CBC Unadorned

Okay, so I admit it: I’m aurally crossing the picket lines for an hour or so every morning and using Shelagh Rogers to wake me up (I’ve been sleeping later than usual, and her “involuntary self-scabbing” archival presence, starting at 9:00 a.m., syncs with my slovenly lifestyle).

I just can’t face the notion of waking up to Great Lite Rock Hits.

And you know what? The CBC is a much more pleasant listening experience without all the self-promotion and “lifestyle assistance” accessory crap that’s sprung up over the past 4 or 5 years.

There’s no Promo Girl telling me that I absolutely must not miss the great episode of Quirks and Quarks that’s coming right up. Gone to is the bottom of the hour “90 second news break,” designed primarily, I’m told, to feed the need for traffic information in urban centres and left here in the hinterlands to inform us of the WI pie bake-off that’s coming up on the weekend. The expensive theme music to “Sounds Like Canada” is gone — it just starts up with Shelagh.

In short, it is the CBC unadorned. And I like it.

There’s some significant irony here: I’ve only come to to truly appreciate how good Shelagh Rogers is when she’s not actually there. But I think what I’ve really discovered is that if left to their own devices and free from management dictates to “pump up the promos to increase cross-promotional demographic shift balancing,” CBC radio people just making good radio is pretty compelling all on its own.

By the way, if you want to get a 100% unvarnished, no punches pulled locked out view from a well-spoken locked out CBC reporter, listen to this Winnipeg podcast — about 5 minutes in there’s a scathing commentary from Kirk Petrovich.