I see. Thank you for all of this information - duly noted. 
The CanaDoper Café (2012 edition of The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread.)
Goodness, so many ideas to discuss, so little time; where to start?
For me, CBC means the whole kit and kaboodle - TV, Radio, Podcasts, Radio 3, the website, whatever else the kids come up with in the future. I don’t know about the death of radio - you may be right. Or it could be that CBC Radio morphs into a satellite radio station, or a major source of podcasts. Remember when we said that the post office was dead because of the internet? Strangely, internet shopping gave the post office a major boost, and it was the mail order companies that held out which did the best in the advent of the online shopping boom. (If only Eaton’s and Simpson’s had made it another five years… but that is pure speculation and getting me off-topic.) It may well be the same with radio - former radio stations and magazines become the dominant source of podcasts and other web-based platforms. I don’t know; my crystal ball isn’t working.
CBC Radio is the one which I encounter most - I don’t watch TV at all any more, no matter what the network. So my point of view is going to be naturally skewed away from those of you who listen to hardly any or no radio at all. (Seriously, whether you listen live on the radio or to podcasts, there are a number of CBC radio programs that I think would be of interest to many of you. ‘Quirks and Quarks’, for example - one of the best science programs/podcasts around. I mean this purely apolitically, in the same way I’d recommend a band I’d heard or a book I’d read.)
I have not forgotten, RickJay, your summation of the arguments in favour of CBC -
- “I like it”
- “Without the CBC there’s be no/less culture.”
- “It’s part of our national identity.”
As with the study which I cited above, it isn’t just that I like it, it’s that a majority of Canadians like it and believe that possible cuts would have a negative impact. Furthermore, I don’t like all of it - my window of listening to CBC Radio 2 is down to about 4 hours a day, when the programs ‘Tempo’ and ‘Shift’ are on. Much of what goes on the rest of the time is not to my taste.
And here seems like as good a place as any to say “I’m a taxpayer, too!”. Those of us who support the CBC, and support government funding of the arts, are not getting a free ride. My money is where my mouth is - I pay my taxes, too, and advocating for the CBC is costing my household $68. per annum. Never mind that’s about a quarter of annual charitable donation to JazzFM; never mind that the government spends tax dollars in other sectors that I may not necessarily agree with. It’s the Social Contract; just because I’ve never needed the fire department doesn’t mean I think it should be pay-per-service. I vote we support the CBC; who’s with me? It’s a moot point; further cuts are in the works regardless of what the survey shows Canadians think, and what the Conservatives has promised in the past.
In terms of television produced in Canada, well, you have a point - Corner Gas was a great show, and it was produced by CTV. Just for fun, have a look at the two wiki links for lists of programs broadcast by CBC and CTV. On the CTV site, the author has very helpfully bolded the Canadian programming - that would be Canada AM, e-talk, W5, Flashpoint, The L.A. Complex and the Marilyn Denis Show. The CBC list is a little less accurate - Being Erica and The Red Green Show are no longer in production. One also has to do a lot more flicking back and forth to get the list of Canadian vs. US/British shows. However, it becomes pretty clear that CBC is doing a lot more production of Canadian television. That’s a good thing - if we don’t tell our own stories, nobody else is going to tell them for us.
I have to leave it there for now and get some work done - you’re right, Cat Whisperer, this would be much easier and way more fun to discuss over snacks and beer
Eeeesh. The CBC/Radio-Canada is one of those things (along with trivialities like roads and health care) that keeps me paying taxes cheerfully.
The only time I ever deliberately listen to radio, it’s the CBC. (Now that I’m too old to listen to the university stations and my politics have matured to the point that I can’t listen to the super-left-leaning Co-Op radio without wincing anymore.)
I like getting a certain amount of my news from broadcasters that don’t rely on advertising dollars. I like being able to turn on the radio in the morning and listen to something apart from manic morons punctuated by bland pop and never-ending, grating ads.
