CBC takes programming risk by Nicholas Read
Source : Vancouver Sun
By limiting classical music hours Radio 2 could alienate a vital group of listeners
September 1, 2008
For thousands of Canadian classical music lovers, Tuesday may be a day to turn off their radios.
That's when CBC Radio 2 is set to introduce programming emphasizing pop, blues and jazz in place of Bach, Brahms and Beethoven. Classical music will be confined to only five hours in the middle of the day, which means if you work or attend school and enjoy Schubert or Shostakovich, you'd better buy a CD.
Executive director of programming Chris Boyce said earlier this month that he wants to make CBC's FM signal "as interesting and adventurous as what you have on your iPod."
But observers of demographic trends and the music scene say by doing that, Radio 2 risks forsaking what has been up to now a faithful core audience. They say it could end up jettisoning older listeners still reliant on radio for music for harder-to-grab younger ones for whom music radio is increasingly irrelevant.
Andrew Ramlo, a co-director of Vancouver's Urban Futures Institute, who is in his mid-30s, put it this way: "We have been brought up on the Internet, and that's taught us we can get any music content we want and we don't have to listen to anyone else's mix. We can self select what we want to listen to. The older generation who grew up with radio is more inclined to listen to it. So from a purely number perspective, they [the CBC] may be alienating the greatest group they have."
North Vancouver DJ Sam Cooper, 34, agrees.
"Older listeners are more used to the programming format where they sit back and trust whomever to set up a playlist for them. But younger listeners aren't conditioned to that. They don't have the attention span or the trust; they want to do it themselves."
CBC head of media relations Jeff Keay recognizes that too, but says the risk is calculated.
"Yes, there may be some older listeners who would be less comfortable going to the alternative delivery platform, but there are an enormous number very comfortable doing that," he said. "On the other side of it, younger people, familiar with iPods and streaming -- there are still large numbers of them that do listen to over-the-air radio."
Meaning if older listeners want to listen to classical music at any time other than midday, they will have to tap the same technological wells younger listeners do.
That's what retired 64-year-old history professor Bill Bruneau did six months ago when, disgusted with Radio 2, he abandoned it for the Internet -- specifically North German Radio, BBC Radio 3, France Musique and JPR out of Ashland, Ore. In fact, he's wired his Vancouver home in such a way that his computer signal can be transmitted through an unused FM frequency.
But he resents it.
"I'm computer literate perhaps to a greater extent than many other people my age," Bruneau says. "So that explains why I've been able to do what I've done. But am I happy about it? Absolutely not."
That's because classical music available to him from other sources is not Canadian, he says. That element of Radio 2 is irreplaceable.
Christa Kirste, 73, of Yaletown has begun to rely on a TV cable signal for her music. But there's no commentary accompanying it, she says. In fact, if she wants to know even the title of what's playing, she has to click her remote control.
"And then it will come up for a second," she says.
"But there is no personal connection," Kirste adds. "There is no ability to learn about the composers and what they wanted to express with their music. All this was relayed by the talented broadcasters at CBC, and this is gone."
Barbara MacKenzie, 65, of Naramata, says she's so busy making her own music that she hasn't yet begun to worry about where she'll go for recorded content. However, her 91-year-old mother, Pauline Cracklow, isn't as lucky.
"I don't know what she's going to do because she doesn't have a computer and the cable service she has doesn't offer a classical music signal," MacKenzie says. "She likes having people talking to her and telling her interesting things about classical music. And that's not going to happen any more."
Keay says the CBC is aware that many people are upset by the changes, but it believes there are as many or more looking forward to them, and he invites Bruneau, Kirste and MacKenzie to at least give them a chance.
Try telling that to New Westminster composer John Oliver. For him a refocused Radio 2 is much more than an inconvenience; it's the end of a vital Canadian resource.
"Nothing really replaces Radio 2 because Radio 2 used to have a budget to record Canadian musicians, playing Canadian and other music. These Canadian musicians have invested their lives developing a profession, and what Radio 2 is doing is undermining that profession.
