Long-time CBC Radio personality Bill Richardson will return to the airwaves to host CBC Radio 2’s flagship classical performance show, currently in development, as well as the soon to be redesigned Saturday Afternoon at the Opera.
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| Asides, CBC Radio 2, Personalities |
They’ve already either wrecked or gotten rid of most of the best classical music shows on CBC Radio. Are they going to screw up Saturday Afternoon at the Opera too?
Texaco got a forty year promo ride with CBC Saturday Opera. If Bill can beef up the background and performer commentary on each opera, he should do well. He could call his show ‘Definitely Not DNTO’… The kind of CBC listener who would stay tuned in for two hours plus needs to be very carefully attended to. There are a lot of musicians and composers with music that can be assembled and presented as ‘New Opera’ productions. There would be no stage production, costume, and orchestral costs to this on radio. Ethnomusicologist Professor Lynn Whidden from Brandon University has written a book on Northern Cree Hunting Songs and presented some on Ideas… and she is always promoting recording of Traditional Native Songs/Oral Histories while teaching in the Native Studies Program of her University. If CBC can think ahead- to creatively bring in New Opera amongst their traditional coverage, new ears will spring up to take in what opera could and should be doing… That might just lead CBC away from the hypergloss Much Music presentation Models the Mother’corpse’ is wholeheartedly- yet halfassedly embracing- while trying to rebrand herself. Music is too important to be left to the Un-inspired, the Quick Cult, and the Culturally Challenged to play with between commercials.
Why did the suddenly image-conscious, age demographic obsessed CBC fire Howard Dyck again? Oh yeah, that’s why….
Well, they could do a lot worse than Bill Richardson - he has credibility and class. Let’s see what happens..
Does anyone know how Radio 2 is doing with audience numbers since the new evening format started? I’ve tried hard to adjust but the Signal is just awful. I used to flip to Radio 2 on my clock radio by just listening for it. Now after 10 pm it sounds like the other 5 stations in town.
Tonic’s okay but after 6 pm I switch to CDs now. I always caught Music For A While. I know — I’m old, right?
There have got to be some worried people in Radio 2 management…