Who watches CBC? Not very many. Why? It's god awful! After living in the UK for a few years, I fell in love with the BBC. I rather watch a mouldy old Britcom than a Canadian production.

It's not like we do not have talent in Canada, but for a few exceptions, Canadian TV is just plain awful. Even the CBC news is losing its esteem.

What is happening? Is it the politics? Or just plain laziness?

I'd love to see a good CBC productions but they are few and far between.

We cancelled our TV service three years ago and have been vastly better off since. Thus, I can make no comment about the quality of TV programming, CBC or otherwise. I can comment that we listen to CBC radio every day, day in and day out. It is an outstanding, world class production. The rest of our news we turn to the Tyee and other internet news sites that haven't been co-opted by North America's monopoly market. Having said that, I'm glad to hear CBC television is improving and I wish them the best of luck.

The BBC and other British TV programs are actually very easy to get a hold of in this day and age of bittorrent. In fact, you can get so much quality brit TV that you won't have time to watch most of it if you have a job. What's more, it's all commercial free. You just need a high-speed internet connection.

Why such quality from the BBC? Well it has a massive amount of guaranteed tax money (in the form of a TV tax) coming to it that the UK government can't switch off at a whim. What's more it is far more independent an institution than the CBC is here.

The CBC ends up having to make programs that offend as few as possible by trying to stick to "universal Canadian" themes. They all too often end up having a slightly bland feel. Da Vinci's Inquest was an exception though. Despite all the bitching by Canadians, and especially critics, who clearly never watched more than an episode or two of the show, it was always quality TV. But hey, most people I encounter, especially TV critics can drone on endlessly about the american reality pablum. Listening to them, I thank my lucky stars I don't waste precious hours of life on that vacuous crap.

CBC = politically correct jive. Why are we spending about $1-billion every year on this institution to be fed such garbage. Do we really need a government owned and operated news organization funding professional sports teams like hockey (or throwing UK and US-based drama at us)? It is a direct transfer of government wealth to the richest in our society - professional sports players and their team owners.

Here's another CBC classic: Have you noticed their reporters tend to only interview other CBC news reporters when covering a story? The only "experts" they find are sitting across the news room! Reporting is so incredibly lazy there. How difficult is it for them to get out to UBC or some other local institution to interview a real expert?! But no, we get fed the CBC corporate line every time. No wonder the reporting is so predictable. This is one of the reasons The Tyee kicks CBC’s butt. While I often disagree with the angles taken here, at least it provides some fresh perspectives and voices.

CBC is far from perfect PLFoot. I take it you haven't watched Global or CTV much because they are incomparably worse.

Another typical mindless attack on the people who aren't in power. Is that all you ever do?

Fair point GWest. CanWest is useless and there is no way I'd ever defend them.

The present government and the last one have done their best to screw up the CBC.

Maybe it's because the CBC actually reports what governments are doing.and real events around the world as well.
We too like the BBC news and comedies, even the ten year old ones. Some of their mystery stuff is good. Their cops don't all have three handguns and spend a lot of time killing people. We do watch the CBC news every day and of course our radios are tuned to the CBC as well. Are we so different that everyone else who seem to like American sitcoms, gambling shows and some weird risk taking groups. last time the government tried to shut down a section of the CBC they heard from the end users quite loud and clear. some folks hate the CBC because in their view it's left leaning. Our family doesn't agree and are quite prepared to pay the freight to see Canadian reporters giving us their interpretation from the hot spots of the word. WE find them quite balanced in their reporting and just love to see some pompous expert or politician getting skewered by reporters such as Anna Marie T. Mon to Fri. mornings on CBC. a good update on who is doing what, for about 90 minutes. well that's the way we see it.

I watched Mansbridge the other night they had a show about how the opium trade was a source of revenue for the Taliban. What a whopper! Check this bit out
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060921&articleId=3294
WTF??? Isn't this the original business of the founder of Skull&Bones?

> Who watches CBC? Not very many. Why? It's god awful!

This is Wonderland was a great, and entertaining show.

Da Vinci's Inquest was a great show, until it became a blatant platform for Larry Campbell and Chris Haddock's political propoganda.

The Beachcombers was a great show, although I thought the movies were overrated.

CBC has made good television, but yes...not many watch it.

Would you rather they made Trailer Park Boys? Give me a break.

