Is CBC’s New Populism Perverted?
It’s no secret that the CBC has undergone some major changes in the past few years. They’ve launched experiments ranging from the highly successful Canada Reads and Greatest Canadian contests to the somewhat-less-winning The One and the somewhat infuriating National Playlist. CBC has, for better or worse, decided to go populist. And it’s all part of a transparent attempt to grab a younger audience. Despite what some traditionalists think, CBC needs to find some way to attract new listeners and viewers — as aging Ceebsters shuffle off to listen eternally to Gzowski reruns and the choir angelic, some other demographic will need to fill their place, or the CBC dies. It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth. But what isn’t black and white is how they should attract those younger viewers. And as we’ve seen, while the CBC might be on the forefront of creating interactive content, they’ve yet to work out all the kinks. Kinks like, oh, providing a forum for state-sponsored homophobia, to name one.
