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Remake Radio 2 or watch it die - Globe and Mail
By kanei | August 2, 2008
CANON FIRE: PUSHING THE MUSICAL ENVELOPE
In the second instalment of a three-part series, critic Robert Everett-Green lauds CBC’s decision to devote more airtime to innovative, non-classical Canadian music. The alternative? The decimation of Radio 2’s audience within a decade
By Robert Everett-Green
Earlier this week, I attended a lecture by composer R. Murray Schafer, who once wrote an essay called Radical Radio. The essay proposed an environmental form of the medium that would include such things as a 24-hour ocean program, to present the sounds of the sea during that span of time. Schafer didn’t talk much about radio during his lecture, but afterward someone asked for his opinion of the ongoing program changes at CBC Radio 2. I thought he might find some striking new angle on what has become a rather rigid debate.
“Probably they’re committing suicide,” he said, adding that, once Radio 2 had transformed itself into a commercial-style network, the real commercial stations would successfully lobby for its elimination. It was obvious from the reaction among the mainly elderly audience that he had expressed their worst fears.
I’ve listened to the new programs, and talked at length with CBC Radio music head Mark Steinmetz, and I think I can say that the odds of Radio 2 becoming a commercial-style network are only slightly greater than the likelihood that R. Murray Schafer will grow fins. The Radio 2 we will have by Sept. 2, when the last of the new programs come on stream, will be less commercial, in every sense of the word, than CBC Radio has been for much of its history.
Commercial radio is divided into narrow formats, seldom discusses what it plays, does not make its own live recordings, and plays things in rotation, i.e. repeats itself a lot. None of that describes the shape of things to come for Radio 2. Contrary to what soprano Measha Brueggergosman said recently, the network is not making itself a home for musicians who have “massive PR budgets.” We will not be hearing the next singles by Nickelback, Nelly Furtado or the latest Canadian Idol on the new Radio 2.
The zenith of CBC Radio’s commercialization is already well in the past. During its first few decades, the CBC was the dominant broadcaster of popular radio entertainment in Canada. Its schedule included top-rated U.S. programs hosted by the likes of Bing Crosby and Jack Benny, daytime soap operas such as The Guiding Light, and the wonderfully named Carnation Contented Hour. It also produced shows like The Happy Gang, a daily lunch-hour program that featured popular songs and cornball skits. The Happy Gang ran for 22 years and had a peak daily audience of over two million, double the entire weekly audience for Radio 2 today. The Massey Commission, which reviewed broadcasting in 1951, reported that more than 50 per cent of prime-time evening programming on CBC Radio was commercial.
CBC Radio went commercial back then because it had to build a network, and an audience that could sustain it. In the past few years, it became obvious that a similar challenge now faces Radio 2. The network is there, and the audience numbers are stable, but half of that audience is over 65 (20 years ago, only a quarter were seniors). Most of those older listeners have probably been loyal to the CBC for decades, but it’s obvious that they won’t be listening for decades to come. Radio 2 faces the decimation of its public within 10 years.
This time, however, it isn’t reaching for a commercial solution. There’s a whole galaxy of significant non-classical Canadian musicians who get no airplay on private radio in Canada. Commercial stations aren’t investing any time in the music of distinctive performers such as the New Pornographers, Chad VanGaalen, the Telepathic Butterflies, Final Fantasy, Wolf Parade or Kyrie Kristmanson. All of these people would suit the new prime-time evening program, Canada Live; on the late-evening show, The Signal; and probably on the forthcoming drive-home show hosted by rapper Buck 65.
The Signal and Canada Live are as about anti-commercial as you can get, in that they range widely across genres. The Signal’s radical assumption is that there are listeners (of whom I am one) who are equally interested in composers such as Claude Vivier and Steve Reich, and performers such as avant-fiddler Oliver Schroer and Jewish rapper Socalled.
There will be less classical music on the network as of September, and none at all between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. That’s one of the features of the new schedule that has enraged some loyal listeners, and I’m not convinced that a complete shutout from evening prime-time is a good idea. But two of four forthcoming hosted CBC Web channels will feature all-classical or all-Canadian contemporary music. New Canadian music in the classical tradition is actually increasing on the broadcast network.
“There are more hours of real contemporary Canadian art music on the network now than there were on Two New Hours,” says Mark Steinmetz, referring to the Sunday-evening new-music program cancelled last year. Earlier this month, the CBC also announced an increase of $50,000 in its annual commissioning budget, to add to the 1,000-odd Canadian works the corporation has already helped bring into being.
I don’t see how these changes are “not consistent with the CBC mandate,” or how they would “undermine Canada’s ability to create and recreate its national culture,” as stated by two petitions on the website, Stand on Guard for CBC. But I’ve never really understood how a performance of a symphony by Beethoven or Rautavaara, even in an excellent reading by a Canadian orchestra, represents our national culture. How did we get the idea that the CBC’s mandate necessarily implies a major commitment to the European classics? No legislation governing the CBC mentions any particular kind of music, only that (as the latest version of the Broadcasting Act has it) the network should be “predominantly and distinctively Canadian,” that it should reflect the diversity of the country, and that it “contribute to shared national consciousness and identity.”
