CBC Radio 2 Overhaul - more cheerleading from the desperate

The following article appeared in the January 11 edition of the National Post. You can read the article on the National Post’s web site here. I’ve also copied the text below in case the link to this article is ever broken, as often happens in the world of the internet.

CBC Radio 2: The mix fix

16 months after CBC’s overhaul of Radio 2, it’s like the all-classical version never existed — in a good way

T’cha Dunlevy, Canwest News Service
Published: Monday, January 11, 2010

"Hi, I'm Laurie Brown. Welcome to The Signal." These are a few of my favourite words. And I can hear them six nights out of seven on what just might be the best show on Canadian radio.

It's The Signal, like the lady said, on CBC Radio 2. Therein, Brown presents an array of evocative sounds, from the simply pretty to the esoteric and experimental, all with a fluidity and grace that can take you to unexpected places.

Much like Radio 2 these days. The dust has settled following the station's controversial makeover 16 months back, when it completed the transformation from an almost all-classical format to more varied programming featuring everything from indie-rock to folk, jazz, world and pop, with a little classical thrown in for good measure. The overarching emphasis is on Canadian content.

Brown arrived in 2007, at the early end of the change process. A veteran arts reporter for CBC-TV, it was her first foray into radio.

"I came to CBC and said I wanted to be able to do a music show that was capable of playing any kind of music, that was all about new music and about discovery," she says.

To her great surprise, her words fell on open ears: "For the first time in my entire career, CBC management was totally in sync," she said. "I hit the magic word: 'discovery.' I can't tell you how refreshing that was."

Another key player in Radio 2's overhaul is Rich Terfry, host of the station's recently expanded afternoon Radio 2 Drive. Also known as acclaimed rapper Buck 65, Terfry took over from revered DiscDrive host Jurgen Gothe in September 2008, replacing the classical symphonies of yore with a more youthful playlist.

He has been settling into his "first real job" ever since, weathering the initial storm of protest by keeping his head down, and emerging with one of Radio 2's most popular shows in the process.

"I don't look at emails," he said, reached at his Toronto home last week. "But I do get a sense of the people in the country, all over the country. After a while, you feel like you're beginning to develop a relationship with the whole country."

That's music to the ears of CBC programming director Chris Boyce, who sees Radio 2's metamorphosis as an opportunity to redefine the station's relationship with Canadians.

"We went into this with the theory that there is an amazing range of music being made in Canada," he said, "and very little of it is being heard by Canadians over the airwaves. We've been able to broaden the range of music being played on the station, being played on radio. It's been fantastically successful, if that's the measure."

It's not, or not the only one. Ratings matter, too, and Radio 2's are more or less on par with what they were before the change. The station reaches just over one million Canadians per week -- which is down 10% with a 2.7 share of the national market compared to its previous 3%.

So almost the same number, if not the same people, are tuning in. The average age of your typical Radio 2 listener before the facelift was a golden 65. It's now a sprightly 52.

"It's getting more evenly distributed," Boyce said. "To me, changing our audience is as important as increasing it. Is it about chasing younger listeners? No, we're a public broadcaster -- it's about serving all Canadians."

One of Radio 2's biggest coups has been its newfound support of Canadian independent music. A recent edition of Radio 2 Drive featured songs by Sarah Slean, Sarah Harmer, Chantal Kreviazuk, Native pop singer Elisapie Isaac, Sam Roberts, Joel Plaskett, K'naan, Stars, Feist, as well as established Canadian and international acts including Kate Bush, Wilco, Bob Dylan, Charlotte Gainsbourg, The Police and Drive hero Neil Young, who gets a daily tribute.

"Speaking not so much for myself but for Radio 2," Terfry said, "and listening to what management has to say, they want the show to be [one where] if people really want to know what's going on in Canadian music, what's up-and-coming, who are the artists making an impact, listen to this show and you'll know.

