When the CBC does something right it ranks with the best broadcasters in the world. When it does something wrong my, my does it screw up sensationally. Not long ago the host of Q, whose name escapes me, was invited to vacate his chair at CBC Radio. He did and Shad a rapper with no previous broadcasting experience got the gig. I wished him luck, but cautioned that the Hogtown culturati would be listening. It was, but too few ordinary folks - myself among them - were not and Shad just got his marching orders accompanied by some corporate claptrap about the guy from London, Ont. staying in the "CBC family." Uh, huh. Tom Power, a musician and broadcaster from Newfoundland is now in the Q hot seat. I wish him well, but like the parrot in the Monty Python sketch, the Q bird is dead.
I said as much way back in November, 2014. Q and its ex-host were and are inextricably linked. I suggested then, and I haven't changed my mind, that the music and cultural affairs program needed a complete retooling: a new name, a new host, new producers, writers, the whole nine yards. Go on hiatus. Wait till the air has cleared once and for all. Then come back all clean and lemon-fresh and start building an audience again. Uphill, sure, but much better than this latest 'do. By the time another heatwave is upon us next year it's better than 50-50 that Q will have gone to that great broadcast archive in the sky.
But down here there'll still be a Q. That would be the Mighty Q, Q-107, where every Sunday, usually without fail, I get my much needed dose of '60s rock 'n' roll with Psychedelic Sunday until about 7:00pm, when I flip the dial to Jazz FM and Glen Woodcock's excellent Big Band show.
I said as much way back in November, 2014. Q and its ex-host were and are inextricably linked. I suggested then, and I haven't changed my mind, that the music and cultural affairs program needed a complete retooling: a new name, a new host, new producers, writers, the whole nine yards. Go on hiatus. Wait till the air has cleared once and for all. Then come back all clean and lemon-fresh and start building an audience again. Uphill, sure, but much better than this latest 'do. By the time another heatwave is upon us next year it's better than 50-50 that Q will have gone to that great broadcast archive in the sky.
But down here there'll still be a Q. That would be the Mighty Q, Q-107, where every Sunday, usually without fail, I get my much needed dose of '60s rock 'n' roll with Psychedelic Sunday until about 7:00pm, when I flip the dial to Jazz FM and Glen Woodcock's excellent Big Band show.
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