Some Thoughts on the CBC Kerfuffle

A few years ago I did a recording session in the big studio at the CBC in Vancouver. The folks there were extremely proud of their in-house orchestra, the only broadcast orchestra left in North America. The studio is gigantic, maybe three times the size of NPR’s Studio 4A. In fact, the entire facility is spectacular, and in many ways, spectacularly underutilized.

What will happen to the studio now that they won’t need it anymore for the orchestra? Will they keep it a studio and invite other orchestras in to perform? Who would pay for that? Or will they make it into offices? It’s too big for rock bands.

There are support groups popping up on Facebook, trying to save the CBC Radio Orchestra. There’s an online petition you can sign at this site, where you can also find out the details about demonstrations to be held all over Canada tomorrow (Friday, April 11th).

It makes me sad that the orchestra is going away. I hate to see musicians put out of work. Having to depend on the government for funding is a recipe for failure, as American orchestras discovered decades ago.

What makes me really sad, though, is the CBC’s willingness to kill fresh, live radio content that you can’t get anywhere else in the world. Canadian composers will have to find other orchestras to perform their music. And Canadian classical artists coming in to play live? fuhgeddaboutit. CBC Radio 2 is replacing much of their classical music with other genres of music.

Radio producers everywhere — not just at the CBC — are replacing live performances and fresh, creative content with easy-to-play, inexpensive CDs.

NPR has stopped creating classical content in-house and just syndicates a miniscule number of shows produced by other people. WCLV has stopped syndicating even their own Cleveland Orchestra broadcasts. PRI used to fund the production of classical music shows, but they don’t anymore. WQXR is letting the Chicago station, WFMT, produce the New York Philharmonic shows — what’s that about? WGBH in Boston has relegated most of its classical programming to online and HD radio, and no longer produces much fresh classical music programming of its own.

In my on-air days I had a lunchtime show where we brought in live performers several times a month, but now the station has been sold twice, and the on-air studio is literally a closet. No room for musicians.

I think the demise of the CBC Radio Orchestra is a symbol of what’s happening to classical music on the radio in a lot of communities. First they make the programming boring, and then they kill it because it’s boring.

What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.