"The problem with that, the challenge from the beginning, is to get people to care about Canadian music. The average person doesn't."
The average person hasn't had much of an opportunity to care. Spin your way across the radio dial and you'll find station after station playing a mind-numbing loop of chart-topping pop, most of it from south of the border.

So for our national station to be presenting a homegrown alternative is a sort of quiet revolution. There has been resistance to Radio 2's makeover, from both the media and hardcore classical fans.

The latter can still hear their music during the daytime and on weekends, it should be noted, and all the time online on the first of Radio 2's four specialty channels: classical, jazz, Canadian songwriters and Canadian composers.

What's harder to hear is the emerging dialogue of a country coming to terms with its multi-textured musical identity. From Bob Mackowycz (weekdays) and jazz singer Molly Johnson's (weekends) eclectic Radio 2 Morning show to mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah's Tempo, Tom Allen's genre-spanning ( "from Bach to Bachman, Haydn to the Hip") early afternoon Shift, Andrew Craig's Canada Live and Katie Malloch's jazz show Tonic in the evening, there is lots to listen to.

Weekend offerings include Newfoundland musician Tom Power's Deep Roots, Bill Richardson's Saturday Afternoon at the Opera, Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap and the ever-gregarious George Stroumboulopoulos's new Strombo Show on Sunday nights.

It's a lot to fit into a week without coming off like an allover-the-place college station. The trick is to have it all make sense, and create a flow from one show to the next.

DIRECTOR'S TAKE

General manager and executive director of CBC Radio's English services Denise Donlon has come a long way from co-hosting CityTV's The New Music with Laurie Brown in the late '80s. She became MuchMusic's VP and general manager in 1997 before becoming president of Sony Music Canada from 2000 to 2004. She arrived at CBC in September 2008, just after Radio 2's transformation:
Her opinion "I agree with the changes. [Radio 2] was really a service that was very niche before -- which is great for commercial radio, but as a public broadcaster, it meant so much Canadian music had no other area for exposure."

On the naysayers "You can't make everyone happy. ...We're trying to please not only our audience, but the Canadian cultural community, independent artists, major label artists, the classical community. We're serving many masters to celebrate the best of Canadian music."

On the bright side "There's a real depth of conversation and richness of programming; any other station would be racing to commercials, while we're talking about all kinds of things."

The most remarkable statement from the article is this:

Ratings matter, too, and Radio 2's are more or less on par with what they were before the change. The station reaches just over one million Canadians per week -- which is down 10% with a 2.7 share of the national market compared to its previous 3%.

As I pointed out in my letter to the National Post, it should be remembered that the goal of the CBC’s restructuring of CBC Radio 2 was to make Radio 2 more “relevant” to Canadians. Presumably, one measure of relevance is the number of Canadians listening to Radio 2. After all, how can Radio 2 be relevant to Canadians if no one is listening?

Yet, as T’Cha Dunlevy states in the news report, CBC Radio 2’s audience share has fallen 10% (according to his/her figures) since this grand experiment was initiated. In fact, recent BBM results indicate a more alarming loss of market share of approximately 38.4% in the major markets surveyed by the BBM. See my next blog entry to follow. For the sake of argument, however, let’s assume a loss of market share of 10%.

In a public corporation, any corporate initiative which resulted in a loss of market share of 10% would result in those responsible for the intiative being sacked, or at least being given other responsibilities where they can do less damage. Has this happened at the CBC? Apparently not – management at the CBC is too busy patting themselves on the back at the so-called success of the Radio 2 experiment. Meanwhile, formerly loyal CBC Radio 2 listeners have abandoned CBC Radio 2 for other media which are more to their liking, such as satellite radio or Wi-Fi radio.

Please, tell me again – how is this good for CBC Radio?

Whither the CBC? Wither the CBC!

