This is a perfect distillation of the reasons I've stopped listening to CBC radio. I was a loyal listener of the Toronto talk shows for several decades, but started noticing more and more how hosts wouldn't push back on certain interview subjects. And then after Oct. 7 when the disconnect between what was going on in Gaza and what the Corp allowed on the air reached its peak, I completely tuned out.
Point five (5) is the imperative reason for CBC’s boringness; its function is dilution. As long as people are not learning and understanding the issue of Israel’s genocide in Palestine, it can continue.
The CBC is not some lone actor or news bystander. It is a key player in manufacturing consent, and consent is driven here through a faux investigation. Its purpose *is* to waste people’s time and “take up space,” so real and yes, possibly uncomfortable conversations cannot happen through which the public could learn something new about this important issue.
As long as muted, vapid, vacuous, and distracting conversations like this continue, we are all worse off.
These days I'll listen to CBC Radio One for maybe twenty minutes at most, as I drag myself out of bed in the morning, but it used to be something I'd spend a lot more time with. Nora's piece here does a good job of explaining why it's all so canned and rigid now. The Current in particular is really bad for this. They'll have a guest on and find all these ways to keep them from talking. It's ad free public radio, so there's really no reason to be pressed for time. But they keep segments short so they can rush the guests off, lest anyone accidentally vocalizes an aberrant thought.
I find it hard to listen to CBC knowing what they aren't talking about. Perhaps the issue is that last "C" in the name - corporation. The "public broadcaster" needs to be radically restructured, if it is to regain the peoples' trust.
What do you think of Amy Goodman's approach on Democracy Now? After setting up the issue for the guest, she simply says, "Talk about..." - and they do!
I haven't been able to listen to the CBC for years, and certainly not after October 7. It is a very difficult organization to support, and I hate that this is the case. I used to be a daily listener.
CBC is complicit in genocide, censoring the truth coming out of the Middle East. It seems like our lame-ass government is also reading CBC, how else could they be so complicit and ignorant. Thanks, CBC. History will not be kind to you.
There's actually a really interesting discussion to be had about the extent to which protest music is even possible in 2025 in a significant way. The various channels may seem broader than they were even in the '80's, but they are actually much more narrow. I was realizing this in relation to Macklemore's "Hind's Hall", how quickly it was effectively censored by all the various algorithms.
Spotify and Apple Music didn't go so far as to remove it from their catalogs completely, but lots of people conclusively demonstrated how their 'discovery' mechanisms effectively de-platformed it. Spotify puts a lot of attention on their algorithmic playlist model, but they clearly had their thumb on the scale. Youtube handled it similarly, as did all the social media platforms, including Instagram and of course TikTok.
We are down to 3 major record labels which clearly all collaborate. To the extent that radio exists in 2025, it's largely owned an operated by a handful of networks. Even if a station is independent, most subscribe to programming rather than handle their own, and they are also owned by corporations who may have other interests. Finally Live Nation has a stranglehold on touring.
If an artist positions themselves against these entities for pretty much any reason, their music is effectively shut down. Most artists understand this, and self-censor themselves on many topics, Gaza definitely but politics in general. 22 years after the (Dixie) Chicks spoke out against Bush, most artists have learned the lesson that any kind of protest, musically or otherwise, is a career killer.
It would be great if the CBC would actually talk about this!
That is such an interesting point. And on top of it, there are songs that just don't lend themselves to being played broadly -- like no one is going to cover Hind's Hall at a protest somewhere. That's not a criticism at all of that song, it's just another barrier to diseminating a certain kind of protest music that people are making today.
The internet needs to "return" to being a public commons, where access is free and expression is unfettered and all music would benefit. (Yes, the original internet was designed as a decentralised communication network by the military, but that is what could make it a dismantler of centralised power and control) Commercialising access to it has been a disaster. Artists (by some devinitions our windows on ourselves) should not have to be "filtered" though those trying to make money from their work. But "sponsorship" or "patronage", or "management" is an ancient problem for all artists trying to make a living (time for a rethink?)
Speaking of access, the Internet Archive has this "Hind's Hall" video:
CONTENT WARNING: CBC baby reminisces.... The CBC's 9am-noon weekday radio show started out as an amazing community centre of the airwaves in the early 1970s: news, music, docs, drama, comedy, science, regional panels, media criticism, and more. A former newspaper reporter named Peter Gzowski (ZOFFski) hosted the whole three hours for most of it til the late 1990s. Canadians really listened to this show--"This Country In The Morning", then "Morningside" and Gzowski really responded. When neoliberalism came for the "Mother Corp" in the 1980s, Gzowski fought back off with listeners until he retired. Then the CBC brought commercial-TV production values to replace commercial-free radio practices. CBC Radio has never forgotten Gzowski: every year some lucky young person gets to be the Gzowski Intern. But the CBC worked hard to smash the morning into separate bits of news, arts and culture, then comedy or docs or podcasts. And by doing so, they've smashed the community centre of the air. The OUTFRONT initiative of the early 2000s was an attempt to give every Canadian who wanted one a mic and 15min of fame. Why did CBC snuff that out? UGH. Thanks for the space, Nora.
This is a perfect distillation of the reasons I've stopped listening to CBC radio. I was a loyal listener of the Toronto talk shows for several decades, but started noticing more and more how hosts wouldn't push back on certain interview subjects. And then after Oct. 7 when the disconnect between what was going on in Gaza and what the Corp allowed on the air reached its peak, I completely tuned out.
