CBC Radio’s Jian Ghomeshi told fans on his newsletter that he’s going to try not to “suck” as host of his new network afternoon show, due to launch in March.
“I will be the host, “he wrote. “And I desperately hope to be a very good host. Of course, it may suck. In which case, I shall become the Chevy Chase of the talk show world. Not good. But I will try to work at not being the Persian-Canadian Chevy Chase. And I don’t expect it to suck.
Jian’s show, unnamed at yet, will be a live 90-minute program in the afternoon, replacing Freestyle (speaking of which, I’ll be co-hosting today/Friday).
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Go Jian… he deserves his own show.
Maybe Jian can bring back the National Playlist as a segment. I loved that show.
I can’t wait.
Give him anything he wants to keep him off TV.
He’s already the CBC’s Chevy Chase. Remember
that dorky point of the finger in the opening of
the show he had on Newsworld. Bring back the
Roundup!
No, Ralph Benmergui will forever be the CBC’s Chevy Chase. He’s even starred in his own version of National Lampoon’s Vacation: http://www.visiontv.ca/Media/Releases/5seekers.html
What? Jian is replacing freestyle? Where oh where will the taget demographic get their fill of youtube, google, myspace and second life? Oh, right, the internet… that thing we, the target demographic, all use every day already
Seriously though, way to go Jian, if you’re anything like you were on SLC, you won’t suck.
Ralph Benmergui has had the Chevy Chase position locked down for a while. Perhaps Jian means Megan Mulally?
Jian made hosting sound fun on “The National Playlist” - the mark of a true professional. Bring it on!
Eric: Seconded on the National Playlist suggestion!
Paul: I don’t think we want to get rid of Mr. Ghomeshi, but reviving the Roundup in some format - wherever it ends up hosted - might not be a bad idea at some point.
Brings to mind a recent comment by Terry Wogan (famed BBC
broadcaster) who, without naming names, strongly suggests many folks on tv, are sadly lacking any charisma. But best to offer the chap Jian good luck and fortitude. So maybe someone should.
I love Jian!! I loved him on SLC - he actually made it relevant! I can’t wait for his new show!!!
I enjoyed hearing him host SLC last summer, I’m looking forward to hearing him on the radio again! *gets ready to hear Talking Heads opening theme*
I’m not sure people realize just how skewed Jian’s list shows have been. He is a very regional personality who has spent essentially his whole life in Toronto, and his pronounced lack of awareness, never mind understanding, of Canada beyond Toronto, or at least Southern Ontario, comes out again and again and again in his shows. On 50 tracks he stacked his “expert panels” with people he knew, mostly Torontonians, and they nominated a very disproportionately large number of Toronto bands for the list. If you look at how high the listener picks ranked when they were ranked by a national audience, and these were picks by a Canadians, you can see just how much the panel’s picks were skewed toward being a Toronto top 50 rather than a Canadian top 50.
And he didn’t learn his lesson for the National Playlist either. In fact he initially did away with the listener picks, which clearly confused him on the 50 tracks list and conflicted with his regional Toronto view of the world, and he again stacked his panels with Toronto based experts who proceeded to nominate a hugely disproportionate number of Toronto bands while ignoring albums like Joni Mitchell’s tribute to Saskatchewan’s 100th anniversary and great new releases by Great Big Sea and I believe the Neil Young album too. Instead he and his panel nominated a re-released box set by The Band, from Toronto, and obscure southern Ontario acts like Andy Stochansky and Elliot Brood amongst others. Someone up the ladder must have clued in to just how skewed and regional the list was becoming because mid way though they re-introduced the listener picks and he took the show on the road for a couple of weeks where he would repeat very loudly and often the name of the city he was in, presumably trying to show he wasn’t just a regional Toronto hick, which of course just reinforced the fact that he pretty much is just a regional Toronto hick.