I depend on having media that doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator in order to best position themselves to appeal to advertisers.
Purely commercial television would never have given us a Codco or a Kids in the Hall. (Christ, I miss Codco.) 
You’re assuming an equivalence between two things just because they’re both paid for (right now) by government and saying “well, hey, if it’s okay to pay for the fire department, why not CBC?” Well, shit, then, why isn’t the government paying for my clothes? How about my food? Why isn’t the government buying all our furniture? We need food, clothing, and furniture, don’t we?
The difference is that the fire department, as well as the police, and the army, and a variety of other government agencies and programs are cases of the government investing money in an obvious market failure. If the government does not fund the fire department then the near-certain outcome is that we will not have fire departments, or else communities will have to pool money to found fire departments in a manner pretty much equivalent to taxation and government, anyway. Some fundamental things cannot be provided for by the free market, like a decent police force, a court system, or an army, and some things work better when done by government, like education or health care insurance, because those things represent market failures.
Conversely, we do not have government-run grocery stores, despite the fact that food is obviously very important to us, because the market does fine in providing groceries.
Radio and television is distinctly NOT an area where you can provide evidence of market failure. Absolutely gigantic wads of radio and TV content, including high quality content, is produced without government intervention. If there is a case to be made that we need government funding to provide TV viewers and radio listeners with things to watch and listen to, I’ve yet to hear it.
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd]
Purely commercial television would never have given us a Codco or a Kids in the Hall.
[/QUOTE]
I mean no disrespect here Larry, but I honestly find it amazing that a grown, intelligent adult would actually say or write something like that with a straight face. I can, effortlessly, name a dozen or more shows better and funnier than “Kids in the Hall” that were produced by commercial television. “The Simpsons” would be a pretty obvious example.
And of course, “Kids in the Hall”
- Was piloted by HBO, and
- Was commercially lucrative, anyway.
And now for something completely different - three Amur Tiger cubs born at the Calgary zoo. Who’s a squirmy little fuzzy bundle of joy? 
Awwww! Mummy!! Can we keep them?
Seriously, if other species like us are supposed to leave them alone, why’d nature make them so cute? I know, they’ve got their Mum to enforce things, but, but, can’t I just pet one?
Occasionally you hear a story about someone trying to get into the lion/tiger/polar bear cage thinking they are just big stuffed toys. Usually, the animal in question has a nice meal as a result.
Historically, it helped to clean up the human gene pool. Now the ratio of dangerous beasts to those who’d like to pet them is too high for the animals to have a chance.
Historically, it also led to some tasty meals for us - some dumb bugger managed to domesticate cattle, pigs and sheep, all of which used to gore us or ram us back in the Stone Age. Also, some damn fool around the same time managed to look at wolves and have the thought “I bet those would come in handy if we could get them on our side…”
And no, I’m not really stupid enough to get in the way of an actual fact tiger mum.
What a cool idea from WestJet - Kargo Kids!
Some idiots got in between the two fences at the tiger cage at the Calgary Zoo a while back and got his arm mauled pretty well. The men were charged with criminal charges; the tigers were not blamed. I was afraid that there might be some kind of public outcry to do something about those dangerous beasts (the tigers, I mean), but fortunately there wasn’t. If you’re stupid enough to not stay behind the fences, the tigers will encourage you to do so.
That is a very good idea - the kids aren’t having fun, the people listening to them aren’t having fun - and then, I watched more of the video, and realized it wasn’t for real.
A few years ago, while I was working on a construction project at the Zoo, I became pretty familiar with Katja, the mommy. As I was walking in to my project, she would frequently escort me from one end of the tiger cage to the other and occasionally frolick and posefor me along the way.
I’ve subsequently heard that tigers are attracted to anything orange, so my caution orange hi-vis safety vest may have had something to do with her interest in me, but I prefer to pretend that she just thought I was a cool guy to hang out with.