Point five (5) is the imperative reason for CBC’s boringness; its function is dilution. As long as people are not learning and understanding the issue of Israel’s genocide in Palestine, it can continue.
The CBC is not some lone actor or news bystander. It is a key player in manufacturing consent, and consent is driven here through a faux investigation. Its purpose *is* to waste people’s time and “take up space,” so real and yes, possibly uncomfortable conversations cannot happen through which the public could learn something new about this important issue.
As long as muted, vapid, vacuous, and distracting conversations like this continue, we are all worse off.
These days I'll listen to CBC Radio One for maybe twenty minutes at most, as I drag myself out of bed in the morning, but it used to be something I'd spend a lot more time with. Nora's piece here does a good job of explaining why it's all so canned and rigid now. The Current in particular is really bad for this. They'll have a guest on and find all these ways to keep them from talking. It's ad free public radio, so there's really no reason to be pressed for time. But they keep segments short so they can rush the guests off, lest anyone accidentally vocalizes an aberrant thought.
The Current is especially disappointing because Matt Galloway did a much better job with interviewing when he was on Metro Morning.
Why, thank you, Nora. Same to you.
I find it hard to listen to CBC knowing what they aren't talking about. Perhaps the issue is that last "C" in the name - corporation. The "public broadcaster" needs to be radically restructured, if it is to regain the peoples' trust.
What do you think of Amy Goodman's approach on Democracy Now? After setting up the issue for the guest, she simply says, "Talk about..." - and they do!
I haven't been able to listen to the CBC for years, and certainly not after October 7. It is a very difficult organization to support, and I hate that this is the case. I used to be a daily listener.
CBC's (and Canadian mainstream media's) coverage of Gaza has pretty much ensured I don't bother to watch their programming.
Thank you for writing this. It's a clear guide to what not to do in discussions, and I'll be watching for this in other panels.
CBC is complicit in genocide, censoring the truth coming out of the Middle East. It seems like our lame-ass government is also reading CBC, how else could they be so complicit and ignorant. Thanks, CBC. History will not be kind to you.
There's actually a really interesting discussion to be had about the extent to which protest music is even possible in 2025 in a significant way. The various channels may seem broader than they were even in the '80's, but they are actually much more narrow. I was realizing this in relation to Macklemore's "Hind's Hall", how quickly it was effectively censored by all the various algorithms.
Spotify and Apple Music didn't go so far as to remove it from their catalogs completely, but lots of people conclusively demonstrated how their 'discovery' mechanisms effectively de-platformed it. Spotify puts a lot of attention on their algorithmic playlist model, but they clearly had their thumb on the scale. Youtube handled it similarly, as did all the social media platforms, including Instagram and of course TikTok.
We are down to 3 major record labels which clearly all collaborate. To the extent that radio exists in 2025, it's largely owned an operated by a handful of networks. Even if a station is independent, most subscribe to programming rather than handle their own, and they are also owned by corporations who may have other interests. Finally Live Nation has a stranglehold on touring.
If an artist positions themselves against these entities for pretty much any reason, their music is effectively shut down. Most artists understand this, and self-censor themselves on many topics, Gaza definitely but politics in general. 22 years after the (Dixie) Chicks spoke out against Bush, most artists have learned the lesson that any kind of protest, musically or otherwise, is a career killer.
It would be great if the CBC would actually talk about this!
That is such an interesting point. And on top of it, there are songs that just don't lend themselves to being played broadly -- like no one is going to cover Hind's Hall at a protest somewhere. That's not a criticism at all of that song, it's just another barrier to diseminating a certain kind of protest music that people are making today.
Good points, Jean.
The internet needs to "return" to being a public commons, where access is free and expression is unfettered and all music would benefit. (Yes, the original internet was designed as a decentralised communication network by the military, but that is what could make it a dismantler of centralised power and control) Commercialising access to it has been a disaster. Artists (by some devinitions our windows on ourselves) should not have to be "filtered" though those trying to make money from their work. But "sponsorship" or "patronage", or "management" is an ancient problem for all artists trying to make a living (time for a rethink?)
Speaking of access, the Internet Archive has this "Hind's Hall" video:
https://archive.org/details/1787577903036985826-2/1787616471738368099_2.mp4
Interestingly, https://macklemore.com/
has a second audio only version "Hind's Hall 2" posted, perhaps to get around the youtube AI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRRoTR9HGFU
Organizers play this at weekly Free Palestine rallies in Victoria. Love it. Thanks for sharing.
CONTENT WARNING: CBC baby reminisces.... The CBC's 9am-noon weekday radio show started out as an amazing community centre of the airwaves in the early 1970s: news, music, docs, drama, comedy, science, regional panels, media criticism, and more. A former newspaper reporter named Peter Gzowski (ZOFFski) hosted the whole three hours for most of it til the late 1990s. Canadians really listened to this show--"This Country In The Morning", then "Morningside" and Gzowski really responded. When neoliberalism came for the "Mother Corp" in the 1980s, Gzowski fought back off with listeners until he retired. Then the CBC brought commercial-TV production values to replace commercial-free radio practices. CBC Radio has never forgotten Gzowski: every year some lucky young person gets to be the Gzowski Intern. But the CBC worked hard to smash the morning into separate bits of news, arts and culture, then comedy or docs or podcasts. And by doing so, they've smashed the community centre of the air. The OUTFRONT initiative of the early 2000s was an attempt to give every Canadian who wanted one a mic and 15min of fame. Why did CBC snuff that out? UGH. Thanks for the space, Nora.