On SLC in the summer he made some ignorant and offensive remark about Saskatoon on his first show, and another ignorant and offensive remark about Newfoundland in his second show, and that was it for me. I didn’t listen to another show, but I understand that he made some derogatory remarks about Vancouver as well. Jian is pretty much a Toronto hillbilly. He is extremely regional, and even offensively ignorant about Canada. How he was ever hired by CBC is beyond me, but beyond that he’s had 3 chances now and he has repeatedly showed that he has a poor understanding of Canada and Canadian culture, and even less interest in it. As mentioned, he was hosting a show called Sounds Like Canada, and he chose The Talking Heads, a New York band, for his theme song!
All this should be a surprise to no one, however, and further it’s not Ghomeshi’s fault that he was hired. Ghomeshi was raised in Toronto, went to school in Toronto, and has spent essentially his entire working life in Toronto. He is not being anything other than who he is when he hosts these shows. He’s a purely regional individual who has had no life experiences that would allow him to have anything more than a superficial understanding of Canada beyond the borders of Toronto. The CBC used to be very diligent about hiring well rounded people, people who had spent a significant amount of time in different parts of the country and who had thereby come to have an appreciation for just how big and culturally diverse Canada is, but obviously that has changed. Not only is Ghomeshi a extremely regional individual, but George Stroumboulopoulos is as well. I believe he’s spent only part of one year outside of Toronto in his whole life, briefly working in Kelowna. Sook-Yin Lee is originally from Vancouver but she went through the MuchMusic VJ cloning process and now talks and acts like she’s spent her whole life on Queen Street West, and in spite of the fact that the show she hosts gives the impression of being a Winnipeg based show, I’ve just learned that she is actually still based out of Toronto, as are George and Jian.
So, with respect to pop culture anyway, the CBC is now essentially a monocultural Toronto station with two extremely regional Toronto hosts and one who acts like an extremely regional Toronto host, and all three shows are broadcast out of Toronto. They are being passed off as national programs, however, and of course they are paid for by all Canadians. I keep thinking that there must be some mistake here. This is not the CBC that I grew up with. This is not Peter Gzowski’s CBC. But if Ghomeshi actually makes it to air as the host of that show that will probably be it for me and the CBC. I’m a huge supporter of national public radio, but that would be the final sign for me that the CBC isn’t even trying to be nationally representative anymore. If that happens I’ll make the move so many of my friends have made in recent years, the majority of them in fact, over to CKUA as my default station. Who knows, maybe some network of stations like CKUA will be the future of national public radio in Canada. But whether it is or not, CBC is inches away from losing my trust and respect, as well as a lifetime of support and affection.
David, Jian spent the summer in Vancouver doing Sounds Like Canada. He has toured this country more than most people with his band and for his radio programs. I think you just miss Peter Gzowski and who doesn’t…
Just give it a chance.
I am sorry that you feel that way David.
I am so excited — I have been missing Jian so much since SLC in the Summer. I can’t wait to hear his new show!
Barbara_mtl: You don’t get to know a city and its culture by spending a night or two there doing a gig, or even by spending a few months there. You need to live in a city for maybe 1-3 years and get familiar with a city and plugged into what’s going on there before you can really come to know its culture. I think everyone who has done a major move like that will tell you the same thing. I’ve lived in Calgary, Saskatoon and Ottawa for more than 3 years each time, and I can tell you that the first move is a huge eyeopener. You may learn as much about your new city on the second move, but by then you know many of the kinds of changes to expect. If someone has never made a move like that then they really don’t even know how ignorant they are about how different the different parts of Canada can be. But this is almost common sense, isn’t it? And it used to be a prerequisite for hosts of national CBC programs. Bill Richardson grew up in Manitoba but has lived in Vancouver for many years now. Brent Bambury is from New Brunswick and has lived in Ottawa and I believe Montreal as well. In fact can’t think of a single CBC on air personality who hasn’t lived for a significant length of time in at least two different Canadian cities, let alone one who is a host of a national pop culture show, other than George that is. I can’t think of any national pop culture show on any network that has or would want to have a monocultural host who has never lived for any length of time outside of one city. That would defy common sense, wouldn’t it? Jian doesn’t have an awareness or appreciation of Canada or Canadian culture that would even qualify him to host a national pop culture show, and that has been very apparent in every show he’s hosted. You really have to wonder why he is being hired and rehired by the CBC, but again, he’s not alone. George Stroumboulopoulos is a purely regional as Jian is, and Sook-Yin Lee acts as if she’s as regional as those two are, and they all act like they’re straight outta Queen Street West. So the problem is not really with Jian. He is who he is, and there’s really no secret about who he is. The problem is with the CBC, which has its head office in Toronto, btw.
