The World at Six is over so too is my listening time with CBC until Ideas.
I have been a listener of the CBC for a number of years and in the past several months have found myself looking for other stations to listen to, due to programming such as The National Playlist and Freestyle, which I find difficult listening to due to the inane banter. If music must be played, let's support Canadian artists - there is a vast amount of talent in this country.
I support this petition. John Hanson's comments are "right on". I miss Arthur Black. DNTO is a bore, Wire Tap is an insult to any intelligent listener, and we need much more quality Canadian content. Emphasis on quality. Promo Girl is juvenile and more evidence that CBC appears to be abandoning its traditional audience. I say bring back Arthur Black! More of Jeff Goodes, Michael Enright, and "Ideas"! Goodbye and Good Luck.
I support this petition. I used to love listening to CBC. Now, as often as not I find myself turning to another station. CBC's abandonment of its traditional audience in the hope of attracting younger listeners through "hip" programming like DNTO, Go, the National Playlist and Wiretap (^%$&^#@# - Now there's a TOTAL waste of tax dollars!) is simply disheartening. My entire family agree (and we're not all old fogies about to kick off either). And please... no more promo girl.
I support this petition. Radio 1 has consistently produced programs increasingly aimed at a mindless, private radio audience. Private radio exists and CBC's mandate is not necessarily to compete with this brainless noise. Radio is now a digital playing field. CBC has to compete with intelligent programing from other private broadcasters around the world. These broadcasters ask informed questions. The new, freestyle-esque, Sook-Yin Lee-CBC appears hell bent on asking questions based on ignorance from a standpoint of banality. If this doesn't change - listeners will migrate to a more inteligent dialogue, at the cost of a Canadian perspective. Stop the drivel!
I support this petition. As a long time CBC devotee I've tried to listen to Freestyle, but just CAN'T STAND IT! Nothing against the hosts, just the "brainless drivel".
I support this petition. There is an increasing number of low quality programming creeping on to CBC radio. This is a concern. Is it a subyle plot to destroy this very important segment of public broadcasting that isn't influenced by corporations or politics.
I support this petition.The CBC has in recent years been neglecting its audience of mature intelligent listeners. Without the old syle CBC radio there is very little to listen to.
I support this petition. Rather than "hip" why not quality, which is timeless. What I hear on CBC more and more is a scripted flip kind of attitude, more of a negative tone, hip over humble. I think you've lost your way in many ways. Maybe stop trying to be the message?
I am nineteen years old-- this lands me precisely in the age demographic that the CBC hopes to capture with much of its new dumbed-down programming. I feel insulted that the people at the CBC think those in my age group have such shallow minds and short attention spans.
I support this petition. The new programming, especially Freestyle, is like a tsunami of stupidity washing over years of careful brand building. Geez! What are you doing CBC?
I support this petition. My radio used to be on and tuned to CBC from early morning until late evening, 7 days a week, now I have to be very selective in choosing the times to tune in. Mindless banter between pop songs is not what I want from my public broadcaster. If the CBC is so desperate to appeal to a "younger & hipper" audience, then create a new radio frequency for that purpose. Don't dumb down CBC1 and punish everyone else.
I support this petition.
I only listen to CBC Radio because it serves as an alternative for people who don't want to hear popular music. CBC is not providing a service to people who want to hear popular music, that music can be heard anywhere... When you play folk and classical or other music which is not "pop" you are providing a servcie because such radio stations are becoming harder and harder to come by in this society.
