I meant genius, which is a bit ironic, but I still say it should be spelled, "genious."

I think when the CBC hired ex-VJ George ,it was an act of dumbing down. He's not exactly an intellectual heavyweight, and he brought too many rock n roll and gossip segments to CBC, bringing a MM sensibility along with him.

I compare him to Avi Lewis' now defunct current events program on CBC that George's show kind of replaced. Lewis was far more intelligent, sharp, and better informed, and far funnier too, with an oddball, sometimes wicked sense of humour (George's idea of "humour" is to affect odd voices/pseudo accents - strictly gradeschool stuff).It took George years just to learn how to smile! His early MM years were hallmarked by a uniformly stone-face ("If I smile, they might not take me seriously enough, I might appear lightweight!"). Well George, you ARE lightweight, and if you are now to be stuck doing a new by definition lightweight show, well maybe now you're just where you've always belonged!

Truman

It was awful. THE ONE, I mean. I lasted no more than 12 minutes. The CBC is dying slowly and miserably...they are now cutting program minutes on Newsworld for promos I understand.

Truman, despite my comment, about the Hour, I feel much the way you do, and still watch it with a strange bemused fascination. I wish he'd interview Robert Fulford and some other icons of the neoCon fraternity - it would make a nice juxtaposition.

I like George, and usually enjoyed watching The Hour. Its content was broad-ranging, delivered in a stimulating manner without venturing into the attention-deficit zone. His interviews tended to be well-researched and less swayed by ideology than some of his predecessors (like Avi Lewis or an even earlier favourite, Daniel Richler...but get the three together & you'll have a real show on your hands).

I was disappointed to hear it too - Say Hi to Ben for us George! - but unfortunately its just another example of Canadian media-art-entertainment talen gone South.

And truth be told, nightbloom's powder-meter went off a few times during a few of George's more kinetic on-air performances.

I appreciated the way George made Tucker Carlson look like the jackass he is (when the latter compared Canadians to a retarded cousin), without getting confrontational or losing his easy going demeanor for a single second.

As for not being a journalistic heavyweight, who cares - he's got a helluva lot more going on between his ears tha the ubiquitous coiffed boob-chicks who now deliver the nightly news on every single American network on the dial. What were their qualifications, I wonder...?

nightbloom
I think what I tired of was the attention-deficit disorder timing and fast cut nature of the show. After 13 weeks it wasn't fun anymore - just annoying. Although, as you mentioned, it was nice to see him stick it to Tucker Carlson. But why so many American guests?

How about Connie Black, Mrs Connie Black, Mike Harris, Gordon O'Connor and the like. Why is the CBC treading so lightly?

Too many former American hotshots in the management suite and genuine fear of pee wee's nail cutters, in my view.

I'm not asking for the CBC to be left wing but for God's sake don't try to be just entertaining - that's George's problem, in my view.

nightbloom, since G West is on vacation could you tell me how George made Carlson look like a jackass?

The 'One" is done for me. What crap, and George sounds lie an idiot on the show.

As for the Hour I do not miss it since its summer hiatus. While I watched the Hour on occasion, I didn't like the style and it seemed more about style than substance. Regardless of whether it was Avi Lewis, George, or Richler, my biggest frustration with those shows is there was no time to really discuss issues and persepctives and solutions.

As to George's Much Music roots, I never really watched music videos, I'd rather listen to the music and have any video (if at all) come from my imagination.

Good luck George, the One will do nothing for your career aspirations, whatever they are.

Frank - Just the way he handled it - very easy-going, not touchy or "offended", prompting Carlson to justify the remarks in a way that just made the latter look petty and immature. Carlson was trying to be all "Crossfire" (which didn't suit the format to begin with, let alone whole tenor of Canadian television more generally) and George was just so "yeah whatever kid" but without ever losing his smile.

Something has to be done to save the CBC and restore and increase funding so it can do the great job its capable of.
Does anybody besides me feel like Canada has been taken over and also an occupied country by the "Israel Lobby" since Harper came on the scene with every major newpaper dumbing down for him - God help us if he gets a majority - our Canadians blood will be spilled fighting Israel's wars on their march to world domination with the aid of Dubya along with our treasure and tax dollars spent for wars. Maybe it could become an election issue if enough citizens starting demanding it be protected as the only news outlet that isn''t owned or controlled by the Israel lobbiests.

One word: sell-out!

Okay, so first George says -- watch me and my show, if you're young, you still have a right to know what the heck is going on, even if you can't vote, the world affects you, and you can make a change in the world if you want to.

(Go strombo!)

Okay, got it George: the youngsters can and should be politically aware, and politically active if they want, too.

(Yeah Strombo!)

