I saw the CTV article earlier.  I didn't notice whether it was written by someone at CTV or if they carried the Canadian Press version.  Anyways, remember Catharine Tait's appearances at the heritage committee where she got questioned about the bonuses and she kept defining it as "at-risk pay" when she responded to the questions?  The take at least one CBC employee has on this is that all the managers just had their "at-risk" pay converted to "no-risk" pay and that this is a tacit admission that "bonus" has always meant "base compensation".
 

turkeytop wrote:

According to NPR, only about 3% of their funding comes from the public purse. The rest comes from listener contributions and from Corporate grants.

A loss of 3% of it's funding may not kill NPR but it would certainly hamper its ability to produce quality programs.

But if defunding doesn't kill NPR, the Republicans will try other means. Donations from listeners are tax deductible. They could take away that tax break to limit contributions.

They could also go after licenses as they are for some of the privates.

betaylored wrote:

De fun the CBC!

I have it on very good authority from several CBC employees that this has already taken place in a very comprehensive and thorough manner.

torontostan wrote:

most people do not have radios in their homes anymore. Perhaps some people would sit in their car.... but I bet a lot of young people don't even realize that radio continue to work in a wide-scale power outage. Furthermore nobody should "have to" provide any such service, save for maybe the CBC. 

Honestly, this isn't even a new problem.  During the 2003 blackout, I was still living at home and had to go out to the car to listen to the radio because my parents didn't have any battery powered radios in the house.  When I did sit in the car with the radio on, all the usual music stations were playing music so it was 680, CBC, CFRB for information.

I'm not any better though since I don't have a battery powered radio either except for this old small portable radio that I've never tested.  I should check it out and see if it works and look at getting a replacement if it's no good.  I could run the home theatre receiver off a UPS in a pinch too but the tuner in that thing is awful.

As for the weather so far this weekend, it's been a nothingburger where I live.  Out of curiosity, does 680 still do the "Extreme Weather Centre" thing?

So far it's been only moderate rain between home and work this weekend at most.  The drive in and drive home weren't much more than a drizzle with a bit of rain shortly after I got home so it's more an early start to April showers than any kind of stormageddon.  We'll see what happens tomorrow but I think we'll all emerge from the weekend ok unless there's a nasty surprise over the next 24 to 36 hours.  Northeastern Ontario sounds like it's another story though.

If we do get stormageddon here during the winter and the power goes out, my plan has always been to relax on the couch by the woodburning fireplace.  And if things get really bad, I've got plenty of cast iron that can be used in that to cook food.

TomTV wrote:

Dial Twister wrote:

Where are the great reporters of yesteryear who had the courage to ask 'pointed' questions?

Right-wing politicians punish reporters who ask those kinds of questions. Anyone remember Global News' Colin Dimello being gently threatened by Doug Ford after Colin kept asking him tough questions that made him look incompetent? Ford basically warned him "hey I know where you live, Colin" (which he later apologized to Colin for, but only because of a backlash online against him).

We already saw Trump ban prestigious news organizations like The Associated Press from briefings in favour of granting access to right-wing podcasters and other Trump-supporting news outlets, a clear signal that if you say anything that humiliates Trump, you lose your access.

He also has no problem saying left-wing media (i.e. any media that makes him look stupid) is illegal, as he did today during his presser:

image hosting server

NOTE: to be fair, outside of politics this can happen too. Disney is very left-wing and they will ban movie critics who are too harsh on their films, denying them early access to upcoming films if they get on their shit list.

 

This used to be a huge problem for magazines reviewing audio equipment.  I don't know if this is still the case.  Some publications were famous (infamous?) for never, ever publishing a bad review out of the fear that an unkind review of an advertiser's product would result in the loss of advertising revenue from companies that felt they'd been treated badly.

It's an expensive plan from the final days of an unpopular government that's been released with parliament shut down and no time left on their current mandate to see it through and re-election unlikely.

I honestly think this is about as stillborn as the high speed rail line they also announced the other day.

RadioActive wrote:

Reminds me of my favourite ever moment from WKRP In Cincinnati where one of the station personnel is heard on the phone saying to a listener, "How can we announce we're off the air when we're off the air?"

Easy.  The same way you email the IT department to let them know the email's down.

The appointment of a new president and CEO to the CBC is an interesting opportunity to make changes regarding the "a contract is a contract" issue surrounding the CBC bonuses.  This is a new contract so it doesn't have to be constrained by terms for bonuses in preexisting language like Tait's and the other existing executives' contracts did which remain in effect.  I guess what my question boils down to is given that there is a rare opportunity to make changes to the contract clauses about bonuses, have changes been made?

For her part, Tait's once again refused to decline her bonuses yesterday:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/catherine-tait-fiscal-bonuses-1.7358503

I don't know if she's unable or unwilling to read the room but either way, she seems totally bound and determined to cash out her tenure at the top of the CBC for absolutely everything it's worth.

Pretty much every power tool company makes a line of jobsite radios.  Many of them can run off battery packs and many of them can also double as a charger when plugged into a wall socket.  They're all eyepoppingly expensive.

I'd buy a DeWalt instead of Ryobi to maintain compatibility with the battery packs for the couple of power tools I own.  One of my friends has a Makita and another a Milwaukee radio for that reason.  Vendor lock-in is a thing.  The Milwaukee stays tuned into KX 94.7 all the time.  He had it going at a barbecue a couple of weekends ago and it's not my taste in music but I'm wondering how much paid product placement there is in the songs.  For example, when someone's yodelling and wailing about their Silverado pickup, is General Motors paying for that promotional consideration or is the singer stumping for GM of their own free will totally uncompensated?

Ale Ont wrote:

CBC is on the record saying they will not bid for broadcast rights of professional sports.

This doesn't rule out a policy change between then and now especially since there's been a lot of turnover in the executive suite.

At the time, they also said they would only cover amateur sports if they could break even on it.  That statement sounded like CBC was designing an exit from the sports business in general while keeping a carefully crafted out to continue doing the Olympics.

Does anyone remember the frequent advertising for these Terk amplified antennas that used to run on CFMX all the time?  "The Terk FAM is great for the whole FAMily" was one of the taglines.  I'm sure being beaten to death on CFMX was the reason why my parents bought one for the stereo they had in the kitchen of their old place but it never seemed to do anything more than a regular antenna ever did.

Evuguy wrote:

Glen - The SpecA is a rather long in the tooth HP 8594E.  Per your last update, I will take another look later and see if the level has increased with CITS-DT.

Those older Hewlett Packard spectrum analyzers are still very nice machines.  I've got an 8592A for RF work on my bench at home.  Out of curiosity, what are you using as the antenna for taking these measurements?
 

I first heard this story while I was driving to work this morning and I was listening to 680 for the traffic report to come on.  The irony of hearing about CBC's plans to eventually ditch over the air TV and radio transmission on over the air radio - amplitude modulated, no less, - was not lost on me.

Hold on. Something's wrong. Since when has CBC management ever backed down from a bad decision?

Oh brother.  I don't listen to CFRB much, but I'll make sure to listen to something else Tuesday morning.  Is anybody planning to keep a running tally of how many times John Tory tries to foist the bills for various things onto everybody else with his stale "...and I think the senior levels of government should step up because there are costs involved and Toronto shouldn't have to pay for that..." routine?