"People who are used to Radio 2 programming are not going to find it anywhere else."
© Vancouver Sun
That's when CBC Radio 2 is set to introduce programming emphasizing pop, blues and jazz in place of Bach, Brahms and Beethoven. Classical music will be confined to only five hours in the middle of the day, which means if you work or attend school and enjoy Schubert or Shostakovich, you'd better buy a CD.
Executive director of programming Chris Boyce said earlier this month that he wants to make CBC's FM signal "as interesting and adventurous as what you have on your iPod."
But observers of demographic trends and the music scene say by doing that, Radio 2 risks forsaking what has been up to now a faithful core audience. They say it could end up jettisoning older listeners still reliant on radio for music for harder-to-grab younger ones for whom music radio is increasingly irrelevant.
Andrew Ramlo, a co-director of Vancouver's Urban Futures Institute, who is in his mid-30s, put it this way: "We have been brought up on the Internet, and that's taught us we can get any music content we want and we don't have to listen to anyone else's mix. We can self select what we want to listen to. The older generation who grew up with radio is more inclined to listen to it. So from a purely number perspective, they [the CBC] may be alienating the greatest group they have."
North Vancouver DJ Sam Cooper, 34, agrees.
"Older listeners are more used to the programming format where they sit back and trust whomever to set up a playlist for them. But younger listeners aren't conditioned to that. They don't have the attention span or the trust; they want to do it themselves."
CBC head of media relations Jeff Keay recognizes that too, but says the risk is calculated.
"Yes, there may be some older listeners who would be less comfortable going to the alternative delivery platform, but there are an enormous number very comfortable doing that," he said. "On the other side of it, younger people, familiar with iPods and streaming -- there are still large numbers of them that do listen to over-the-air radio."
Meaning if older listeners want to listen to classical music at any time other than midday, they will have to tap the same technological wells younger listeners do.
That's what retired 64-year-old history professor Bill Bruneau did six months ago when, disgusted with Radio 2, he abandoned it for the Internet -- specifically North German Radio, BBC Radio 3, France Musique and JPR out of Ashland, Ore. In fact, he's wired his Vancouver home in such a way that his computer signal can be transmitted through an unused FM frequency.
But he resents it.
"I'm computer literate perhaps to a greater extent than many other people my age," Bruneau says. "So that explains why I've been able to do what I've done. But am I happy about it? Absolutely not."
That's because classical music available to him from other sources is not Canadian, he says. That element of Radio 2 is irreplaceable.
Christa Kirste, 73, of Yaletown has begun to rely on a TV cable signal for her music. But there's no commentary accompanying it, she says. In fact, if she wants to know even the title of what's playing, she has to click her remote control.
"And then it will come up for a second," she says.
"But there is no personal connection," Kirste adds. "There is no ability to learn about the composers and what they wanted to express with their music. All this was relayed by the talented broadcasters at CBC, and this is gone."
Barbara MacKenzie, 65, of Naramata, says she's so busy making her own music that she hasn't yet begun to worry about where she'll go for recorded content. However, her 91-year-old mother, Pauline Cracklow, isn't as lucky.
"I don't know what she's going to do because she doesn't have a computer and the cable service she has doesn't offer a classical music signal," MacKenzie says. "She likes having people talking to her and telling her interesting things about classical music. And that's not going to happen any more."
Keay says the CBC is aware that many people are upset by the changes, but it believes there are as many or more looking forward to them, and he invites Bruneau, Kirste and MacKenzie to at least give them a chance.
Try telling that to New Westminster composer John Oliver. For him a refocused Radio 2 is much more than an inconvenience; it's the end of a vital Canadian resource.
"Nothing really replaces Radio 2 because Radio 2 used to have a budget to record Canadian musicians, playing Canadian and other music. These Canadian musicians have invested their lives developing a profession, and what Radio 2 is doing is undermining that profession.
"People who are used to Radio 2 programming are not going to find it anywhere else."
© Vancouver Sun