Sounds like David’s beef is with Toronto, and not the hosts…any sepcific reason David?
Montreal is right up there in culture, pop, and vibrancy, but there can only be one headqaurter afterall, and Toronto is it (to many peoples lament).
Emiliano:
Let me put it this way. Would you see anything wrong with the CBC hiring someone who had grown up, gone to school, and spent essentially his or her whole working life in Vancouver, someone who had never lived anywhere in Canada but Vancouver for more than a few months, to host a *national* pop culture show to be hosted out of Vancouver? What would you say if they hired 3 such people to host 3 of their most prominent national pop culture shows, all to be hosted out of Vancouver?
It should be fairly obvious that doing this would give their viewers and listeners an very skewed impression of the pop culture of the country. Hosts with that kind of limited background could not help but give a strongly regional perceptive to their shows because it’s the only culture they know and it’s what they are surrounded by every day. The CBC knows this very well because they have historically been very careful to hire well rounded individuals who have lived for significant periods of time in more than one city, and generally more than one region of Canada, to host their national shows. But in recent years, for their pop culture shows anyway, the CBC has been doing almost exactly the opposite, and these are shows where an understanding that different parts of the country have very significant cultural differences is especially important. As mentioned, Strombo and Ghomeshi grew up in Toronto, went to school in Toronto and have spent essentially their entire working lives in Toronto working in the Toronto pop culture scene. Neither has spent any significant amount of time living anywhere in Canada outside of Toronto, and yet they have been hired to host two of CBC’s most prominent “national” pop culture shows, and to host them out of Toronto. As discussed, Sook-Yin Lee is also culturally a very regional personality, at least at this point in her life, and the three of them all represent one small Canadian subculture, the Queen Street West subculture, and all of their shows are hosted out of Toronto too. This is something I think many Canadians will be very surprised by because of the high standards the CBC used to have in this regard. Are you honestly telling me you don’t see a problem with this? If you’re not from Toronto and you’ve heard Jian and Sook-Yin and watched Gorge at all then you will have almost certainly noticed this bias many, many, times. I’ve discussed some examples of this regional bias/ignorance above but I could give you many more.
It almost looks like there is a systematic attempt being made to suppress Canadian culture and to present the culture of one small region of the country as the voice of Canadian culture. I suspect, however, that the fact that this bias is so pronounced and that it is in favour of the city where the CBC has its head office located that offers the most important clue. I suspect that this situation is either the product of an out of touch management team that has lost sight of the greater Canadian context and the broader Canadian culture, or perhaps there is some kind of value judgment behind this and the management team has become arrogant and decided that the culture in their city, Toronto, is the most important and that it should be presented as virtually the sole voice of Canadian culture on their most prominent pop culture shows. Whatever the cause, they are taking tax dollars from Canadians from coast to coast to coast and if they are not even trying to fairly represent Canadian culture as a whole, which they can’t even pretend to be with the current lineup of hosts, then it’s time for CBC listeners and Canadian taxpayers to speak up.
So are we only going to hear ONE hour of this new arts magazine show, in the Toronto area? We only hear Freestyle from 2 to 3, at present, then the traffic and weather starts. I suppose we can catch the content on the repeats, but still, boo.
It was with regret that I heard that Freestyle is about to become another CBC Radio casualty. I quite enjoyed this show! What can’t be lost, however, is the brilliant radio work of Sarah O’Leary who did the weekly Book Chat. I listened on Tuesdays just to hear her wise, funny, smart-smart-smart commentaries on new non-fiction. Great sense of humour, great depth of literary understanding, a fine critical sense, the quickest of wits — you can’t afford to lose her. Sarah O’Leary is what CBC Radio One — SMART radio! — is all about. Keep her on the air, OK?!