The National Post has been running a series of articles and columns for the past week on the future of the CBC. The title for this series was "The State of the CBC", but it could just as easily have been titled "Whither the CBC" or, more appropriately, "Wither the CBC". In any case, a number of well-known columnists, commentators and pundits have written about the current state of the CBC and its prospects for the future.

On Saturday, Mr. Robert Fulford provided this article, titled "An on-air bureaucracy". His submission was accompanied by a column titled "What Canada wants" by Ms. Kirstine Layfield, identified at the foot of the column as being an "executive director of programming for CBC Television".

I've copied them both below. Have a look at both, and see for yourself whether Ms. Layfield's column is not a sterling example of the type of CBC-speak that Mr. Fulford decries.

First, Mr. Fulord:

An on-air bureaucracy

Robert Fulford, National Post Published: Saturday, March 21, 2009

Ottawa won't close down the CBC, no matter how many contributors to the National Post yearn to see the end of it. A minority government could never stand the storm of public anger that would follow, egged on by an army of self-righteous journalistic defenders.

CBC viewers and listeners, it's true, are a minority, but even if only 100,000 Canadians actually love it, 100,000 Canadians can make an unbearable amount of noise, particularly if they believe they are on the side of virtue, truth and "Canadian values." Even governments with large majorities, while despising the CBC for chronic unfairness, have never seriously threatened its existence. They have grudgingly allowed it to remain alive -- though keeping it, from the CBC's point of view, on starvation rations.

That also means that Ottawa won't substantially increase the CBC's funds in the imaginable future, no matter how much the company's president begs. A generous grant to the CBC in this economic era would be even more politically troublesome than killing it, even if Stephen Harper wanted to be generous.

For now, at least, change will have to come from inside. That's just as well, because that's where the problems lie. The most profound failures, in style and attitude and ambition, can be found among CBC employees, both junior and senior, and the corporate culture they have jointly created. It's true the government sometimes interferes and has always burdened the corporation with far more tasks than it can be expected to accomplish. But that's nothing beside the self-created atmosphere in which CBC employees work.

They are over-managed and over-manipulated, wretched servants of focus groups and demography charts. So far as a viewer and a listener can tell, they are not excited about their work and do not expect that we will be. Many crucial figures among them are pure managers who could work anywhere with equal satisfaction.

They lack the animation that comes from a belief that what you are doing is unique and valuable.

In mass communications, which demands spontaneity and imagination, they show little originality and barely a hint of daring. This comes through when they acknowledge, condescendingly, that they are appealing to the young. The melancholy results usually appear to be the work of 30-year-olds instructed by 45-year-olds on how to appeal to 20-year-olds.

Broadcasters who came to the CBC with dreams of making great programs instead find themselves conscripted into a nightmare of sclerotic bureaucracy in which everything matters more than broadcasting. What counts most is the endless, baffling shuffle of titles and responsibilities, a byzantine turf warfare.

To work at the CBC is to live in a world of memos, usually concocted by bosses whose insecurity dictates that they write in incomprehensible gibberish. Memos explain that the bosses want to "Ensure that all managers have development plans based on leadership competencies according to identified timelines," which are "part of ongoing efforts to better align resources and workflow with evolving needs." (I've lifted two sentences from two different --but both actual--CBC memos.) The tone is deadening, joyless, self-defeating.

We can see the results on The National, the news flagship of CBC television, an emblem of all that's wrong. The journalists delivering the news are afflicted with an emotional flatness that seems to be built into the regulations. Feeling has been so carefully banished that every story is delivered in the same tone, right down to the sing-song ending. Journalists manage a thin smile when there's an item intended to be amusing and pull a long face when describing death. That's their emotional range, A to B. They apparently imitate the sternest and dullest of the U. S. network journalists. They look as if they're terrified that something bad will happen -- not in the news, but to them.

Richard Stursberg, the vice-president of English-language services, knows the CBC culture has to change and hopes to lead the revival. Despite his curious habit of declaring programming triumphs that nobody else has noticed, he's emerged as an average executive with average plans whose results will be average, if that. The only hope of those dreaming about a resurrected CBC is that there are fresh and largely unknown talents sprouting inside the corporation and that their up-from-below pressure will eventually work serious changes. No one else is going to do it.

