The House of Commons standing committee on Canadian heritage will be holding hearings on proposed changes to CBC Radio 2.
Beginning Labour Day, Radio 2 will offer what the CBC describes as “a broader, richer spectrum of music,” with less classical and more diverse music.
CBC also has decided to disband the CBC Radio Orchestra, the last radio orchestra in existence in North America, to free up the funding for projects.
Committee member and NDP heritage critic Bill Siksay brought forward the motion to hold hearings.
“I’m concerned that the commitment to classical music in Canada is a key part of the Canadian culture. CBC Radio 2 has been a key player in classical music,” Siksay told CBC News.
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This is great news. Bill Siksay has done fabulous work.
Rock on, Heritage Committee!!
I am saddend to see the CBC being changed again. For almost all of my life I have been as CBC listener, more recently mostly Radio 2. Within the past couple of years I have been gradually growing away from it as it seemed that there was less and less familiar classical, listenable music being broadcast. I believe there are many other stations that broadcast more comtemporary music, ones that I never turn to for my listening pleasure. I have always felt that the CBC was one of the most unifying forces in this great country of ours - Canada. There used to be programs from the Maritimes, Quebec, Onatario (of course) the CBC Orchestra, as well as local programs from the Prairies.
As a senior, as you might have guessed, I did not even mention the Happy Gang. I am not adverse to change but I sincerely hope that in the wisdom of the “powers that be” the baby does not get thrown out with the bath water!
Politicians should not meddle in the programming of the national public broadcaster. What is happening here is simple grandstanding. Politicians should, however, make certain the private, commercial broadcasters are following the rules of their licenses, but that might be expecting too much.
It’s kind of hard to reconcile this with the NDP’s opposition to Bill C10.
…googles…
Oh! Siksay voted for it! And then claimed he didn’t read it! So he’s just an ass. Fair enough. Carry on.
It’s not expecting too much in my opinion to expect private broadcasters to honour their license terms in full.
Kev: Hardly fair to Mr. Siksay. That bill’s supposed to be how many pages again? 500? 600? Somewhere in that range, anyway.
But we’re getting off-topic here. I think that CBC’s classical-Euro-music fans ought to eventually get a “Radio 4″ operation to enjoy, so the rest of the country can get on with whatever else we’re doing.
I disagree with the abovepostings. There is a need for good classical music especially in regions outside out Toronto where there are no alternatives. There are plenty of Adult Contemporary stations in Vancouver and even in rural parts of BC but no classical. Don’t get me wrong, I love other genres as well like jazz but the crap that CBC is putting on to replace the good classical programs is disgraceful. For instance, Tonic is a jazz program but the quality of the jazz they are playing is junk. They got rid of Sound Advice - an excellent classical program that educated with all sorts of programming and replaced it with In the Key of Charles which is basically about Charles’ own self satisfied voice and crappy singing. The Signal is simply ugly music that shouldn’t be heard near dinner or sleeping hours. It is like they are junking the old masters and impressionists at the art gallery to show graffitt style abstract crap. The politicians on the Committee are doing their job by opposing the changes. I am extremely pleased to see all parties agreeing on an issue for once. Siksay has done a great job as has Ed Fast and Michael Chong from the Conservatives. Yes - even the reps from the government party thing CBC management has really dropped the ball on this one.