Changes on CBC

[kenlister]

It looks like radio 2 is going to have a 2-hour jazz show 7 days a week in the evening, featuring lots of Can-con. Sounds like good news for Canadian jazz.

[bverkerk]

I have mixed emotions about this new daily jazz show as a listener.

It's great that we'll have a daily jazz show to listen to and that it sounds like it could feature a variety of jazz styles, but I wonder how many listeners it will draw in that time slot. Personally, I won't be able to tune in much at that time -- but that's just me.

More importantly, do the changes mean After Hours is toast? I didn't see any mention of it in the news story. In fact, a contemporary music program is taking over its time slot. If After Hours is cancelled, it doesn't look like we will actually be getting a lot more jazz programming than we are now -- just the weekend programming. We already have Jazz Beat on Sunday nights, which apparently will be replaced by the new daily two-hour jazz program.

Has anyone heard or read anything that answers these questions?

[Nimish]

I was listening to CBC radio 1 and they where talking about the format changes. Basically they are going to do away with some of the classical and avante garde music and add more jazz and contemporary in order to get a 'younger' adult audience.

CBC changes format of Radio Two

January 17, 2007
Andrea Baillie
Canadian press

TORONTO – CBC's classical music station, Radio Two, is revamping its evening and late-night programming in a bid to attract younger listeners, the public broadcaster announced Wednesday.

"Half of our audience on Radio Two now is over 65 ... and we're not attracting new listeners into the service," said Jane Chalmers, vice-president of CBC Radio.

"We want to bring in the 40-plus kind of group ... In some ways it's our listeners' kids that we want."

The changes, set to take place March 19, will also affect programming on Radio One, including the cancellation of the afternoon pop-culture chat show "Freestyle."

Other CBC shows to be scrapped because of the revamp include ``Global Village" and "Brave New Waves."

Under the new format, Radio Two will feature a daily jazz program from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. to be hosted in Montreal on weekdays by Katie Malloch. It will air from Calgary on weekends.

It will be followed from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. by a show focusing on live music performed by acts across the country. The weekday host for that show will be Matt Galloway, who will also continue his Toronto drive-time duties on Radio One.

Laurie Brown, formerly of "The New Music," will helm a nightly contemporary music show from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Radio Two.

The changes also mean that Radio One listeners can expect to hear more talk and drama and less music.

"Dispatches," hosted by Rick MacInnes-Rae, will be expanded to include elements of the world music show "Global Village."

Chalmers said the changes are designed, in part, to better reflect the makeup of the country.

"The growth in Canada now is happening through immigration. We're seeing people move to different parts of the country, they want to hear more music coming from the communities that they live in," she said, referring to the new program of live concerts across Canada.

"We have to constantly look at how we are serving Canadians from the perspective of where they are and the perspective of their interests."

Chalmers said the changes mean that 63 employees at CBC will be reassigned, possibly resulting in one or two layoffs.

The watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting has been a frequent critic of CBC-TV, but had praise for Wednesday's radio announcement.

"You have to update and improve," said spokesman Ian Morrison, calling the changes "responsible management."

"We have to support the idea of trying to adjust to younger demographics ... and as long as they're sensitive to their existing audience, I commend them."

[Nou Dadoun]

It sounds like they're trying to emulate the French station L'espace Musique, aren't they putting Katie Malloch up against Andre Rheaume?

Overall I think the changes are positive especially with the CRTC changes in jazz Canadian content although I think it's too bad that they're cutting Global Village, I would have thought that would have folded nicely into the new format. Folding elements of it into Dispatches doesn't really make a lot of sense except for the 'field recording' contributors they use every once in a while, those are dispatches as well I suppose.

Although I haven't heard it in decades, Brave New Waves was a show I cut my musical teeth on as an 80s era grad student, that show in its day turned me onto more new music than I could absorb at one sitting. Sad to see it go, whatever happened to Augusta Lapaix anyway? (I know what happened to Brent Bambery, he was always a little too perky for an overnight show.)

Let's hope the live music commitments and new shows translate into more recording opportunities for our local crew .... N

[bverkerk]

Well, I just heard on After Hours tonight that Friday's show will be the last, so not only are we losing Jazz Beat, but we are losing After Hours as well, and the replacement for both these fine programs will be the daily jazz program from 6 to 8 p.m., hosted by Katie Malloch.

This is not really an increase in jazz programming, if that's what people are thinking -- only 2 extra hours of "jazz" on CBC Radio 2 each week. I put jazz in quotation marks because apparently Katie's show will include Latin, soul and world music as well, so the bottom line is we could actually end up with less jazz than we get now.

Thanks a lot, CBC!

[Gregg Simpson]

Well I am so far underwhelmed by our new 'streaming audio' CBC Radio. It's sort of the same as our 'New Government'. I wonder if all these changes have been made to cut costs. Maybe some of us will get a royalty or two, but it all seems pretty tame. I doubt if they'll be playing the Al Neil Trio anytime soon.

I just find that the music programming is sort of like in flight headphone entertainment on an airplane. There's little room for Kati Malloch, for instance, to show her stuff. It's just brief commentary they allow her. Whatever 'new music' that will be played will hardly have the integrity of Two New Hours. It will be slotted in between Dianna Krall and a harmonica virtuoso.

In their attempt to reach a younger audience, they will lose their mature fans and probably not get that many of the kids to listen.

Does anyone else feel this way? Maybe I should give it more time, but it's like the whole music part of the network is trying to be like Disc Drive, only at least Jurgen Gothe gives his show some character and humour.

It will be marimba quartets playing Jimi Hendrix songs, followed by Bach played on tuned pop bottles, follwed by a Miles Davis cut, usually from those two 'approved' LPs, Kind of Blue or Something Else - fine records, if a little over exposed - and then you'll get a torch singer doing something totally unrelated.

It seems like lazy programming to me, but maybe Harper is turning off the taps even more and this is what the future of the once individualistic CBC will be like in the future.

Time will tell...