Next, Ms. Layfield:

What Canada wants

Kirstine Layfield, National Post Published: Saturday, March 21, 2009

People say the CBC is chasing eyeballs. Personally, I have never met an eyeball. I have met Canadians from across our great country who have eyes -- and ears and hearts and minds. They have a thirst to understand their world from a Canadian perspective and a desire to hear their own stories and music. This is the audience of the CBC.

Lately, there has been much debate concerning the CBC. Many politicians have suggested that the CBC should focus on "service," not "ratings." Yet of all people, politicians should know only too well that being a public service requires the support of the public. The public needs to be engaged, its needs and desires need to be understood and acted upon. Its support and approval needs to be earned. In the case of politicians, the public votes to give them a mandate.

In media terms, a public broadcaster needs to have the input, support and the "vote" of its public audience to know that it is on track and providing a valued service. Success for a public broadcaster must be measured by the extent to which the public supports and endorses its programs.

The BBC understands this.

The BBC is fully supported by U. K. taxpayers. It is in the envied position of requiring no advertising dollars to pay for the service. BBC Television, widely regarded as the best public television service in the world, makes provocative documentaries, thoughtful dramas, engaging comedies and is renowned for its news coverage. But that's not all: Last week, it ran the Hollywood film Meet the Parents. It airs U. S. series -- Damages, The Wire and Family Guy -- back to back. On weekends, it runs Formula One racing and professional sports such as football.

The BBC is not chasing "eyeballs for advertisers." Rather, it is in service of its public, providing a wide breadth of programming.

And its content looks similar to what the CBC has been broadcasting these past few years. We too respond to our Canadian public with a variety of great content -- a range of genres from arts to quiz shows, the classics to popular music, a vast majority proudly homegrown and broadcast across multi-platform services.

The CBC is battling for ground in the ad market because if we didn't, half of our television budget would disappear. Services such as Radio 3 and commercial-free CBC radio, programming in eight aboriginal languages and commercial-free kids programming come with a cost that the government appropriation does not entirely cover at a price of $34 per Canadian. And it can't be imagined in these economic times that our government funding would, or even should, increase.

So the CBC competes with private broadcasters. But what is a private broadcaster in Canada anyway?

Nordicity, an independent firm specializing in broadcasting, valued the federal regulations that provide private broadcasters with the right to substitute U. S. content at between $270-million and $330-million. Other provincial and federal government subsidies such as tax credits and the Canadian Television Fund add another $165-million in cash support to the privates. Canada, in short, has a heavily subsidized media industry in which private companies compete for public money, and the CBC, in turn, competes for advertising dollars.

And by all measures, the CBC is working, engaging more radio listeners than ever. We are producing the most Canadian content -- indeed, our spending on Canadian programs is more than all the privates combined. Our television shows are watched by 30% more Canadians than just three years ago. In fact, for the first time in our history an overwhelmingly Canadian prime-time schedule of homegrown dramas, comedies, documentaries, current affairs and sports has drawn more Canadian viewers than the overwhelmingly U. S. schedules of the privates. Cbc.ca is the number one news and information Web site in Canada.

A young man named Amaar remarked that when watching CBC's Little Mosque on the Prairie, for the first time he heard his name describe a character who was not a terrorist. Family viewers gather to watch Heartland from Calgary. Viewers watch 50-year legacy Hockey Night in Canada and yell at Ron and Don in English -- and in Punjabi. People hear more variety of Canadian music on Radio 2 than they ever had access to before.

People are talking about the CBC. Canadians are watching and listening to the CBC. And for the CBC, that is the vote that counts most of all.