When the CBC first started building a classical infrastructure (including half a dozen radio orchestras and two opera companies), and commissioning pieces from Canadian composers, it was assumed that those composers would be among the prime builders of our national culture. The Massey Report discussion of music on Canadian radio focuses on “serious” music and folklore, mentioning the popular stuff mainly in order to issue a warning about entertainments that “debase public taste.” There’s no sign that anyone reporting to the commission foresaw that popular musicians might contribute something significant to our culture.
I think Radio 2 has been drifting from its purpose for years. A lot of Canadian creativity in popular music has passed without notice, except on Brave New Waves, which started at midnight and was cancelled last year. To me, the classical programs have felt tired, and the soft-classical choices on the daytime shows (such as Music & Company and Disc Drive), often make me think of George Steiner’s quip about the “Muzak of the sublime.” I don’t know what will be heard on mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah’s forthcoming daytime classical show, but if it’s more of the same, I won’t be listening, just as I won’t tune into Buck 65’s show to hear Blue Rodeo.
I’m not at all sold on some of the known parts of the Radio 2 agenda. The new jazz program, Tonic, has no more edge than the old one. We need less middle-of-the-road jazz on Radio 2, and more of what Quebeckers call musique actuelle. Guelph Jazz Festival director Ajay Heble told me this week that six shows from his cutting-edge event will be broadcast this year on Radio 2, up from four last year (when the new order began) and none for two years before that. But those shows are going to The Signal. I think the CBC would do well to at least cut Tonic in half, and give one of its two hours to a more demanding kind of evening program, whether that means classical or improvised music or both.
I don’t see the point of In the Key of Charles, which is neither distinctive in its choices nor particularly informative. And though I like Pat Carrabré as a person, and sometimes as a composer, when I hear him hosting the weekend edition of The Signal I feel like he’s addressing a group of preschoolers.
What I’ve missed most of all from Radio 2 in recent years is passion and contention. People get worked up about the music they like and don’t like. Too much music on Radio 2 is presented in a spirit of bland approval. I’d like to hear somebody occasionally make a case for apparently unlovable stuff, or attack something that most people think is swell. Having or hearing that kind of discussion (when it’s genuine) is part of being a thoughtful participant in music culture.
Another way of putting it is that Radio 2 should exhibit some kind of intellectual distinction - which doesn’t mean the hosts have to be musicologists or semioticians. As a listener named Randy Meingast told me in an e-mail: “With CBC Radio, I expect to be educated as well as entertained.”
Radio 2 has some work to do if it wants to convince people that it’s going to satisfy that expectation, and in some ways it has made its job more difficult. It was a dumb idea to run a full-page ad in this paper that included endorsements from the heads of major record labels, and that failed to include any classical musicians among the photos of “homegrown talent.” But so far, a threatened exodus of listeners has not happened. Independent figures released earlier this month show that Radio 2’s audience has expanded slightly.
It would probably also be good to find more ways to let people know what to expect from any given segment of Canada Live or The Signal. I like surprises, but I think it’s prudent to make sure you’re communicating with your audience. I would also like the CBC to find a way (maybe through another Web channel) to take up R. Murray Schafer’s concept of environmental radio. As in many musical matters, on this subject he was clearly ahead of his time.
Topics: Articles about CBC, CBC, CBC Radio, Press about CBC |
3 Responses to “Remake Radio 2 or watch it die - Globe and Mail”
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August 2nd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
[…] Remake Radio 2 or watch it die - Globe and Mail […]
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
[…] Robert Everett-Green’s 2nd part on the music turf war at CBC Radio 2 […]
August 5th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
In his recent article, Robert Everett - Green makes the astonishing comment that he cannot understand how Beethoven and Rautavaara represent our national culture (his italics). In other words, that they have no relevance to Canadian culture.
I would counter that they have as much relevance to Canada as La Bohème in Korea, Mahler in Venezuela, or Shakespeare in Hawaii.
We are blessed in this country with a cornucopia of cultural influences - not only Western European art and culture, but also those of all the other nationalities and cultures who have arrived on our shores and, with their art and music, have become part of the fabric of this country.
And what about Canadian classical musicians’ relevance in this country: are our soloists, orchestras, and opera companies only relevant to our national culture and identity if they perform only Canadian works - here and internationally? Are Ben Heppner and James Ehnes not part of the tapestry of Canada’s cultural presence in the world? Ironically, the main conduit for purely Canadian art music has been wiped out: the CBC radio orchestra and CBC records.
With his kind of thinking, Mr. Everett-Green should only be eating beaver-tails with maple syrup, flipper pie, and Nanaimo bars, as all other cuisines Canadians embrace are actually of foreign import and therefore of no relevance to the “national” culture he expounds.
Ivars Taurins
Director, Tafelmusik Chamber Choir
Principal Baroque Conductor,
Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra
Lecturer, Faculty of Music,
University of Toronto