Good Question:
You said that you believe the CBC needs to attract more young people to it’s audience. When leadership at CBC says something like that, some of our audience and stakeholders say they’re concerned that our strategy to achieve that is to dumb down the programming. So how do we achieve that balance of attracting a younger audience without affecting the credibility of our programming?

Kind of Smart Answer:
That’s a challenge, isn’t it. I would hope that it’s not a question of at all that. I hope that it’s an intellectual challenge. That it’s going to inspire young Canadians to want to listen to our offer. I’m understanding that there’s been great support for radio shows like Quirks and Quarks and Ideas by young people in the age 18 to 34 group. So I think it’s a question of having it there.

Quarks has been on the air for 32 years. So his answer, if I may paraphrase, is that it’s not a matter of finding balance, it’s still simply a matter of providing good programs, and then people of all ages will come. (Because inquiring minds want to know.)

So why the fear of naming names?
Everyone knows, and the CBC avoids accepting, that it has lost credibility with people of all ages because of one program. And that only one program has ever been associated with the phrase “dumbing down”. And if we were completely honest and frank with one another, we’d have to agree that it’s not really the program that’s the problem.