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?

Irvine wrote:

Plate Voltage wrote:

cGrant wrote:

Yes, that is "another old fashioned value right there by the standards of today". Millennials (and, frankly myself) have their universe inside their cell. That's what they use to wake-up. Buying another piece of antiquated tech certainly will not ensure promptness. 
 

Well, given the attendance and punctuality issues I and others have observed lately, the new tech clearly hasn't been working out so well to ensure promptness either.

Or maybe it's because YOU see that as important whereas Millennial's do not?  And maybe it's just the classic "these kids today..." thing?  Nothing says old white guy like calling down the kids of today for their habits & fashions ignoring your parents parents thought Jazz music was the devil and would cause teen pregnancy. 
 

 
Well, in a 24/7/365 shop, I do think it's important. So do the outgoing people at the end of their shifts who get stuck when someone shows up late or calls out at the last minute which leaves people stranded until a replacement can be found and get in, or pulling a double if not.

cGrant wrote:

Saul wrote:

IRVINE wrote: "No one sits around listening to skip, pulling in distance AM stations..."

With respect, I beg to differ. Just last week I was at home just north of Toronto, listening to 1430 KZQZ St. Louis on my AOR7000 

Saul, with respect, you can differ with the original opinion, but let's be honest here. Do you truthfully believe that what you're doing is the norm by the TYPICAL listener? Seriously? Do you see millennials running to their non-existent Radio Shack, buying said equipment and sitting there doing what you're doing? I'm pretty sure they are not.
 

I honestly don't think typical radio listeners ever got into seeking out nighttime AM bounce etc. at any point in time, millennial or before.  Personally, I'd be happy if millennials would go to Radio Shack or The Source or Best Buy or wherever and buy a damn alarm clock so they can actually wake up and get to work on time.  But I guess that's another old fashioned value right there by the standards of today.

Jody Thornton wrote:

I never thought there would be a day (at least from the vantage point of my 1990 self) that a shop would allocate space for LPs, but NOT CDs.  Unbelievable.
 

I know.  Strange times we live in, huh?  The other half of this strange situation is you can go to any number of stores and there are junky suitcase record players with crappy ceramic cartridges made for wearing your records out for sale in the year 2018.

Ok, I don't know if the cartridges in these new ones are as bad for destroying records as the ones of old but the old ones at least came with a decent sized speaker in the lid that certainly weren't high fidelity by any stretch but they would at least make some volume and bass.  The new ones have these itty bitty speakers that would be more suited to a clock radio.  But they have USB ports!  They've gotta be flying off the shelves to 20 year-olds that have no idea what a good turntable is.

Well, not everyone can afford or is willing to part with astronomical amounts of money on cable/satellite bills every month.  Secondly, I include myself in the group of people that disagrees with how content creation and distribution has been locked up by what's basically a cartel of a very small group of companies here.  The CRTC has done an awful job in terms of protecting Canadian consumers from the likes of Bell and Rogers etc.  Calling it an awful job doesn't go far enough, it's more like dereliction of duty and abdication of responsibility, not that that's news around here.

Anyhow, over the air TV reception has gotten difficult outside of Toronto and a few other large cities or the border areas where you can pull in signals from the United States where the FCC has done a better job at preventing the TV business from becoming consolidated heavily like here.  I have relatives who are elderly who live in London who were upset when they lost access to CBC TV when the analog transmitter was shut down and not replaced a few years ago.  That leaves them with CFPL and a few others they can pull in distantly.  I'd have to ask but I don't think either of them can pull anything in from the US.

In the US, over the air TV is a normal and perfectly acceptable way of distributing and obtaining content.  Here, it's barely provided, begrudgingly, in a limited number of places by a small number of companies of which at least two are publicly on record at the CRTC as not wanting to do it at all, in a regulatory environment that has been designed to maximize the enrichment of Bell, Rogers, and Shaw.  I strongly disagree with legal and regulatory framework that encourages pickpocketing on part of these companies.  And I extremely strongly disagree with the CBC collecting massive subsidy money only to try and discontinue even more service.

Retaw wrote:

You haven't seen it because our industry is controlled by a very small handful of people with no interest in it. Unlike the US, years of media consolidation has left us with no real affiliate system where local stations are operated by companies independent of the network. In Canada, practically all local stations are owned and operated by the networks. In Canada, all but one of our major networks are vertically integrated or directly related to a telecommunications company. Why operate a free digital sub-channel when they can ask you to subscribe to it on cable or use its programming library for an OTT SVOD service? These companies aren't really broadcasters looking to maximize ad revenue. They're telecoms looking to leverage content into a monthly bill. 

Exactly.  Hence the Bell blue jackets or Rogers red jackets that occasionally roam the streets pounding on people's doors or marching down the driveway and barging in on back yard barbecues to ask, "What are you doing for home phone, cell phone, cable, and internet?"  And then try to sell you one of their obscenely priced packages.

Retaw wrote:

In an idealistic world, the CBC would lead the charge and launch a sub-channel since they're allegedly a public broadcaster. A news channel would be out of the question as they make too much from their cable channel. A library documentary channel or a kids channel would suffice, but they probably would want you to directly pay for that. In the real world, the CBC is helping lead the charge in dismantling OTA coverage in Canada, ensuring that the technology has no future.

This one has to be the biggest disappointment.  When CBC started transmitting ATSC, I honestly thought Newsworld and RDI would be on a subcarrier of the English and French networks respectively from the very start.  However many years later, they aren't, and their president Hube

The embedded advertising has gotten worse over time.

The comments about the decline of content quality reminded me of a conversation I've had a few times. A couple of times over the years when it's been quiet at work, one of the senior guys has asked me if I watch TV at home. My answer has always been no.  I don't have enough spare time to watch TV outside of work when there are so many other things that need to be done or are more interesting to me than what's on TV.  The coworker's said the same thing, and the conversation's always turned to wondering what's likely going to become of our jobs if people keep tuning out.

Times have changed since the 1980s, early 1990s when sitting down in front of the idiot box and vegging out after getting home was the main form of mass entertainment. That run of decades has ended and putting out mediocre-and-getting worse garbage because people are going to watch regardless is over, with the broad range of other things to occupy time that are available now.