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Does This Revelation About The CBC Raise Alarm Bells For You?
Canada's new Heritage Minister in the Justin Trudeau government is Melanie Joly. Among her new powers is controlling how much money gets funnelled to the CBC for funding. The problem? She used to be an intern for the French network there and did some on-air reporting for the national broadcaster. Does anyone find this somewhat disturbing that a former employee now controls the money that will get shovelled to her old stomping ground?
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly once interned at Radio-Canada
- Don
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Yes; I prefer my representatives to have no first hand experience within the portfolios they oversee.
- verger
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Well, you just won the Concern Troll Post of Year for 2015. The only thing missing was you pleading "won't somebody think of the children?"
Go back to whinging about how your former employer is Satan Incarnate, as that appears to be sincerely felt on your part, misguided as it is.
PS Eventually most people get over being laid off. I did. Twice.
- dieter
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I hear Radioactive to a point. But the new defence minister was a Lt-Col in the Forces. The sports minister competed for Canada in Para-Games (for lack of a better word). The health minister is a doctor, the science minister is a scientist and I believe there are other such examples in this cabinet. For now, I like the fact these people know a little something about their portfolios going in. But let's see who gets tripped up by their lack of political and Commons experience. As a former private broadcast employee, I've never been too sympathetic to the CBC's whining about money after all the gazillions they used to blow on nothing.
- Mark Elliot
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I was a writer before I ever got into radio and worked around TVOntario for Beryl Fox of "This Hour Has Seven Days" fame when I was 19. So I had a way through the door at CBC TV which was struggling to find writers for a new children's show called "Dr. Zonk & the Zunkins". A show which was of Canadian origin to replace "Gilligan's Island" reruns which, according to the producer who interviewed me, "This atrocity of American origin was actually beating it's competition in the 4:30 pm timeslot by three times what the competition got!"
His nose went up in odiferous horror: "We CANNOT allow THIS to continue!"
My mandate was clear: So I read the outline for the pilot and backed away as quickly as I could.
"Dr. Zonk & the Zunkins" were some of the ugliest puppets ever created for television.
The script was inane. The concept insane because CBC TV must have been making good money for "Gilligan's Island" reruns. It probably paid for most of their daily expenses! it was A HIT!
As Robert Duvall put it in the movie Network: "It's A BIG FAT BIG TITTED HIT" YOU DON'T CUT HIT!
They cut it and put on about 6 episodes of "Dr. Zonk & the Zunkins" which sunk into the dustbin of tv history when the kids saw the ugly puppets.
Last edited by Mark Elliot (November 8, 2015 9:06 pm)
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Re: Does This Revelation About The CBC Raise Alarm Bells For You?
verger wrote:
Well, you just won the Concern Troll Post of Year for 2015. The only thing missing was you pleading "won't somebody think of the children?"
Go back to whinging about how your former employer is Satan Incarnate, as that appears to be sincerely felt on your part, misguided as it is.
PS Eventually most people get over being laid off. I did. Twice.
Wow. This response really seems over the top to me, in addition to being incorrect on several counts. While I have no objection to someone with broadcasting experience overseeing this portfolio - in fact, that's a positive thing - my point was that the new Minister is likely to have made some friends at the CBC. And you have to wonder how that might influence (a key word, there) her decisions about how much taxpayer money gets funnelled to the Corp.
There may not be any funny business, but there's also no reason to leave that apparent potential conflict of interest so wide open. It's the same reason that Toronto Mayor John Tory has recused himself from all decisions and votes regarding the Island Airport, since his son works there. And it's the same kind of funny feeling many on the previous SOWNY board had about a certain jeweller getting a weekly show on a Toronto talk station. Or a certain provincial government giving several teacher unions millions of dollars for "negotiation expenses." Perhaps it's all totally innocent. But there was something about it that didn't feel right to many. And that's how I feel about a former CBC-er controlling the purse strings that funds the CBC. It's pretty apparent that, even if nothing untoward ever happens, the suspicion will always be there.
As for that last dig about lay offs, I suspect you have me confused with someone else. Sure, like everyone in radio or TV, that's happened to me - just twice over a 40-year career. But I never worked for the CBC and so I don't feel anything towards them either way. And I know it was a salary dump that newsroom management couldn't have known was coming (how else to explain giving me a $5,000 a year raise just two months before the mass purge?)
Sure, it always hurts at the time, but unlike the contention, I'm long over it and don't even think of it at all anymore. In fact, they did me a huge favour. I couldn't be happier where I am now and that wouldn't have happened without that push over the cliff. I'm not sure, but I don't think a true "troll" would feel that way.
Oh and one more blast from the past for Mr. Elliott.
Dr. Zonk and the Zunkins
Apparently, among the talent on this show were a pre-SCTV John Candy and a before-SNL Gilda Radner. Who knew?
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I know very well you were at Rogers, and you never miss a chance to bash them here.
- Mark Elliot
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Oh and one more blast from the past for Mr. Elliott.
Dr. Zonk and the Zunkins
Apparently, among the talent on this show were a pre-SCTV John Candy and a before-SNL Gilda Radner. Who knew?
No offense to any of the talented performers involved, but this one was a "turkey". There was an overabundance of "Canadian Chauvinism" like I've never seen at CBC TV in 1974. Canadians love to compete, but it's not a competition when you're shooting yourself in the foot financially: Which is what CBC TV did.
It took a hit show off the air. That's dumb programming in anybody's book. "The plays the thing, not the theater". People don't tune in because you've got "Quality Canadian Product". It still has to play against every competitor.
Bellmedia has television people who "get it", but we don't know who their radio brains are at all.
I think their radio execs are all sports guys from my contact with them. A couple of months back a Bay Street buddy recommended I get in touch with Bell CEO George Cope about syndicating People Helping People and he responded positively. When I got in touch with Bellmedia Radio it was all sports guys who don't know what to do with an openline show.
Where is Bob Laine of CHUM Syndication...Oh DAMN. He's dead!
The new Minister has heard the people and will restore the cuts made at CBC. At the same time they can dump the Tory Board of Directors and replace them with real broadcasting people...
Wouldn't that be a first if they hired some of the people who made radio great. I could even learn to love the CBC again...(I really did once...)
Last edited by Mark Elliot (November 10, 2015 4:52 am)
- Peter the K
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Has anyone considered that Ms. Joly's experience with the mothercorp while being an intern wasn't a particularly pleasant one and now she can exact revenge?
The argument could possibly work both ways.
- maybo
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I know very well you were at Rogers, and you never miss a chance to bash them here.
What in thunder does his post in this thread have to do with Rogers?
- Old Codger
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What in thunder does his post in this thread have to do with Rogers?
Chris!!! Do the Math. There's Patrick ROY...who you covered back in your sports days
Geez Maybo...ROGERS runs their hockey night in Canada games of the week on the CBC. And CBC gets what for that? A great venue to promote their shows? That'll pay off...just not with dough.
AND
We have a prominant member here named DALE.
And bashing helps a person get over wrongful dismisal especially when it includes a lawsuit. Why? It EVENS the score.
Put it all together and what have you got?
ROY, ROGERS AND DALE, EVENS. Close enough.
Happy trails.
[And no it doesn't bother me at all. I'll give the new PM the benefit of the doubt and allow that he would choose the best available person for the task. He'll also allow that person to actually do the job. Nice change of pace.]
Last edited by Old Codger (November 10, 2015 3:22 pm)
- maybo
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LMAO, OC....!!
Being an old sports-type, that should have TRIGGERED a connection.
Silly of me, Podnah!