In the news: CBC schedule doesn’t deserve scorn

From Alex Strachan of CanWest News Service:

  • My turn on CBC: Double the Jeopardy!, double the entertainment, I say.
    “Could there be a bigger non-story in this country right now than CBC’s decision to air Jeopardy! five nights a week, and hold the one-night-a-week Marketplace back until January. Yes, yes, I know. Chances are, you’ve never heard of Marketplace, let alone watched. Welcome to North American network television in the 21st century.” Read more.

4 thoughts on “In the news: CBC schedule doesn’t deserve scorn”

  1. Good article. He dances around the thing that needs to be said. CBC-TV should be fully funded and commercial free like CBC radio and left to pursue its mandate. Or use the PBS/NPR style of fund raising (though that seems to have hurt their audience share.)

    The last thing Canadian TV needs is another private network rebroadcasting U.S. shows that most of us can watch on the original network anyway.

  2. CBC has a mandate and showing Jeopardy every night or American movies all summer has nothing to do with what they are supposed to be doing. CBC has done lots of great stuff in the past couple years and should be commended for it, but by the same measure they should be taken to task when they cop out of their reason for being. If I want Jeopardy, I’ll watch the Buffalo channel and if I want an Adam Sandler movie I can see it on a hundred different channels or pick it up at the video store. CBC is supposed to use my tax money to make and show Canadian stories and when they don’t, their feet should be held to the fire. When it is time for CBC to ask Canadians to support them as a unique service, people always remember their cop outs like Jeopardy or ‘The One’ and ask “Why bother supporting American programming we can get somewhere else?”

  3. Has Alex Strachan actually watched Marketplace recently? I don’t think that show is doing bad work as of late. The article is okay, but I think Marketplace only looks like an anachronism since it’s one of the few current affairs programs CBC produces.

    I also don’t think Marketplace being given Air Farce Live‘s timeslot come January is a good idea. How hard is it to create a current-affairs night for shows like Marketplace? Does CBC have a long-time plan for the show or is it just going to be used to fill holes in the prime-time schedule?

  4. This isn’t the end of the world. It’s actually a clever idea, and if CBC needs to sell a portion of its CanCon soul to deliver more eyeballs to its Canadian dramas, or news programs, then I’d rather have “Jeopardy” than any of the hundreds of other brain-dead US imports. If a 30-minute investment allows CBC to promo its shows to an audience that otherwise wouldn’t tune in, it’s a good move.

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