Blasphemy and sacrilege grace the CBC

After my school board lets me down, my Minister of Education lets me down, and my laptop lets me down, I started to wonder what would go wrong next. It turns out that was a bad idea.

The CBC is having some labour difficulties right now. Basically, the permanent staff wants the management to hire more permanent staff and decrease the amount of work they contract out. From the management point of view, it’s cheaper to contract work because if they cancel a show, any permanent staff have to find a new job with another show, whereas contractors can just be let go. From the permanent staff’s point of view, it’s a job security issue.

NHL Lockout, anyone? The stupidity quotients on each side are just about right.

My real gripe is that it interferes with something I consider one of the greatest things since sliced bread: CBC News: The Hour. It’s a new show on CBC Newsworld hosted by former MuchMusic host George Stroumboulopolos (I think I spelt that right). You may remember him, he advocated for Tommy Douglas on CBC’s The Greatest Canadian. The show is blatantly targetted at a younger audience (which, for the CBC, is anyone under 65). Although I am not the stereotypical youth (and I doubt the stereotypical youth even knows what channel is the CBC!) I enjoyed the show immensely and couldn’t wait for its premiere tonight.

Only it never happened. After watching Stargate: Atlantis, I flipped channels to CBC Newsworld and found Political Assassinations on instead. That’s when it hit me. The CBC was messing with my show!

I can see a big angry corporation like Fox or (dare I whisper their hallowed name) UPN disrupting their schedule like this, but the CBC?! It’s a government corporation! I expected to be blogging here about political issues, not about my lack of a great news show to follow political issues!

So now I feel like writing an angry email to the CBC, something along the lines of:

Dear CBC Management:

I am a 15-year-old adolescent who enjoys your program (specifically, CBC News: The Hour) and am angered by your insipid quest to save money. I know this may come as a shock, considering that you probably thought you only had an audience of about 10 65-year-olds and a dog outside a TV store window. Well, you were wrong. So give me back my show.

I may or may not decide to make it more or less coherent. And I‘ve no clue if I’m going to send the email … maybe if I could persuade some friends to bombard them with email too… .

That’s right. I’m asking you now, email the CBC’s Negotations Web Site and have your say!

Anyway … down the CBC Management!