US TV is supposed to be better? Give me a break.

i personally really like the cbc too...

granted, some of the best shows have not lasted as long as we all would've liked. can't wait until george is back on!

anarcho,

US TV is vastly superior to Canadian. Shall I give you a brief list of excellent American shows, current and recent?

The Wire
Deadwood
Entourage
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Veronica Mars
Firefly
Samurai Jack
Carnivale

Canadian TV has never had anything nearly as good as Deadwood and The Wire. Nothing. The CBC keeps pumping out the same Can-con crap year after year. Docu-dramas about Trudeau or the Avro Arrow or some bloody issue in Quebec.

The only Canadian TV that has been half-way decent has been comedy:

Kids in the Hall
SCTV
Newsroom [and even this was a Larry Sander's rip-off]
Twitch City

And no, This Hour has 22 Minutes is not good comedy. It's Canadian smugness and Newfie jokes passing as comedy.

Even with the best US TV there is always something slightly off about it. Their shows are never quite believable. The thing that I liked about DaVinci's Inquest was that I could identify with the people in it as real people And rather than butt-kissing the system it critiqued it – as all real art should do. One problem is the sentimentality that seems to creep in all the time in US programs. This sentimentality blunts the very occasional forays into programs with some critical content. (Think in the past of Mash or All In The Family.) Even though “This Is Wonderland” was a zany comedy, its critical content was often like a kick in the nuts, something you wouldn't see with US TV, I think. Gritty, down-to-earth, and socially conscious, this is what you see more of in Canadian TV than the US, and this is why it is generally superior.

I forgot to add, "and this superiority is largely because of the good old CBC."

Yes, sentimentality is a scourge of American TV and film.

Intelligence looks like it has some serious potential. I think the CBC has produced some good stuff. Look at the
Road To Hell biker drama. That was good
drama which I liked. I don't know
about the rest. I think that if the CBC
doesn't cough up the dough for the NHL,
we can pretty well kiss it goodbye I think.

Almost all the good U.S. TV shows are HBO, pay per view, specialty cable channel productions, which falls somewhere between film and television. The shows may come to network TV in reruns if they prove themselves popular (like the Sopranos) but network TV would never have given these risky programs the chance to prove themselves.

The CBC is hamstrung by the same restrictions of American network TV -- catering to the lowest common denominator, politically and morally inoffensive, etc. but has a bit more independence.

It's become popular for people to say now that "TV is better than movies these days." But TV isn't a monolith and neither are movies. If you're saying Deadwood is better than the latest Jennifer Aniston film, sure, no argument. If you're saying Everyone Loves Raymond is better than, say, The Squid and the Whale, well, no.

Agreed, you take HBO out of the equation and the US tv landscape is almost nothing but crap with the exception of a very few nuggets.

CBC does a great job considering their budget.

What does the CBC do "a great job" of?

News and magazine shows. Sometimes they do well with drama or comedy too.

Much better record than any of the Cdn private networks.

TV in general is probably in some kind of crisis at the moment. Regular TV is getting stupider, and the people who want smart content have so many other places to get their entertainment and information. So the place for a kind of middle of the road TV (too smart and serious for the reality TV crowd, too bland and safe for the rest of us) like CBC, might be just getting squeezed out of the marketplace.

TV and the CBC are dead. I don't even hook up to Mainstream Media anymore. I can get all I need off the net.
I wouldn't send one cent to the CBC if I wasn't forced to.
Cut the CRTC and the CBC and evert other arbitrator of truth we have in our lives.

Ron, as I've said to you before. Don't make me pay for your Olympics and a million other party items and I'll happily agree you don't have to pay for my CBC.

Its not like I don't like the fact that CanWest Global, ABC, CBS, NBC etc are on my basic cable or satellite. I can't choose not to pay for them unless I revert to rabbit ears.

In the meantime, its like the Tyee, if you don't like it, don't watch it.

Frank: you say to me that if I don't like it, don't watch. Are you on the marketing team of the CBC?
It sounds like it. CBC is toast. They lost their way by trying to be the arbiter of Canadian political mind set, while using the demon Americans to produce much of what they broadcast to make money.
They are abated by the CRTC. I want to see both of these entities gone.
Unless the CBC accept a mandate of bringing unigue Canadian programming, that bridge the country.
And that's impossible, so let the CBC go.