Aside from the irritating rah-rah tone of the column, I find a couple of factual points to dispute. The first is the statement:

"Nordicity, an independent firm specializing in broadcasting, valued the federal regulations that provide private broadcasters with the right to substitute U. S. content at between $270-million and $330-million. Other provincial and federal government subsidies such as tax credits and the Canadian Television Fund add another $165-million in cash support to the privates. Canada, in short, has a heavily subsidized media industry in which private companies compete for public money, and the CBC, in turn, competes for advertising dollars."

The right of private broadcasters to substitute U.S. content may indeed be worth $270 - $330 million, but of course this is not cash in the hand for the private broadcaster. So no public subsidy here.

Secondly, tax credits have value only in so far as income is earned - once again, it is not cash in the hand paid out by the government to the public broadcaster. So, once again, no public subsidy.

Indeed, the Canadian Television Fund may provide cash to the private broadcaster, but I have no information on the extent of this funding or what percentage of the $165 million it constitutes. I'll leave that as an exercise for the interested reader to pursue.

Another point I object to is this:

"And by all measures, the CBC is working, engaging more radio listeners than ever."

Well, perhaps for CBC Radio One, but CBC Radio Two has been a dismal failure, losing listeners in all of the major Canadian cities surveyed by the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement. Why not address this point as well.

And finally, I find these statements laughable:

"Lately, there has been much debate concerning the CBC. Many politicians have suggested that the CBC should focus on "service," not "ratings." Yet of all people, politicians should know only too well that being a public service requires the support of the public. The public needs to be engaged, its needs and desires need to be understood and acted upon. Its support and approval needs to be earned. In the case of politicians, the public votes to give them a mandate.

In media terms, a public broadcaster needs to have the input, support and the "vote" of its public audience to know that it is on track and providing a valued service. Success for a public broadcaster must be measured by the extent to which the public supports and endorses its programs.

The BBC understands this."

Well, clearly, the CBC doesn't. How do you account for the protests that have been taking place for the past two years over the changes in CBC Radio Two? Are these protests not an example of the "input" and "vote" of its audience?

The CBC must be able to face up to reality if it's to be successful, and Ms. Layfield's column is an indication that the CBC will continue to delude itself into believing that it has the support of Canadians.

My own personal "Groundhog Day"

The start of my third day listening to the "new 2". We get up at 6:30 AM, having driven from Toronto to Ottawa the day before. As is my habit when at home, I make coffee, turn on Sirius satellite radio to "Symphony Hall" and read the Globe and Mail and National Post. Forty-five minutes elapse before I remember that I'm supposed to be listening to the "new 2" in my attempt to give CBC Radio another chance. I tune into Mr. Tom Allen's new program, "Radio 2 Morning", just in time to hear the Stampeders and "Sweet City Woman". There is a brief moment when I think I have been doomed by CBC to my own personal version of "Groundhog Day" in which I play the Bill Murray character - will I be condemned by CBC to hear "Sweet City Woman" at least once a day on the "new 2"?

I see my letter to the editor is published in the National Post. Here is the full text, as published in the Post:

Re: I Survived The CBC's New Radio 2, And So Can You!, Adam McDowell, Sept. 3.

Adam McDowell hit the nail squarely on the head with his final assessment of the new CBC Radio 2: "radio is all about having to sit through stuff you're not necessarily keen to listen to." This is precisely the problem with the new CBC Radio 2 programming. In an era of narrow-casting, how will a radio station that attempts to be all things to all people attract and keep an audience?

Commercial radio stations understand this and focus their programming to a specific audience and musical genre. CBC Radio 2 previously did this and did it reasonably well. Now, by trying to squeeze every possible musical genre into the daily schedule, I expect CBC Radio 2 will lose its audience to more focused commercial stations.

But will the federal government realize that if no one is listening to the "new 2" it no longer deserves to be funded with our hard-earned tax dollars?

James Wooten, Kanata, Ont.

I will leave for Montreal later this morning. During the drive I will continue to give the "new 2" a second chance.