Anyway, congrats to my girlfriend and her baby-daddy Baikal.
Your girlfriend is lovely - such long teeth! 
There was this time, when my wife and my daughter (age 22 months at the time) came out to Victoria to visit me during a show; I only heard about it when they got home.
The puddle-jumper from Victoria to Vancouver had been uneventful; it was the flight from Vancouver to Toronto that was dicey. They ran into some heavy turbulence about 1/2 an hour into the flight, and the way they found out about it was the plane suddenly dropped about a hundred feet. Every grown-up on the plane clenches and holds their breath; my daughter says “WHEE!” and completely breaks the tension. Rest of the flight is uneventful and jolly.
Yeah, I know, it isn’t very often that the kid aboard an airplane gets a laugh from all the passengers.
To bad Kargo Kids isn’t real.
There was a commercial recently where the kid was in a pet carrier on the conveyor belt after being checked in like any other luggage. The mother turns to the camera and asks something like, “What? You see something wrong with this?”, with the obvious expectation that we, the audience, would find something wrong with it.
I think the only obvious thing about the commercial is that I wasn’t the type of person they wanted to sell to because it seems to me that the most appropriate place for children is in the hold. Or strapped to the outside of the plane. Better yet, isn’t that what buses are for?
What they should do is have an area for kids (with a closing door or some other impediment to sound) where the seats are smaller (hey, they could get more in) and they can reach the tables. They could all sit together and colour/play. There could be cartoons playing on a tv. Mostly kids just act up because they are bored to tears.
My kids would dig that (okay, I would, too since I could sleep on the plane like I want to).
Meh, I never had a problem with my kid. Give him a pad of paper and some pencils, a dvd player and an ipod, from an early age, and he’s happy as a lark. 
Flew to England and back when he was 5 for my brother’s wedding, not a peep outta him.
I must say that even when I was kidless, I never had much annoyance from kids flying. Though I was happy to entertain kids sitting next to me, by drawing pictures for them and the like, and crying babies don’t bug me all that much. I guess I’m just not sensitive in that way.
May I please just let everyone know that I don’t need to have a “Canada’s team”?
I absolutely cannot stand Ottawa. I will (hopefully) never root for them.
Last year I was siding with Tampa Bay early in the regular season (because New Jersey was so horrible to start), and when Boston put them out, I was cheering for the Bruins over the Canucks.
I was pretty sick to death of every Canadian news/sports outlet trying to convince me that I should be cheering on “Canada’s team”, or the “only hope to bring the Cup back home to Canada.” I just love hockey, would that be okay? Do I really have to jump on the bandwagon of a team I don’t particularly care for, simply because it’s a Canadian city?
I don’t think I’m alone in this; there were quite a few Bruins logos being flown in May and June last year, north of Toronto.
I’m a Habs fan.
I can’t cheer for the Bruins; thinking about it makes me feel sick. They are a horrible team unworthy of respect.
So I’ll cheer for the Sens when they play the Bruins, but I’m not cheering for the Sens to win it all (it isn’t going to happen anyways) because I don’t like them either. There’s nothing to cheer for - that team’s identity is WeAren’tTheLeafs(orTheHabs) and I can’t cheer for that! Also: Chris Neil. Can’t cheer for him.
I don’t like the Canucks for no particular reason - I just don’t. There’s something about them that annoys me intensely. And can someone take Luongo’s hair gel away, please? He’s disgusting.
I don’t know what bandwagon I’ll hop on during these playoffs - I’ll have a favourite in any given matchup, but I don’t know who I want to win the Cup; I only know which teams I want to LOSE the Cup! Maybe I’ll cheer for the Hawks… I like them well enough. If I don’t have a prefered Eastern team in the playoffs, I pretty much always cheer for a Western one as I don’t know them as much and so have less dislike for them!
The idea of “Canada’s team” is sad; half (or more…I seem to recall something like 53%) of the players in the NHL are Canadian anyways.