Okay, and now that the 'kids' have spent a season or two filling their yet-to-be-moulded little minds with facts about the world and how it works, they should follow your good name over to 'the One'.

(Uh....)

Okay, and now the youngsters should keep watching you, because they've grown to trust what you have to say, and to report on, and to speak on, and to promote --- and...that is what exactly? Pop / fluff music? Culturally-devoid reality-TV? Lots of lights, lots of breasts, lots of irrelevant lyrics?

Hm. If I was old enough to wag my finger disapprovingly, I would...but I'm not even as old as George. So I'll hand him an award instead: Sell-out of the Year. Anyone care to second the motion?

moonlighter I'll second that.
I'm about 2 commercials away from cancelling my top heavy commercial cable TV.
I'm hosed @ $65.-70 a month for crap reality garbage plus all the commercials.
1hr = 15min of buy me, buy me, consummerism
That's 6hr in 24hrs of TV time, 6 * 7 = 32hrs a week!
Super channels are a sad collection of B run or replayed several times.
If CBC wasn't being canabalized by Private 4 Profit back room clowns, we would have a freedom of real news & programing

If CBC had just gone into the Canadian version of "The One" it may have worked out better for George. Who really gives a shit about the USAmerican "ONE"? And the production is just plain pitiful. I feel sorry for George because I for one really do like him on "The Hour" and he was probably just tryin to sow some fame oats and I can't blame him for that when his career is in TV.

"George" was my man @ 5pm with his talent, why be a bought man?

My comment will be slightly OT, but "what in hell is going on at Radio 1"?

Didn't they drag out that "National Playlist" thing too long (waaayy to looong!)?

Is it just me, but is Radio 1 just getting really dumb? Right now, CBC's programs are driving me into the arms of 1040 Sports radio (as CKNW is being dumbed down even quicker than CBC). At least at 1040 I expect stupid, dumb and inane content; I get what I expect.

Who in hell is this Jeeon Gomeshee (there's no way I'm going to even try to figure out how to spell his name) character on CBC? Is he all they've got? It seems I can't escape the guy. No matter what time of day, he's there, it seems.

How bad is it when DNTO is one of the more serious radio programs on CBC?!

CBC was our real truth in radio & TV so the conservitives are killing any thing thats still breathing or a threat to their real agenda of a Dictatorship in Americanadamexico or AU "American Union"

Soul Patch!!!!!!

Grub asked: "Who in hell is this Jeeon Gomeshee (there's no way I'm going to even try to figure out how to spell his name) character on CBC? Is he all they've got? It seems I can't escape the guy. No matter what time of day, he's there, it seems."

He was a member of Moxi Frugal, a quirky (a la Barenaked Ladies but not as good) folk/pop harmonies group. That is all I know. He is on so much because he is temporay summer host when the actual hosts take holidays.

I couldn't stand that 'National Playlist' thing either, waste of time.

I yearn for 'Nightlines' remember that late nite/early morning show? Similar top Colleg Radio programing. Introduced music I would never here on Top 40 crap radio!

As for the One, I think George is the only One[U] who cares about it in Canada. You can make a lot of grilled (processed) cheese sandwiches with the content of the 'One'

Hey freebear.....that`s Moxy Fruvus. God I`m getting old.

[

]I recommend using chopped onion in the grilled cheese, preferably hot cooking onions, not sweet ones...mmmmm, tasty.

Hey Maxwell, you are right! Never really enjoyed their music except live at the Edm Folk Music Festival.

Caught another glimpse of the One (and hopefully the only season!) and no surprise it still is lame and cheesy. Should be called the 'Worst'!

Frank
just back, not sure it was a holiday though (by the way, apparently Saskatoon now has the highest crime rate per capita of major Canadian cities, go figure, at least I wasn't mugged)
- nightbloom's explanation of the way George made TC look foolish pretty much reflects my view as well. I thought he just let the bow tied one slip all over his own banana peel by not reacting to the obvious over-the-top nature of Carlson's shtick.

When someone makes his living peddling notions as stupid and arrogant as the personification of a whole nation as retarded cousins it's best to just let them go on talking.

Unfortunately, we often do the same thing by peddling ad hominem anti-Americanism instead of getting specific and deadly accurate about the neocon ideas Tucker seems to think are gospel.

grub
As to your observations about CBC1, I couldn't agree more - although I did know who Gian Ghomeshi and Moxy Fruvous were.

Apparently, he's seen as a hot prospect as a possible NDP candidate from Ontario in the next election - at least if he were in the House of Commons he wouldn't be on the radio.

I think he's in Vancouver for the summer - all part of the facile and disastrous attempt to groom CBC radio for a younger, hipper audience - apparently.