No, I'm not. But what would you say to me if I said I don't like having to pay for basic cable or basic satellite which contains a lot of channels I don't watch?

On this point you're quite simply wrong, sorry. The CBC has very little American content. Its CTV and CanWest you want to accuse of simply running American productions with Cdn commercials.

Again, its the private side broadcasters who aren't producing Cdn content, not the CBC.

Ron, as someone who gets his news from Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh I'm sure the CBC is far too complex and intellectually taxing for you - just shut the TV off Ron and go to bed - it'll be okay in the morning.

Considering we live in a country where Rachael Marsden has a job as a newspaper columnist in Canada's biggest city, I can't understand why the odd failure of the CBC is even a topic of discussion. I mean, c'mon, they hired Rachael Marsden and yet the sun still rose the next day. (Shannon Rupp must have gone fishing a la Gary Kildall and missed the Sun's call)

Wow there's been a lot of CBC bashing and not enough of the reality tv bashing! If I see another survivor, or that stupid briefcase show where you can win money simply by chosing suitcases - I'd have to cancel my tv!!

And yes CBC has some unwatched or less demanded shows... but i really like watching the National, Passionate Eye, Fifth Estate and I'm totally getting addicted to Avi Lewis's new show Big Picture... I'd Avi's previous show 'Counterspin' - That was amazing for the times!!! It was like having BBC's Hardtalk and IndyMedia all in one. So good...

And to flibble's list i'd add Real Canadian Air Farce. that was funny.

Let's hope it keeps pumping out further documentaries, in-depth analyses and political dialogue shows.

Good points Frank, and masalaman too.

The neocons and Harperites won't be happy till they've killed it and the CBC is a pale reflection of the Knowledge Network - funded by interminable pledge drives like PBS in the States - which is also a mere shadow of its former self - remarking Grenada and BBC period drama and serial mysteries.

If CBC viewers don't start supporting the network by contacting their MPS the future is on the wall - and it won't be the soft-soap stuff described in the essay at the top of this thread.

The CBC has piddled in their own cornflakes. They are blatant in their dislike of the CPC and lost any pretense of impartiality. Their stories are shaky at best and they fail to check facts. They could have been much better but tossed it away in order to tell us how the world should be.

So late again, but had to say, Grumpy, I watch CBC all the time and love it. Could care less if CBC and CBC Newsworld were all that I could get. Love Avi Lewis' new show and love all the documentaries. And Peter Mansbridge...just the best!

Colin

One bit of evidence for that diatribe Colin, please. The major difference between CBC and CanWest or CTV is that CBC actually does some 'real' news coverage - the other two never take any chances at all. CBC's international reports are so much superior to any other major channel (with the possible exception of BBC) that it isn't even a contest and you know it Colin. Are you feeling especially dyspeptic today?

Absolutely right on greengreen - better late than never.

I wish we could get HBO up here. They got some very good stuff on their network. The CBC has done a lot of great stuff, and will continue to do so.
The raw television like 'Deadwood' produced for HBO, should be carried by the CBC. The CBC could actually give us programming that we can't already get on cable. That's the point?
The CRTC should help by loosening the Can Com regs, to allow the CBC to fill the gap in our information flow.

You can get deadwood, the Sopranos, the Wire etc. live and at the same time HBO shows them now Ron - get digital cable or buy a dish. No problem.

Where's the gap in our information flow? I can barely keep my head above the deluge of information I process everyday. All sides are represented if you take the time to look.

So fun to bash CBC and public arts in general. Always good to check the stats though. I'll bet the CBC would be happy to put the contents of their awards shelf up to comparison with Global/Canwest, CTV et al.

Oh yeah, to paraphrase Churchill, the CBC sucks - except for the alternatives.

I listen only to CBC radio - and watch CBC television for my visual fix, not because its so good - but because the alternatives are so abysmal.

If it weren't for my kids demanding to watch American entertainment nonsense, I would've tossed my cable connection years ago.

Sorry, bad punctuation,

"I listen only to CBC radio - and watch CBC television for my visual fix - not because it's so good, but because the alternatives are so abysmal."

That's a good quote, there's plenty wrong with the CBC but its still better than all the alternatives.

As for balance, the CBC is far nicer to the Cons than Can-West or CTV are to the NDP. The CBC even has a Con (Rex Murphy) doing editorials on a near-constant basis.